[IC] Game thread

This is the channel for the game itself.

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Standard narration unformatted.

"Spoken words in bold."

Bad enough that the job dried up after you landed on Denl, now some locals have mistaken you for an open bounty. You've three days before the needlecast comes through that'll keep you off the hook and you're laying low in the distal casino.

Denl, socially, is a stuffy world: long ruled by a mishmash network of feudal ladies and lords. That tenth of a percent of the population own and lease the land to the rest, who give a proportion of their crops and worked goods for the privilege. The population otherwise primarily trades and barters amongst itself, though accumulates credits through trade with offworlders.

In recent months, many of the *pays-ante* (land's folk) have railed against poor land management and the ruckus was swiftly shut down through the regal gendarmerie and their overclocked weapons. Few people have the authorities in their good books at the moment, and most people are more than happy to help you lay low.

On an canyon archipelago fifty clicks from the port town your ship's moored in, we find the Reaver's Riddle: a megacasino resort where Denl locals and offworlders gamble with coin and promises. Its mascot is a tall man, almost lizardlike in look, with small nostrils over thin lips and no sign of a nose. You can buy plushies of the mascot at every bar and most kino tables.

It's 2:000 in the morning of the first day.

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Ardena manages to get in on a simple game with quite a few seats still open: the nursing a beer kind of game she can keep it going for a long time. The other players at the table are mostly offworlders and a few locals (Denalise humans have a bruise-like sheen to them for the most part) ─ it's the locals who are somehow more outrageously dressed.

Corbin lazily watches the crowds. There's noone watching either him or Ardena. The only thing that stands out as particularly odd is someone ordering quite a few strong drinks in rapid succession at a nearby bar, but they're making a big mess of the process, almost like they're trying to distract attention.

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No obivious distractions, so Ardena continues to play. If she is on a winning streak she doubles the stakes. If she's on a losing streak, she invests some more!

The shooter throws

Ardena makes an excellent game ─ spending enough time in the pot to not draw attention, winning just more than she loses, though never a pot too large to draw attention. Recwal makes an excellent spectacle. Throw after throw he comes up tops, bringing both intense levels of coin and an army of hangers-on: those both circling for hope they'll get wind of luck, and those hoping for cast-offs of the spend too.

In fact, it's not long before the smartest dressed of casino staff approaches Recwal: "If sir would like to follow me, we're extending an invitation to the Marquis' Personal Diceroom."

Ash spots a few interesting things: a couple of local businessmen in natty tourist gear that are obviously having an affair and not wanting to be seen together, someone wrestling a tooth-capped gator behind frosted glass, and that woman at the bar ─ who's barely even drinking her drinks, but siphoning off the contents to a hidden reservoir somewhere.

From the far side of the casino floor, there's also a leering shout ─ like sports hooligans in tone though not in coherence.

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Ardena will collect her winnings and she will try to see what the commotion in the far side of the floor is about.

Ardena isn't up to date with Denl, this was supposed to be in and out job. But she has an eye for galactic business people and the likes that might be found in casinos.

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So the weird thing about Denl is that its known for its psychic storms: in the same way a weather front moves through air, emotions move through social atmosphere. Typically the off-worlder zones have dampers in place to prevent them having too big a stir.

That there's the hooligan noise is likely that either someone has suppressed the suppressors here (quim custodiet, ect.) or that the emotion in specific here hasn't been suppressed.

It's important to note that it's not just "any emotion in a big enough crowd swells" but that "emotions move through crowds regardless".

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Ardena will proceed to get a closer glance of the ruckus.

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Ardena moves closer to the ruckus: around a dozen people, both staff and punters, are getting increasingly handsy with each other. It's close enough to the gator-tussle to not have been noticed by too many of the other patrons, but the clamour is certainly increasing. It looks as though everyone is trying to look into and under things that others have hidden ─ bags, jackets, ect.

Ash notices the woman at the bar has also focused almost entirely on the direction of the noise. Her hand is on something at her hip ─ a weapon? No, the reservoir she had been filling with the booze.

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Ardena finds a comfortable place to lean ─ the psychic storm is slowly spreading, but its curiosity is starting to cause issue. The impacted people are starting to look at unaffected people's poker hands and the like and voices are starting to rise.

Ash spots a roulette points marker on a nearby surface: size of a peach and with a solid metal hook and good weight. Honestly you'd be forgiven for thinking this was built to be a cosh.

The barfly has looped a cable up from the hipflask and plugged it into her nose (stillsuit style). She stands up and moves towards the ruckus.

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The punter Ash speaks with is a jowly woman with a high neckline and a biopearl necklace. "Honey, it's not polite to say it, but yeah this thing happens on the planet all the time."

Another punter butts in ─ tall and hairless except a pencil moustache ─ "Not in the casinos though, Marche. Not on account of the offworlders."

"Ah yeah I suppose that's true. It'll pass. Always does."

Ardena can take a handful of chips from either Marche or her husband(?) Corbin joins Recwal in a placement with good view of the unfolding chaos, but enough barriers in the way as not to be likely to get caught in a crush. It would also make an excellent shooting gallery, come to think on it.

The barfly stiffens slightly as she takes a deep inhalation of the liquor vapours, and hastens her pace directly towards one of the casino staff who themselves seem to be suffering from the psychic storm, and full on crushes his windpipe.

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"Thank you, sir," says the croupier to Corbin, hiding a panicked grimace under a polite gurn. He leans back away from the man and presses a finger to his ear, whispers something, repeats it with a bit more panic, and then slowly looks up at Corbin with wide eyes of panic.

The comms system is down──

And it's in the same moment that the main lights are shattered by silent projectile fire

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