Bell mutters to herself more than to the table, "This would be a lot easier if we could all turn invisible. Or be like druids and shapeshift into bugs."
She goes back to staring at the map and trying to come up with any useful suggestions.
"Sadly, we seem short on additional allies," Bell remarked with a grim smile.
"So, we go in - perhaps withLittle Onebeing 'the big gambler'? I mean, would they suspect an ogre to be as smart and wise as our Little One? 'We' are his entourage.
Some time in the first hour or so, one of us makes a distraction so the others can pocketpick a security person for their passcard. They then have to sneak past ALL the security areas and get to the cash vault. Erudisiaempties the entire place into her patron's special home - and - we walk out withLittle One's winnings
We leave and meet back at some spot -- obviously not here or the book stall - where we can divvy up the goods with Verity, the Amberdune - thereby avenging Verity and helping the Amberdune save their patroness. And we - we can go back to Candlekeep.
”Well, if we are to be Little One’s entourage, and he a fierce gambler, we’ll need new clothes. Something to suggest we are women of easy association and singularly mercenary interest. I’m thinking single colours: scarlet, plum, midnight blue. And plunging necklines.” She nods her head at Bell, and a mischievous grin begins to grow. “I will let you lead here, I fear a plunging neckline would be wasted on me.”
"Sadly, we seem short on additional allies," Bell remarked with a grim smile.
"So, we go in - perhaps withLittle Onebeing 'the big gambler'? I mean, would they suspect an ogre to be as smart and wise as our Little One? 'We' are his entourage.
Some time in the first hour or so, one of us makes a distraction so the others can pocketpick a security person for their passcard. They then have to sneak past ALL the security areas and get to the cash vault. Erudisiaempties the entire place into her patron's special home - and - we walk out withLittle One's winnings
We leave and meet back at some spot -- obviously not here or the book stall - where we can divvy up the goods with Verity, the Amberdune - thereby avenging Verity and helping the Amberdune save their patroness. And we - we can go back to Candlekeep.
Little One, who from your seated vantage point, looks like a wall of ogre belly, his head, foreshortened, floating somewhere in the darkness above you, rumbles assent.
”I think is good plan. I recently reading about mathematical principle of chance. Will experiment.”
Marliza also nods in agreement, her eyes flitting over the map intensely, trying to memorize it perhaps. She responds to Erudisia’s sartorial musings. “I know a dress maker and seller in The Wide, inexpensive but good. And she can keep her mouth shut. She owes me favors.”
”Well, if we are to be Little One’s entourage, and he a fierce gambler, we’ll need new clothes. Something to suggest we are women of easy association and singularly mercenary interest. I’m thinking single colours: scarlet, plum, midnight blue. And plunging necklines.” She nods her head at Bell, and a mischievous grin begins to grow. “I will let you lead here, I fear a plunging neckline would be wasted on me.”
References to Bell and plunging....well anything..... have taken Meredith offline for a moment and she finds herself nodding along as Erudisia and Little One speak but not really taking much in....
(Erudisia dibs plum, maybe Bell blue and Meredith scarlet? I think Little One’s could do a deep green suit and fedora, or else a nice cream linen suit, old school Mafiosa, with braces.)
You’ve made your plan. Marliza leads you a few blocks away through the fog to a warehouse. A secret knock, a whispered conversation, and you are soon sorting through freshly opened shipments of imported fashions. As you change into your costume for the night’s mission, Verity sends for a carriage. It picks you up, trundles you to The Blade and Stars to collect anything you might need from your rooms, and then continues, into the Upper City – for the driver shows a token provided by Verity – then through the Black Gate and the Outer City and onto the Coast Way, northwest. Within the carriage, you gently rock and bob up a gentle incline away from the Chionthar River. But after only two miles, a sign in the road, lit by a magical blue flame, points to the Afterlife Casino Inn, and the coach turns, bearing southwest, onto a tree-lined road. Another mile or so and you arrive at the inn, which rises sharply on the bank of a stream that wends, black under the stars, further southwest toward low hills facing the Chionthar estuary.
In the carriage circle facing the inn, lit hellishly by a large central brazier and surrounding lampposts, you step out of the carriage, helped down by immaculately uniformed human valets wearing red coats and vests and red masks with long, crooked noses and sharp eyebrows, to the short path to the Casino boat landing at the edge of the stream. (Kindly tell us what you are wearing and what is on your mind.)
(I imagine your slow-mo emergence from the carriage and promenade to the landing accompanied by this music: https://youtu.be/cwLRQn61oUY)
Meredith descended from the carriage first holding at the bottom and raising a hand to assist the others out.....and Little One would always need to be the last to emerge.....
She was wearing a floor length low backed poppy red cami dress with a high left split and had oiled and slicked her hair back and was wearing large hanging dress-gold earrings resembling stylised orchids.....well, stylized something....it was probably an orchid..... her low heeled black strappy sandals were possibly not dressy enough but she had never mastered walking in higher heeled shoes.
She beamed a smile out across anyone who was looking and ushered the next person out...
Erudisia emerges second, she steps down, taking in the masked attendants and the bobbing boat.
She smiles broadly. In her silky plum dress, with arm length plum gloves, and a long silvery cigarette holder, she pats at her hair. A silver fascinator remains secure in an elegantly coifed braided bun. A deep cut, almost to her hip, runs up the left side of her dress, showing a daring amount of leg. Every step, appropriately, a gamble on a single small pin that prevents the rushed fitting from revealing more than intended.
The nine hells. Demonic figures. She knows a Warlock’s pact when she sees it, thinks Erudisia.
(Erudisia and Meredith with the split. Will Bell complete the trio?)
There is a long moment of waiting before Bell begins her carriage exit. No one would equate the wheat blonde, glasses wearing bookworm with the creature emerging from this carriage chrysalis.
Hair done in a long braid down her back -- a bit of feminine magic at it's finest. She steps down to reveal a crystal blue, off-the-shoulder dress made out of a material that could be mistaken for ice. Right knee-high slit, because she supports her sisters in leg-hood. A crystalline boudice (fashion magic!) capped off with translucent, powder blue sleeves. Complimenting her attire, she wears faux ice kitten heels and a long, translucent floor-sweeping cape which floats behind her with each subtle movement.
Stepping down, you may note she is NOT wearing her glasses and that opens up her face for further inspection. (if one desired)
Feeling confident at NOT going head over teakettle while exiting, Bell beams at her two friends.
Marliza follows Bell, wearing a mustard yellow long-sleeved mini with frayed cuffs that extend to her finger tips. The veil is gone and her golden brown complexion and amber eyes are framed by large hoop earrings while her braids have transformed into thick black pompoms echoed by outrageous platform combat boots. Her expression is pouting and dangerous and she glares threateningly at the attendant who offers his arm.
When Little One finally appears at the door, the carriage tips precariously, then spasms the opposite direction, springs groaning, when he steps off it, dressed in a forest green, pointy-shouldered, double-breasted suit jacket over his cotton tunic, and a black fedora raked like a jazz star on the stubbled rock of his head, over a dew rag that conceals his circlet completely. He found a length of straw in his shirt when he was changing clothes, and continues to slowly chew on it, lending a frighteningly distracting uncouthness to his already overwhelming size.
Marliza takes hold of his arm, and the pair proceed together behind you down the path to the landing.
Erudisia grins to see Little One looking so well put together. When no masked attendants are watching she flicks her middle finger at him with a beaming smile.
You arrive at the little dock. A tiefling in a heavy cloak with a placard hanging from his neck embossed in gold with the word Chiron offers you a steadying hand so you can step onto the little ferry, an ornate gondola with a demon figurehead in front and a cherub behind. The tiefling grunts with effort when pushing off, and the vessel floats low in the water under the assault of Little One’s bulk. But the light current begins to pull the boat and its occupants forward toward a nearby hillside into which the stream disappears. You pass a post with a sign atop it, a match for the Tiefling’s placard, on which the words The River Styx are embossed.
“I do not know what kind of animals are kept for the circus. But I do know that the casino is always open, as you assumed.
“And,” Verity adds, “for those gamblers who need sleep, there is an inn on the stream’s bank, outside the cavern holding the casino.”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Bell mutters to herself more than to the table, "This would be a lot easier if we could all turn invisible. Or be like druids and shapeshift into bugs."
She goes back to staring at the map and trying to come up with any useful suggestions.
" If we knew a friendly druid we could just burrow down into the vault.....and avoid the casino completely."
"Sadly, we seem short on additional allies," Bell remarked with a grim smile.
"So, we go in - perhaps with Little One being 'the big gambler'?
I mean, would they suspect an ogre to be as smart and wise as our Little One? 'We' are his entourage.
Some time in the first hour or so, one of us makes a distraction so the others can pocketpick a security person for their passcard. They then have to sneak past ALL the security areas and get to the cash vault. Erudisia empties the entire place into her patron's special home - and - we walk out with Little One's winnings
We leave and meet back at some spot -- obviously not here or the book stall - where we can divvy up the goods with Verity, the Amberdune - thereby avenging Verity and helping the Amberdune save their patroness. And we - we can go back to Candlekeep.
Does that pretty much cover it?"
Erudisia takes a deep breath in, stills her nerves, steels her mettle. She exhales.
“Yes. That covers it.”
Meredith nodded eagerly, " Thats so smart, Bell! I had no idea you were a criminal mastermind!"
" So we need some party clothes?"
“Likewise,” says Erudisia to Bell.
”Well, if we are to be Little One’s entourage, and he a fierce gambler, we’ll need new clothes. Something to suggest we are women of easy association and singularly mercenary interest. I’m thinking single colours: scarlet, plum, midnight blue. And plunging necklines.” She nods her head at Bell, and a mischievous grin begins to grow. “I will let you lead here, I fear a plunging neckline would be wasted on me.”
(Cue hi-hat and walking bass line.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Little One, who from your seated vantage point, looks like a wall of ogre belly, his head, foreshortened, floating somewhere in the darkness above you, rumbles assent.
”I think is good plan. I recently reading about mathematical principle of chance. Will experiment.”
Marliza also nods in agreement, her eyes flitting over the map intensely, trying to memorize it perhaps. She responds to Erudisia’s sartorial musings. “I know a dress maker and seller in The Wide, inexpensive but good. And she can keep her mouth shut. She owes me favors.”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
References to Bell and plunging....well anything..... have taken Meredith offline for a moment and she finds herself nodding along as Erudisia and Little One speak but not really taking much in....
(Erudisia dibs plum, maybe Bell blue and Meredith scarlet? I think Little One’s could do a deep green suit and fedora, or else a nice cream linen suit, old school Mafiosa, with braces.)
(only if Meredith gets to have a dress with a slit that goes from the ground up to the point of her hip. Glam that leg!)
(It doesn't always have to be cleavage. Though a super deep cut vee can leave men sweating just as much as a well packed 'tract of land')
Chapter 4: Casino Royale
You’ve made your plan. Marliza leads you a few blocks away through the fog to a warehouse. A secret knock, a whispered conversation, and you are soon sorting through freshly opened shipments of imported fashions. As you change into your costume for the night’s mission, Verity sends for a carriage. It picks you up, trundles you to The Blade and Stars to collect anything you might need from your rooms, and then continues, into the Upper City – for the driver shows a token provided by Verity – then through the Black Gate and the Outer City and onto the Coast Way, northwest. Within the carriage, you gently rock and bob up a gentle incline away from the Chionthar River. But after only two miles, a sign in the road, lit by a magical blue flame, points to the Afterlife Casino Inn, and the coach turns, bearing southwest, onto a tree-lined road. Another mile or so and you arrive at the inn, which rises sharply on the bank of a stream that wends, black under the stars, further southwest toward low hills facing the Chionthar estuary.
In the carriage circle facing the inn, lit hellishly by a large central brazier and surrounding lampposts, you step out of the carriage, helped down by immaculately uniformed human valets wearing red coats and vests and red masks with long, crooked noses and sharp eyebrows, to the short path to the Casino boat landing at the edge of the stream. (Kindly tell us what you are wearing and what is on your mind.)
(I imagine your slow-mo emergence from the carriage and promenade to the landing accompanied by this music: https://youtu.be/cwLRQn61oUY)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith descended from the carriage first holding at the bottom and raising a hand to assist the others out.....and Little One would always need to be the last to emerge.....
She was wearing a floor length low backed poppy red cami dress with a high left split and had oiled and slicked her hair back and was wearing large hanging dress-gold earrings resembling stylised orchids.....well, stylized something....it was probably an orchid..... her low heeled black strappy sandals were possibly not dressy enough but she had never mastered walking in higher heeled shoes.
She beamed a smile out across anyone who was looking and ushered the next person out...
(I’d never seen the video before. Quite a story.)
Erudisia emerges second, she steps down, taking in the masked attendants and the bobbing boat.
She smiles broadly. In her silky plum dress, with arm length plum gloves, and a long silvery cigarette holder, she pats at her hair. A silver fascinator remains secure in an elegantly coifed braided bun. A deep cut, almost to her hip, runs up the left side of her dress, showing a daring amount of leg. Every step, appropriately, a gamble on a single small pin that prevents the rushed fitting from revealing more than intended.
The nine hells. Demonic figures. She knows a Warlock’s pact when she sees it, thinks Erudisia.
(Erudisia and Meredith with the split. Will Bell complete the trio?)
There is a long moment of waiting before Bell begins her carriage exit. No one would equate the wheat blonde, glasses wearing bookworm with the creature emerging from this carriage chrysalis.
Hair done in a long braid down her back -- a bit of feminine magic at it's finest. She steps down to reveal a crystal blue, off-the-shoulder dress made out of a material that could be mistaken for ice. Right knee-high slit, because she supports her sisters in leg-hood. A crystalline boudice (fashion magic!) capped off with translucent, powder blue sleeves. Complimenting her attire, she wears faux ice kitten heels and a long, translucent floor-sweeping cape which floats behind her with each subtle movement.
Stepping down, you may note she is NOT wearing her glasses and that opens up her face for further inspection. (if one desired)
Feeling confident at NOT going head over teakettle while exiting, Bell beams at her two friends.
Meredith bites her lip ever so slightly and waits for Little One to exit.
Marliza follows Bell, wearing a mustard yellow long-sleeved mini with frayed cuffs that extend to her finger tips. The veil is gone and her golden brown complexion and amber eyes are framed by large hoop earrings while her braids have transformed into thick black pompoms echoed by outrageous platform combat boots. Her expression is pouting and dangerous and she glares threateningly at the attendant who offers his arm.
When Little One finally appears at the door, the carriage tips precariously, then spasms the opposite direction, springs groaning, when he steps off it, dressed in a forest green, pointy-shouldered, double-breasted suit jacket over his cotton tunic, and a black fedora raked like a jazz star on the stubbled rock of his head, over a dew rag that conceals his circlet completely. He found a length of straw in his shirt when he was changing clothes, and continues to slowly chew on it, lending a frighteningly distracting uncouthness to his already overwhelming size.
Marliza takes hold of his arm, and the pair proceed together behind you down the path to the landing.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia grins to see Little One looking so well put together. When no masked attendants are watching she flicks her middle finger at him with a beaming smile.
You arrive at the little dock. A tiefling in a heavy cloak with a placard hanging from his neck embossed in gold with the word Chiron offers you a steadying hand so you can step onto the little ferry, an ornate gondola with a demon figurehead in front and a cherub behind. The tiefling grunts with effort when pushing off, and the vessel floats low in the water under the assault of Little One’s bulk. But the light current begins to pull the boat and its occupants forward toward a nearby hillside into which the stream disappears. You pass a post with a sign atop it, a match for the Tiefling’s placard, on which the words The River Styx are embossed.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer