You wake up in a cell. It’s a rather nicer cell than you are used to, but still clearly a cell. You have a vague memory of gambling last night in the House of Hope, a combined casino and temple of Tymora in Tantras, and things may have gotten out of hand.

Just then High Priestess Lashaera Thindol enters the main room, clearly visible on the other side of the bars. She is escorted by a number of her priests and supporters.

She addresses the room and says ‘I see you are all awake. Maybe you would like to explain your actions last night?’

Falkas flips his white hair out of his eyes as he groans to sit up, looking down at his nice leather jacket he wipes dirt and whatever else the best that he can from it, he adjusts his vest and wipes down his pants. What a familiar sight, another stint in jail, although he'd never woken up to someone like her which means they must've done something worse than usual, "That depends on what you think we did." He looks around to see who else happened to land in there with him.

Shreyras rubs his eyes before rolling over to find a comfortable spot on the cold floor as he avoids looking at the Priestess.  "Another 5 minutes of sleep would be nice... pweaseee scary jail person?" He yawns and chuckles. The Satyr looks about average in height as his long black hair is undercut by a buzz, tied together in neat dreads and tucked behind his ears. His goatee is neatly trimmed and full. He wears a black shirt un-buttoned enough to show most of his chest. His left shoulder is covered by a leather pauldron, strapped diagonally across his torso. A gem hangs from his simple rope necklace. 

High Priestess Lashaera Thindol doesn’t directly respond to the request from Shreyras. She does flick her fingers and Shreyras is hit in the face by about a pint of liquid, best not to think about where the liquid has come from. Lashaera waits patiently for more constructive responses.

Chrysanthemum wakes, bleary-eyed, to the sound of the bard's voice, followed quickly by a loud splash.  She sits up, blinking in the light, to see the High Priestess and her entourage looking in on them sternly.

We're in jail? The fairy fighter thinks to herself.  Again?  What happened this time? She searches her memories, but there are some large gaps.  By the cotton-mouth sensation in her throat and the pounding headache at her temples, it seems clear that the gaps are caused by a little too much celebration after their latest adventure. Maybe a lot too much.

Chrys stretches her arms, legs, and wings, and stands.  She is about 30 inches in height, fair-skinned, with shoulder-length blond hair caught back into a high ponytail, and dressed in green studded leather armor with floral motifs embossed. (OOC do we have our gear?)

She looks around for her sibling.  "Baldan?" she whispers.  "Where are you?"

You have your gear, except weapons and tools.

Shreyras coughs as the water is spashed on him as he shoots up in an animated fashion, rubbing his eyes as he sits against the nearest wall. "Bleh, is this filtered hehe...I didn't do nuthin this time, that's fer sure! What did you all do?"

Baldan gives a stern backhand to Shreyras with a scowl "Maybe we don't upset the priestess that has us in a jail cell?" They chide. "I'm right here" they respond to Chrys. Baldan moves to stand up and stretch the aches out of their body from a night on the stone floor. Their deep blue robes fall quietly around them, and as they stretch, wings that look like those of a hummingbird also the stretch. The small fairy scratches their closely buzzed head and checks for the magnifying lens necklace that falls to about diaphragm length around their neck. Their ears are very large and fennec-fox-like, the right one has piercings at various intervals up its length. They whisper to themselves after stretching "I don't see anything good coming out of this..." 

(2 D20's rolled for todays Portent were 19 and 12. I rolled in the character sheet, but I did it wrong and they added together. Sorry, i'm dumb lol)

Lashaera gives Shreyras The Look and raises her left eyebrow ‘What did you all do indeed? Maybe I can help refresh your memories.’ She holds out her hand and an elderly female svirfneblin places a scroll in it. Lashaera unrolls the scroll with elaborate movements and starts the read ‘Let us see. One count of a Satyr declaring themselves the Lord of Entertainment, jumping on a gaming table and scattering the bets before declaring their undying love and trying to, let's say court, a 15ft statue of Our Lady.’

She then looks at the Fairies and says ‘Two fairies causing a panic among our guest with shouts of “Fire” and “Run for your lives” before proceeding to knock over the sacred flame and setting fire to the aforementioned gaming table’

She looks at Falkas and continues ‘A Half-Elf was discovered using the pretence of putting out the fire to pocket the food from the buffet. When confronted by a patron the Half-Elf proceeded to condemn the lazy rich before starting a fight, using a baguette, with no less than 3 of our guards.’

She looks round the room and says ‘We don’t even know who defiled the font, we do use that for creating holy water you know. And lastly, where is the monk who was caught helping someone to cheat at cards?’

Baldan speaks up in defense of the pair of fairies "To be fair, we started that ruckus because I foresaw terrible things happening if that game had continued to be played!"

Lashaera gives Baldan a stern look and says ‘Terrible things. Worse than the casino being evacuated and us losing a whole night of revenue? Worse than a fire destroying a good section of our gaming tables? Perhaps you could enlighten us all on what exactly those terrible things that you averted were?’

Baldan, you can role a  Persuasion check with your answer.

they start speaking relatively quickly "Well one of those chips was DEFINITLY cursed, and if they had been played it could have released a demon that could have taken out the whole establishment! I mean, it is NO exaggeration that very bad things COULD have happened if that game had continued to be played... Not to mention the potential for paper cuts with all those cards flying around........" As they trail off they bow there head the smallest amount and start fidgeting with the glass around their neck, acutely aware of the attention that is on them.

(Natural 1 for a total of 2 on the persuasion check 🤣)

A tired looking Half-Orc whispers something in Lashaera's ear. Lashaera nods along and says to Baldan 'Ah yes, thank you for reminding me. That was reported at the time and under-priest Yaldiera here has spent the whole night and several hundred golds worth of reagents checking every chip in the house. Needless to say they were all fine. However I will add the cost of the reagents and wasting an under-priest's time to your list of crimes.' Lashaera pulls out a quill and updates the scroll.

"To be fair, the rich are lazy." Falkas adds in, staring at his hands thinking, Is all that true? That's absolutely hilarious, a baguette?! He stifles a chuckle and says stepping forward, "Perhaps whomever had the planned demon summoning saw that their mission was foiled and dispelled it in the chaos? It's not our fault the priest couldn't find it, it's because we had already stopped it from happening!"

Yaldiera gives you an incredulous look and says through gritted teeth and bleary eyes ‘My investigation was quite thorough and I assure you that none of the chips have ever had an enchantment of that nature.’ Yaldiera then bows to Lashaera and says ‘If you would excuse me High Priestess but I haven’t slept in nearly 40 hours and I am feeling quite fatigued.’ Lashaera just replies with an ‘Of course dear, please go get some rest.’ Lashaera then addresses Falkas and says ‘I hope that you realise that poor Hodon is well on his way to developing a bread-phobia, and they used to love a BLT’. At the mention of a BLT you see a guard in the corner start to twitch and look around nervously. 

A tall, skinny half-elf, with a shaved head, bright green eyes, and dressed in dirty yellow silk robes, steps forward from the shadows in the back of the cell. "Milady Lashaera, I believe that we may have, perhaps, gotten off on the wrong foot. Introductions are in order. These are my companions. The half-elf over there is Falkas, my satyr friend is Shreyras, and the two fairies are Chrysanthemum and Baldan. Baldan frequently has visions of the future, usually of dire circumstances and we have gathered together to prevent the ominous portents he receives. Yesterday, we did attempt to warn you about the danger of the poker chips directly. However, we were told that you were busy and to not bother you with nonsense. Well, we care about your reputation and, of course, the lives of your patrons, so we could not let the danger go unchecked. As such we decided to infiltrate your establishment."

"I must say your establishment lives up to its reputation. The wine, mead, and other spirits was of such excellence that it may have gotten to us before we realized it. And I want to address the accusations of cheating at cards. I was not cheating or helping anyone cheat. I merely noted that the dwarf's two pair weren't going to be good enough to beat the human's three aces. I may have said it a bit loudly, sometimes spirits have that affect on me, but my intent was not to help anyone at that table, except in the sense that I was trying to save them from likely demonic possession. In any case, I believe you can see that our intentions were good and we were successful. In all the time I've been with these, my friends, Baldan's portents have only come to pass twice; that shows how successful we have been in avoiding disaster."

"Now you will probably have realized that this is all a misunderstanding and, perhaps, you are considering rewarding us for our bravery and sacrifice on behalf of you and your patrons. I assure you, the food and drink you provided us last night has more than compensated us. There is no need for further award. And, on behalf of the party, I want to apologize to Hodon and, I assume, the baker. Dear Hodon, I don't know what Falkas did to you with the bread last night as, I believe, at that point I was being set upon by several angry card players, but I can assure you that he had only the best intentions and I'm certain that he is just as upset as you are about the incident. Isn't that right, Falkas?"

Twelve turns to Falkas expectantly. 

Lashaera nods at Twelve’s words, she seems somewhat placated and replies ‘You may have had the best of intentions as you say, however I’m sure that you agree that all people are judged both on their actions as well as their intentions. Our Casino normally generates in excess of 10,000 gold per night which funds our temple and outreach programs. Last night, due to your actions, we made a loss which will have a material impact on us and the people who rely on us. I’m guessing that none of you have 10,000 gold to spare; however based on your actions last night there are some activities that you could perform for the temple that could clear your debt.’

Falkas rubs the back of his neck as Lashaera finishes and sighs before looking at Hodon to say in a slightly monotone voice, "It was nothing against you, I.. I'm sor..sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your appetite for bread, we had an important mission and I was hungry and that fancy looking rich... person just got under my skin due to the stress we were under trying to save everyone in the casino." He does grin slightly, That was cool though, right? He gives a slight bow and looks to Twelve and then the priest warily. "What kind of tasks?"