Corinthia did not live in an insula. Corinthia's house was small but had its own courtyard, tucked back in among a row of houses just like it or close enough as to make no difference. She had a neatly kept little garden with lawn humans around them, tiny statues of people fishing or farming or doing other typical human things such as engaging in conquest or being needlessly anxious.

“It's just me now,” Corinthia said, leaving the rest of the robed bunch outside and ushering Chase in through a brightly-painted door.

Inside, piles of dolls easily half Chase's height filled the sitting room, bundles of herbs next to the windows rustled in the wind, and the smell of camphor and soap drifted over it all.

It was cozy, in a way that Chase hadn't seen since she'd left Bothernot and it hit her with an unexpected longing. She was far, far from home. That was more of a good thing than a bad thing, but still.... but still...

“My husband passed on four years ago. I'm not sure why. He was so young, so healthy...” Corinthia's eyes tightened. The skin around them was worn and tight, wrinkles showing the hard life she'd had. “I dwelled on it, sought out answers. Not all of the ways I went looking were legal. I suppose that's what brought me to the goddess' attention.” She sighed, and shifted aside a porcelain doll. “Please, sit. Would you care for tea?”

“I would and thank you,” Chase said, as her belly rumbled. Food was tight, and she had been hungry since the moment she'd woken. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Don't be. I'll see him again.” Corinthia's face smoothed out, as she looked down and smiled. “That's what she told me, the last time we met.”

“I'm going to guess you spoke to Nebs twice, then? I think that's how the rules go.”

“Once before we gain the job. Once during. And once... well, after. You know. I've had two. And soon it might be three.” Corinthia hung her robe on a nearby hook, next to a dirty apron and a pair of heavy canvas gloves hanging from a string. “Let me see about that tea.”

Chase settled in the clear spot that the widow had mad, absently patting the head of a nearby doll as the cushion she sat on flexed, and dropped it into her lap. Someone else might find it creepy, she supposed, but she and Corinthia shared an uncommon job. There was a sort of kinship there, an understanding that people without it couldn't achieve. It was why she had left Bastien to his own devices and accepted the woman's invitation to her home without worrying about ambush or some other betrayal.

Corinthia was curious about Chase.

That gave her room to work. And she'd be lying if she said she wasn't curious about Corinthia herself. Oracle was a rare trade. She'd never met anyone else who followed that path.

“What's Nebs like?” she asked when Corinthia returned with a steaming pot and a tray of biscuits.

“Busy,” Corinthia said, and Chase snorted laughter. Nebs was the goddess of death, of course she was busy. Corinthia continued; “She seemed surprised to see me, then told me that I could be helpful. She said that in thirty days a great dragon would arrive in Gnome, and her shadow would grow to corrupt and destroy the world.”

“What?” Chase stared in amazement. “That's very precise. I can't believe you got that accurate a prophecy!”

“It wasn't, really. The dragon showed up on day twenty-two.” Corinthia's mouth thinned. “I confronted her on it the second time we met, the night the dragon razed its way through the city. She told me that I was missing something very important, and that she couldn't say anything more.”

“Well...” Chase said, munching a biscuit before she responded, “Hoon told me that nothing's certain, not really. Nothing's set in stone, and there are multiple ways everything can go. I think, anyway. He was nice, though. Come to think of it, he showed up around the same time as Nebs did to you. That's a happy coincidence... or....” she frowned. “Or maybe not. Maybe they meant to throw us into this together.”

“When did you take the job?” Corinthia asked, pouring herself a cup.

“The day I met him. Things happened very quickly. I needed it to save my village.”

“Maybe things would have been different if I'd followed the same path,” The widow's eyes tightened again. “I dithered for a long time, I wasn't sure if I wanted the responsibility. I tried telling people about the prophecy, but nobody listened. They called me a lunatic, shouted me down. You wouldn't believe how much time I spent cleaning up trash that people threw over my walls. I just... I'd never had to convince anyone about something like this before, and I failed. Eventually I fell silent.” She frowned, fussing with her bun, checking for errant wisps of hair and setting them back into place. “Then the dragon came early. And now... and now they think I know what to do,” Corinthia finished. “I didn't take the job until the dragon came. This is my third day, I'm level three, and I barely know what I'm doing. And everyone seems to think I have a plan.”

Chase put the teacup down, and looked into the widow's eyes. There was hope there, and it broke her heart to crush it. “I don't have a plan either. I'm in town for another reason, the dragon just... happened.” She sighed. “He... she, I suppose, has changed the playing field.”

“No? Oh dear.” Corinthia looked into her tea. “I don't know what to do.” She was blinking now, and Chase thought she saw tears through the steaming vapor of the hot cup. “They keep asking me what to do next, and I've been stalling them, and I just need some kind of sign, and I'm supposed to be an Oracle but I can't even talk to the goddess, and.... and...”

“Here! Here now, it's all right,” Chase said, putting her own cup down and rushing to the woman's side. “It's all right. She wouldn't have made you an Oracle if it was hopeless. There's always something you can do, you just have to... figure it out. The gods don't have all the answers, they just see the way things can go. It's up to us mortals to decide.”

“Decide what?” Corinthia turned away, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing her nose. “We either stay here until the dragon gets us or run, and we've got nowhere to go!”

“Hold on,” Chase said, watching the woman fall apart. “It's okay. It'll be okay.”

She shushed Corinithia while the human had a good cry, held her as best she could, letting her get it all out.

And when her sobs subsided, Chase asked another question. “What level are you again?”

“Three.”

“Okay... okay,” Chase said, turning it over in her head. “Give me a second. Status. Help Oracle.” She read for a bit, then nodded. “I think I know what might help.”

“Help how? Help with what?” Corinthia said, her lips trembling again, roughly about a step away from another full-on cry.

“At level five we get Omens and Portents. Once you get it, it'll let your goddess send you signs. Hoon's sent me a few... I think.” Chase frowned. “The trick is it's up to us to interpret them.”

“I need something like that! I want to know what she thinks I can do about this!”

“That's no problem, we just have to get you a few levels...” Chase considered, her ears twitching. “And actually, we might be able to help each other out.”

“How so?” Corinthia gained back some of her moxie, rallying at the thought.

“You need Oracle levels. I need Gambler levels. I think we can do both at once.” Actually, she needed all sorts of levels, but after finally figuring out what she was missing for Gambler she ached to make up the lost time. “Here.” Chase dumped a handful of silver on the end table. “Half is yours. You can keep whatever you win, and use it to buy food or whatever works. That'll give you incentive to play, make it real.”

“We don't... you don't have to,” Corinthia stammered. “You've done so much, you've given my people a beautiful distraction, given them something to watch and do that isn't hopeless waiting. How could I take your money?”

“You're not,” Chase grinned widely. “I aim to beat you. But seriously, it's actual coin, because I don't think it counts for Gambler unless there's something real at stake.” That had been why she hadn't managed it before, she was certain. Late night games of spog and follow-the-cabbage with her friends hadn't involved money, and so she hadn't gained experience for the job. And then she'd been too busy preparing to figure it out further.

They played, and Chase won handily before she shook her head. “No no no, use Foresight!”

“Well, that would be cheating.”

“I've been using it silently for three hands!” Chase lied. “That and Ace in the Hole!”

Your Ace in the Hole skill is now level 3!

She took the opportunity to grab the queen of diamonds that called in and slip it into her hand without Corinthia noticing. “Using your skills is the point! Come on and grind, give me a challenge, lady.”

Even with Corinthia using Foresight, Chase still had to throw a few hands. But she was all right with that. She had determined that Corinthia would get her money one way or another. The trick was not to make it obvious that it was charity.

More than that, she wanted to build the woman's confidence. This was no sinister cult, as the people she was staying with had suspected. This was a fellow Oracle in over her head.

Chase could sympathize with that.

And by the time Corinthia had crawled up two levels, Chase had gotten the gains she was looking for. Two skill ups in Silent Activation, eight in Ace in the Hole, and the real prize itself;

Congratulations, you are now a level 5 Gambler!

LUCK+5

PER+5

You have learned the Ante Up skill!

Your Ante Up skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Deadly Dice skill!

Your Deadly Dice skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Double Down skill!

Your Double Down skill is now level 1!

Chase's breath caught in her teeth. She knew what one of those skills did, and oh my goodness it was strong.

She snuck a glance at Corinthia, who had a glazed look on her eyes. “Reading your status help?” Chase inquired.

Corinthia nodded, absent-mindedly, so Chase took the opportunity to do the same.

Ante Up

Cost: Up to five times your level in Fortune Duration: 10 seconds/level

Test your luck to gain a fortune! Pay an amount of fortune to force everyone nearby to ante up a similar amount. (If this would reduce them to 0 fortune, they are exempt.) Everyone involved tests their luck, the winner gets the sum total of all anted fortune as a fortune buff for a short time.

Deadly Dice

Cost: 10 For Duration: 1 Attack

Conjures and hurls a set of magical dice at a foe. The damage inflicted on a successful hit is random and based on the roll. If they come up snakeeyes, then the Gambler takes damage instead.

Double Down

Cost: Double the invoked skill Duration: Instant

Used after activating another skill. If the skill usage is successful, then any numerical benefit gained is doubled. If the skill is failed, then any negative effect is doubled. May only be used on skills which have a chance of failure.

“I can't believe I get that at level five,” Chase whispered. Ante Up had let her survive and guide her friends through a thoroughly deadly situation, turning her into a future-predicting general, allowing her to use her most costly tricks without fear of running out of power.

But then, it had also hurt the Gambler who used it.

She wouldn't always be the luckiest person on the battlefield... and she noticed that all three of the skills she'd gained had serious downsides.

Still, she'd gotten her level rush and a bundle of new tricks, so Chase smiled and took a sip of her now-cold tea. “I'd say that was a good use of an afternoon.”

Corinthia didn't answer.

“Corinthia?”

The widow was staring into her tea cup, eyes wide. “There's some paper in the next room, on a writing desk. Bring me that and a stylus, would you please?” she finally whispered.

Chase hurried there and back again, watching as the woman put down the teacup with shaking hands, and started sketching as if her life depended on it.

“It looks like... tea leaves?” Chase guessed.

“It is, but... there's a pattern. This is a sign, I know it! She hasn't abandoned me!”

Chase smiled. “Then we're good.” She stood up, and snagged the last few biscuits from the tray. A few for the road wouldn't go amiss. “I'll go back to my people and let them know that you're friendly over here. Ah...” she frowned. “I do have a question. They seem to be under the impression that anyone who tries to leave here forfeits all their food and coin. Is that a thing?”

“Oh I should have known he'd be trouble!” Corinthia burst out. She put the picture aside, taking care to leave the teacup where it was. “Sorry. There was a moneylender, a very unpopular man. When the troubles came he tried to call in his debts and run. He threatened people, and sent his thugs around to collect.”

“Oh. Oh dear.” Chase blinked. This was the sort of story the village elders of Bothernot used to tell about the city. “Did someone escape and people got the wrong impression of who was doing the extortion around here?”

“No,” Corinthia said, and pressed her lips into a grim smile. “He lied and tried to collect on a loan that my husband never took out. He tried to collect from me. And when I stood up to him and had his thugs thrown out, the rest of his creditors took heart. We sent his thugs packing and him along with them. We did that after we confiscated his own food and supplies and took our money back. So I suppose he went out spreading stories about us.”

“The culty-looking robes and ash makeup doesn't really help with your image,” Chase said.

“I didn't start that,” Corinthia sighed. “It does seem to make people happy, though.”

“Well, I'm glad they rallied to you and threw him out.”

Corinthia smiled. “They didn't. Once my darlings showed how weak his thugs were, they took heart. I had to do the hard part without my neighbors helping.”

“Your... darlings.” Chase paused.

“Are you sure you want to know? It... well, it's not exactly legal.”

“Neither am I,” Chase confessed.

“Very well. Command the Dead, curtsey for our guest, dears.”

And as one, with whispers of patched cloth and clinking of porcelain skin, every doll in the room rose and bowed to the stunned halfling.

“Ah,” Chase said, and managed to shove down the screaming horror that threatened to rise up in her brain. Corinthia was watching her with a worried look on her face.

“There are bones under the shells, you see,” Corinthia said. “I... went looking for help, to check on my husband after he passed. It got me into some not very nice circles. I did what I could to make them nicer.”

“Nicer?” Chase said, staring at the doll that had been in her lap, the doll she'd petted. The tea she'd just drank churned in her guts. “Are they?”

“They are,” Corinthia said. “Lonely spirits, wandering ones or troubled ghosts. I tucked them into my darlings. Now I have company, and I speak to them every day, let them know they're not alone. Most are confused and a bit troubled, but I've been able to help some of them. We keep each other company.”

“Do your neighbors know?” Chase asked her.

“No. All they know is that my dolls are magical.” Corinthia looked at her, eyes pleading. “You're the only one that does.”

Chase nodded. “I see. I'll have to tell my friends. I trust them, they'll keep silent.”

“That's fair, I suppose. I feel I can trust you,” Corinthia smiled. “You've helped me find my way again.”

“That's... good,” Chase said, eyes flicking to the drawing. Now that she looked at it, the tea leaves did form a shape that almost looked like a skull. “Well. Thank you for your hospitality, and I wish you well.”

She managed to leave without incident, collecting a very sweaty and rather worn out Bastien from the taverna as she did. He shook hands with people as he went, taking a second to share a few words and a comradely fistbump with a bruised but happy Guido, along with a few other people he'd wrestled during Chase's absence.

“After the More'a Cow Mangler won the purse, I started training them and showing them how to set up brackets,” Bastien rumbled on the way home. “They're talking about starting up a league. A few of them will be over to challenge our piazza once things settle down some.”

“That might be a while,” Chase said. “We'll likely be gone before it happens.”

“Yeah, but it WILL happen. Those ash guys are pretty dour, but everyone else seems pretty upbeat.”

“They are now,” Chase said, remembering the smile when Corinthia read her future in the tea leaves. “For better or worse,” she whispered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Ah... just something I need to tell you and the others once we're back indoors. Out of the street.”

“Well, the good news is I think the ash is clearing a bit,” Bastien said. “I can see a bit further down the— whoa.”

“Whoa?” Chase asked.

And then she saw it, up by the barricade that she'd squeaked past to come east.

A whole group of armored people, with weapons out and glittering, shouting up at the vigilantes manning the chokepoint.

They did not sound happy.

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 11, Cook level 5, Archer level 9, Gambler Level 5, Grifter level 12, Medium level 7, Oracle level 16, Painter level 2, Teacher level 6

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 71 Constitution: 38 / Hit Points: 109 / Armor: 10

Intelligence: 69 Wisdom: 121 / Sanity: 190 / Mental Fortitude: 55

Dexterity: 134 Agility: 66 / Stamina: 200 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 210 Willpower: 55 / Moxie: 265 / Cool: 65

Perception: 113 Luck: 238 / Fortune: 351 / Fate: 48

Generic Skills

Archery – Level 1

Brawling – Level 8

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 13

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 18

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 31

Halven Skills

Fate’s Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 20

Dishwasher – Level N/A

Freshen - Level 12

Archer Skills

Aim – Level 9

Demoralizing Shot – Level 6

Far Shot – Level 1

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Razor Arrow – Level 8

Ricochet Shot – Level 21

Gambler Skills

Ace in the Hole – Level 2

Ante Up – Level 1

Assess Challenge – Level N/A

Cardsharp – Level 9

Deadly Dice – Level 1

Double Down – Level 1

Gambler’s Fortune – Level N/A

Hold’em – Level N/A

Grifter Skills

Feign Death – Level 7

Fools Gold – Level 4

Forgery – Level 11

Master of Disguise – Level 15

Old Buddy – Level 7

Pickpocket – Level 20

Silent Activation – Level 32

Silver Tongue – Level 32

Size Up – Level 8

Unflappable – Level N/A

Medium Skills

Bad Fortune – Level 15

Crystal Ball – Level 10

Focus Vision – Level 5

Fortuna – Level N/A

Good Fortune – Level 16

Palmistry – Level N/A

Séance – Level N/A

Stack Deck – Level N/A

Oracle Skills

Absorb Condition – Level N/A

Afflict Self – Level 1

Diagnose – Level N/A

Divine Pawn – Level N/A

Foresight – Level 45

Grant Vision Level 7

Influence Fate – Level 11

Lesser Healing – Level 45

Omens and Portents – Level N/A

Random Buff – Level 9

Short Vision – Level 16

Transfer Condition – Level 15

Painter Skills

Fast Dry – Level N/A

Painting – Level 5

Teacher Skills

Lecture – Level 24

Red Ink – Level 3

Smarty Pants – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist

Gear

Enrico’s Last Hand

Light Leather Armor