High Rollers

==Season Ten, Season Premiere==
Preceded by: Season Nine
Followed by: Season Ten, Episode Two: Between a Rock and a Fucking Tsunami
Introducing:
*Cicero Tiberius Shadolan
*Goneril Frontline Eleven
==Summary==
::1200 Friday, November 7th, 1443 to 0030 Sunday, November 9th, 1443
::Sending to Ethan Dragonslayer: "Thanks for the recommendation; Warforged and Hexblade are both awesome. Off to Bisau before Benin Falls and jungle. Cockpunching of justice to follow. - Ashra"
: It's noon in Prospero on November 7th, 1443, and the crew of the Jade Kracken III is in surprisingly high spirits. Ashra has kicked her addiction to The Green Liquid, Leilah Maloch is finally back on her native continent and reveling in her new level, and everyone just finished a truly awesome 'congratulations on your godhood' party with Ethan Dragonslayer. Ethan is off to go god around, and the crew are killing some time before Vishnu calls.
: They've got an interesting diversion for the time being, though, in interviewing their two new party members. Ethan had introduced them to two adventurers from Prospero: the decommissioned war machine Goneril Frontline Eleven and the anti-theist hexblade Cicero Tiberius Shadolan. Eleven, as he prefers to be called, was made for the Goneril Border Crisis and bears a special grudge against horses because they were all he was able to kill in his one stint in battle. Cicero is from Tindersmarsh, though he left as a child and therefore does not know how blatantly awesome his mayor is.
: There's some news from the world at large, as well. Baldur is as unstable as before, still run by Vargus. Goneril's announcement they have a Frozen Fate has dissolved the traditional alliance between Goneril, Baldur, and Malvont. Bisau lies in ruins. The followers of Pelor and of St. Cuthbert in the Grand Order of Clerics in Nyasa are having another bitchfight, as the Cuthbertians want to lower the taxes paid by the inner city poor. Grax and his army appear to have completely disappeared.
: Vishnu calls. He introduces himself to the new party members in his typical fashion, berates the party as a whole for costing him so much money, and instructs Ashra to whip everyone into shape. He says that in twelve hours, he'll come in person to explain the next business venture. He sternly requests that Ashra not thrall any of the new party members, and signs off.
: Soon thereafter, a strange scratching noise is evident from the hold. The party files down into the ship's middle level, which is completely darkened thanks to Prospero's enormous Futurium deposits. The scratching sound is light and metallic, and is definitely coming from the cargo bay. Ashra asks Mister Bait Snugglesworth if there's anything that's supposed to be making noise right now. He awkwardly explains that he's in mating season ... but that has nothing to do with the noise.
: Ashra convinces Eleven to go in first; as Eleven lowers himself into the hold and notices that the sound is coming from a box of cannonballs, Ashra and Leilah look at each other with an "oh shit" expression. When Eleven is about to serve as a crowbar to open the box, they eventually, grudgingly explain that among the legendary artifacts they picked up from the battle with the Axiomates, they might have kinda found the Hand of Vecna. After accidentally activating it and then turning it off again, they'd stashed it in a box of cannonballs so that the lead would discourage scrying and Fab Dick would not find it.
: Eleven pries the box open and the party sees that the hand has crawled to the top of the box and is carving strange symbols onto the cannonballs. After Ashra and Leilah both fail at Detect Magic and Zaph fails at Light (and then everyone remembers the Futurium) the theory that the hand is writing Explosive Runes gets set aside and people peer in.
: The hand is carving different symbols on the balls: X, V, I, and a strange hybrid of L and E. It appears to be periodically adding to one ball, then when that ball is finished, marking another and starting a new one. The party recognizes it fairly quickly as a countdown of some sort. When Eleven picks up the hand, it clenches into a fist and starts pulsing; he drops it back into the box and it resumes the scratching.
: The party start trying to work out the countdown. It does not appear to use the same counting system as found in the Ruins of Eldergrin, though it looks kind of similar. The hand pulses, then goes back to scratching. A few minutes later, it pulses twice more. Leilah has Snugglesworth take them out to sea as fast as possible so they can get out away from the Futurium. The hand continues scratching and periodically pulsing; once it pulses four times, Ashra and Leilah are reassured that at least it's not using Xenteroth's Number.
: Eleven figures out roughly how long the party has from the countdown; it's a matter of minutes. Ashra tries to rederive her correlation between "Hate's Torch" and "Mind's Touch", then realizes it's invalid. Leilah gets most of the way to figuring out the counting system when the hand stops scratching and starts pulsing quickly.
: Ashra asks Leilah to tell her about Vecna's motivations and deeds. In short: SECRETS FOR THE SECRET GOD, he was killed by Kas the Bloody Handed God of Vampires, and he killed Cuthbert on the throne. Ashra turns to Leilah and tells her to take the Chalice of St. Cuthbert that they also picked up and use it as she had previously guessed: fill it with her own blood, then immerse the hand.
: Leilah agrees that plan is crazy enough to be perfect. Eleven switches to Work Mode and picks up the entire box of cannonballs, then carries it to the ladder. Zaph buys the party a few more seconds by a surprisingly good cast of Break Enchantment, while Ashra gives Eleven levitation in case he needs to actually get up the ladder. Leilah takes out the chalice, takes her kukri, and has Cicero hold the cup for her while she slashes open her arm.
: Blood pours from her arm into the chalice for six agonizing seconds as she and Cicero struggle to hold their positions. When the chalice is finally full, it turns gold. The hand is pulsing madly, and only Ashra has time to react before it will go off. However, as an evil person, the chalice will fuck her up, possibly too strongly for her to even deal with the hand. As she can't touch the cup, she runs over, grabs the hand, runs back with it as the pulses approach a whine, and slams it into the bloody chalice.
: There is an immense burst of energy as blood flies out of the chalice. The hand goes limp and inert. The blood congeals on the floor into Celestial words "Bisau seven:twelve:ten", which soon become "Bisau seven:twelve:nine". It's another countdown, but this time the party has seven days. Time 0 is Saturday, November 15th, 4:00 AM. Unfortunately, no route can get them to Bisau in less than around ten days.
: Leilah is gravely hurt from the blood loss, and Zaphodel uses Restoration on her with some of the spare diamond dust left over from fixing Ashra's mind. She hopes this won't have to be a regular occurrence, but asks Ashra to triple the party's supply of diamond dust.
: As the party relaxes and begins to head back, Leilah tells Ashra about her dream. It included visions of a lighthouse in midair, a beautiful woman in black, Mind's Touch, a pale-faced golden eyed woman's face, the detonation of a Frozen Fate, and the Jade Kracken III. It also included a word she transcribed but cannot read.
: Cicero casts Comprehend Languages and takes a look at her notes; he translates "Save me". Leilah worries that Anahita herself needs saving; Ashra suggests she go pray and ask. Leilah leaves the room and kneels in her room, praying to her mother: "Do you need saving?"
: She walks back out a few minutes later, looking rather pissed, and tells the party that the answer was yes.
: Well shit damn. The party starts thinking about the implications of a goddess needing saving.
: Ashra decides to try her own divination before the party is back over the Futurium. Almost the only thing Ashra asked to buy for herself with the loot gained from the dragon hunt was a single scroll of the powerful spell Discern Location; it cost a good three thousand gold pieces for the single cast. She sits down, prepares the components, spreads out the scroll, and reads from it, searching for the Mother Brain of Baldur.
: For a moment, her mind is transported to the middle of the Ornan Jungle. She has a location, close enough to mark as an X on a map. Ashra is still for a while, covering her face with her hands, then finally bursts out "She's alive!" and bear hugs Leilah. She then calls Zaph over and immediately Sends to Ethan, "Ethan my mom’s in the Ornan Jungle isn’t it awesome we’re looking for Anahita - Ashra". The reply comes back, "It’s about damn time. Whoever sent them there, punch them in the dick."
: The party returns, talking about possible routes to Bisau all the way. They'll have to take one of the lower routes to avoid risking Ashra getting Altitude Sickness, and in any case none of the routes will be fast enough. At the dock, they look at the tall Elfwin Casino, where four airships are tethered near the top spire. It is the same place that Ashra saw when she used Detect Scrying to pingback the Hand of Vecna, which had been scrying on her.
: It's time for the party's appointment before too long. Vishnu flies between towering casinos in his mech, leaving dramatic trails of soot behind him. He lands and swaggers out of the mech as Eleven gushes, "Can we exchange serial codes?"
: Vishnu has a proposition for the party. Coriander Highrun, an aasimar drug and crime lord, will be gambling at the Elfwin Casino all weekend. He owns the MCS Dark Horizons, the pimpest ship anywhere. Unfortunately, the party can't steal it, because it's keyed to him personally. However, they can steal the massive supercharger which gives it a daily speed of roughly three times their own. They're also quite welcome to keep anything else they can get their hands on, though he'd like a fireball launcher for his mech if they see one lying around. He'll front them seven thousand for anything necessary to do the job. He flies off into the sunset.
: Not only is doing Vishnu's bidding the party's job, it's also a convenient way to get to Bisau before the deadline! Awesome. The party starts making plans.
: The JK3 moves away from the Futurium to allow the Twin Snakes to investigate via the ScryPad. They show the party the three levels which will be relevant to their shenanigans. The casino is twenty-five stories high, with a high rollers' floor at the top. Above that is a cafe with an observation deck, and from there there's a stairway up to the ship. The ship has cannons, as well as a small flying skiff they decide to escape on. Unfortunately, the stairway is narrow and there are severe winds up there.
: The party considers several different kinds of diversions, all of them violent. Ashra considers pretending to be Grax and approaching Coriander with the offer of a deal of some kind. "I could distract him! Though that's not really the plan." "There are couple of problems with that idea, where shall I start?" "I like pretending to be Grax."
: Leilah suggests that they send Cicero and Eleven in the first night to play a bit of Double Dragon Ante and develop a reputation as one of the high rollers. Eleven can accompany him as his bodyguard and scope out the place while he plays. The next day, then, the entire party can pretend to be Cicero's entourage and find an excuse to get up.
: This sounds like a good plan. Everyone agrees on it, and Cicero heads off. He plays a few games, wins a modest but quite nice amount of money, and returns. Eleven watches and tells the party roughly what's where. There are high rollers, staff, guards, tourists, and wives/"wives" in the high rollers' den. He also saw Tyro there, of course.
: Leilah works out a plan for the next day. Leilah will pretend to be Cicero's magic dice girl; she's going to be there solely to blow on his dice for him. Ashra will disguise herself as a male human and pretend to be his adviser and tutor. Eleven will reprise his role as bodyguard, and will also use his interior storage space as a weapons locker. Zaphodel, who would be a liability on the stairs, will be put to sleep and babysat on the ship.
: Ashra comes up with an excuse to get everyone up into the cafe. First, Cicero the "young, impulsive prince" will come in and start playing. He will then order a drink, but be so impatient that almost immediately afterwards he sends Ashra, who may have been haranguing him to be more restrained, to go find his drink for him. Ashra will go and not come back, and he will get so annoyed that in a show of foolishness, he sends his bodyguard after her, while keeping his dice girl. He will eventually go himself to retrieve her, perhaps implying that Ashra has some unfortunate habit or is simply disobedient. Once together in the cafe, they will go out to the observation deck for "some fresh air", and from there, rush onto the ship and steal shit.
: The two's plans seem good to everyone. They come up with fake names: "Octavian" for Cicero, "Richard" for Ashra, "Two" for Eleven, and "Daria" for Leilah. Fab Dick fixes up Cicero some fancy clothing and gives Eleven some polish. Ashra and Leilah still have pimp outfits from Barron's Touch Resort; Ashra's clothes are covered by illusion anyway. Ashra casts Acid Ball into her Ring of Minor Spell Storing; she will be able to discharge the spell despite the Futurium, allowing her to disable many of the cannons.
: They arrive that night and fan out, looking as pimp as possible. The casino is busy, but Tyro isn't present. Eleven shoves a tourist out of the way as Cicero asks to be dealt in. Ashra leans over his shoulder and asks him to please exercise some restraint. He plays with absurd recklessness. The game is close and the stakes get larger and larger. Finally he wins about seven thousand gold pieces. He tries to intimidate everyone around but fails miserably. Still, he's doing quite well at the game. Ashra whines that his streak cannot continue and he should stop while he's ahead. Cicero gets angry and yells at "Richard" to go get him a drink; Ashra obediently begins winding her way through the crowd toward the cafe.
: Cicero's victory attracts some women, one of whom is an attractive dwarf. This is, for better or for worse, Cicero's fetish. Eleven intimidates some of the women with a yell. One of the staff comes over and asks him to stop scaring people. Cicero apologizes to the staff, then turns to Eleven, hands him 200 GP, then tells him to go help get the drink and stop scaring away his "hos". He grabs the dwarf, pulls her close, and gives her a deep kiss; she melts.
: The sounds of pitched battle are audible from above. Coriander is electric fencing in the cafe -- no, not the scoring method, we're talking subdual shock weapons here. People start gathering around Cicero and moving towards the strange sounds. Cicero loses a bit, then wins big again. He's gathering a crowd.
: As Ashra progresses through the hall, the fencers dive over the edge of the cafe floor, burst through the glass ceiling of the observation deck below, and keep fighting towards Ashra. She recognizes the other combatant as Ming-ui. When the fencers reach her, she whispers "Ethan says hi."
: Ming-ui stops in surprise, and Coriander shocks her. Ashra whispers again as she falls, "Don't worry, Ming-ui. Lightning never strikes the same place twice." In parting she adds, "See you around," then stalks off down the hallway as Coriander shocks a screaming Ming-ui into unconsciousness.
: Cicero is still dramatically winning big. Another high roller comes over with cold eyes and plays a fast-paced game with him; Cicero manages to win again. He's also making out with the dwarf in his spare time, because he can.
: Eleven follows after Ashra. Coriander leaves Ming-ui where she lies and walks off into the casino. Ashra turns and tells Eleven that Ming-ui looks cute and he should bring her along. Eleven lifts her easily and begins to fireman's carry her.
: Coriander approaches and demands to play; the pit bosses explain that Cicero has taken all the chips. He demands a game of thousand-stakes Double Dragon, no luck. The party can't finance this even with Cicero's sizable winnings and their own funds. Cicero gives out two thousand gold among the other high rollers, says he's had enough fun for the night, and stands back from the table. The dwarf girl swoons and asks what his name is; he replies, "Whatever you want it to be, baby.", and swaggers off through the crowd, who are now swarming the table in excitement.
: Ashra and Eleven are getting pretty far along the hall, but guards are coming. Ashra stands aside and lets them pass. Cicero makes it over to them and grabs two women to bring with him; they acquiesce, or at least don't cry rape. Coriander manages to get out of the brawl and starts coming after them. Cicero tells one of the women to go give Coriander a kiss; she leaves him, but just runs past Coriander. Leilah runs after to Cicero shouting, "Master, wait for me!" She get's slightly battered by the crowd and the casio security as she pushes her way across the floor.
: The four wind their way past the guards and up to the cafe, Cicero ditching his final pretty girl. Ashra asks Leilah, who is last into the cafe, to barricade the door; she starts flinging tables up against it. Ashra runs out onto the observation deck and fires her ring. An acid ball explodes over the front of the deck, disabling most of the cannons including the enormous howitzer. Guards start running out onto the deck of the ship. Eleven sets Ming-ui down next to Ashra at Ashra's request, then stands in front of the two. One of the guards shoots Eleven in the head, and some others contribute their own shots. He takes it, but only barely.
: Cicero and Leilah join them. Ashra pours some Cure Serious Wounds into Ming-ui's mouth. She wakes up. "You son of a bitch!" "I know. But we're escaping, and you're coming with us." "Okay."
: Eleven returns fire, knocking back some of the guards. Cicero helps her. One of the guards scatters caltrops over the stairs. Eleven retrieves a FFF bomb, then hands it to Leilah, who passes it to Ashra. A guard fires a cannon at the group, knocking Leilah over and almost knocking Ashra to her death. Ashra tosses up the bomb, taking out one of the two remaining cannons, but also knocking the ship such that the moorings are torn and it begins to drift. The final guard starts running.
: Eleven takes a ten foot pole Ashra offers him from party loot and begins knocking caltrops off the steps. Leilah helps with a masterwork longspear that was also in party loot. Working together, the two clear the path. Cicero runs up and vaults up onto the ship easily. Leilah has a harder time getting up momentum, but leaps onto the ship nevertheless. Ming-ui gets onto the ship with ease, even in her dazed state. Ashra runs up to the edge, but can't get much momentum either, so she tosses Leilah the other end of a rope. Holding onto the rope, she jumps up onto the ship. The three hold onto the rope and toss it to Eleven, who manages to walk along the stairs without falling and jumps easily over his companions onto the ship.
: They only have a few minutes before guards will start coming after the ship, so they steal only the turbocharger and the captain's safe. As they huddle together in the skiff, it says, "Input access code." 1123 isn't it, and Leilah tells Ashra to look at the keypad. Ashra can't tell, passes her goggles to Leilah and then Cicero, both of whom fail. Eleven, however, reads that only the "0" key has any wear. They press "0000" and the skiff jumps to life. The party flies off into the distance. For once, for now, they actually got away cleanly. They have six days, three hours, and thirty minutes remaining.
Category: Episodes Category: Season Ten Episodes