“Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.”

- Samuel Johnson

Laughter, chatter, smoke swirled by a slowly turning fan powered by wind magic, smiling faces, deep despair, the clatter of coin- the atmosphere was full of tension and most seemed to have a good time.

The casino was making a killing as always. In the front hall, there were cheap card games where even the workers could let loose. The bar made a tidy profit selling spirits and beer to winner and loser alike.

In the side rooms were private card games catering to the more affluent, foremen, shop-owner and the occasional barge captain. And then there was the hall in the back where the captains of the big ships and the managers of the manufactoria went to gain and lose their profits.

Fleetfoot Jim was sitting behind his table and watched through the one-way glass the crowd below. He still marveled at his good fortune. His superior had been skimming profits for years and been very skillful at it. His hand caressed the polished mahogany wood as he leaned back into the soft leather upholstered chair, sighing in contentment. Expensive wood-paneling hid the brick stone walls and a thick carpet covered the floor. Oil paintings gave an air of faded elegance to the room.

But he had realized that something was amiss. He was always good with numbers and then he had compiled evidence and given it to the boss. And one good deed begat a promotion, for the former supervisor had probably found his way into the potions of that Poroskar fellow. His good mood soured a bit. He had inherited the position and all the perks that came with it. His grin grew more pronounced as he thought of Silver the pale blonde pit boss of the high rollers hall. Maybe he would see if she was as friendly to him as she had been to the former chief.

A knock sounded.

Annoyed by the interruption of his fantasies he answered, “Yes? What is it? I am busy!”

“Sorry for the interruption but we got an urgent missive.” A large man with hands like shovels and a greenish tinge to his leathery skin entered. Muscles strained the cheap suit he wore. A large tooth jutted from his lower jaw which the man tried to conceal by having his black hair hanging over the left side of his face. His name was Cracks and he was from the north where the, mostly unwanted, union between orcs and men begat such creatures. Jim looked at his subordinate with barely concealed distaste. If he and his brethren were not such naturally born fighters he would send the lot of them back where they came from.

“Give it here.” He raised his hand imperiously, reveling in the fact that even a big man like Cracks had to bow to him now. ‘He deserved this and more.’

The half-orc walked up to the table and put a piece of parchment before him.

He quickly skimmed the text and with a start looked at Cracks, whose face was mostly hidden in shadow. “An attack? And we might be targeted? Get every fighter to the casino. If someone is at home or off call them back.”

“I will do so at once.” Cracks answered in his gravelly voice and with purposeful strides left the room.

Sweat beaded on Jim’s forehead. His palms tingled, which was always a bad sign. He got his nickname ‘Fleetfoot’ not because of his valor, just the opposite. ‘They will not get to where I am without a fight and I can still flee then.’ He opened a drawer and withdrew an ornate wand. Breathing deeply he stuck it in his waistband letting his expensive vest cover it. ‘Just breathe, in, out.’ He looked through the one-way window and saw Cracks talking to Silver. The pretty blonde with waist-long hair looked up to where he was sitting. She turned back to the half-orc and gestured. Cracks nodded and went on his way.

‘Did she just smile at the half-orc? At this uncivilized beast? He would have to remember that for when there was dangerous fighting to be done.’ He muttered angrily.

Hours passed. The tension that had been present in the beginning began to wane. Jim yawned and tiredly rubbed his eyes. Normally he would have been at home some hours ago. He was never one to work late if he could help it.

Was it always so dark in here? He looked at the glow globe and saw a faint smoky mist settling in the corners. What was going on? He stood and opened another drawer taking the gold bars secreted behind a false back. After stuffing his pockets he drew the wand and nervously looked around. The floor was nearly deserted only a drunk captain sat at the blackjack table and was arguing with the croupier. The cleaning staff was already wiping the unused tables.

He had a bad feeling about this. He hurried to the door and looked outside. His secretary, Grinning Balder sat behind his desk and was writing a summary. He looked up at the noise of the door opening.

“Call for Cracks and Bill. I have need of them.” Jim called. The mist thickened.

Balder stood up, he was a small man with a scar pulling at the edge of his mouth. He began to answer as a snake burst from the wall paneling and bit into his neck. Foamy blood bubbled from his open mouth, wide eyes slowly grew dark.

Screaming incoherently Jim raised his wand and fired into the corpse and the snake. Bolts of condensed force shattered bone and ripped into flesh, the snake was bisected with the head still pumping poison into the wound.

Hastily taking a step back from the writhing carcass of the snake he turned and fled towards the casino floor.

When he got there he saw Cracks, sword in hand standing before Silver who brandished a long dagger. The cleaning woman was hugging her broom and hiding behind the bar. Two thugs he had hired some weeks prior, Ben and Luke, stood before the door leading to the back.

With a bang, the front door was smashed and someone flew right through the splintering mess. The bald man with the trenchcoat stood up and threw a vial back the way he came from. A flash and the sound of splintering glass followed by angry hissing was the reaction. An axe sheared through the wall some meters to the left blood bubbled through the rent.

Jim hurried behind Silver and nervously gulped down his saliva. Through the shattered remnants of the door tilting on bent hinges, he saw a wild melee in the front hall. Garreline the dwarf woman that always accompanied the Hunter was battling a four-armed abomination of scaled dark flesh and gaping maws, at least three he could see from where he was standing. Each with its own neck, not all with eyes that he could see.

A small girl was fighting a burly bouncer that had some magic boosting his speed and strength and sad to say it was the only thing keeping him alive at the moment much less letting him win. The girl was faster than his eyes could follow slashing with black glittering claws that already dripped with blood.

A snake-woman with a curved sword battled another of his elite fighters a dark-skinned woman that had been well recommended in the local mercenaries guild.

He lined up a shot and activated the wand that spat a bluish ripple of force that hit the large snake monster and blasted a tunnel nearly arm-thick through its torso. With a hiss like a kettle boiling over the thing reared until it nearly hit the ceiling some four meters overhead, coils of muscle and sinew contracted as the gigantic hydralike many-headed snake beast unfolded its length. The blood gushing from the terrible wound slowed to a trickle. A swipe of one of its arms that unfolded from the thick torso like a spindly spider's limb hit Garreline and threw her into the shelves behind the bar, glass rained onto the combatants.

“Go and help them, Cracks!” He ordered. The half-orc gave him an unreadable glance then sighed and trotted towards the melee.

“Come with me.” He ordered Silver who hesitated before following. He ran towards a storeroom to the side of the bar and slammed the door shut behind him.

Orienting himself he quickly marched to a section of wall in the back and said, “Luck, Profit, Persistence.” And cursed inwardly at the motto left by his forbear.

With a grinding noise, the wall folded back to reveal a chute leading into the darkness. “After you.” He pushed Silver before him.

“Where does it lead? Is it really hopeless?” The young woman looked uncomfortable.

“Hurry up or I leave you to find out.” He began to regret taking her, but it was by no means certain that their flight would be uneventful so she was at least a form of security.

She sheathed the dagger and lowered herself into the chute.

“It’s safe. Be quick about it.”

After she sat down she promptly vanished from sight.

He jumped after her, not caring to look. He had inspected the escape measures thoroughly as soon as he became aware of them. It had always been his policy to have several exit strategies.

The glide was short but fast and as he maybe had intended all along he crashed into Silver as she was getting up from the mattresses put at the end of the ride to cushion their fall. The room they found themselves in was dimly lit and save for the cushioning, empty. A doorway led farther into a corridor.

Cursing under her breath Silver extricated herself from beneath Jim who merely grinned and got up himself.

A rumbling from above and the sound of crashing masonry gave ominous testament to the fighting still going on.

“We hide in the room beyond. And if the situation clears we can have a look. Otherwise, we scram.” Jim declared as he walked into the tunnel.

Silver remained silent, favoring her left leg as she walked which did not escape the man's attention. ‘I will have to leave her behind when I run. But as they say, you don’t have to be faster than the lion, only faster than the slowest.’

Another rumble shook the building and stone dust rained from the ceiling.

Meanwhile up in the front room.

The Hunter charged back into the fray followed by the lumbering half-orc. The gigantic snake bleeding from wounds that would have killed three normal men was locked in combat with Garreline. Vanessa surged forward and was met with a hasty parry, metal frayed under the onslaught of magical ice, and where the metal ground on each other sparks were born.

The burly bouncer was bleeding out on the floor. Iseret was trading blows with Cracks and his compatriots. The female mercenary had tried to assist the soon-to-be deceased bouncer on the floor and was now in a desperate fight with the small girl.

Leaning back to avoid a kick the vampire lashed out with her other hand and caught the foot before the woman she was fighting could pull her leg back. With a pained scream, the boot and part of the foot were slashed in two.

The mercenary hobbled backward leaving bloody footsteps and desperately looked for a way out.

A gesture and a short spoken spell and from the Hunters hands blossomed several fiery orbs that circled his left wrist like an oversized bracelet of flaming pearls the size of a grown man's fist. Gesturing with his right hand he directed the balls of roiling flames at Vanessa. Who dodged several of them before being hit twice.

Pain for the undead is normally a thing of the past or even wholly of the past, as memories of life now unattainable would hurt more than any wound- Vampires and some other intelligent undead were notable exceptions. Hissing with pain Vanessa threw herself to the side trying to extinguish the flames clinging to her leg and sid. The cloth she had spelled against cuts and magic was not able to completely stem the magical fire, flesh blackened and bone showed through.

The mercenary took that as a sign and tottered through the door where she was met by two men with snakelike eyes that clubbed the weakened woman into unconsciousness.

Iseret interposed her khopesh between Vanessa and the fireballs raining forth from the Hunter. The blade shimmered with enchantment and even though the metal began to glow with heat she managed to divert or intercept the next attacks. Vanessa spoke a spell of her own and the dark mist that hung in the corners of the room coalesced and batlike beings of shadow shot towards the bald man ripping into his clothes and drawing blood.

With a curse, Hunter made a gesture and the fire snuffed out while a shield of blue force took the attack. The shadowy beasts whirled towards the ceiling circling him. With an earthshaking roar the giant snake monster hurled itself and Garreline through the wall separating the front from the backroom. Groaning rafters shifted and dust rained from the ceiling, fissures appeared in the plaster. Beserk with pain the heads snapped after the hastily retreating dwarf and poison dripped from teeth and claw.

Vanessa gathered herself, the side burned and raw, the leg still smoldering. But as a little time went by the edges of the horrific wound began to grow inwards, covering the exposed and blackened bone. Cracks and the two thugs that had been guarding the backroom looked at each other and began to carefully retreat. There already were several members of the dockyard casino lying on the dirty floor, some dead, some merely unconscious. Some of the snake-eyed fighters having finished outside cautiously walked into the room gathering behind Vanessa.

Hunter gave a crooked smile. “Can we talk about this?”

Meanwhile in the tunnel below.

Jim hurried along the corridor and looked critically at the spreading cracks in the ceiling. Even if they were to be successful in repelling this attack the old house would need a lot of repairs. He groaned as he thought of all the profits that would be lost that way.

“Why are we stopping?” Silver looked around her carefully and asked. She had drawn the dagger again. She wore a practical dress in pale red and brown but during the flight, the skirt had ripped in places so she had simply removed it exposing leather pants underneath. Her signature pale blond hair was stuffed into the back of her shirt.

“Just thinking.” Jim tried to project some confidence but as she gave him a highly skeptical look probably failed.

A hissing sound came from further ahead. The man raised his wand and saw with dread several large snakes crawling towards them. “I hate snakes!” He activated the wand and bolts of force reduced the snakes to steaming offal.

The wand grew hot and steam curled from the tip as some of the gold ornamentations became soft and deformed. Jim looked at that with worry and waved the wand through the air to cool it a bit.

His companion was silent.

Down the corridor they went, side chambers showed empty boxes, old rusty chains set into the walls, some old dried blood on the floor, cracked plaster or bare brick walls.

A voice sounded from around the corner before them. “I would ask you to surrender. You don’t seem like a captain who goes down with his boat. Am I wrong?” The voice was sibilant and the ‘s’ had a slight hiss to it.

“Don’t come near. We are armed and I will kill anyone standing in our way!” Jim blustered while trying to edge behind Silver.

“I guarantee you will not be killed. I cannot absolutely guarantee your health but if you cooperate everything will be a lot better.”

“Stay and guard here, I will try to find another exit. When I find it I call and you follow.” Jim whispered.

Silver's blue eyes were unreadable.

He turned and grinned when he was sure she would not see, as he began to hurry back. ‘It’s a shame about her but the ‘Sturdy Mast’ has women that are much more agreeable, so what?’

Suddenly there was a sharp pain on the back of his head and everything around him began to dim, the ground rushed towards him, and with fading senses, he heard Silver shouting behind him. “I surrender! Please don’t hurt me!”