Raven frowns after the kids with the packages.  "We best look into that when we are done here." She tells the others as she continues on towards the casino.

You enter the Boozy Badger.  Its colored lights and hanging chimes might have seemed festive when the place was full, but they look oddly forlorn in an almost empty building.  The spacious rooms, empty of crowds, feel as bare and hollow as an empty warehouse.  Just beside the entrance is a well-stocked bar, its counter and the shelves behind it curved to fit the undulating shape of the wall.  A gnome bartender sits on the counter gloomily whittling, but seeing you enter, her eyes widen, and she jumps down, quickly wiping wood shavings off the bar.

"Welcome to the Boozy Badger!" she says. "Would you like to order a drink before you play? You'll notice that many of our tables are unmanned at the moment, but we will gladly open any game for you that you like.  Croupiers are standing by, eager for a chance to let you test your luck!"

Actually, croupiers seem to be sleeping by...the few other employees you see, gnomes in black and white tunics, wearing hats made to look like badger's heads, are dozing at the tables. 

Mindartis seems confused, looking around at everything, not really wanting to speak up at any point. Right now he felt uncomfortable with... well everything that was going on with where they were and let's Del speak for everyone.

Del is not a gambler, but will get a small amount of nice whisky or rum or whatever. He'll let the gamblers talk if there are any - better chance of connecting? If no one wants to do the 007-at-the-tables mode of inquiry he'll just talk to the bartender - first taking a look - does she happen to be wearing mouse rings?

There are no gamblers in the building at the moment.  The bartender is wearing a ring, earrings and a necklace, but none of them look like like Tagec's mouse rings. What does Del say to her?

Quentin messages the group, “I’ll do some gambling so we’re not suspicious.” Before turning and asking, “What game would you recommend for a novice like me?” 

The bartender smiles at Quentin and says, "Well, Digger's Dice is a pretty simple game.  The players take turns rolling dice, trying to get as close as possible to thirty.  You can opt to stand on your total at any time. The one who gets the closest to thirty without going over wins the pot. Ties stay in the pot till the next round.  We also have Ka-ching, a game of skill where you drop a coin in the top of a maze and turn levers to try to direct the coin to roll into a particular slot.  There is a roulette wheel, perfectly simple. You bet on a number, odds or evens, or Devil's Luck, and win according to the odds. Of course, that's a lot more fun and has a bigger payoff when there are a lot of patrons. And downstairs there is a bowling alley you can rent for your own competetive games, and a snail racetrack. Races normally run on a schedule, but since nobody else has been interested all day, the snails could probably do with some exercise."

“What game has the biggest payout with the least amount of players?” Quentin asks 

"Ka-ching is designed to be for single players, and it pays off five to one if you win.  The snail races could pay off well, depending on if you got lucky betting on a long shot. I think Slimy Steve has odds of twenty to one.  But of course...long shots are long shots."

Raven looks around while her companions distract, or talk to, the staff.

Raven sees that the casino is still meticulously clean, though it could probably use a bit of fresh paint and other maintenance.  Away from the largest, most visible room in the front, some of the tables are covered in white sheets.  The skeleton crew that remains passes their time with different activities.  Some listlessly sweep and dust the already clean casino...some read or nap. One practices juggling dice.  Three tough-looking gnomes armed with clubs hang around chatting in gnomish outside a door with signs in several languages saying No Admittance. A pair of mastiffs sleep under the table where they sit. There are also some privies, and a  broom closet.

There is a winding stair along the wall of the main room leading up, with a brightly polished gilded banister, but it is chained off with a 'closed' sign, and the upstairs looks dark and deserted. 

One of the back rooms has another winding staircase, twisting down.  At the bottom, you find some very large burrows. One room is covered with highly-polished wood floors, divided into six lanes for ninepins. A young gnome is practicing by himself.  He wears the same black and white tunic as the other employees.  On the wall hang portraits of the local champion bowlers. It looks like a green-haired gnome named Alfloo Fleegle has been the champ for six years running. At the back of the room is a locked door. Returning to the stairs and heading in the other direction, the burrow opens into a huge cavern, one side covered with tiered seats, empty except for one snoring gnome.  The other side is covered by an odd track.  It makes a huge loop, winding across the floor and around stalagmites, zig-zagging up the wall over various ledges, even going completely vertical at times.

Walking through the enormous cavern toward strange chirping noises, you can see an opening at the other end.  Looking in, you see another large room.  A wide aisle leads through it, scattered with wisps of straw.  At the end of the aisle, beside a large stack of straw, is a small door, barely over four feet high.  To either side of the aisle, the room is walled off into stalls, most of them occupied.  The large, wolf-sized snails shimmer in various iridescent colors as the munch mushrooms and vegetables.  Strange little saddles and bridles hang on the wall. The snails are tended by six small frog people.  When the frog creatures notice you, the chirping noises become louder and more excited, and the frog people hurry toward you.  You don't understand their language, but the way they hold their pitchforks and shovels hints that you are not authorized to be in this area.

“Let’s do Ka-Ching.” Quentin replies with a smile. 

The bartender shows Quentin to a row of upright wooden devices.  You look through a vertical glass panel and see a maze of sloping wooden ramps and carved wooden figures. Below the display is a counter with a couple of levers.  "You push the lever forward or back to tilt ramps up or down," she says, demonstrating.  As she pushes and pulls one of the levers, several sections of the maze tilt one way, then the other, opening gaps in the maze and changing the paths.  The second lever operates a different group of ramps.  Each of the ten machines has a different theme and a completely different maze setup...one maze incorporates exotic painted animals, and the words "Jungle Escape!' are painted across the console.  There is a pirate-themed Ka-Ching called Red Sails, one with insects called Bug Hunt, one painted in black called simply UNDERDARK, one called Joust, where half the ramps were the lances of mounted knights, a flowery one called Gnome's Garden, one creepy one called Vampire's Castle, one full of little dwarves and rock gnomes called Gold Mine, one full of carved dragons called Wurmsden, and one called Attack of the Saber Bunnies, featuring a lot of adorable rabbits with deadly weapons.

"It works like this," the bartender tells you, dropping a slug into the slot at the top of jungle Escape.  The coin sits on a flat spot until she pushes one of the levers, causing the wooden slat to tilt, sending the coin rolling down the slope to drop onto a giraffe's head.  The second lever made the giraffe's head tilt back, sending the coin rolling down its neck, until another push of the lever tilted the giraffe's tail up just in time to send the coin rolling up onto a branch, where another lever pull made a monkey swing around on its branch and knock the coin into a griffon's nest.  Eventually, the coin made its way to a hole in the center of the bottom, and a bell rang...followed by a rude noise and the slug being forcefully expelled from the machine.

"If you put a real coin in, of course, you'll get five of the same coin if you succeed," the gnome says, retrieving the slug. "It's all about timing, and momentum, and figuring out the right path.  Good luck!"

(To play Ka-Ching, choose a machine, and make 3 Sleight of Hand rolls and two Perception rolls. ^^  All must be over 12, and at least one must be over 15 to win.)

Quentin heads over to Wurmsden and plays, as he does he asks, "So business here hasn't been that great?" 

Sleight of Hand 1: 12
Sleight of Hand 2: 20
Sleight of Hand 3: 13
Perception 1: 15
Perception 2: 13

Quentin shifts a lever at the wrong time, and his coin disappears into the jaws of a black dragon.  (BTW, was it gold, silver or copper? Or does Lord Quentin Adiyodi not gamble with lesser metals?)

"Yeah, it's been pretty bad since the Battle of the Pixie Tree," she says.  "But it's not always this dead.  Mostly our patrons come later at night. But the Bozz is a good guy, he keeps most of us on, says he's made enough in the past to hold us over for a while, and when things get better he doesn't want to have to assemble a whole new crew.  And he's started playing with the idea of some kind of long-distance betting or new sports tournaments, which will bring some gold into the city if he figures it out.  So it could be worse. But I miss all the excitement.  You have no idea how thrilling it was in the days when we were packed with high rollers of all races from elbow to elbow, dressed in fancy silks, with a line waiting to get in. These days, it's mostly locals or river crews or Court of Fools jackanapes who've managed to scrape up a few coins to squander. The bouncers used to heave those guys out on sight, now we're so desperate we're happy to see them, and watching to see that they don't cheat keeps us all occupied, for a little while."

Raven waves to the frogmen coming towards her and backs away from the area. She continues her scouting, trying to find someone with the rings.

(How are you looking?  Just checking out peoples' hands? Nobody you've seen is wearing mouse rings.)

Just looking.

With her inability to find anyone with the rings, Raven returns to the tohers.

"No one is wearing them in the open."  She informs the others.  "Might have to start asking about them a bit more directly..."

The bartender left with Q? Del was going to chat at the bar while the gamblers talked to the dealers or whatever. And while Raven did some innocent trespassing I guess.

When Raven is back Del suggests We need ask about this Snitchel Vavoom Bliggins without spooking folk. Maybe Lord Mindartis watch the "No Admittance" door and Sir Elwin the stairs down, in case someone makes a break for it? He will keep Q up to date via message as we plan if he's still at the Ka-Ching machine

Mindartis nods at the suggestion, "Sounds like a good plan."