The attendant greeted us with that same warm smile—the one that had all the authenticity of a wax sculpture trying to convince you it had feelings—before launching into his welcome speech with the mechanical precision of someone who'd recited these exact words so many times the syllables had worn grooves into his brain.
"Welcome to Oberen's Den. We're delighted to have you. I'll need your party's entrance fee to proceed—one hundred crowns minimum for access to the casino proper."
Brutus set our small sack of crowns down on the obsidian surface with a heavy thunk that echoed through the lobby.
The attendant's fingers—long, pale, manicured to the point where they looked like they'd never touched anything more offensive than silk—began picking through our coins with the delicate movements of a jeweler sorting gemstones.
He counted methodically, setting one hundred crowns aside in a neat stack that represented our entry ticket, leaving behind only a handful of remaining coins that looked pathetically small compared to what we'd started with.
Nearly all we had left. Just sitting there. Mocking us with their inadequacy.
"Now then," the attendant continued, his eyes tracking across our group with the assessing gaze of someone cataloging potential assets, "would any of you like to exchange items for additional chips? We accept a wide variety of collateral, as you may have observed from our previous patron."
Our crew glanced at each other with that particular expression groups develop when facing collective financial suicide—part resignation, part determination, part "well we've come this far might as well see how badly this can go."
I was just about to suggest we keep what little dignity we had left when Willow strolled past me with a cheerful whistle that carried far too much enthusiasm for what I suspected was about to happen.
I spun so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash, only to find her already gloriously naked, her wine-colored skin gleaming in the lamplight as she casually deposited her lingerie in a small pile before the attendant like an offering to the gods of poor decision-making.
The attendant took the clothing and began his inspection with approving nods, his fingers running over seams and fabric with the kind of professional appreciation that came from years of appraising desperate people's belongings.
"Fine quality," he murmured. "Excellent craftsmanship."
Julius sighed—long, heavy, the sound of someone watching their evening spiral into chaos and deciding they might as well contribute—before reaching into his pocket and placing his watch alongside Willow's clothes.
The timepiece gleamed gold in the lamplight, its intricate engravings and mechanisms visible through the crystal face, the kind of heirloom that families passed down through generations, boasting stories about its significance.
From then, Grisha began picking bones from her clothing with the absent-minded calm of someone flicking lint from a sleeve. She placed each one carefully on the growing pile—a femur placed thoughtfully to one side, several finger bones arranged like misplaced cutlery, and something that might've been a rib added last.
Meanwhile, Felix tugged at Brutus's arm with insistent little pulls. The big man grunted before reaching into some hidden pocket and producing—
Oh gods. Oh saints above.
Those were Felix's drawings. The naked ones. Of me. Multiple sketches showing various angles and poses in charcoal and paper, my body rendered in loving detail that would've been flattering if it wasn't currently being used as currency.
The papers fluttered slightly as Brutus held them out in reluctant tribute, and I swear the lamplight chose that exact moment to make the shading on my inner thigh look pornographically reverent.
Felix beamed up at the attendant with the guileless pride of someone offering their best work to the Louvre. The attendant blinked once. Twice. Then slowly, very slowly, accepted the drawings.
I made a mental note to have a very serious conversation with Felix about boundaries and artistic consent, right after I finished dying of embarrassment.
A few more scattered items followed—a knife with a decorative handle from one of the crew members I hadn't properly met, a silver earring, a tiny figurine of questionable taste and even more questionable origin. The attendant went through them all with rapid efficiency, fingers flicking through the pile to sort and categorize at a speed that suggested this was less an appraisal and more a well-practiced reflex.
"Grand total," he announced finally, stacking everything into organized piles, "seventy-five crowns."
I was shell-shocked.
Genuinely, profoundly stunned into temporary speechlessness, which anyone who knew me would recognize as a rare and precious state usually achieved only through head trauma or witnessing something so absurd my brain needed time to process whether reality had just filed for bankruptcy.
We'd put so much on that table—heirlooms, artwork, clothing, bones—and seventy-five crowns was the sum total of our combined worth according to this establishment's pricing structure. That was barely enough to buy a decent meal in the inner circle, let alone fund a gambling operation meant to bankrupt a nobleman.
But I held my tongue, clenched my jaw tight enough to make my teeth ache, and forced myself to accept the offer rather than risk the attendant deciding our items were worth even less if we complained about his assessment.
Grisha, however, hadn't quite received the memo on strategic silence.
She slammed her massive hand on the obsidian desk hard enough to make the stacked coins jump, the sound echoing like a thunderclap through the lobby and drawing a few curious glances from the nobles who'd been pretending we didn't exist.
"Those bones," she growled, her voice carrying that particular edge that preceded violence in most contexts, "are important. Sacred, even. Taken from warriors who died honorably in battle, blessed by shamans, carried across—"
The attendant wasn't listening. Instead he started gathering all our items—the coins, the clothing, the watch, the drawings, the blessed warrior bones—with mechanical efficiency, sweeping them off the desk and into various containers beneath before producing an array of chips from various hidden compartments.
The chips came in different colors and sizes—small bronze ones worth single crowns, larger silver ones for tens, a few gold pieces that represented our bigger stakes— all of which he counted out with the same precise movements he'd used for everything else.
"Are you even listening to me?!" Grisha demanded, leaning forward with her tusks prominently displayed in what was most definitely a threat.
The attendant ignored her completely, finishing his chip distribution. "Excellent," the attendant said pleasantly, as if he hadn't just been threatened by a seven foot angry orc woman, "Before we continue, a brief reminder. All chips are individually marked and tracked throughout play. Any attempt to remove them from the table through violence, sleight of hand, magical interference, or what we generously categorize as creative misunderstanding will result in immediate forfeiture and a permanent ban." He smiled, mild and sincere. "No exceptions."
He paused for a moment. "Now then, would any of you like to register any items as well?"
"What do you mean by 'register'?" Julius interrupted, his brow slightly furrowed.
The attendant's smile never wavered. "Registered items can be gambled directly at tables, sold to other patrons, or recollected at any time during your visit. Their value remains fluid within the casino—appreciating or depreciating based on demand—but the registry list itself is final. Once you leave this waiting room and enter the casino proper, registration closes permanently. Should registered items be lost through gambling or other transactions, they are lost forever. No refunds, no exceptions, no tearful appeals to management."
I considered that for a long moment, my mind working through implications and possibilities.
The option to register something valuable gave us flexibility—the ability to make larger bets without immediately spending our limited chip supply, the potential to leverage assets we weren't ready to part with yet. But it also meant putting those items at genuine risk of permanent loss if things went wrong.
Then curiosity got the better of me, as it always did, because apparently my survival instincts had been murdered years ago and replaced with morbid fascination about what would happen if I poked the bear.
Slowly, deliberately, I reached into my boot—the one where I'd been keeping Iskanda's ruby tucked against my calf—and pulled it out.
It caught the dim lamplight immediately, seeming to glow from within, the deep red color shifting and swirling like captured flame behind cut crystal.
The silver chain pooled across my palm like liquid mercury, delicate but clearly expensive, and the whole thing radiated the kind of aesthetic perfection that came from master craftsmanship, ancient magic, or possibly both.
I placed it on the table and slid it across to the attendant with one finger, watching his reaction carefully.
It was then that he froze. Completely. His entire body went rigid like someone had just replaced his spine with an iron rod, his eyes locked on the ruby with an intensity that bordered on religious fervor.
Then his hands reached out—trembling, actually trembling—and lifted the gem with reverence. He held it up to catch the light, turning it slowly to view it from multiple angles.
His mouth opened but words seemed to be experiencing technical difficulties on their way out. "I've... I've never..." he stammered, his professional composure cracking like cheap pottery under pressure. "This is... the magical resonance... the craftsmanship... this artifact could date back thousands of years. The enchantments woven into the crystal structure alone would require expertise that doesn't exist anymore, knowledge that was lost during—"
He caught himself mid-ramble, awareness flickering across his face that he was showing genuine emotion as opposed to professional detachment. The mask slammed back down with an almost visible force, his features smoothing into that same practiced neutrality.
"My appraisal," he said, voice carefully controlled now, "is ten thousand crowns. Though realistically the value could be significantly higher. Possibly even priceless."
My crew gasped then. I saw their eyes widen with the dawning realization that I'd apparently been walking around with a small fortune tucked in my boot like it was loose change.
I nodded as I took back the ruby, ignoring the obviously lowball appraisal because arguing would just waste time. Ten thousand crowns was sufficient for now. More than sufficient, actually. It was exactly what we needed to have a real fighting chance.
The attendant produced a large golden chip from beneath the desk—bigger than the others, heavier, carved with intricate patterns that glowed faintly red—and placed it before me with something approaching ceremony.
Then he paused, his fingers still resting on the chip, and glanced up at us with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Would you like to register any party members as well?"
I raised one brow, because that question had come from absolutely nowhere and landed in territory I hadn't been prepared to navigate. "Excuse me?"
"We offer the option to register party members," he explained, his tone shifting back into customer-service mode. "Each person valued at fifteen hundred crowns. Their chips would remain tied to one individual—controllable, reclaimable, optional for use—but not unheard of."
In that instant, everybody turned to face Julius.
Not with suspicion or accusation, but with something else entirely. Something that looked disturbingly like trust. Like they were waiting for his decision and would accept whatever he chose because they believed he had their best interests in mind even when those interests involved potentially being used as currency.
Brutus spoke first, his gravelly voice cutting through the tension. "If it gives us a better chance, do it. We're already all-in. Might as well have every card we can get."
Willow tilted her head before giving Julius a faint smirk that carried layers of meaning I didn't have time to decode. "Just make sure I'm worth more than the curtains."
Grisha merely grunted—short, low, and definitive, the orcish equivalent of "I'm in, don't waste words." Nara's ears perked straight up, crimson eyes bright with eager agreement, apparently unbothered by the concept. Felix simply turned those wide luminous eyes on Julius and gave him a small, trusting nod.
Julius turned to me then, the question plain across his face.
I weighed the risks—losing crew members to other gamblers, the ethical nightmare of treating my friends as currency, the potential for this to go catastrophically wrong in ways I couldn't predict. But we needed every advantage. Every edge. Every possible trump card we could hide up our sleeves.
And so I nodded.
Julius took a deep breath—the kind that people take before jumping off cliffs or signing contracts with devils—then give one last look at everyone assembled. Not just our core crew, but the ten other members who'd volunteered to help us transport gold and had apparently decided that following us into a casino was a reasonable next step in their employment.
"Are you all certain about this?" he asked, his voice carrying genuine concern beneath the theatrical bravado. "Once we do this, there's no taking it back."
The response was immediate and unanimous, a cheer that erupted from each one of them, voices rising in defiant, delighted enthusiasm that made several nearby nobles turn to stare.
Julius's face transformed then—the worry melting into something that looked almost like pride—before he turned back to the attendant. "Register them. All of them."
The attendant's hands moved with sudden speed, producing chips carved from something darker than the others—bones laced with obsidian, etched with patterns that hurt to look at directly, each one radiating a faint wrongness that made my skin crawl.
One chip per person. Felix. Nara. Willow. Grisha. Brutus. Me. And the ten crew members whose names I really needed to learn before I accidentally gambled them away to someone who'd care even less about their wellbeing.
Sixteen chips total. Sixteen people, including myself, now officially registered as assets in a casino's inventory system.
The attendant swept up our entire arsenal—the bronze, silver, and gold ones, plus the large golden ruby chip, alongside the sixteen dark bone-and-obsidian person chips—and placed them into a leather pouch he handed to me with both hands, the weight of it settling into my palms like a responsibility I absolutely wasn't qualified to handle.
"Your grand total," he announced, his voice taking on that particular cadence people use when delivering important numbers, "is thirty-four thousand crowns in registered value. Plus seventy-five crowns in chips currently on hand."
Just then, my eyes flicked back to the counter where I caught sight of an odd-looking object tucked near the corner—a small black box sitting apart from the usual clutter of ledgers, coin pouches, and other administrative detritus.
I nodded toward it, keeping my tone casual. "What's in that?"
The man's expression tightened, just for a heartbeat. "That box," he said carefully, "is reserved for only the highest of bets in the casino. It hasn't been opened in over a decade. It's contents are of no importance to you."
He didn't elaborate further, letting the weight of silence fill the space between us, yet I noted the box in the back of my mind as something that could be useful later on.
I clutched the pouch tight, feeling the weight of those chips representing everything we owned, then turned back to face my crew.
They looked at me with expressions ranging from excited, to terrified, to resigned, to completely unhinged, and I realized then that we were actually doing this—gambling our future, our lives, our physical autonomy on games of chance operated by a man who'd already proven he could destroy us.
"Ready?" I asked, pitching my voice to carry across our entire group. They nodded in unison. "Then let's go win back our future," I said, trying to inject confidence I absolutely did not feel into the words. "Or lose spectacularly enough that they write songs about our catastrophic failure. Either way, we're committed now."
And with that, we turned away from the obsidian desk, walked past the crimson silk curtain where someone was probably losing another limb, and stepped through the towering doorway that led into the casino proper.
We'd entered Oberen's domain.
And there was no turning back now.