“I didn’t know somebody like you could move so inconspicuously,” Redgrave said as soon as he noticed Ashcroft next to him. Revenants at other tables had begun to stare at the two of them standing next to each other, and the NPC seemed annoyed by the amount of chips that the croupier had to distribute.

“I can when I want to,” Ashcroft said. “With a hat, a pair of sunglasses, and a different posture, people don’t notice you until you’re less than ten feet from them.”

Now looking at Ashcroft, Elias could see that he was wearing a green officer’s cap and a pair of aviator sunglasses. In one clenched hand, Ashcroft held an amber drink in an elegant glass and a velcro patch that showed an image of a green dragon in flight. As the croupier placed his chips in front of him, Ashcroft regarded the patch with a sidelong glance.

“This symbol - the green dragon - it seems to pop up everywhere,” Ashcroft said. “The flag of Osiris, the symbol for this casino, an officer’s uniform. Everywhere I look, it’s there.”

“I’m sure there’s some importance to the symbol we just haven’t seen yet,” Redgrave said.

“A dragon… the historic enemy of the knight,” Ashcroft muttered almost inaudibly. “Anyway, I’m here because I saw an opportunity to hear about the battles at the East and West Gates firsthand. You were at the East Gate, Redgrave, and you were at the West Gate, Elias.”

“A battle’s a battle,” Redgrave said. “I don’t see how the fight at the North Gate could be all that different from the other two.”

“Ready?” the croupier said now that all of the chips had been distributed.

“Every battle has its own unique flavor,” Ashcroft said as he lazily put three chips on black. “One might be an intimate dance and another a chaotic mosh pit. Elias,” Ashcroft suddenly spoke to the third Revenant at the table, “what was it like fighting alongside Commander Tantalus?”

Elias had placed a chip on each of the spaces in the last third of the roulette table. He had also placed three chips on the space next to the final third of the roulette table. He was betting that the next roll on the roulette wheel would be high.

“He was the only person at the West Gate who knew anything about fighting,” Elias said. “Well, he and Pixie. We essentially just followed Tantalus’s lead. When he fired, we fired. When he charged, we charged.”

“Interesting,” Ashcroft mused. “That wouldn’t have been my first guess. Tantalus was more of a back-line fighter back in the day. And what about you, Redgrave?”

Redgrave had placed five of his chips on red as the croupier began spinning the ball. The white ball flew along the rim of the roulette wheel at a high speed.

“I wasn’t there for most of the battle,” Redgrave said, watching the ball spin around and around. “I helped light a fire just outside of the Gate. We were caught by a large group of Deluvians. One of us died, and we barely escaped with our lives.”

“Bummer,” Ashcroft said.

A clattering sound emanated from the roulette wheel as it came to a chaotic halt. The three Revenants arched their necks to see where the ball had landed. The ball stopped in a slot that was marked with a green number.

“Zero,” the croupier said as she nervously reached forward and pulled all of the chips off the table. Elias swore in annoyance, and Redgrave smacked the table.

Ashcroft laughed as if he had just heard a hilarious joke.

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“Twice in one night,” he said, wiping tears away from his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Redgrave asked.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot, you weren’t there,” Ashcroft said. “We held a vote earlier on whether we were going to wipe out the East and West Gates.”

“And?” Redgrave asked.

“It was a tie! Can you believe that?” Ashcroft seemed to think this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Ashcroft had not lowered his voice, so the croupier could clearly hear what he had said. She looked at Ashcroft with terror on her face. “Just when I was expecting one or the other, I got a third thing.”

A group of three men approached the roulette wheel before anyone could respond to Ashcroft’s statement. Each of them wore expensive clothes, garish jewelry, and a sword on his belt. Their backs were rigid as they approached, and they walked with a purpose. Ashcroft turned lazily to the three men and gave them a winning smile.

“Are you Captain Ashcroft?” the man in the center asked.

“That sounds like me,” Ashcroft said with the confidence of a man who knew he was in a Safe Zone.

“I am Sir Percival of House Vanta!” the man declared. “I am here to find justice for the men you so carelessly slaughtered at the North Gate! I challenge you to a duel!”

“Terms?” Ashcroft asked lazily while taking a sip from his bourbon.

“Death or dishonor!” Sir Percival said.

“Alright,” Ashcroft said, stretching his shoulders. “I’ll be at the North Gate in thirty minutes.”

Ashcroft put his glass down and returned the patch back to his pocket. “That’s the third one today,” Ashcroft muttered to Redgrave. “I wonder if I should kill this one.” He began to walk away from the table. As he left, he turned to Redgrave and said, “By the way, Redgrave. You should really consider joining the Knights. We can always use a man like you.”

Ashcroft left, leaving his chips on the table. With the departure of the Captain of the Ashen Knights, a sense of normalcy returned. After two more spins of the roulette wheel, the croupier changed places with a white man in his fifties. Beyond that, nothing was out of the ordinary for the rest of the night.

All told, Redgrave and Elias ended up losing a few hundred Ren, though the Revenants at the blackjack table had a much more successful night. Volta ultimately made about a hundred Ren, and Grim broke even. Pixie, on the other hand, made more than a thousand Ren at the blackjack table. Elias wondered if she had secretly been counting cards.

Together, the five Revenants walked over to the Lucky Dragon’s in-house bar. The bar was a large structure that dominated one side of the casino floor. There were five bartenders, each tending different parts of the bar. The bartender all the way to the right was not busy, so the Revenants approached him. There was cheering and laughing as Pixie recounted how she had made four hundred Ren on a single side bet.

“I’d like to buy shots for the five of us,” Pixie said, placing a bill on the table.

The bartender took the bill and said, “We’ve got a special going right now: shots of Ninevolt whiskey for five Ren.”

“Sounds good!” Pixie said. Elias could tell that she did not know what Ninevolt was, mostly because Ninevolt was not an actual whiskey brand.

The drinks came in shot glasses with dragons carved into the sides. They picked up the shot glasses, some with more confidence than others.

“We should do a toast!” Grim exclaimed.

“I like the sound of that!” Pixie said.

“But what should we toast to?” Grim wondered aloud.

“I have an idea,” Redgrave said. He raised his shot glass, and the other four Revenants matched him. “To gambling!"

Everyone mimicked Redgrave’s toast with differing levels of enthusiasm based on the luck they had that night, then all five Revenants took their shots. Elias and Redgrave had no difficulty, but the other three only got halfway through before they began to choke. Elias was suddenly aware of why it was called Ninevolt whiskey. It kicked like he had just licked a nine-volt battery.

The Revenants laughed at each other’s reaction to the whiskey. Seeing this scene of mirth, Elias wondered where these five Revenants would be in a day, ten days, a year. Would all five of them survive to see GM’s timer hit zero? The actual time limit seemed like such a distant memory.

The Revenants of Osiris worried that they might not even survive the next few days, let alone the next ten years. Thus, they searched for these brief moments of respite so that they may forget, perhaps for a moment, their fragile mortality. It did not matter how much they won; it did not matter how much they lost. All of them could be dead in an hour.

In no time at all, Elias’s moment of respite was over. He soon found himself in bed on the sixth floor of Hotel Acheron, slightly dizzy after imbibing five shots of Ninevolt whiskey. Elias had only been lying in bed for a few minutes before he fell into a deep sleep.