The thing about waking up surrounded is that it's never a good sign—historically speaking, people who find themselves encircled by strangers upon regaining consciousness are either about to be sacrificed to gods with questionable moral frameworks or inducted into cults they didn't apply to join.
None of these scenarios end well for the waking party.
Which is why my first instinct, upon opening my eyes to find several figures looming over the bed, was to assume I'd died sometime during the night and this was hell's welcoming committee coming to process my paperwork.
I did a quick headcount—seven men, though taking an accurate census while flat on my back and seconds from disaster wasn't exactly my forte—each of them wrapped in layers of ragged clothing that looked as though the slums themselves had rejected it for failing even the most forgiving standards of wearability.
They all wore a wicked smile, stretched across their faces with the unsettling uniformity that comes from either extensive practice or shared enthusiasm for whatever was about to happen.
And gods, they smelled atrocious—a potent blend of sweat, greed, and that sour undertone my beastman senses identified as a mixture of unwashed bodies, cheap alcohol, and the particular stench of people who'd given up on hygiene as a necessary luxury.
They gazed down upon the two of us—Jazmin and I still half-entangled in the silk sheets—with expressions that made my skin prickle and my fight-or-flight response file an emergency petition for the latter option.
I shot upright fast enough to send the covers into mild disarray, nearly knocking a pillow off the bed in the process, my hand instinctively reaching for weapons I wasn't carrying because I'd been too busy engaging in athletic debauchery to think about strategic armament.
But before I could fully commit to whatever panic response my body was preparing, Jazmin snatched my arm with one hand—her grip surprisingly strong, fingers digging into my flesh hard enough to leave marks, and I got the memo immediately.
This was merely part of the routine.
Just then, footsteps sounded beyond the entrance—measured, unhurried, the sort that didn't approach so much as announce their imminent ownership of the room. In that same instant, the ragged men shifted their posture into something akin to respect as the silk curtains parted with theatrical slowness, another figure stepping through them.
To say he was old would be an understatement of such magnitude it bordered on insult to the word itself.
He was ancient—less a man and more something remembered, a ghost of vitality past, a walking testament to the fact that mortality was negotiable if you were stubborn enough to keep refusing death's increasingly aggressive collection notices.
He didn't walk so much as drift across the floor with movements that seemed to bypass physics in favor of operating on sheer will, accumulated resentment, and a lifetime subscription to spite, his hunched frame swallowed by layers of purple robes that trailed behind him like the ceremonial aftermath of a curse—fabric pooling and sliding as though the floor itself were being reluctantly claimed in his wake.
His hair was thin enough to make his scalp an active participant in the presentation, gathered into a long ponytail at the base of his skull that spoke of decades of deliberate neglect.
But it was his eyebrows that truly demanded attention—vast, extravagant lengths of white that spilled past the edges of his face, curling and drifting with such heroic excess that they seemed less like facial hair and more like ceremonial banners marking the passage of time.
His skin had the texture of well-traveled parchment, the sort that had been folded, unfolded, annotated, and spilled on so many times it no longer remembered its original purpose. Each wrinkle felt intentional, not the sagging decay of someone forgotten by time, but the deliberate creasing of something time had tried—and failed—to erase.
His eyes were almost lost beneath the elaborate topography of his age—mere slivers of sharp awareness glinting through layers of creased skin—but what little was visible carried a quiet, unsettling clarity, gleaming faintly with a presence that spoke volumes of his true nature.
"My name is Byron," he introduced himself, his voice an unexpected contradiction—deep, steady, and resonant, entirely unimpressed by the centuries implied by his face. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I do hope Jazmin has been treating you well. She's quite talented at making guests feel... welcome."
The room bowed before him with the kind of reverence usually reserved for royalty or religious figures, heads dipping low enough I briefly worried one of their spines might snap with the effort.
Beside me, Jazmin straightened fully, the sheets falling away to reveal her naked body without shame or modesty, before she leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek—warm, lingering, and so carefully staged it might as well have come with choreography notes.
"We're going for a walk," she murmured against my skin, her voice smoothing itself into that honeyed register she'd used when we first met.
A faint smile followed—seductive, effortless, familiar—as the mask slipped neatly back into place. Whatever vulnerability had existed hours ago vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the polished performance of someone who'd learned, long ago, how to survive by becoming exactly what the room expected to see.
I vaulted out of bed with more enthusiasm than the situation warranted, landing in a low crouch before straightening to my full height while still very much unclothed—a decision that earned an immediate chorus of commentary from the ragged men, none of whom had raised their heads but all of whom, apparently, possessed distressingly excellent peripheral vision.
"Saints above, look at that ass," one muttered.
"Wouldn't last ten minutes in the pit," another whispered.
"Pretty little thing though. Such a shame."
I ignored them with the practiced ease because at this point I'd been objectified enough times that it stopped registering as notable, crossed to the drawer where Jazmin had stuffed my pouch, and began the process of redressing myself with unhurried care—taking my time, making them wait, and quietly establishing that whatever narrative they thought they were part of was proceeding on my timetable, not theirs.
The opera gloves slid back on with familiar comfort. The lingerie and dress settled over my frame like an old accomplice. When I was finished, I turned to Byron with a smile that was almost certainly more confident than dignity allowed, but confidence has always been one of my better bluffs.
"Lead the way, then. I'm absolutely dying to see what kind of special entertainment requires this much dramatic buildup."
Without a moment to spare, we set off—Byron drifting ahead as though gravity were a negotiable suggestion, Jazmin gliding at my side with liquid grace, and me doing my best impression of someone who hadn't just signed up for whatever the hell this was.
However, instead of heading anywhere on the second floor where I'd assumed the games and their assorted bad decisions lived, we ascended even higher—up another sandstone staircase curling toward the third floor I'd only glimpsed from below.
The third floor was even darker than the second, which I hadn't thought possible, but apparently there were depths of darkness I hadn't yet experienced and this level was determined to educate me.
There was no chaos here—just commerce conducted in the shadows, transactions I couldn't quite see but could certainly hear. Murmured negotiations, the discreet clink of coin, and the occasional muffled sound that might have been pleasure, pain, or an efficient blend of the two. Smoke drifted in from every direction, thick and indulgent, carrying unfamiliar scents that made my head feel slightly fuzzy if I breathed too deeply.
We traced the balcony's edge in a slow circuit, Byron's robes whispering across the stone like a conspiratorial aside, until we reached a crooked sandstone arch that opened onto a hallway darker than the concept of optimism. The passage stretched beyond what little light dared to follow, as though it had formally opted out of visibility.
Byron led the way without hesitation, disappearing into the darkness as if returning home from a long journey, and I followed without question because retreating now would have achieved nothing beyond advertising cowardice and encouraging the escort still flanking us to reconsider my continued relevance.
I was immediately hit by the thick scent of dust—old and complacent, the kind that accumulates over years of neglect or deliberate preservation—mixing with the faint residue of long-burned incense leaving ghostly impressions in the air.
Beneath it all lingered the sharp tang of dried ink, acrid and chemical, as though someone had been producing an alarming volume of paperwork and the stone itself had absorbed the overflow.
The deeper we progressed into the hall, the more I started to notice the figures lining the walls on both sides—more of the poor folk from the casino proper set in various states of dishevelment. An arm gone here, both legs there, one man with no limbs at all propped against the stone like misplaced baggage no one bothered to claim.
They pressed deeper into the shadows as we passed, their bodies seeming to fold into the darkness itself, some backing away in outright fear while others glanced at me with expressions that looked disturbingly like pity. None of them met my eyes directly though—they'd all learned that lesson apparently, learned that eye contact with people walking this hall was either dangerous, forbidden, or both.
Crossing the threshold at the end of the hall, we stepped into a room that very nearly succeeded in catching me off guard—a rare accomplishment, given my long-standing policy of treating the bizarre as a mild inconvenience.
Nearly every visible surface had been surrendered to purple and gold. Silk spilled from the ceiling in great, rippling swaths, drifting and colliding with one another like slow-motion waves, animated by unseen currents and a clear lack of respect for gravity or restraint. It felt less like décor and more like the room had been aggressively styled.
The space was dotted with various cushions and couches, scattered around the room without any discernible logic, and on them resided more of those ragged men intertwined with beastfolk slaves being openly fucked or otherwise defiled in ways that made my recent activities look positively wholesome by comparison.
On the surface they held smiles of ecstasy—mouths open in apparent pleasure, backs arched, bodies moving with enthusiasm—but when I caught the look in their eyes I saw the quiet pain beneath, the dissociation, the mental absence of people who'd learned to leave their bodies during use and return only when it was safe.
More incense filled the room, ten times more potent than what I'd smelled in Jazmin's chamber, carrying faint traces of some sort of drug that made the air feel thick and resistant. It drifted lazily above us in visible clouds, moving toward the room's main attraction and the thing that caught my attention most completely.
The ceiling was not a ceiling at all but a full array of stars—actual stars, or a magical imitation so flawless I couldn't tell the difference—mixing in a milky haze that looked as though someone had captured a piece of the galaxy and mounted it overhead for aesthetic purposes.
They twinkled and shifted, creating patterns that hurt to track for too long. The more I stared, the more I felt the queasy pull of vertigo, the unsettling sensation that gravity might reconsider its priorities and let me fall up into that infinite space.
Small tables swaddled in purple silk dotted the room, each supporting a crystal ball of a different size, glowing faintly from within and filled with slow, swirling mist.
Directly in front of us stood a table that commanded attention through sheer presence—a poker table complete with a green felt surface and chip holders, flanked by two chairs on either side, plush enough to promise comfort yet honest enough to admit you'd be there a while.
Byron drifted around it as though orbiting an old companion, his robes spreading and gathering at his feet like a patient tide before he eased himself into his seat with the slow, ceremonial care of someone whose bones had long ago stopped cooperating with ambitious positioning.
He gestured toward the opposite chair with one gnarled hand, his sleeve falling back to expose skin so thin it looked more theoretical than practical.
"Please," he said, his voice warm in a way that felt carefully cultivated, "have a seat. We have much to discuss."