07/31/2026: Gambling

The Fire Jolt Café fills its last chairs as Debbie takes her final bow. The set has gone well — well enough that Quintelius corners her before she's finished packing up her gear and offers her a touring slot on the spot. A replacement spot until their regular guitar player can sort out his romantic entanglements. It is a convenient offer. This timeline's Debbie already owns the bus.

There is a wedding coming between Rampart and this timeline's KFC. In the stretch of time before it, the group settles on an evening at the Strixhaven Casino, framed for anyone asking as a Witness's Party. Practical, low-key, and possibly profitable.

At least Debbie hopes so. They will need gold for whatever comes next.

Getting ready, the conversation drifts sideways into the thing nobody has quite wanted to say out loud. The Wrinkle in Time scroll got them here. It was never built to get them home a second time, not with a second correction needed to fix the Convergence Catastrophe disparity this timeline is carrying. The arithmetic is not complicated. They need yet another scroll, a second scroll, someone with the arcane skill to read it properly, and some luck. Failing that, they're stuck fixing a timeline they can't leave — or they end up somewhere else entirely, in some other century.

Someone brings up Dr. Aldrevus Thenn. The Chronomancy professor has been useful before: he certainly has the magical skills the group needs. Thenn might be helpful.

Faced with all of this, the party does the only sensible thing available to reasonable adults under pressure.

They go to the casino.

⚔️

Titania stays behind.

She isn't up to it — not tonight, not with the knowledge that a version of herself, in this very timeline, is married to a version of her lost love, who is very much alive. Titania stays alone in the dorm, alone and brooding. Squid is off on another overnight with Ayan, which doesn't help their mood. They haven't told the others yet that the child might elect to simply stay here, in this timeline, with the Votress and her family.

⚔️

The Hexmates show their genuine student identification cards from their own timelines. The casino doorman studies their IDs under the light for a long moment and delivers his verdict: very lame forgeries. He waves them through anyway: few are patronizing the casino this evening.

Inside, a pianist in the corner is murdering a ballad on a slightly out-of-tune piano. Drinks arrive before anyone orders them, poured stronger than anyone asked for. The floor is bright and loud and smells like carpet cleaner fighting a losing battle against spilled beer.

Debbie has what can only be described as an evening.

She wins big at the blackjack table almost immediately — big enough that three aldani— a race of lobster people— take up positions nearby, murmuring into their collars, claws pale salmon against their dark coats. Debbie clocks the attention, walks straight to the gift shop, and buys the largest, cheapest pinstripe suit on the rack. She puts it on. She doubles down.

⚔️

At the poker table, a very committed duplicate of KFC settles in to count cards, quiet and methodical, while Rampart drifts over for a hug. KFC hands him a platinum piece instead without looking at him. He leaves, dejected, without saying why he came.

For a while, luck runs generous for alternate KFC. Then, without ceremony, it stops. The cards turn, then keep turning, and luck packs up and wanders over to Debbie's table instead. Alternate KFC sighs and cashes out no richer than when she walked in.

Meanwhile, her duplicate KFC wins a few rounds of blackjack and goes away very happy.

⚔️

Across the floor, under the flashing lights, Aurora feeds gold into the slot machines on the strength of terrible odds and worse instincts. She will leave with empty pockets and nothing to show for it but empty pockets.

⚔️

Rampart finds alternate Hester at the bar. He has used the platinum piece his fiancé tossed him to order the most expensive bottle of wine available at the casino. He was going to imbibe alone, but now that Hester is here…he pours her a drink she doesn’t touch. Now, three glasses in, he is uncharacteristically candid. He tells her he has doubts about the wedding — that KFC, his intended, doesn't always seem interested in him, or even especially kind. They are suited as sparring partners, but little else. It comes out slow, unprompted. Just a slow realization that he and KFC don't really talk. That he's not seeing a happy future in that kind of relationship. That he wants someone easier to talk to.

Someone like her, for instance.

He leaves it there at the table — the confession, the expensive bottle of wine, and alternate Hester. She is somewhere between puzzled and alarmed as she watches Rampart wander off.

⚔️

Across the nearly empty bar, Reyna sips a glass of wine. Professor Murgaxor slips onto the stool next to her. They study one another momentarily, before he murmurs, “Exactly what do the duplicate students intend to do to this timeline.”

Reyna plays clueless. She shrugs, and doesn't answer him.

He doesn't seem surprised.

“I don’t know what your talking about,” Reyna finally tells him.

Murgaxor slips away, muttering threats.

⚔️

Near the end of the night, the Chronomancy professor, Aldrevus Thenn, finds Hester with news nobody wanted. The Wrinkle In Time scroll's ink is fading — quickly. Days, he estimates. Maybe a week, if they're careful with it. Whatever business the party has left in this timeline, he suggests, they should finish it very soon.

He doesn't linger to explain further, though he mentions, almost as an aside, that he'll be leaving this timeline himself before long. He doesn't know what the fading signifies. He seems, if anything, eager to be gone from the casino floor already, and he disappears behind the blinking lights of the slot machines before Hester can ask him anything else.

Which leaves the obvious problem sitting untouched at the table: they still don't have a second scroll. The clock on the first one is already running down. And somewhere in this room, a bullywug with a very particular interest in their itinerary is watching them.