[X] [Stunt] Claim: Yeah, we have what you want, it is hidden in this {bag of kobold fire gel},
[X] [Stunt] Claim: [to the guards] Someone calling themselves Aerith killed a guard by backstabbing them. If you see them you need to kill them before they kill you. Tell your colleagues.
[x] olivebirdy
edit: that only does some of the votes, weird. Well, here is the rest explicitly:
[X] [Stunt] Claim: There's bank robbery all the time these days, banks aren't safe. Safer to mattress gold.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: Survival is more important than anything.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: Money doesn't matter.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: We know what you're doing and why you're doing it, and you want to talk about it.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: We pick off stragglers, it's safer to clump together when facing us.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: We have magic shields, magic missiles are useless against us.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: We're excellent at shooting down fliers.
[X] [Stunt] Claim: We don't actually know what was planned for the drugs. Handoff? What handoff?
It's been Stunted, so there's a chance EJ will include it if it's appropriate.
I'm personally getting the jitters over the upcoming poker game, going over worst case results. If the money's to be drawn from the bank but we convince Aerith that he doesn't need to bring the full sum. If the money's at home, but we convince him that he needs the full sum at the Desperado. If the AI isn't actually giving NPCs gold, but we're robbing their houses for even worse company scrip. If we lose the drugs and the money, the houses are empty and the drug meet can't or shouldn't be robbed. If we can't make our mark rush off and leave a good fraction of the pot. If the information we excise and the lies we implant aren't worth the price. I'm feeling heavily responsible for this con, and can't shake the feeling that any con in which the mark walks off with the gold and drugs is a bad one.
I'm unclear on why Aerith is being targeted at all, actually. So he might have cheated at cards in some way. That seems fair, everyone was cheating as hard as they could.
Is it just because he's maybe carrying a lot of money? What happened to the squeamishness about committing crimes just for money, the same squeamishness that landed the party in the whole drug mess in the first place? If attacking people just to get rich is fine, then there were half a dozen other quests to get Desperado passes. So what's different now?
I'm unclear on why Aerith is being targeted at all, actually. So he might have cheated at cards in some way. That seems fair, everyone was cheating as hard as they could.
Is it just because he's maybe carrying a lot of money? What happened to the squeamishness about committing crimes just for money, the same squeamishness that landed the party in the whole drug mess in the first place? If attacking people just to get rich is fine, then there were half a dozen other quests to get Desperado passes. So what's different now?
What you are seeing is the corruption of Dungeon Crawler World happening in unreal time. We were mad. Aerith is an asshole, he cheated us, and he has a ton of money that will help us survive. He's worth a lot of XP, and if he's a boss, that'll help us with Pathfinder. He's a marked man. His days are numbered. The appreciation I hold for him as a conman and character and the ethic saying to not kill him aren't enough.
People pretty quickly flip to 'X is okay to do to Y' once Y is bad enough, and if we were going to get paid a million gold to murder the protective madam, we'd do it with a quip.
We've been assured that NPCs aren't really people, though the AI disagreed, and that they won't survive the floor collapse. Our survival is more important, our chances of survival should be raised if it's only at the cost of an NPC.
And then there's progression. We weren't that happy to murder NPCs at the drug den, but we did it for the reward. We killed NPCs then, we killed some more when sneaking the drugs out, so what's one more NPC?
It'll just be a couple more steps before we're killing crawlers, and the showrunners are absolutely doing this on purpose.
My very first message here, I was instructed to reply to this read rather than just theorycrafting in the Discord channel.
I had the idea that considering Leo's entire class revolves around her being able to turn "Not Great"-Loot into "🌟You Win🌟"-Loot, prioritizing her leveling up the skill (Rollup) that makes that possible should be a main focus for us, because not only does that get her more power, with Taylor's Sysop abilities which let us throw even more lootboxes onto her, it also gives the whole party more power, since we might be able to throw the loot back around us, too.
However, there were a few questions I had, which can impact how we would need to go about things.
Leo's Rollup skill triggers when she decides to open her lootboxes. At which time, they turn into the highest possible tier that her level in the skill allows.
However. After the skill has turned all of the lootboxes into fewer higher tiered ones, there is still the process of actually opening them, which takes a minor amount of time, as well.
My questions are as follows:
After the Rollup, how long until the loot of the lowest level box is put in front of you/put in your inventory?
How long after the loot of the first box is deposited in your inventory is the next box opened? Is there time to investigate or take stock of the item/s the first box gave you?
Does the next box open automatically or do you have to give it the go-ahead?
While the boxes you have yet to have deposited in your inventory are waiting in a line next to you/in front of you, do they still count as "unopened"?
At what point is the loot of a lootbox decided? Is it at the acquiring of the box? Is it at the decision to sit down and open all boxes? Is it at the moment of loot actually being deposited in your inventory?
All of these questions are so that this question can be answered:
Would it be possible to have Leo use Rollup, and, while the boxes are still waiting to deposit their loot in her inventory, have Taylor's Transfer ability move all boxes from Leo to another Crawler?
If it is indeed possible, are the contents of the Rollup'd boxes already decided to be in service of Leo? Or are the contents yet to be decided, and ready to align themselves to the theme and strengths of the new owner?
Depending on the answers, my suggestion is that we throw as much loot onto Leo as we're physically capable of. Go for stupid stunts, crowdplease, make funny faces at eachother while we're fighting mobs, all to get as many useless, crappy, inventory-clogging Bronze boxes as possible, and pile all of that on Leo, so her skill gets as much XP as possible.
Her skill is currently Lv1, which means all of the Bronze boxes can only be rolled into Silvers. At level 2 we can make Gold. 3 we can make Platinum.
At level 4, and I don't know how far away that'd be, we can turn 256 Bronze boxes, or their equivalent, into Legendary boxes. A Legendary box is how Moose eventually became the size of an elephant. Becoming elephants is within reach. We can do this.
Idk, it's worth considering. 😜Thanks for coming to my TED talk
I had the idea that considering Leo's entire class revolves around her being able to turn "Not Great"-Loot into "🌟You Win🌟"-Loot, prioritizing her leveling up the skill (Rollup) that makes that possible should be a main focus for us, because not only does that get her more power, with Taylor's Sysop abilities which let us throw even more lootboxes onto her, it also gives the whole party more power, since we might be able to throw the loot back around us, too.
However, there were a few questions I had, which can impact how we would need to go about things.
Leo's Rollup skill triggers when she decides to open her lootboxes. At which time, they turn into the highest possible tier that her level in the skill allows.
Correct, although if we're being very precise about our language it's not that all the boxes turn into the highest tier her skill allows, it's that (assuming she has enough boxes) they get combined into a small number of higher-tier boxes. I think that's what you meant, but clarifying just in case.
However. After the skill has turned all of the lootboxes into fewer higher tiered ones, there is still the process of actually opening them, which takes a minor amount of time, as well.
My questions are as follows:
After the Rollup, how long until the loot of the lowest level box is put in front of you/put in your inventory?
How long after the loot of the first box is deposited in your inventory is the next box opened? Is there time to investigate or take stock of the item/s the first box gave you?
Does the next box open automatically or do you have to give it the go-ahead?
While the boxes you have yet to have deposited in your inventory are waiting in a line next to you/in front of you, do they still count as "unopened"?
At what point is the loot of a lootbox decided? Is it at the acquiring of the box? Is it at the decision to sit down and open all boxes? Is it at the moment of loot actually being deposited in your inventory?
When you click 'Open Loot Boxes', the sequence goes like this:
All of your boxes immediately appear, closed, in front of you in a line. (Or whatever shape is necessary given number of boxes and available space. Moose's boxes had to stack up and fan out.)
The first box runs up to you and opens itself. The others are still closed at this point.
You have a few seconds (3-4) to take the contents out and read their properties.
At the end of that time, regardless of whether you have taken the contents out, the box disintegrates and its contents are moved to your inventory.
The second box in the line runs up to you and the process repeats until there are no more boxes to open.
In the normal course of things, you get no control of this process except to start it. The boxes don't wait for you to open them and they don't care if you want them to stop. All of your boxes will appear and open themselves, so you can't save some out for later. You also can't move around until all boxes have opened.
As to whether or not the boxes count as unopened for purposes of Rollup, neither Levi nor the Terrans know that. Their lids are closed, so in a literal sense they are unopened, but...
So far as Levi is aware, no one knows at what point the contents of a loot box are determined. The AI for each crawl makes those decisions and they don't tend to chat that much. For that matter, it's possible that different AIs make different decisions from crawl to crawl, or that a given AI will do it differently from one loot session to the next.
All of these questions are so that this question can be answered:
Would it be possible to have Leo use Rollup, and, while the boxes are still waiting to deposit their loot in her inventory, have Taylor's Transfer ability move all boxes from Leo to another Crawler?
Since this is a thing that I've been gleefully waiting for someone to ask ever since I first put the box-reassignment ability into DCK and now DCY, I'll go ahead and answer it even though the characters don't know: yes, if the top of a lootbox is closed then it counts as unopened for purposes of Taylor's ability to reassign loot boxes. In other words, yes, he can reassign the boxes that are waiting to be opened in the middle of an opening session.
Depending on the answers, my suggestion is that we throw as much loot onto Leo as we're physically capable of. Go for stupid stunts, crowdplease, make funny faces at eachother while we're fighting mobs, all to get as many useless, crappy, inventory-clogging Bronze boxes as possible, and pile all of that on Leo, so her skill gets as much XP as possible.
Her skill is currently Lv1, which means all of the Bronze boxes can only be rolled into Silvers. At level 2 we can make Gold. 3 we can make Platinum.
At level 4, and I don't know how far away that'd be, we can turn 256 Bronze boxes, or their equivalent, into Legendary boxes. A Legendary box is how Moose eventually became the size of an elephant. Becoming elephants is within reach. We can do this.
Idk, it's worth considering. 😜Thanks for coming to my TED talk
Fantastic. So that means we're able to share boxes that could contain "untradeables", once we reach the next floor. And learn when the AI ascribes Loot Box Contents.
Unfortunately - well, its current state is unfortunate, not unfortunate what it was used up for, Taylor's Sysop abilities are on cooldown until we descend to Floor 4, at which point we'll be able to get full use out of both his and Leo's classes, and their synergies.
Until then, we need more information from Levi. From when he was a crawler, from what he's seen personally as a game guide - or if he's got previous experience as a Manager, what he's heard of from other game guides, and what information he'd gleaned from browsing the tunnels when he still had full access to such things: What rewards Lootboxes? Actions, quests, particular activities, what have you.
And what grants the ones we're after the most? The trash, the useless bronze boxes with the adjoining message saying "You can get this multiple times".
I suggest Achievement Farming Lite.
We can't go whole hog and have everyone do it, and then transfer everything, because we've an entire floor ahead of us, and we need the loot the boxes will give us on our journey through the floor. But Leo can still work her butt off trying to level up her Rollup skill so that it's as far along as possible for when we descend, so it's time for her to be whacky and crazy and whatever else Levi tells us usually grants loads of terrible lootboxes.
If we find something that's repeatable with less than life threatening risk, Leo is young, but she might need to stay up late and get as many of those as possible.
If we can start getting Platinum boxes on the regular, from just 128 Bronze (or their equivalent), then we're in the money. But to get Plats, the skill needs to be Level 3. Right now it's Level 1, and can turn Bronze to Silver. So we need all the Bronze, because it's just XP to us. XP and better loot.
I'm honestly a bit surprised that beating a Neighborhood Boss only nets the crawler a bronze box. Seems cheap for a tough fight.
@Andreasfr1 There's a couple of issues we want to stay aware of. The cooldown for transferring boxes is six hours, which is one free transfer before bed, but otherwise, we're going to need them to be meaningful and probably scheduled, since shutting down our (floorwide) support for most of a day's grind is going to be rough. Then there's Borant. They don't want us to have a workable system for pumping out high tier boxes regularly, and they're the ones who can terminate us if we cost them more than we make them. Of course, that's the worst case scenario, where the more likely option is that the bug gets fixed. Maybe the box bundle gets lost in transfer, maybe that ability gets locked.
Basically, our exploits need to be something that is immediate in effect, and we need to be popular or modest enough that it won't be cheaper to accelerate us.
Incidentally, it turns out that pets have their own Crawler ID, and they get boxes they can't access because they're not smart enough. Personally, I'm hoping that in a couple of floors when we meet experienced crawler pets, we can either trade steaks for a huge box bonanza, or make a quick deal with the owner before Borant interrupts.
@Andreasfr1 There's a couple of issues we want to stay aware of. The cooldown for transferring boxes is six hours, which is one free transfer before bed, but otherwise, we're going to need them to be meaningful and probably scheduled, since shutting down our (floorwide) support for most of a day's grind is going to be rough. Then there's Borant. They don't want us to have a workable system for pumping out high tier boxes regularly, and they're the ones who can terminate us if we cost them more than we make them. Of course, that's the worst case scenario, where the more likely option is that the bug gets fixed. Maybe the box bundle gets lost in transfer, maybe that ability gets locked.
Basically, our exploits need to be something that is immediate in effect, and we need to be popular or modest enough that it won't be cheaper to accelerate us.
Incidentally, it turns out that pets have their own Crawler ID, and they get boxes they can't access because they're not smart enough. Personally, I'm hoping that in a couple of floors when we meet experienced crawler pets, we can either trade steaks for a huge box bonanza, or make a quick deal with the owner before Borant interrupts.
The cooldown being 6 hours is a definite hurdle, so yes, it'll be best if it's put on a schedule right before we sleep. That said, Levi mentioned that because of how well we did on the first two floors, we were ahead of schedule, so while we absolutely don't want to slack off, we *should* be able to slow down without it impacting our overall survival chances too severely. Granted, that's for last floor, so we do still need a lot of grinding.
As for Borant... Yes. We don't know how often or with how much impunity they stick their flippers into specific crawler abilities, but you're right, we want to limit our gains so we don't inflate their inclination to intervene.
Two Bronze become one Silver.
Four Silver become one Gold. Eight Bronze become one Gold.
Four Gold become one Platinum. 16 Silver become one Platinum. 32 Bronze become one Platinum.
We might need Levi's help on this point as well, and hope he knows at which point Borant start paying too close attention to us, our Rollup, and the expenditure of money it creates for them.
Leo still needs training. A lot of it to level up the ability. But would it be wise to perhaps limit it to only rolling into Platinum boxes, and training it frequently as hell, instead? Never accruing enough to make it roll over into Legendary, once the skill is high enough level?
If possible at all, we should see about getting a wand (or spell) similar to the one Prepotente uses in Book 5 (Chapter 49), which creates a small Safe Space. Even a nerfed version of this, which doesn't protect us, but lets Leo open loot boxes would be amazing.
As for the Crawler Pets and their boxes... That's an amazing idea and we need to start asking around in the Desperado club!
As for Borant... Yes. We don't know how often or with how much impunity they stick their flippers into specific crawler abilities, but you're right, we want to limit our gains so we don't inflate their inclination to intervene.
Impunity: Yes. While Borant didn't manage to keep the AI from putting Sysop and Wheeler Dealer in the show to begin with, they're notorious for just straight-up murdering anyone who calls them anything derogatory. Accelerating their experience. If they can't or don't want to nerf our ability, they can perfectly easily make us go away the messy way.
It probably would be wise to not have access to enough boxes to inconvenience Borant, yes. At least until the moment we're ready for it. To that end, we should not mention the possibility of pet boxes to anyone, not even hinting at it. The moment we ask around the Desperado is the moment Borant realizes what we're up to, which is the moment they'll stop it.
Portable saferooms are great, but probably pretty rare.
"Can't thank you enough, mate," Lucas said, offering his hand.
Taylor took it and shook. "You're welcome. Not like we did much, though. You guys got yourselves out of there, all we did was guide you away from a few goblins and distract a few more out of your way."
Sheila snorted. "Also spotted the traps."
Moose: EXCUSE MOOSE! MOOSE SPOTTED THE TRAPS WITH HIS NIFTY 'SPOT' SKILL! MOOSE WOULD LIKE SOME THANKS FOR THIS, PREFERABLY IN THE FORM OF BACON!
"Moose, you know that stuff upsets your belly and makes you fart," Taylor said, exasperated. "Why do you always ask for something that's going to do that?"
Moose: TAYLOR IS FIBBING! MOOSE IS GOOD BOY WHO WOULD NEVER POOT!
Sheila laughed and crouched down, opening her arms wide. "Don't got no bacon, but I've got hugs for a very good boy," she said.
"Careful," Taylor said. "He likes to—"
Moose, who was currently the size of a large mastiff, eagerly accepted the hugs and pushed forward hard enough that he bowled her right over. He stood over her, licking eagerly at her face in an effort to ensure that every inch of it was covered with juuust the right amount of doggy spit. Sheila shrieked in surprise and started laughing helplessly, raising her arms to protect herself. Moose wasn't particularly bothered by this and demonstrated his willingness to snoot around the blocking limbs in his efforts to deliver snuffly, slobbery smooches. This, of course, provoked more laughter from Sheila and grins from her teammates.
"—do that," Taylor finished with a resigned smile.
"Ack, stop!" Sheila cried, still laughing even as she pushed against Moose's chest. She likely couldn't have moved him if he hadn't allowed it, but he gave her one last lick and then backed off. His tongue hung out in a very self-satisfied grin.
"No jokes, really was appreciated," Bruce said to Moose. "Would have walked right onto the first one if you hadn't warned me off. Plus, now I've got a dozen more traps in my inventory to use against the next batch of assholes."
Moose: BRUCE IS WELCOME! SCRITCHES ARE ALSO WELCOME!
The dog pushed his enormous head (currently sans chanfron, because the armor prevented scritching) under Bruce's hand and pressed forward hard enough that the dimunitive crawler needed to brace himself. Laughing, he used both hands to ruffle Moose's ears and scritch his ruff. Moose dropped his chin on Bruce's shoulder and huffed happily. His eyes drifted closed and he wiggled a bit in delight when Sheila and Lucas stepped in to pet and scritch his back and flanks.
Taylor watched with a smile as Moose collected his affectionate due and the Australian crawlers got their fill of doggy time, but after a bit he said, "Okay, you lot. Time for Moose to get back to the others. If no one minds, I'll hang out with you for a bit...?"
"Love to have you, bloody oath," Lucas said fervently. "But are you sure Moose is safe flying back alone?"
Taylor met eyes with Moose and both of them grinned. "Allow me to show you a nifty trick," Taylor said. "Ready, boy?"
Moose: MOOSE IS READY! GOODBYE, LUCAS! GOODBYE, SHEILA! GOODBYE BRUCE! MOOSE WILL BE HERE IF YOU NEED HIM!
"Aaaand, Sysop powers, activate! Ninja Vanish!" Taylor said, extending his left hand in a loose fist towards Moose while thrusting his right into the air. A cone of light lanced out from his fingers and washed over the giant dog. Moments later, Moose was gone.
"Oy!" Bruce said, eyes going wide. "That a skill or a spell?"
"Neither," Taylor said with a chuckle. He opened his hand to reveal the grapefruit-sized sphere that he'd been palming. "Pet carrier. He's in extradimensional storage. Now Taylor Blue, standing next to Team Thunder, stores the carrier..." The sphere disappeared into his inventory. "...and Taylor Gold, standing next to Team Trick Shot, pulls it out of inventory and releases Moose back into the world. Voila, the Doggy Drop."
"That's redonkulous," Sheila said, shaking her head in amusement. Taylor couldn't help but think that 'redonkulous' sounded like something Leo would say, and that it was odd in the mouth of an attractive woman, somewhere in her thirties, with blonde hair and well-muscled arms.
"You know it," Taylor said.
"How you plannin' on gettin' home then, mate?" Bruce asked. "Long way if you don't got a flying doggo."
Taylor smiled and disappeared, leaving Team Thunder agog.
"Over here," he said from behind them.
The Australians whipped around. "Oy! You can flippin' teleport?!" Lucas demanded.
"Only to places that one of my two bodies can see," Taylor said. "And only within a few meters of one of my bodies. That means I can always teleport myself to wherever one of me is, but I can't just teleport to you if I'm not already here. If I could then we would have been here a lot sooner when you called."
Lucas exchanged disgruntled looks with his team. "You lot are so defo busted," he grumbled. "Please tell me there's at least a cooldown?"
"Yeah," Taylor said. "Which is a shame. It would be way more useful without, or even with a shorter one."
"Standard 30 hour thing?" Sheila asked. "I got one of those on the Repulsive Barrier spell this bra comes with."
"Actually, it's 15 seconds minus my level in the Body Flicker skill," Taylor said innocently.
"You can just fuck right off," Bruce grumbled.
Moose: MOOSE FORGOT TO SAY THAT TAYLOR AND BRUCE AND SHEILA AND LUCAS MUST KEEP THEMSELVES SAFE! MOOSE IS NOT THERE TO SPOT TRAPS FOR YOU, SO BE EXTRA CAREFUL! DO NOT MAKE MOOSE WORRY ABOUT YOU! IT IS VERY MEAN TO MAKE A GOOD DOGGY WORRY!
Lucas Wi: Still playing the drongo, eh? We'll be careful. You and your buddies keep well, fuzzybutt.
Moose: OKAY! TAYLOR AND LUCAS AND BRUCE AND SHEILA SHOULD KEEP WELL TOO!
o-o-o-o
"So what's the plan?" Calliope asked.
They were seated once more in their room at the White Forest, with Levi slouched in one of the elegant chairs that looked too delicate to support his weight but somehow did fine. He had a glass of something green, possibly another Throat Punch, in his enormous hand and was waving it like a metronome across small arcs, just for the amusement of motion. The others were scattered around the rest of the furniture, with Drew tucked into one corner of the couch, smoking furiously with an embarrassed glower on his face.
"You want to tell us what the fuck that was?" Taylor demanded of Drew. "We were supposed to be doing a stealthy undercover thing! Walk in, have Leo bullshit them into giving us the drugs, walk out. Not stand in the middle of the room and call them out for a fight!"
Drew looked away. "I thought we'd level," he mumbled.
"What?" Taylor asked, incredulous. "Why the fuck would that be the important part?"
Drew turned back, the embarrassment transmuting to anger. "That's the only fucking important part, Taylor! We fucking level or we fucking die! Have you somehow missed that? Besides, they're not actual fucking people, they're just mobs! It's okay to blow their fucking heads off or whatever."
"I've noticed," Levi ruminated, studying the contents of his glass, "that overuse of the word 'fucking' makes it sound silly."
Drew's head snapped around and the rage redoubled as his hand came up, finger pointing at Levi. It held there for a moment as Drew struggled to find words, and then the arm dropped. The rage drained away, leaving only sullen anger. "Go fuck yourself, Levi," Drew said, standing up and walking into his bedroom. The door closed with an impact that wasn't quite a slam.
Silence ruled the sitting room as the other four digested what had just happened.
"Seems to me like you came in a little hot on that one, Taylor," Levi said. "I know you feel like you've got a solid beef—and I'm not saying you don't—but the single biggest contributing factor to crawler death is party strife. It can be a real pain to manage, and it's hard because the Crawl is explicitly designed to load stress on you past the breaking point, but it's important."
"I know," Taylor said, rubbing his head. "I spent the whole walk here fulminating about it, getting angrier and angrier. I should have been focused on calming down. I'll do better."
"Seems to me like you intentionally provoked him," Calliope accused Levi. "What was with that snotty remark?"
"It focused his anger on me instead of Taylor and made it about something silly and unimportant," Levi said. "If he had actualy engaged with me on it I could have waved it off as an unfunny joke, apologized for not reading the mood better, and the situation would have been defused, or at least on the way to it." He glanced towards the door. "Unfortunately, it looks like things were a little beyond saving at that point. Still, it prevented them from escalating further."
"Why did Uncle Drew do that?" Calliope asked. "It's not like him. The standing in the middle of the foyer thing calling for a fight thing, I mean."
Levi shrugged. "You'd need to ask him. Best guess is that there's more than one reason. There usually is. I'd bet one of them is that he was feeling overconfident about his combat abilities, thought that his Shield made him invulnerable. It's good to see that he's internalized the idea that it's okay to kill NPCs, but now we need to work on risk assessment and management."
"Well, I guess we go back to the original question," Calliope said. "What's the plan?"
Everyone thought about that for a moment.
"As I see it," Levi said, "you've got a few irons in the fire right now. You need to grind. There's only five days left on this floor and you'll want to level up as much as possible, especially Drew. We don't know what class options he'll get next floor and it's unlikely that they'll be as combat effective as Wizard Supremacist."
"Wait, I thought he could take the same thing multiple times?" Calliope asked.
Levi shrugged. "Maybe? The Character Actor skill is rarely offered so I don't have that much data to draw on, but there's always some tweaking. Classes that are only offered once, classes offered that are straight upgrades or downgrades of earlier options, that kind of thing. Wizard Supremacist is extremely powerful, which means I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't show up again. He'll want to take advantage of that power while he has it.
"Anyway, as I was saying, I see three priorities right now: grinding, this drug quest, and money.
"You all need to grind, especially Drew. That's self-explanatory and can't be skipped.
"You've also got this drug-related quest and its vague but potentially important consequences for failure. Could be skipped, since regardless of how big the consequences are you can probably run away from them." He pursed his manatee lips in thought, then looked at Moose. "Can you carry one Taylor, plus Calliope and Drew? Or maybe just the boys while Calliope skitches behind you?"
Moose: MOOSE IS BIG AND STRONG AND GOOD! MOOSE CAN CARRY ALL THREE OF THEM AS LONG AS MOOSE IS ON THE GROUND! FLYING, NOT SO MUCH! ONLY ONE AT A TIME WHEN FLYING! MOOSE'S WINGS ARE SORE!
He extended one wing, which looked adorable at his current 'indoor-body' size, and fluttered it demonstratively.
Moose: THE HEAL SPELL AND THE POTIONS DO NOT FIX TIRED AND DO NOT FIX SORE MUSCLES! MOOSE TRIED! MOOSE WOULD PREFER TO HAVE AT LEAST A DAY OFF FROM FLYING PRETTY PLEASE AND THANK YOU!
Levi nodded. "There are better healing items that can fix those issues but they aren't as common. Once I have a decent enchanting table and the right equipment I can make you some gear that will take care of it. Runestones to start with, and then some permanent gear once I have the time." He saw Calliope's mouth opening and hurried to add, "Runestones are the enchanter's version of potions or scrolls. One shot item with a specific and preselected effect."
"Cool," Calliope said, sitting back. "I suddenly have so many questions."
"Later. Back on topic, the last issue is money. We really want to recover what we lost, and get as much more as we possibly can. Personal spaces are important and we're going to need as much money as we can get in order to take advantage. At least half a million gold, and I'd prefer it was much more."
"What about robbery?" Taylor asked. "Teleporting plus inventory should make it embarrasingly easy."
"Harder than you think," Levi said. "Banks and shopkeepers with real valuables are going to have invested in an anti-teleportation ward, and you can't inventory stuff unless you can pick it up, which means stopping theft by inventory is as simple as putting the stuff in a sturdy display case that's too heavy to lift."
Taylor grunted, annoyed. "Okay, so we do it the hard way. Break in, smash whatever doors or display cases are in the way, grab the stuff and run."
"It's a possibility," Levi granted. "I'll scout the city for banks, goldsmiths, and other high-value targets. We also have the address for that Aerith prick who scammed all our money. We could try breaking in there."
"Seems to me like we might be able to solve several problems at once," Taylor said. "Thanks to Leo's silver kitty tongue, we've got all of Robert's drugs. I can't know for sure, but my guess is that Rob helped Aerith scam us so that Aerith could have the money for a major drug buy, which means now he needs to buy from us."
"What?" Calliope asked, puzzled. "How do you know that?"
"We know that Rob and Aerith are both rich and dirty," Taylor explained. "Rob is some sort of high-ranking mobster. He had lots of drugs and security people. He also had that paper with the delivery information on it—"
"The one that I recovered," Calliope noted, smiling.
"Yes, exactly. Good on you, kiddo. Anyway, Rob had the drugs and the delivery information, and he was working with Aerith to scam us. That suggests that—"
"Not necessarily," Levi said. "He might have been working with Aerith, he might not. All we know is that the bird cheated us and walked away with the money we had rightfully cheated him out of."
"Okay, fine," Taylor said. "So, two competing hypotheses: first, Rob has the drugs and the contract with whoever is at the meet this afternoon while Aerith is an uninvolved red herring. Second, Rob has the drugs but Aerith has the contract. The bird needed the money to buy the drugs and had given Rob the meet site as a delivery point. That's the one that I'm betting is the case. Why? Because our quest text said"—he quickly scrolled through his interface to get the exact text—"'find out why he did it and how the drugs tie in.' That says that there is a connection and that Rob and Aerith aren't unrelated."
"Sure," Calliope said, nodding. "So now we've got the drugs and Aerith and Rob don't. Presumably Aerith is happy to buy them from us just as much as from Rob. We could get all our money back that way, and maybe more."
"Better idea," Taylor said. "We tell him to meet us at the Desperado Club if he wants the drugs. When he gets there we tell him that we aren't willing to sell them to him, but we'll gamble with them. Our drugs versus his money. Except this time, Drew is sitting right there and fuck being subtle."
"Drew needs to grind..." Levi noted, sounding uncertain.
"This won't take long, and it can't wait," Calliope said. "The drop is at 2:15 today, which is in eight hours. Let's make it sweeter: we claim that it's a rematch. Levi is there and we invite Rob too. Leave a note at his house."
"I don't know about that," Taylor said. "We just killed a bunch of his people, shot up his house, and stole his stuff. Politely, but we still stole it."
"He can't attack us in the Desperado though, right?" Calliope asked Levi.
"He can," the manager told her, "but I'm not sure he will. For one thing, if he initiates violence in the club he'll be banned and we know that he likes going there. For another, we can hire security for the game. We've still got about 3500 gold and the club usually charges a couple hundred gold per hour per bouncer you want to hire. On the other hand, he pretty much needs to kill you all in order to recover his reputation. Letting him know your location sounds like a bad idea."
"Doesn't he already know that we're staying at the White Forest?" she asked. "We did have the game here, after all."
Levi paused at that. "Uh, well, not necessarily. We could have been renting the gaming room."
"You didn't think of it, did you?" Calliope pressed, grinning.
"No," Levi admitted, grumbling. "I must be slipping. It's been a hundred seasons since I was a manager, which means I haven't been interacting with crawler plot lines. Sorry."
"No worries," Taylor said before Calliope could crow about it. "Sounds like inviting Rob is a bad idea."
"On balance, yes," Levi said. "Not because he might cause problems in the club proper, but because he can have his people camping the door. The moment you step outside you'll get jumped." He paused and cocked his head in thought. "Although...I think maybe we've been forgetting something." He stood up and knocked on the bedroom door.
o-o-o-o
"YOU DIRTWALKING BASTARDS!" Aerith shrieked, his voice an eagle's hunting cry as he strode through the door of the Desperado Club's gaming hall with his feathers poofed out. "Where are my drugs?!"
"Oy, easy on the ears," Levi said from his position at the table. The manager had a frou-frou shaved-iced drink with an umbrella and a bright red straw on the table in front of him and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt so loud the neighbors should have called in a noise complaint. "These ain't just for show, you know." He reached up to run a hand along one of his long, velveteen rabbit ears.
"They're not your drugs, birdbrain," Calliope said, patting the suitcase sitting on a stand next to her and gesturing to the stack of drugs on the table in front of her. Her stack consisted of four dozen handrolled 'cigarettes' (actually blitz sticks), several dozen small waxed-paper packets of red dust, many small jars of a yellowish oily paste, and a messy pile of plastic tubes that looked like those sample packs of antibiotic cream. The Desperado Club's on-duty pharmacist had identified all of the various items (blitz sticks, angel's wing, mother's dream, bounty's cream) and given them values in exchange for purchasing a variety of them at discounted rates.
"Where's your money?" the catgirl demanded in response.
Aerith glared at her but he waved to the two bodyguards-slash-servants who had followed him in. The guard on the right was a giant rock monster, a head taller than Levi, with cracked skin through which could be seen the angry red glow of magma. Under one arm it carried a metal lockbox the size of a small steamer trunk.
As dramatic as that guard was, no one paid it any mind because the other one was a web of lightning. It was as tall as its companion but whip thin and it juddered like film with one frame in thirty replaced by the image of a green-skinned troll with arms that hung to its knees. The troll, during the milliseconds that it existed, wore a leather kilt around its chest and hips and had a massive scimitar at its waist, the sword easily as long as Calliope.
Levi: Oh look, they've got a Storm Troll. Taylor, Drew, change of plans. I still don't think he'll start anything here in the Desperado but if he does, leave. Don't try to mix in.
Taylor: What?!
Levi: Shush. Don't distract us for the next few minutes.
Rohcom Onstar — Igneous — Level 37 put the lockbox down next to the seat that Aerith was standing in front of. The skyfowl stuck a claw into the opening at the front, twisted, and threw the lid back so that Calliope could see inside to what was, if not a dragon's hoard, then at least a young adult wyrm's. The trunk was more than a cubic meter and it was full to the brim with small gold coins. Presumably the very same coins that Aerith had scammed out of the team last time.
Team Trick Shot had hired ten of the club's bouncers as security for the meet, and these fine folk shifted unhappily when the Igneous and the Storm Troll walked in. The bouncers stood in a pair of arcs to left and right of the poker table; they were of varying races and armed in various ways, but all of them were ugly and big. None so big as the Igneous, however.
"It'll do, I guess," Calliope said with a sniff, ignoring the byplay among the mercenaries. "As long as you don't cheat again."
"I never cheat!" Aerith said, taking his seat. "I am a skyfowl lord. We don't need to cheat against you dirtwalkers."
"What's this about cheatin'?" Levi asked, sitting forward in his seat, arms folded on the table. "You tellin' me that last game wasn't honest?"
"Crooked as an Alabama car salesman," Calliope said. "Featherbrain here ripped us off."
Drew: An Alabama car salesman? Why an Alabama car salesman?
The lanky stoner was twenty feet away at the craps table, cheering on the current shooter and apparently paying no attention to Calliope and Levi. A cloud of ganja hung around him and he had the loose-limbed movements of the very stoned. The combination meant that most of the other players were giving him his space, except for one four-foot humanoid covered in spiky green fur who kept pressing himself against Drew and taking deep snorts of the mage's clothes. At first Drew had pushed him away each time but after a while he gave up and let it happen.
Calliope: Don't distract me!
Drew: Sure, but why Alabama? Aren't car salesmen supposed to be shady everywhere?
Calliope: Would you have preferred I said 'Chinatown street vendor'?
Drew: I dunno, that sounds racist. How much time have you spent in Chinatown, anyway?
Taylor: Focus! Rob's here.
Taylor was sitting in a booth out in the main room. Even with his Body Flicker ability it would take precious time for him to get to the casino if things went south, but being out here let him keep an eye out for any mercenaries Aerith or Rob might be moving into position inside the club.
"Look, birdface," Calliope said. "We both know the deal. You're here because you've got a drop outside the city at two o'clock today and that means you've only got five hours to get the shipment together. You spent a fortune to buy them so it's obviously important. What's it for? Just money, or something else? I bet it's slaves. You look like the kind of guy who would buy slaves. Probably can't get a girl any other way, huh?"
"You're a bit young to be talking about getting girls," said a voice.
Everyone turned to where stood the last member of their little group: Rob, the gangster in the cool leather jacket and shades who looked like he intended to have them all murdered before he went out for a nice dinner at that new French bistro.
"Oh. Hey there," Calliope said, forcing a smile. "There you are. We thought we'd have to start without you."
Rob sauntered in, reversed one of the chairs, and swung a leg over it so that he could fold his arms on the back. "Just so you know, I'm not going to kill you for what you did."
Calliope looked surprised as she was thrown off her script.
"I'm going to kill all your friends instead," Rob said casually. "Plus cut off your hands, feet, and tongue."
Calliope stared at him in horror.
"Damn, dude," Levi said. "That's hard core. Just to be clear, you know I'm not with her, right?"
It was impossible to see exactly where Rob was looking from behind his glasses, but his head never turned away from Calliope. "You sure about that?"
Calliope: You're playing your part, right? You're not really bailing on us?
"Pretty damn sure, ayuh," Levi said, slurping his drink up through a straw.
Levi: Yes, I'm playing my part. I'm an eleventh floor crawler, Calliope; I have forged weapons of incalculable power, called up and put down the spirits of the dead, mocked a god to his face, and leapt into the throat of an Elemental Lord so that I could tear it apart with my rune-carved claws. I'm hardly going to fold up and start whimpering because of some pissant mobster NPC on the third floor.
"So," Rob asked, his voice calm, "it was some other rabbit-eared hippo man who came into the White Forest with them and asked for rooms on the third floor?"
"Manatee," Levi said. "They always guess hippo, but it's manatee. Very different animals. You can tell them apart by the lips. And the shape of the head. And the fact that they have flippers."
"No need for that," Calliope said, her voice a shade desperate. "I've got all your drugs right here, Aerith's got that giant pile of money. You could win your drugs back and get all the gold too. Before this you would only have had the gold, right? You were going to sell him the drugs?"
Rob's head turned very slightly towards Aerith, then back to Calliope. "Yes."
"You aren't seriously going to go along with this," Aerith said. "Just kill them already."
"By the depths," Levi grumbled. "Look, both of you just play the game, yeah? We're heavily protected"—he waved to the twin arcs of hired bouncers—"and you wouldn't want to start trouble in the Desperado even if we weren't. The goons that you left to ambush us at the door of the club aren't going anywhere. We can all have a good time and you can try to kill us or maim us later, so how about a nice game of cards in the meantime? What have you got to lose?"
The corners of Rob's lips twitched slightly in what might have been amusement. "Money," he said, as though speaking to a child. "You two cheat better than anyone I've ever seen."
"What?!" Calliope said. "What are you talking about, cheating? I've never cheated once! I can't help it if you and the bird both suck."
"Be nice, Calliope," Levi said. "Sure, he's a drug-dealing murderer with an overinflated ego, but we can still be polite to one another." He paused. "Or, at the very least, not vulgar."
"No one gets those cards without cheating," Rob said definitively.
"How do you know what our—" Calliope began, only to cut herself off when Levi groaned.
"The fucking dealer," Levi said, realization audibly dawning. "You were working with the dealer."
The corner of Rob's mouth lifted briefly, then slumped flat again. "Lovely woman, Omalra. Very good card mechanic, and she owed me a favor for not cutting her brother's head off."
Aerith folded his wings and looked smug.
"One pro to another, was she slipping or cold decking?" Levi asked.
"Slipping," Rob said. "As long as we're two professionals."
"What's slipping?" Calliope asked. "I remember you said that cold decking was when they secretly swap the deck for a pre-stacked one."
"Slip dealing is when she deals from somewhere other than the top of the deck," Levi said. "Generally the way it works is that as she mucks the cards she notes where the high cards end up and shuffles them to a convenient spot, then deals random stuff to everyone except her collaborator and the good cards to them. 'Good' meaning that it works well with the face-up cards that she's going to flop." He shook his head in admiration. "Damn, I didn't catch a whiff of it. I'm impressed."
"How does that even work?" Calliope asked. "There's all that shuffling and throwing away cards and you usualy don't see any of the players' cards face up."
"It's hard," Levi agreed. "Doesn't mean a good mechanic can't do it. Especially when she's the one in charge of setting up the magical anti-cheating protocols on the room." He chuckled. "The White Forest has always been on the up-and-up."
Rob shrugged one shoulder.
"Make you a deal," Levi said. "Let's not call it gambling, let's call it paying for lessons. The game isn't winning at cards, it's being a better cheater. Betting is actual money or goods, no chips. No ratholing; money stays in sight the whole time. No house dealer, the players pitch the cards. Cheat however you want and as much as you want. If you get caught then you fold for that hand, no refunds. If someone calls you out and can't show that you were cheating then they fold instead. End of the game, each of the losers can either get twenty percent of their money back or the winner will teach them the scams they used." He smiled. "And, obviously, you can always mug us for the balance after we leave."
"That's ridiculous," Aerith said. "Why would I want to play a game I know is rigged? Why shouldn't I simply call the guards on you?"
Calliope shrugged and hooked a thumb towards the drugs, simultaneously conjuring a lit torch from her inventory. "Because you've only got a few hours to get these back and I'll set them on fire if you do anything other than sit down, shut up, and play cards?"
Aerith bristled, his feathers fluffing out in anger, but Rob raised a hand and the skyfowl fell silent.
"All right," Rob said. He raised one hand to catch the eye of a waitress in a low-topped and short-skirted uniform, then gestured to the table in front of himself. She nodded and scurried away to fetch money for him.
Rob looked at the anemic stack of coins in front of Levi, the few thousand that the team had managed to drum up by selling everything they didn't absolutely need. Even though Calliope's liar's skills, class bonus, and high charisma had allowed them to squeeze out some better prices, the money wasn't really enough for a high-stakes game. "Your stake seems a bit thin, manatee man."
"Eh," Levi said. He reached over and shoveled a double handful of the drugs out of Calliope's box and onto the table in front of him. "There. We'll use the house valutions, yeah?"
Rob thought about it for three long seconds, staring Levi down the whole time, then nodded. "Agreed. Shuffle."
"Game on," Levi said, grinning widely. He spread the cards in a perfect arc in front of himself to show that the deck was all different, then scooped them up and did a fancy one-handed shuffle and cut, shuffle and cut, then slapped the cards down in front of Rob, who sat to his right. The mobster cut the cards and passed them back so that Levi could deal.
Rob was a hell of a poker player. He had an absolute stone face, no emotional reactions to anything, and nothing that could even potentially be a tell so far as Calliope could spot. He also had good eyes for cheating and called Levi out twice, once for palming and once for bottom dealing. Both times the manager grinned and threw his cards down, not even trying to protest. Each time, Calliope hadn't spotted what Levi had been doing.
Rob was also a good cheater, either better than Levi or doing it less frequently since Levi only called him out once. Aerith, surprisingly, was an excellent player when he wasn't playing the hotheaded fool as part of a dealer-enabled scam. His avian face was unreadable by either Calliope or Levi, although the feathers around his tufted ears seemed to ruffle unconsciously when he got especially good or bad hands.
Unfortunately for the gangster and the birdman, even when you're cheating it's very hard to beat someone who has a friendly Tir Inqua standing twenty feet away. Calliope wasn't even bothering to be subtle about it. She won six hands in a row with, respectively, four aces, an aces-and-kings full house, a royal straight flush, four aces, four kings, and a royal straight flush. She lost two to what had to be cheating on Rob's part, but neither she nor Levi caught what he had done.
Levi: Calliope, fold your next few hands and let me play. The bird guy is starting to look agitated and I'm afraid he might quit before we suck all that sweet, sweet golden money out of him.
Calliope:
Taylor: Do it, Leo.
Calliope: Yeah, yeah.
It was Aerith's deal. The bird man flicked Calliope's hole cards to her (ace of spades, king of spades), burned a card, and threw the flop: queen and ten of spades, seven of diamonds.
"Fifty," Rob said, pushing a stack forward.
"Raise," Aerith said, pushing in two hundred gold.
"Seems like someone likes their cards," Levi said, grinning. "Call." He matched the bet.
Calliope stared at her cards, right hand (apparently unconsciously) fidgeting with her chips as she thought. "Call," she said at last.
Aerith's head cocked slightly in what might have been avian amusement, interest, irritation, or something else because fuck avian faces and their unreadability. Whatever it was, he burned a card without saying anything and threw the turn: seven of hearts.
Calliope allowed herself to grimace slightly, apparently against her will. She watched in delight as her You Never Fed Me, Honest! skill ticked up to 8.
Levi rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger, a tell that he'd been showing all night. "Two hundred," he said, pushing out the relevant combination of blitz sticks and Angel's Wing packets.
"Fold," Calliope said grumpily. With Drew's luck behind her she would definitely have gotten the missing jack of spades on the river and crushed the others. It had happened before.
"Two fifty," Rob said.
"Three hundred," Aerith said.
Levi hesitated very slightly before saying, "Three fifty."
Rob folded.
"Four hundred," Aerith said, his beak opening.
"Four twenty," Levi said, rubbing his thumb again.
"Four fifty!" the avian said, his voice excited.
Levi shifted in his seat.
"Card switch!" Aerith snapped, pointing.
Levi cursed. "Fine. Your pot." He slid his cards, plus a third one, across the table.
Calliope: What did you have?
Levi: Four sevens, but I want this asshole feeling fat and happy so I switched one of the sevens for a king.
Taylor: How many cards are you holding out right now?
Levi: Three, not counting the one I just dumped. Ace, jack, and ten.
"Red-back clean deck here," Rob said loudly, holding up a hand to catch the eye of a passing waitress.
"You can't just swap the deck out," Levi said. "That wasn't part of the agreement."
Rob shrugged. "You can drop out and we can move to the murdering part, but you're imagining that you'll escape from that. Do you want to escape with only what you've won or do you want the rest of this?" He gestured broadly to the hundreds of thousands of gold that sat in the two boxes next to himself and Aerith, his own having been brought in by Desperado Club staff.
Levi grunted in annoyance. "Fine." His hands dropped below the table for a moment and when they came up they held three of the blue-backed cards that the group had been playing with. Around them, the bouncers all chuckled.
Moose: HOW IS THE CHEATING GOING? IT SOUNDS LIKE MOOSE'S PEOPLES CHEAT WELL!
Levi: It's going great, big guy. I'm up eighty kay and Calliope is up one twenty. That's enough to get us a decent personal space on the next floor and maybe one of the cheap upgrades. I want at least three times this much.
The new deck arrived. Rob spread it, shuffled it, had Calliope cut it, and dealt the next hand.
Levi: Don't forget, Calliope: you need to fold this hand too.
Calliope: But I've got a full house on the flop!
Levi: Calliope.
"Hurry up and bet, little girl," Aerith said, his voice dripping condescension.
Levi: Let me pre-emptively say that he's doing it deliberately in order to get you on tilt. Don't let him get under your skin.
Calliope: But he's such an ass! Plus, full house! Fuck it, Ima beat his ass.
Taylor: Leo, do as Levi says. Keep your cool. Remember, without the money we're much more likely to die on the next floor. We're counting on you.
Calliope: ...Unc, have I ever told you that sometimes you suck?
"Fold," Calliope said, throwing her cards down in irritation.
Taylor: You have, yes. Now fold!
Calliope: I DID! Stop nagging at me!
Taylor: Sorry! I'm out here, I couldn't see.
Calliope: Whatever.
Taylor: If it's any comfort, it sounds like the best way to hurt this feathered asshole is to take *all* his money away from him, not just one hand's worth. If you scare him off he'll still have most of it but if you play the long game then we can leave him poor and ashamed of being beaten by a bunch of 'dirtwalkers'.
Calliope: Yeah, yeah.
They played for another hour. At first, both Levi and Calliope folded hands they could have won, simply to leave the other two thinking they had a chance and prevent them from giving up. As time went on that stopped being an option. Both Rob and Aerith had apparently figured out some trick that neither of the others could spot because they were winning consistently. The drugs and gold started flowing steadily in only one direction: away from Team Trick Shot.
Team Trick Shot fought back with everything they had. Drew's luck fed them excellent cards, Calliope leaned hard on her You Never Fed Me, Honest! skill to improve her bluffs, and Levi stopped making his cheating obvious. He dealt seconds and bottoms, palmed cards, used false shuffles and false cuts, passed cards to Calliope under the table, and pulled out every other trick that a gambler with hundreds of years experience and no regard for honesty could get away with. Rob caught him out a handful of times and Aerith once, but mostly his moves slipped past.
Altogether, it was just enough. Money and goods stopped geysering away from the team and started flowing towards them again. The money they had lost came back and brought friends with it. More and more friends started arriving and soon it became a metaphorical party. Metaphorically, beer and pretzels were replaced with champagne and canapés, then with hookers and blow. Metaphorical noise complaints were filed and when the police showed up they were dragged into the party and up onto the tables to dance with lovely and scantily-clad partygoers of questionable morals.
"Fuck!" Aerith said, throwing down his latest hand. The box of gold next to him was down from eight hundred thousand coins to a few tens of thousands. Rob's stake had gone from an initial three hundred thousand to nothing, been replaced by the Desperado, and was now down by more than half.
Calliope had needed to pull boxes from her inventory so that she and Levi could have somewhere to put all their winnings; had they tried to keep it literally on the table they wouldn't have been able to see over the stacks.
"Whatsamatter, bird breath?" Levi said, champing on his cigar and grinning like a cat with feathers on its face. "Can't keep up with the poor little dirtwalkers?"
"Do you have any idea the problems your actions could cause?" Aerith snarled. "If I don't deliver those drugs—" He cut himself off midsentence.
Levi took his cigar out of his mouth so that he could offer a long, exaggerated yawn. "Yeah, yeah," he said, rolling his eyestalks. "Every two-bit narcissist tries that routine. 'Oh, I'm so big and important and my plans should matter to you! Oh, wah! You cheated me out of all my money because I'm too stupid to know when I'm playing somebody way better than me!'" He took a drag on the cigar and blew a plume of smoke across the table and into Aerith's face. "Got news for you, cutie pie: you're just not that important."
"Hang on," Calliope said. "Maybe we should actually hear this. What exactly might happen if you don't deliver the drugs?"
Calliope: Remember, Levi, the quest was to 'find out why he did it and how the drugs tie in'.
"You don't need to know," Aerith said, his tone once more assured. "All that matters is that you will die unless you give me the drugs back."
Levi thought about that for a moment, puffing on his cigar. "Nahhhhhhh," he said, dragging the word out. "I think I'd rather keep 'em. Mostly because I'm wondering if your adorable little head will explode when I blow you off."
"When he rises, I shall ensure that he consumes you first!"
"Ooh," Calliope said, leaning forward. "That sounds important. Granted, whoever 'he' is, I doubt he's going to give a damn about what you say. He'll probably consume you first."
"I am Third Priest of the Great Lord Belphegor! I—"
"Toldja," Levi said, turning away from Aerith and towards Calliope. "Third priest. Not that important."
"I am the one who supplies the means to keep Him contained! It is only through my efforts that this world survives! Without me to find the sacrifices and the sacraments—"
Quest Update! Sneaky Hands Says What?, part 1 is complete!
Aerith is a procurer of drugs and slave sacrifices for a cult that works to keep the Demon Lord Belphegor trapped in slumber. You hold the drugs and without them old Belfie will arise and consume everything in his dirty-fingered reach.
You have received a Silver Quest Box!
New Quest! Sneaky Hands Says What? part 2!
I'm tempted to make this simple and say that you have to give the drugs and the slaves to the cultists, but you'd probably turn that down like the big babies you are and I think it would be more fun to make you squirm. Let's see...I know!
All you have to do in order to successfully complete this quest is stay within three miles of your current location for the next 72 hours. That will be a lot safer if you give the drugs and the slaves to the cultists so they can keep the Mighty Belphegor sedated. Hint, hint.
Reward: You will receive that Gold Quest Box that I mentioned before
Calliope yawned, deliberately covering her mouth too late. "Yeah, I'm done here. Levi, let's roll." She stood up and started shoveling handfuls of coins out of the box and into her inventory, trying to get the box light enough that she could lift it.
Calliope: You all saw the quest update, right? We're on our way out.
Rob's minions, the Igneous and the Storm Troll, shifted their weight. The bouncers that Team Trick Shot had hired closed ranks.
"Not here," Rob said, raising a hand to stop his subordinates. "We'll wait until they're outside."
Taylor: Understood. I'm moving to the door.
Drew: I'm sticking close on Calliope and Levi. If these guys look funny I'll zap 'em.
Levi: Try not to. We really don't want to be banned from the Desperado for killing someone.
Moose: MOOSE IS OUTSIDE THE CLUB ON THE ROOF LIKE HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE! THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLES OUT HERE! MOOSE CAN SEE TEN PEOPLES WHO HAVE BEEN HANGING AROUND AND LOOKING SHIFTY EVER SINCE LEATHER-COAT GANGSTER GUY ARRIVED! MOOSE THINKS THEY ARE BAD GUYS!
Taylor: Sounds right. Any city guards in sight?
Moose: NO! MOOSE HAS NOT SEEN A CLOMPY-STOMPY GUARD GUY IN OVER AN HOUR, WHICH IS WEIRD! RIGHT? THAT'S WEIRD?
Levi: Yes, that's weird. Shit. Rob's guys must be drawing them all off.
Moose: MOOSE WILL GO FIND A GUARD AND BRING IT HERE!
Levi: Hang on. They aren't the chatty types and they don't respond to requests. The only way to bring one here would be to draw its aggro, which will bring all the guards and you'd need to leave the city or they'll hunt you down.
Moose: MOOSE IS NOT AFRAID! MOOSE IS BIG STRONG DOGGY WHO FLIES FAST! GUARDS ARE SLOW AND GROUND-BOUND!
Levi: They're guards in a skyfowl settlement. They'll have a way to deal with fliers. I don't know what, but there will be something. If you draw aggro they'll hunt you until they kill you or you leave the city, and they'll keep aggro against you permanently. Before you go doing anything exciting, where are those ten guys placed? The ones you called out as shifty?
Moose: TWO ON EACH SIDE OF THE CLUB'S DOOR, LEANING ON THE WALL AND TRYING TO LOOK CASUAL. ONE DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET. ONE ACROSS AND DOWN HALF A BLOCK TO THE RIGHT. ONE ACROSS AND DOWN HALF A BLOCK TO THE LEFT. THE REST ARE ON THE ROOF ACROSS THE STREET FROM MOOSE AND ON ADJACENT BUILDINGS. THE ONE ACROSS THE STREET HAS BEEN LOOKING AT MOOSE FOR A WHILE NOW. MOOSE HAS DECIDED THAT IF THAT GUY PULLS ONE OF THOSE ZAPPY THINGS THEN MOOSE IS GOING TO FLY OVER THERE AND STOMP STOMP STOMP ON HIS POINTY LITTLE HEAD!
Levi: Wow. That's a pretty tight net. Heavy presence at ground level, plus plenty of guys in elevated positions. Walking out right now sounds like death.
Drew: Moose, you missed a couple. Look to your left and right, on the buildings adjacent to the Derado. The one to your left is hiding behind that gargoyle but I saw him stick his head out. The other one is in the fifth-floor window, third from the right.
Back during the planning phase for this little venture, Levi had remembered something that everyone had been too busy to recall: among the long, flashy, attention-grabbing list of benefits for Drew's Wizard Supremacist class was one less dramatic item: VIP membership in the Dungeon Book of the Floor club. Every saferoom had a mailbox and, once per floor, members of the club would receive a spellbook in the mail, or two books for VIP members. The team had dutifully trouped down to the nearest saferoom to see what new options might show up; feelings had been mixed.
Spell: Geyser Cost: 4 MP Range: 10m + 1m/level AOE: column with diameter 10cm per spell level and height 5 meters + 1 meter per spell level Duration: 1 min/level
A geyser of water bursts up from the ground. The force of the geyster varies based on the level. At level 5 it is strong enough to launch something the size of a Rottweiler into the air. By default the water has a temperature of 15C, but this can be altered by +/- 1C / spell level. The water keeps flowing for the entire duration. This is a creation effect and the water remains after the spell expires.
You create a glyph on an object or being that you are touching. You can see through the eyes of whomever is marked with the glyph (if it was put on a being), or is carrying the marked object outside of inventory (if it was put on an object). The glyph is 2 centimeters in diameter and clearly magical. It fades when the spell runs out. There is no limit on how far the glyph may be from the caster.
The caster may switch freely between seeing through their own eyes or through the eyes of the being with the glyph. It requires three seconds to make the change.
Drew's Wizard Supremacist class gave him +2 to all his spells, meaning that he had both of these at level 3. Before everyone walked into the club, he had placed the Eye Spy glyph on Moose's chanfron and had been 'keeping an eye, har har' (as he constantly put it) on the area around the club as a supplement to Moose's own surveillance. The glyph had worn off hours ago, but apparently it had paid off.
Calliope: If the guards aren't passing by then Plan A is out. Sounds like the bad guys are too widely placed for Plan B—Uncle Drew doesn't have enough smoke to cover the entire block. What's our play?
Voting is open!
Write in plan. It will trump the results of the following votes provided that it gets at least 5 votes. The following items will be used to cover anything that isn't addressed via a write-in plan.
[][Escape] Have Moose go fetch a guard so that we can leave the club without being attacked, then Moose flees the city
[][Escape] Mobsters? More like XP dumplings! Leave the club and kill 'em all!
[][Escape] Run and gun. Kill anything in our way as we escape the club but keep moving
[][Escape] Write in
[][Quest] Fuck this, get out of town before the Demon Lord wakes up. Sure, it loses the quest but better than dying
[][Quest] Stick around town for now. Go to the drug meet in the ruins
[][Quest] Write in
Putting the explainer below the options because otherwise people sometimes fail to notice that there is a vote:
You've got 1.25 million gold and about 300k worth of various drugs, although the Desperado's on-staff drug dealer said he won't buy more than 25k from you because he can't move that much product. You've got 10 bouncers watching your back as long as you're in the club, but you're on your own as soon as you step outside. Your opposition includes:
Aerith, level 51 Skyfowl Procurer
Rob, level 34 gangster
Rob's two bodyguards, a level 37 Igneous and a level 41 Storm Troll. Levi is very alarmed about the troll; he says they are wickedly fast, heavy damage, and can throw their lightning form across moderate distances
10 of Rob's goons who await you outside. They range from level 10 to level 13, putting them moderately below the team's level 15
More...??
Things that are currently on the hob and it would be smart to address in any write-in plans:
Escape from the Desperado without being murdered
What to do about the 'Sneaky Hands Says What?' quest. You can leave the city and run for it before 'Demon Lord Belphegor' wakes up, or you can stick around. Leaving will cost you the Gold box but is much safer
Decide whether or not to go to the drug sale meetup in the ruins two hours from now. It is within your allowed radius so going to it will not fail the SHSW quest
Voting ends no earlier than
or when there have been no votes for 24 hours.
So, if the drugs are hard to sell, and critical to keeping the demon lord contained, and hanging onto them will definitely make people more motivated to kill the party, and the cash is already in hand...maybe just hand the drugs over?
Edit: Or trade them for a concession like calling off the goons.
Lets talk to Aerith.
He may not like us, but he has reason to be desperate.
Leo can lie that his only option is: He helps us with our Rob problem and takes Rob and his goons as new slaves for the sacrifice. Then we give him the drugs for the sacrifice.
Would lighting drugs and airbending smokeform-ing them into rob count as attack for the sake of Club desperado rules?
cant we just offer to buy bronze boxes from crawlers we meet? With the amount of money we have and the contents of the average common bronze box not being so great as the loot you can buy from the clubs and such, maybe the offering a generous amount of money, like 2k-3k? no idea how much, really, but would get us some boxes without having to try and give greater lootboxes, or loot, back
We might need Levi's help on this point as well, and hope he knows at which point Borant start paying too close attention to us, our Rollup, and the expenditure of money it creates for them.
Actually, my guess is that it typically does not cost Borant any extra money when we use our rollup ability unless the result is something that can not be replicated by the dungeon, itself. For example, in canon, Carl gets an upgrade which allows him to see portals and it is an item not normally used inside the dungeon. Any normal dungeon items are probably just part of the simulation and it makes no difference to Borant.
Actually, my guess is that it typically does not cost Borant any extra money when we use our rollup ability unless the result is something that can not be replicated by the dungeon,
Even if most boxes don't cost Borant anything (or anything significant), it's pretty clear that the endgame is to roll up extra Celestial boxes, which definitely do. I would expect Borant to act.
Actually, my guess is that it typically does not cost Borant any extra money when we use our rollup ability unless the result is something that can not be replicated by the dungeon, itself
Even if most boxes don't cost Borant anything (or anything significant), it's pretty clear that the endgame is to roll up extra Celestial boxes, which definitely do. I would expect Borant to act.
One of the rules of every crawl is that the host company (this season, Borant) pays a price for every high-end box given out.
Boxes up to Legendary don't cost Borant anything. Legendary boxes do cost a little bit but not enough to matter, generally. Celestial boxes... That's another story. Those get spendy fast. Still, as Levi is happy to tell you, the audience loves a good high-tier unboxing so Borant is unlikely to bother you before you start rolling up large numbers of Legendary boxes, and maybe not even then. Once you're able to create Celestial boxes... Well worry about that when it happens.
Rollup only affects dungeon loot boxes, not fan or Benefactor boxes. As such, it's never going to produce anything that couldn't be obtained from a dungeon box.
I suppose we could convince the bird to take on mobsterguy and his foolish fools.
The bird is probably getting desperate and if we say that it can use the mobstermon to sacrifice to the demonboi then maybe we have a chance of winning.
Here's the thing if we take risks the better chance we'll be in for getting good loot for things, we can't always run away from the risks. Also, I suppose we can make this a Gondor calls for aid situation if we can ask some other crawlers that's also probably in this settlement for help with dealing with the mob of mobs right outside, although that might end up in some betrayal depending entirely on how asshole-ish the nearby crawler pop is.
