“It wasn’t, really. The dragon showed up on day twenty-two.” Corinthia’s mouth thinned. “I confronted her on it the second time we met, the night the dragon razed its way through the city. She told me that I was missing something very important, and that she couldn’t say anything more.”
“Well...” Chase said, munching a biscuit before she responded, “Hoon told me that nothing’s certain, not really. Nothing’s set in stone, and there are multiple ways everything can go. I think, anyway. He was nice, though. Come to think of it, he showed up around the same time as Nebs did to you. That’s a happy coincidence... or....” she frowned. “Or maybe not. Maybe they meant to throw us into this together.”
“When did you take the job?” Corinthia asked, pouring herself a cup.
“The day I met him. Things happened very quickly. I needed it to save my village.”
“Maybe things would have been different if I’d followed the same path,” The widow’s eyes tightened again. “I dithered for a long time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted the responsibility. I tried telling people about the prophecy, but nobody listened. They called me a lunatic, shouted me down. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent cleaning up trash that people threw over my walls. I just... I’d never had to convince anyone about something like this before, and I failed. Eventually I fell silent.” She frowned, fussing with her bun, checking for errant wisps of hair and setting them back into place. “Then the dragon came early. And now... and now they think I know what to do,” Corinthia finished. “I didn’t take the job until the dragon came. This is my third day, I’m level three, and I barely know what I’m doing. And everyone seems to think I have a plan.”
Chase put the teacup down and looked into the widow’s eyes. There was hope there, and it broke her heart to crush it. “I don’t have a plan either. I’m in town for another reason, the dragon just... happened.” She sighed. “He... she, I suppose, has changed the playing field.”
“No? Oh dear.” Corinthia looked into her tea. “I don’t know what to do.” She was blinking now, and Chase thought she saw tears through the steaming vapor of the hot cup. “They keep asking me what to do next, and I’ve been stalling them, and I just need some kind of sign, and I’m supposed to be an Oracle but I can’t even talk to the goddess, and.... and...”
“Here! Here now, it’s all right,” Chase said, putting her own cup down and rushing to the woman’s side. “It’s all right. She wouldn’t have made you an Oracle if it was hopeless. There’s always something you can do, you just have to... figure it out. The gods don’t have all the answers, they just see the way things can go. It’s up to us mortals to decide.”
“Decide what?” Corinthia turned away, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing her nose. “We either stay here until the dragon gets us or run, and we’ve got nowhere to go!”
“Hold on,” Chase said, watching the woman fall apart. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
She shushed Corinthia while the human had a good cry, held her as best she could, letting her get it all out.
And when her sobs subsided, Chase asked another question. “What level are you again?”
“Three.”
“Okay... okay,” Chase said, turning it over in her head. “Give me a second. Status. Help Oracle.” She read for a bit, then nodded. “I think I know what might help.”
“Help how? Help with what?” Corinthia said, her lips trembling again, roughly about a step away from another full-on cry.
“At level five we get Omens and Portents. Once you get it, it’ll let your goddess send you signs. Hoon’s sent me a few... I think.” Chase frowned. “The trick is it’s up to us to interpret them.”
“I need something like that! I want to know what she thinks I can do about this!”
“That’s no problem, we just have to get you a few levels...” Chase considered, her ears twitching. “And actually, we might be able to help each other out.”
“How so?” Corinthia gained back some of her moxie, rallying at the thought.
“You need Oracle levels. I need Gambler levels. I think we can do both at once.” Actually, she needed all sorts of levels, but after finally figuring out what she was missing for Gambler she ached to make up the lost time. “Here.” Chase dumped a handful of silver on the end table. “Half is yours. You can keep whatever you win and use it to buy food or whatever works. That’ll give you incentive to play, make it real.”
“We don’t... you don’t have to,” Corinthia stammered. “You’ve done so much, you’ve given my people a beautiful distraction, given them something to watch and do that isn’t hopeless waiting. How could I take your money?”
“You’re not,” Chase grinned widely. “I aim to beat you. But seriously, it’s actual coin, because I don’t think it counts for Gambler unless there’s something real at stake.” That had been why she hadn’t managed it before, she was certain. Late night games of spog and follow-the-cabbage with her friends hadn’t involved money, and so she hadn’t gained experience for the job.
They played, and Chase won handily before she shook her head. “No no no, use Foresight!”
“Well, that would be cheating.”
“I’ve been using it silently for three hands!” Chase lied. “That and Ace in the Hole!”
Your Ace in the Hole skill is now level 3!
She took the opportunity to grab the queen of diamonds the spell conjured and slip it into her hand without Corinthia noticing. “Using your skills is the point! Come on and grind, give me a challenge, lady.”
Even with Corinthia using Foresight, Chase still had to throw a few hands. But she was all right with that. She had determined that Corinthia would get her money one way or another. The trick was not to make it obvious that it was charity.
More than that, she wanted to build the woman’s confidence. This was no sinister cult, as the people she was staying with had suspected. This was a fellow Oracle in over her head.
Chase could sympathize with that.
And by the time Corinthia had crawled up two levels, Chase had gotten the gains she was looking for. Two skill ups in Silent Activation, eight in Ace in the Hole, and the real prize itself;
You are now a level 5 Gambler!
LUCK+5
PER+5
You have learned the Ante Up skill!
Your Ante Up skill is now level 1!
You have learned the Deadly Dice skill!
Your Deadly Dice skill is now level 1!
You have learned the Double Down skill!
Your Double Down skill is now level 1!
Chase’s breath caught in her teeth. She knew what one of those skills did, and oh my goodness it was strong.
She snuck a glance at Corinthia, who had a glazed look on her eyes. “Reading your status help?” Chase inquired.
Corinthia nodded, absent-mindedly, so Chase took the opportunity to do the same.
Ante Up
Cost: Up to five times your level in FortuneDuration: 10 seconds/level
Test your luck to gain a fortune! Pay an amount of fortune to force everyone nearby to ante up a similar amount. (If this would reduce them to 0 fortune, they are exempt.) Everyone involved tests their luck, the winner gets the sum total of all anted fortune as a fortune buff for a short time.
Deadly Dice
Cost: 10 ForDuration: 1 Attack
Conjures and hurls a set of magical dice at a foe. The damage inflicted on a successful hit is random and based on the roll. If they come up snake eyes, then the Gambler takes damage instead.
Double Down
Cost: Double the invoked skillDuration: Instant
Used after activating another skill. If the skill usage is successful, then any numerical benefit gained is doubled. If the skill is failed, then any negative effect is doubled. May only be used on skills which have a chance of failure.
“I can’t believe I get that at level five,” Chase whispered. She’d benefited from this one in Arretzi. A Gambler’s Ante Up had
let her survive and guide her friends through a thoroughly deadly situation, turning her into a future-predicting general, allowing her to use her most costly tricks without fear of running out of power.
But then, it had also hurt the Gambler who used it.
She wouldn’t always be the luckiest person on the battlefield... and she noticed that all three of the skills she’d gained had serious downsides.
Still, she’d gotten her level rush and a bundle of new tricks, so Chase smiled and took a sip of her now-cold tea. “I’d say that was a good use of an afternoon.”
Corinthia didn’t answer.
“Corinthia?”
The widow was staring into her tea cup, eyes wide. “There’s some paper in the next room, on a writing desk. Bring me that and a stylus, would you please?” she finally whispered.
Chase hurried there and back again, watching as the woman put down the teacup with shaking hands, and started sketching as if her life depended on it.
“It looks like... tea leaves?” Chase guessed.
“It is, but... there’s a pattern. This is a sign, I know it! She hasn’t abandoned me!”
Chase smiled. “Then we’re good.” She stood up, and snagged the last few biscuits from the tray. A few for the road wouldn’t go amiss. “I’ll go back to my people and let them know that you’re friendly over here. Ah...” she frowned. “I do have a question. They seem to be under the impression that anyone who tries to leave here forfeits all their food and coin. Is that a thing?”
“I should have known he’d be trouble!” Corinthia burst out. She put the picture aside, taking care to leave the teacup where it was. “Sorry. There was a moneylender, a very unpopular man. When the troubles came he tried to call in his debts and run. He threatened people, and sent his thugs around to collect.”
“Oh. Oh dear.” Chase blinked. This was the sort of story the village elders of Bothernot used to tell about the city. “Did someone escape and people got the wrong impression of who was doing the extortion around here?”
“No,” Corinthia said and pressed her lips into a grim smile. “He lied and tried to collect on a loan that my husband never took out. He tried to collect from me. And when I stood up to him and had his thugs thrown out, the rest of his creditors took heart. We sent his thugs packing and him along with them. We did that after we confiscated his own food and supplies and took our money back. So, I suppose he went out spreading stories about us.”
“The culty-looking robes and ash makeup don’t really help with your image,” Chase said.
“I didn’t start that,” Corinthia sighed. “It does seem to make people happy, though.”
“Well, I’m glad they rallied to you and threw him out.”
Corinthia smiled. “They didn’t. Once my darlings showed how weak his thugs were, they took heart. I had to do the hard part without my neighbors helping.”
“Your... darlings.” Chase paused.
“Are you sure you want to know? It... well, it’s not exactly legal.”
“Neither am I,” Chase confessed.
“Very well. Command the Dead, curtsey for our guest, dears.”
And as one, with whispers of patched cloth and clinking of porcelain skin, every doll in the room rose and bowed to the stunned halven.
“Ah,” Chase said and managed to shove down the screaming horror that threatened to rise up in her brain. Corinthia was watching her with a worried look on her face.
“There are bones under the shells, you see,” Corinthia said. “I... went looking for help, to check on my husband after he passed. It got me into some not very nice circles. I did what I could to make them nicer.”
“Nicer?” Chase said, staring at the doll that had been in her lap, the doll she’d petted. The tea she’d just drank churned in her guts. “Are they?”
“They are,” Corinthia said. “Lonely spirits, wandering ones or troubled ghosts. I tucked them into my darlings. Now I have company, and I speak to them every day, let them know they’re not alone. Most are confused and a bit troubled, but I’ve been able to help some of them. We keep each other company.”
“Do your neighbors know?” Chase asked her.
“No. All they know is that my dolls are magical.” Corinthia looked at her, eyes pleading. “You’re the only one that does.”
Chase nodded. “I see. I’ll have to tell my friends. I trust them, they’ll keep silent.”
“That’s fair, I suppose. I feel I can trust you,” Corinthia smiled. “You’ve helped me find my way again.”
“That’s... good,” Chase said, eyes flicking to the drawing. Now that she looked at it, the tea leaves did form a shape that almost looked like a skull. “Well. Thank you for your hospitality, and I wish you well.”
She managed to leave without incident, collecting a very sweaty and rather worn out Bastien from the taverna as she did. He shook hands with people as he went, taking a second to share a few words and a comradely fistbump with a bruised but happy Guido, along with a few other people he’d wrestled during Chase’s absence.
“After the More’a Cow Mangler won the purse, I started training them and showing them how to set up brackets,” Bastien rumbled on the way home. “They’re talking about starting up a league. A few of them will be over to challenge our piazza once things settle down some.”
“That might be a while,” Chase said. “We’ll likely be gone before it happens.”
“Yeah, but it WILL happen. Those ash guys are pretty dour, but everyone else seems pretty upbeat.”
“They are now,” Chase said, remembering the smile when Corinthia read her future in the tea leaves. “For better or worse,” she whispered under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Ah... just something I need to tell you and the others once we’re back indoors. Out of the street.”
“Well, the good news is I think the ash is clearing a bit,” Bastien said. “I can see a bit further down the— whoa.”
“Whoa?” Chase asked.
And then she saw it, up by the barricade that she’d squeaked past to come east.
A whole group of armored people, with weapons out and glittering, shouting up at the vigilantes manning the chokepoint.
They did not sound happy.
CHAPTER 12: SCIONS AND SIBLINGS
“Through here,” Chase whispered, tugging at The Muscle Wizaard’s hand.
He wasn’t much for stealth, most days, but between the ashfall and the yelling, she rather thought they had a chance at sneaking past the group.
A thought struck her, as she hustled Bastien into an alleyway. Why settle for sneaking past the group?
“This bunch looks violent, don’t they?” she mused.
“What? Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Do you think we can try to get to a better position? So we can help out if things go bad?”
“I don’t see why not...” Bastien frowned, then glanced up the wall of the nearest building. “Hm...” He put his back out to it, reached out, and touched the wall opposite with a few inches of give left in his elbow. “I have an idea. You trust me?”
“With my life,” Chase said, and before the words left her lips, he was scooping her up and hopping, planting his back on the wall and his feet on the opposite one. She squeaked as he deposited her on his chest, and caught the back wall with his free hands.
“Hold tight,” he advised, and started to shimmy up between the walls.
Chase clung to his dirty, sweaty, ash-covered chest for dear life, shutting her eyes and hoping, simply hoping that he’d make it up.
After about three seconds of that, she remembered she had stuff that could help with this sort of thing. Why worry about beating the odds when you can make the odds?
“I’m going to give you some future sight,” she told him. “Are you ready?”
“Are you sure this is the best— oh wait, those things? Yeah, okay.”
“Influence Fate,” she told him, and held on for dear life.
<
br /> Your Influence Fate skill is now level 12!
But he didn’t slip, he didn’t overreact. All he did was adjust his course slightly, crab-crawling to the right. “Got another?”
Influence Fate worked pretty much identically to her foresight skill but it was for other people, not herself. They got to see a few seconds into the future.
Her other notion to help Bastien was Random Buff, but it was a bit too, well... random. And Influence Fate was more affordable for what you got. Two more uses and two more levels later, they reached the roof. Still staying low, The Muscle Wizaard crawled out onto the eaves nearest the unknown people, and they listened carefully.
Idly, Chase wondered if that was how eavesdropping had gotten its name. Then her hand slipped a little, and she was more worried about dropping than about eaves. But The Muscle Wizaard caught her before she could slide down.
Fortunately, the group up by the barricade was pretty loud.
“You can gripe, and you can threaten,” their speaker said, “but you have no real choice. You can give up the tithe and have peace, or you can put up a stupid fight and have death.”
“I don’t do business with nobody who threatens me!” Gonzolo shouted back. “You’re like all the rest’a the thieves! And you know what we do to thieves, here?”
“We’re not thieves, you fool.”
Chase squirmed closer, squinted down at the man.
The entire group was clad in green mail, with heavy cloth tunics over it. Most bore halberds, and had shorter stabbing swords belted at their waists. A few carried staves that glowed with green light... those staff bearers wore elaborate metal masks poking out from cowls. Each mask had a muzzle and horns, and a distinctly reptilian cast...
...no. No, they looked more draconic than anything else.
“We’re not thieves,” the commander repeated. “And if you have no crystals than you pay nothing. If you have crystals, then we’ll pay you for them. You win either way.”
“Nothing like what they’re worth!” Gonzolo spat. “Those things are worth tons of gold! You’re just Bandits and Grifters aiming for a higher mark!”
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