"Call?"

"Raise."

"Raise? You don't want to raise, Philh. Really. Why would you want to raise? Come on, just call and move on."

"Raise," said Philhip, throwing in two extra chips to the pile.

"Hey, that's like fifty pence!" Brahdley balked. "Omar, you can't let him do this to me."

"The rules are the rules, boys," said Omar with a smug grin. "And girl," he said, nodding at Sahdi.

Sahdi winced at him, as if she was annoyed to be noticed by Omar at all. She held her cards tight to her chest, concerned that she may have been revealing too much. Then, she quietly called Philhip's raise herself.

"Oh, fine," Brahdley groaned and threw his extra chips in as well. "This is robbery, highway robbery I tell you."

Omar snickered, as he had folded back at the beginning of the hand and presently had no skin in the game. He lit a cigar using his flaming arm, which he then used to reignite a burned out candle, and smiled. "Oh, it's lovely to have you all here for this game. I'm glad that, despite the bizarre circumstances of this evening, we're all able to enjoy some good, wholesome gambling."

Everyone muttered in noncommittal agreement. Then, the darkened restaraunt shook yet again, and more pictures tumbled from the wall. The sound of shattered glass echoed in the room.

"What's happening now?" asked Brahdley nervously.

"Don't focus on it, focus on the game at hand!" said Omar with a frustrated passion. "I'm sure it's just another big rock or something."

"I-it looks like several buildings just... exploded..." muttered the ill-tempered man who sat at the worst table in the restaurant, who was standing and staring out the front window in awe and shock. "I've never seen something like this in my life. It's... just horrible. Horrifying. Horrendous. Horr-"

"Son of a whore!" shouted Philhip as Brahdley set his cards down on the table.

"Read 'em and weep! That's right, Philh, you idiot, I played you like a barnacle encrusted xylophone! Two aces! That's the whole pot for me, and-"

"Wait a second, Brahd," interjected Sahdi. She set her cards down with a knowing grin. "Se anything of interest?"

"A royal flush?" Brahd gasped. "But the probability-"

"Probability shmobability!" spouted Omar. "Give her the money, that's the game!"

Brahd sighed and watched as Sahdi counted coins meticulously. "This sucks," he said with a pout through his living wooden face.

"Yea, well, life sucks for some people," said Omar. He sipped his beer and smiled with a stinky cigar puff. "Not for me, though. No, life never sucks for me, even when it really sucks it doesn't suck."

"More buildings just exploded!" shouted the man at the window. "Surely at some point whatever is blowing everything up is going to be coming for us, too? Surely our doom is near and the end is nigh?"

"DOOOOOM!" shouted the strangely dressed blank fellow at the bar, who, much like Omar, had been carrying on in drinking and merriment as if nothing were wrong.

"Yea, well, buildings just explode sometimes," said Omar. "Sometimes more on some days than others, I'll admit." He puffed his cigar and exhaled through his wooden nostrils. "But I'm not blowing them up myself, am I? And as far as I know, unfortunately or not, I'm not in cahoots with whoever is doing the demolitions. I've got no control over the situation. It's pretty terrible, when you think about it. I have no idea what I'm doing, pretty much ever. But if I'm going to have no idea what I'm doing, pretty much ever, than I might as well enjoy having no idea what I'm doing. Right? Aren't I owed that? Or at least, I ought to say, don't I owe it to myself?"

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"I have no idea what you're saying, you old blowhard," spat Brahd. "But since you're trapped in here with us, why don't you start by pulling yourself together and dealing us out our hands."

"Oh, right. Shit. My bad."

As Omar impressively shuffled the cards with his only hand, more action took place outside the window before the man who was watching's eyes. A small, younger tauman woman was soaring through the air and kicking a boulder in the air. It seemed that, somehow, she was kicking off the boulder in the air in order to propel herself higher and higher into the sky. She also looked like she was carrying some tentacle ridden eldritch horror caked in makeup in a little purse, which only beget more questions.

"OH, holy shit, that's Kahli out there! I would recognize that big old honking foot of hers anywhere!" said Omar with a snicker.

Brahd gave Omar an odd look. "Big honking foot? Sure, it's not small, but really if you hadn't said anything I wouldn't have noticed."

"Oh, well, who the fuck cares what you would've noticed, Brahd. You're not really known for noticing things anyway, other than how to prepare me some damned good seafood! No, but the foot thing is real. It's maybe not the biggest foot on Nomachiato, but it is large, larger than her other foot by a decent margin. It's her biggest insecurity. She's been working as my apprentice at the Gifflenberg Historical Society for a while now, but it only took about a day to figure this out about her. I'm just perceptive like that." Omar smiled wickedly. "Not sure what she's doing with that rock, but I guarantee it's killing her inside to have it bouncing off her big foot like that."

----------------------------------------

Kahli had quickly learned that kicking rocks, or even redirecting them as she'd gotten quite good at, was not enough to leave a lasting impact on Lloyd. In fact, he'd only laughed every time her big rock ahd made impact with him.

It took a lot for Kahli to even convince him that she was genuinely attempting to fight him, at which point he changed gears entirely and started firing lasers at her with his mind. These were small, sort bursts of energy that shook the ground on impact, and the fastest way Kahli could devise to escape from them in one piece was to attempt to hijack her current [skill] and see if she couldn't use the magnetism and rules of her summoned stone to send herself flying through the air. Sure, it was a slower process than she wanted, and fairly labor intensive - Kahli had to be sure to jump off the side of the boulder as soon as it hit her left foot for maximum pressure and propulsion, and it was starting to wear her out. Still, she wondered if increasing her [INT] had helped with formulating a plan to use her [skill] in this way. It seemed, to her, to be fairly brilliant.

"Keep running all you want, Kahli! I'm just getting started! BWA hah hah HAH!" Lloyd cackled as he zoomed through the air effortlessly.

Kahli blamed all of this on Unit 5a23. That stubborn robot easily had the power to pose a substantial threat to this sinister alien that was wrecking up her home, and what did he do? He sat there in the air and meditated. The robot had literally decided that the best action was to do nothing. What an absolute knob! Kahli wanted to punch him, but she needed to save all her energy for Lloyd at the moment - although it was seeming like she'd be better served focusing on escaping Lloyd than in attempting to destroy him. At least for now. Maybe with a little of training, and maybe a new [skill] or two, Kahli could do it. Then again, if Lloyd was truly as powerful as he said he was, then it was more likely that Kahli either needed to get the hell away from him and stay away, or somehow trick him into either destroying himself or giving up on his evil plan. Considering he'd already bought her earlier tall tale without so much as a light questioning of her purported reality, Kahli thought that trickery was probably the best policy here.

Then, she was frustrated with herself - why hadn't she thought before starting this fight? And how could she end it now?

The only thing Kahli could think of to that end, was to either annoy or bore Lloyd so much that he'd just leave her alone. So, that's what she tried to do.

"Is it fun for you, to keep pushing yourself off that big rock of yours? Is cowardice entertaining to you? I think it's quite embarrassing. I'd be embarrassed if I were you right now, Kahli. Come on, show me your systemic powers! Show me the things that will allow you and Froufrou to END the WORLD! BWA hah hah HAAAH!"

"No," said Kahli. "You won't see anything, anything at all. You won't even see it coming. And then, boom. Like a snap, it'll all be gone, yanked out from under your feet. That's how me and Froufrou do the apocalypse."

"That's what you say now," said Lloyd.

He was struggling, Kahli noticed, to keep up with her as she pushed off her rock and got higher and higher into the sky. Whereas her rock didn't really have an altitude limit, perhaps whatever [skill] Lloyd was using to levitate had some sort of soft ranged limitations, because he was starting to dip below.

"Are you running out of energy, Lloyd?" Kahli snickered down at him.

"Not out of energy! I've got more energy than this whole stupid planet does, foolish tauman!" he spat. "Sure, my [Levitate] [skill] may be ranged, as you have clearly surmised, but I've got more energy and power than half of this galaxy combined! And I'm happy to show it to you! Catch this, Kahli!"

Kahli gasped as Lloyd shot two coiling beams of white light out of his little alien hands. They snaked and crackled up towards her. Acting, for better or worse, on impulse, Kahli kicked her big rock back down towards the energy and hoped that it might be enough to escape this attack in one piece.