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The Gambler's Den is a city full of casinos where every vice is easy enough to access.
There is only one motto in this land: the house always wins.
Eda is more than eager to test this.
Just an FYI, this story plays a little loose with the established canon. It's pre-season two but also features Raine in it.
If you're cool with that then enjoy!
Chapter One
Apple blood.
Was this…
Eda reached out and dragged a finger through the red before popping it into her mouth. Thankfully, the taste that greeted her was that of dried apple blood and not another kind of blood.
That didn’t explain the claw marks, however.
Eda looked into her purse again and found the little leather cardholder. Thankfully, her key card was still inside. So, she pulled it out and held it against the reader. A purple light soon pulsed and a glowing rune formed, telling her that it still worked.
Which hopefully meant that her transformation had been kept strictly to the room.
A few seconds dragged along until one of the elevators arrived. Eda stepped inside and pressed the button for the main lobby.
As the elevator shut and she started to descend, her gaze was lost upon a screen present to her side. It showed off a plethora of local activities and shows, methods of pilfering from the wallets of saps when they didn’t like the card tables.
Eda frowned as the screen shifted and a familiar figure was on display.
Raine.
They seemed shy as they held their violin, though threw off a smile that could charm a crowd of thousands. Their outfit was gorgeous, stunningly made of gold and green that gave them the look of some sort of noble.
“Doing good for yourself,” Eda whispered before wincing. “Please don’t let me have messed this up.”
Then the screen switched again and Eda sucked in an instinctive breath.
It was a wanted poster, displaying herself. Though instead of being her usual lovely face, it was her feral form, snarling like a vicious animal. Which, to be fair, is exactly what it was.
Then it switched again and her stomach dropped further. Now it showed a picture of herself, though instead of being a pickpocket she looked like some wild witch, flinging magic in every direction imaginable.
Interestingly, this depiction didn’t have a facial rune.
It was also amusing that her witch form had double the bounty of her feral form.
“Well…” Eda sighed. “That freaking sucks.”
She started to pace around the elevator.
“Need to find the kids,” she started, listing off the first item on one of her fingers. “Then try to smooth things over with Raine, then get the hell out of here before some Witchfinder General shows up to expunge me from existence, then…”
Eda stopped talking, already finding that this list was far too long for her liking.
The elevator slowly descended, the little dial at the top telling her that there were only a dozen floors left.
One-by-one they gave away until finally the elevator settled on the ground floor. The doors opened and Eda stepped out.
The lobby was in chaos, looking like it had just endured a battle. A slot machine had been thrown to the ground, some potted plants knocked aside, and a few of the tables had been destroyed with splinters and pieces of wood littered all over the place.
Staff loitered around, taking care of the mess while some steel-faced security guards asked far too many questions for Eda’s liking.
“What happened?” she whispered to herself, pulling her hood over her head.
She kept her eyes low and moved away from the crowd of people. Instead, she poked her head onto the casino floor. It wasn’t in any better state with more machines and tables left ruined by her warpath.
Eda knew that she needed to find the kids but a sick sense of curiosity drew her away from her mission and towards the epicentre of it all.
Her mind swam with every step, trying to pierce through the blackness that clogged up her mind. But nothing seemed to besiege the shroud of memory loss that denied her access to yesterday.
“I’m so going sober after this,” Eda murmured. “No more hard apple blood, no more witch fashions, no more…”
She was cut off as she finally noticed the origin of this carnage. It was a card table, like many of the others, located at the very heart of the redjack section of the floor.
It had been shattered, cracked clean down the middle by a heavy chandelier. A number of cards and chips were littered all around it. And there was red painted upon it in gruesome streaks. This made Eda’s heart nearly leap out of her chest, though thankfully, it seemed like a bunch of apple blood boxes had also been crushed, offering a hopeful alternative.
Though Eda couldn’t be completely certain.
A thin rope divided the scene of carnage from the others with a few stern-faced guards loitering around.
“What happened here?” a voice asked.
It was a familiar voice.
A painfully familiar voice.
A voice that made Eda want to throw up and sprint in the opposite direction.
Yet, she couldn’t do that.
So, she instead forced a smile and turned towards it. “Hey, Raine Storm.”
Late Afternoon Yesterday
Eda tilted back the glass, downing the last little mouthful of apple blood that lingered at the very bottom. It was warm, hot, the perfect beverage for tonight.
She felt alive, at the moment, with an ever-growing pile of chips in front of her. It had all been won, fair and square, with only the limited usage of cantrip and spell helping with the occasionally problematic card here or there.
The dealer glared at her as she started to shuffle the many decks of cards together. Though no matter how many she added, Eda seemed to be unbeatable.
“On quite the streak tonight,” this dealer quipped.
Eda smiled. “If winning gets me more apple blood then why should I stop?”
She reached for her mountain of wealth and peeled off ten black chips, equalling a hundred snails each. With no regard for common sense, she tossed them down upon her betting slot and waited patiently.
The other patrons looked at her in awe, contributing their own lesser treasures to this round.
The dealer drew in a breath and started to toss out cards, giving one to each player, a second to each player, and finally a third to each player. The goal was thirty-two and Eda was standing on an even twenty-five. Not great but not terrible either.
Also, the dealer had a pair of face cards beaming at her, an annoying development which would dissuade any soul with even an ounce of self preservation. She was already twenty and only the emperor knew how many were hidden away in that final card.
The dealer went through the list of patrons, pointing at them and asking if they wanted to hit or stand. The first hit, busting at thirty-five. The second stood on twenty-eight. The third hit and secured himself a nice twenty-nine.
Then she pointed at Eda.
“What will it be, miss?” she asked, very obviously trying to keep the heat out of her tone but failing miserably.
Eda smirked. “Hit?”
Everyone looked at her with varying degrees of shock and disbelief. That was everyone except for the dealer who merely narrowed her gaze to an even more aggravated degree.
Eda wiggled her fingers under the table, noticing the faintest of glows form around the top card on the deck. Thankfully the dealer was too distracted with how pissed off she was to notice what Eda was doing.
The dealer’s expression finally slipped and they flipped over the card.
A seven.
Shocker of all shockers.
The other patrons gasped while the dealer’s expression grew far more aggravated. It only got worse when she flipped over her own final card and revealed that it made her total go up to twenty-eight, forcing her to stand.
Eda had never seen someone place down ten chips with so much irritation before. Though honestly, it only made her own smile grow.
Though before she could celebrate for long, she heard movement behind her. And upon hearing this heavy movement, the dealer started to smile.
And that wasn’t a good smile. That was the kind of smile that a royal guard had when they were about to make her sister’s day.
Eda sighed and looked over her shoulder.
A creature in a brown robe loomed behind her. Their face was obscured by a mask of ivory white and a pair of solid blue eyes lingered through a pair of holes in their attire, glaring hotly at her.
It was like a knock off version of one of the emperor’s lackies.
Eda forced a smile. “Can I help you with something tall, dark, and handsome?”
“Is this the one?” the masked figure asked.
Eda glanced back at the dealer and noticed that she was smiling.
“This is the cheater,” the dealer confirmed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Eda said, holding up her hands. “Let’s not go throwing around titles here. I’m an honest to the emperor card counter and not some dirty cheater.” She grinned. “There’s a world of difference there.”
The dealer cocked a brow and reached under the table. She then produced a geode of some sort. It was purple with a cloudy texture within.
Eda sighed and her expression slipped.
“Do you know what this is?” the dealer asked.
Eda drew in a breath. “That would be fool’s rock.”
“And what does fool’s rock do?” the dealer then added, her smile growing.
Eda worked her jaw. “It has the ability to detect when illusion magic is being exploited.”
“Huh, and I wonder which of you could be using illusion magic,” the dealer whispered. Though the predatory glee in her eyes made it apparently that she already knew the answer. “Could it be the one player who has won over fifteen thousand snails and hasn’t lost a hand?”
“Hey you can’t blame a girl for being ambitious,” Eda murmured.
She reached into her bag and looked up at the masked goon. “So, you’re here to take me away then?”
The masked figure nodded.
Eda pursed her lips together and stood up slowly, hand still in her purse.
“In that case…” She quickly whipped out her hand, flinging the contents directly at the masked figure’s face. “POCKET SAND!”
A cloud of grit flew free, impacting the masked figure and sending him recoiling. A shrill scream filled the air which was Eda’s cue to run.
She scoped up as many chips as she could carry and tossed them into her purse. Then she was off, sprinting away from the table.
Eda quickly circled her hand through the air, forming a quick fireball spell which she sent flying towards the chandelier above the table. The ball hit the chain and it snapped a moment later, sending the whole thing hurtling towards the floor.
Thankfully, all of the other patrons threw themselves out of the way as it collided with the table, shattering it and sending debris in every direction.
Eda cackled as she made off, littering chips behind her with every stride.
All around her other goons tried to play hero and grab her but this wasn’t her first rodeo with casino security.
She wove around them with such ease, throwing off cantrips and spells to dissuade further attempts and only adding to the property damage as the other tables and machines were added to the causality list.
Though after evading what must’ve been the tenth goon, she ran face first into a solid wall of muscle. It knocked the wind out of her and she promptly stopped dead in her tracks.
“Well…” Eda sighed. “Shit.”
Another security guard, also in a doctor’s mask, glowered down at her. He folded his meaty arms in front of his chest and looked very intimidating.
“Well?” he asked.
Eda reached into her hair, only to find a distinct lack of distractions tucked away inside. She let out a heavy sigh and looked up at him.
“I got nothing,” she murmured.
The guard offered his hand and Eda took it, elegantly getting to her feet.
The two of them looked at each other before the guard placed a firm hand upon her shoulder and spun her around. Then he drew out a pair of metal cuffs that went around her wrists.
“Well, this has definitely gone better than my last trip to the Den,” Eda grumbled.
The guard snorted. “What got you last time?”
Eda chuckled. “Public nudity and breaking a street musician’s nose.”
“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” the guard responded.
“Really?” Eda asked.
The guard nodded. “Really.”
Visit my website to see where else to find my work, join my Discord, or support me on Patreon!
There is only one motto in this land: the house always wins.
Eda is more than eager to test this.
Just an FYI, this story plays a little loose with the established canon. It's pre-season two but also features Raine in it.
If you're cool with that then enjoy!
Chapter One
Apple blood.
Was this…
Eda reached out and dragged a finger through the red before popping it into her mouth. Thankfully, the taste that greeted her was that of dried apple blood and not another kind of blood.
That didn’t explain the claw marks, however.
Eda looked into her purse again and found the little leather cardholder. Thankfully, her key card was still inside. So, she pulled it out and held it against the reader. A purple light soon pulsed and a glowing rune formed, telling her that it still worked.
Which hopefully meant that her transformation had been kept strictly to the room.
A few seconds dragged along until one of the elevators arrived. Eda stepped inside and pressed the button for the main lobby.
As the elevator shut and she started to descend, her gaze was lost upon a screen present to her side. It showed off a plethora of local activities and shows, methods of pilfering from the wallets of saps when they didn’t like the card tables.
Eda frowned as the screen shifted and a familiar figure was on display.
Raine.
They seemed shy as they held their violin, though threw off a smile that could charm a crowd of thousands. Their outfit was gorgeous, stunningly made of gold and green that gave them the look of some sort of noble.
“Doing good for yourself,” Eda whispered before wincing. “Please don’t let me have messed this up.”
Then the screen switched again and Eda sucked in an instinctive breath.
It was a wanted poster, displaying herself. Though instead of being her usual lovely face, it was her feral form, snarling like a vicious animal. Which, to be fair, is exactly what it was.
Then it switched again and her stomach dropped further. Now it showed a picture of herself, though instead of being a pickpocket she looked like some wild witch, flinging magic in every direction imaginable.
Interestingly, this depiction didn’t have a facial rune.
It was also amusing that her witch form had double the bounty of her feral form.
“Well…” Eda sighed. “That freaking sucks.”
She started to pace around the elevator.
“Need to find the kids,” she started, listing off the first item on one of her fingers. “Then try to smooth things over with Raine, then get the hell out of here before some Witchfinder General shows up to expunge me from existence, then…”
Eda stopped talking, already finding that this list was far too long for her liking.
The elevator slowly descended, the little dial at the top telling her that there were only a dozen floors left.
One-by-one they gave away until finally the elevator settled on the ground floor. The doors opened and Eda stepped out.
The lobby was in chaos, looking like it had just endured a battle. A slot machine had been thrown to the ground, some potted plants knocked aside, and a few of the tables had been destroyed with splinters and pieces of wood littered all over the place.
Staff loitered around, taking care of the mess while some steel-faced security guards asked far too many questions for Eda’s liking.
“What happened?” she whispered to herself, pulling her hood over her head.
She kept her eyes low and moved away from the crowd of people. Instead, she poked her head onto the casino floor. It wasn’t in any better state with more machines and tables left ruined by her warpath.
Eda knew that she needed to find the kids but a sick sense of curiosity drew her away from her mission and towards the epicentre of it all.
Her mind swam with every step, trying to pierce through the blackness that clogged up her mind. But nothing seemed to besiege the shroud of memory loss that denied her access to yesterday.
“I’m so going sober after this,” Eda murmured. “No more hard apple blood, no more witch fashions, no more…”
She was cut off as she finally noticed the origin of this carnage. It was a card table, like many of the others, located at the very heart of the redjack section of the floor.
It had been shattered, cracked clean down the middle by a heavy chandelier. A number of cards and chips were littered all around it. And there was red painted upon it in gruesome streaks. This made Eda’s heart nearly leap out of her chest, though thankfully, it seemed like a bunch of apple blood boxes had also been crushed, offering a hopeful alternative.
Though Eda couldn’t be completely certain.
A thin rope divided the scene of carnage from the others with a few stern-faced guards loitering around.
“What happened here?” a voice asked.
It was a familiar voice.
A painfully familiar voice.
A voice that made Eda want to throw up and sprint in the opposite direction.
Yet, she couldn’t do that.
So, she instead forced a smile and turned towards it. “Hey, Raine Storm.”
Late Afternoon Yesterday
Eda tilted back the glass, downing the last little mouthful of apple blood that lingered at the very bottom. It was warm, hot, the perfect beverage for tonight.
She felt alive, at the moment, with an ever-growing pile of chips in front of her. It had all been won, fair and square, with only the limited usage of cantrip and spell helping with the occasionally problematic card here or there.
The dealer glared at her as she started to shuffle the many decks of cards together. Though no matter how many she added, Eda seemed to be unbeatable.
“On quite the streak tonight,” this dealer quipped.
Eda smiled. “If winning gets me more apple blood then why should I stop?”
She reached for her mountain of wealth and peeled off ten black chips, equalling a hundred snails each. With no regard for common sense, she tossed them down upon her betting slot and waited patiently.
The other patrons looked at her in awe, contributing their own lesser treasures to this round.
The dealer drew in a breath and started to toss out cards, giving one to each player, a second to each player, and finally a third to each player. The goal was thirty-two and Eda was standing on an even twenty-five. Not great but not terrible either.
Also, the dealer had a pair of face cards beaming at her, an annoying development which would dissuade any soul with even an ounce of self preservation. She was already twenty and only the emperor knew how many were hidden away in that final card.
The dealer went through the list of patrons, pointing at them and asking if they wanted to hit or stand. The first hit, busting at thirty-five. The second stood on twenty-eight. The third hit and secured himself a nice twenty-nine.
Then she pointed at Eda.
“What will it be, miss?” she asked, very obviously trying to keep the heat out of her tone but failing miserably.
Eda smirked. “Hit?”
Everyone looked at her with varying degrees of shock and disbelief. That was everyone except for the dealer who merely narrowed her gaze to an even more aggravated degree.
Eda wiggled her fingers under the table, noticing the faintest of glows form around the top card on the deck. Thankfully the dealer was too distracted with how pissed off she was to notice what Eda was doing.
The dealer’s expression finally slipped and they flipped over the card.
A seven.
Shocker of all shockers.
The other patrons gasped while the dealer’s expression grew far more aggravated. It only got worse when she flipped over her own final card and revealed that it made her total go up to twenty-eight, forcing her to stand.
Eda had never seen someone place down ten chips with so much irritation before. Though honestly, it only made her own smile grow.
Though before she could celebrate for long, she heard movement behind her. And upon hearing this heavy movement, the dealer started to smile.
And that wasn’t a good smile. That was the kind of smile that a royal guard had when they were about to make her sister’s day.
Eda sighed and looked over her shoulder.
A creature in a brown robe loomed behind her. Their face was obscured by a mask of ivory white and a pair of solid blue eyes lingered through a pair of holes in their attire, glaring hotly at her.
It was like a knock off version of one of the emperor’s lackies.
Eda forced a smile. “Can I help you with something tall, dark, and handsome?”
“Is this the one?” the masked figure asked.
Eda glanced back at the dealer and noticed that she was smiling.
“This is the cheater,” the dealer confirmed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Eda said, holding up her hands. “Let’s not go throwing around titles here. I’m an honest to the emperor card counter and not some dirty cheater.” She grinned. “There’s a world of difference there.”
The dealer cocked a brow and reached under the table. She then produced a geode of some sort. It was purple with a cloudy texture within.
Eda sighed and her expression slipped.
“Do you know what this is?” the dealer asked.
Eda drew in a breath. “That would be fool’s rock.”
“And what does fool’s rock do?” the dealer then added, her smile growing.
Eda worked her jaw. “It has the ability to detect when illusion magic is being exploited.”
“Huh, and I wonder which of you could be using illusion magic,” the dealer whispered. Though the predatory glee in her eyes made it apparently that she already knew the answer. “Could it be the one player who has won over fifteen thousand snails and hasn’t lost a hand?”
“Hey you can’t blame a girl for being ambitious,” Eda murmured.
She reached into her bag and looked up at the masked goon. “So, you’re here to take me away then?”
The masked figure nodded.
Eda pursed her lips together and stood up slowly, hand still in her purse.
“In that case…” She quickly whipped out her hand, flinging the contents directly at the masked figure’s face. “POCKET SAND!”
A cloud of grit flew free, impacting the masked figure and sending him recoiling. A shrill scream filled the air which was Eda’s cue to run.
She scoped up as many chips as she could carry and tossed them into her purse. Then she was off, sprinting away from the table.
Eda quickly circled her hand through the air, forming a quick fireball spell which she sent flying towards the chandelier above the table. The ball hit the chain and it snapped a moment later, sending the whole thing hurtling towards the floor.
Thankfully, all of the other patrons threw themselves out of the way as it collided with the table, shattering it and sending debris in every direction.
Eda cackled as she made off, littering chips behind her with every stride.
All around her other goons tried to play hero and grab her but this wasn’t her first rodeo with casino security.
She wove around them with such ease, throwing off cantrips and spells to dissuade further attempts and only adding to the property damage as the other tables and machines were added to the causality list.
Though after evading what must’ve been the tenth goon, she ran face first into a solid wall of muscle. It knocked the wind out of her and she promptly stopped dead in her tracks.
“Well…” Eda sighed. “Shit.”
Another security guard, also in a doctor’s mask, glowered down at her. He folded his meaty arms in front of his chest and looked very intimidating.
“Well?” he asked.
Eda reached into her hair, only to find a distinct lack of distractions tucked away inside. She let out a heavy sigh and looked up at him.
“I got nothing,” she murmured.
The guard offered his hand and Eda took it, elegantly getting to her feet.
The two of them looked at each other before the guard placed a firm hand upon her shoulder and spun her around. Then he drew out a pair of metal cuffs that went around her wrists.
“Well, this has definitely gone better than my last trip to the Den,” Eda grumbled.
The guard snorted. “What got you last time?”
Eda chuckled. “Public nudity and breaking a street musician’s nose.”
“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” the guard responded.
“Really?” Eda asked.
The guard nodded. “Really.”
Visit my website to see where else to find my work, join my Discord, or support me on Patreon!
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 12.5 kB
Comments