08/07/2026: The House Always Wins (Except When It Doesn't) PG-13

The party is at the casino, where alternate KFC's and Rampart's wedding has apparently obligated the entire hex to serve as witnesses. Debbie sees the whole thing as a money-making opportunity.

"But the House always wins!" Alternate KFC points out.

"Except when it doesn't," counters Debbie, and unspools her idea to the class valedictorian. Alternate KFC nods and settles into the chair beside her, hoping to play enough hands to guarantee a big win.

The card-counting fails spectacularly, because the House always wins.

Except when it doesn't. This is demonstrated by Debbie, who quietly has the best night of cards in anyone's life, working her way from a modest stake up to several thousand gold — at which point three casino employees materialize at her elbow. Aldani, lobsterfolk, ominous in black suits and earpieces, communicating the universal customer-service language of *you've won too much money at our table now please leave.*

Debbie is escorted out with unnerving, efficient politeness.

⚔️

At a blackjack table, Diro, freshly buffed and financially reckless, offers his own soul as collateral to the dealer, on the theory that winning would net him one extra soul and a guaranteed trip to paradise in the afterlife. The Aldani running the table explains, patiently, professionally, that souls are non-transferable and this is not that kind of casino. Diro settles for a bet of gold instead.

He wins, and only slightly regrets the missed opportunity.

⚔️

Titania arrives late to the Witness Party, having determined that the four walls of their hexroom are not helping with the heartbreak. Instead they find the casino's bar, tucked into a corner, and perch on a stool with a fire whiskey and a fresh existential crisis over Squid's apparent preference for his alternate, healthier family. They ignore Alistir's pleadings toward some course of action that is more productive, less self-destructive.

"Can I have this at advantage," Titania asks the bartender, "since I'm an alcoholic?"

He is scrupulously attempting to ignore them.

“But you’re NOT an alcoholic, Titania!” hisses Alister from within her head.

“Not yet,” Titania says aloud, and the bartender raises an eyebrow. He keeps a close eye on any of the patrons who talk to themselves.

⚔️

From a table, Alternate Hester watches Titania talking to herself at the bar. Her untouched full glass and expensive bottle of Rampart’s wine before her.

A server — a tabaxi snow leopard in short shorts, a worn black apron, a beat-up tray — begins wiping Alternate Hester’s table with a grungy, damp cloth. "Need anything, friend? No? Waiting for someone?"

The look alternate Hester returns halts the server mid-wipe. "No more money? This place will do that."

Alternate Hester huffs. "No, it's not that. It's — life choices."

The server rolls her gold-green eyes. "Tell me. That's how I wound up here." Looking her over more carefully, she asks, cautiously: "Hey, are you still a student up at Strixhaven?"

Alternate Hester nods, mumbles, "For now."

"My advice? Stay in school if you can. I left, and it's been tough ever since." With a swish of her tail she departs, returning a moment later with a basket of pretzels, which she slides across the table.

"This is the best I can do for you, sweetie."

"Pretzels?"

The server nods, whiskers twitching. "This place doesn't want players to eat. They only want them to drink, so they'll gamble more. Enjoy them while you can."

Across the room, alternate Hester can see Titania waving to get the bartender's attention.

⚔️

Finally, he barks at them to shut up and pours Titania a large fire whiskey. They toss it back with the grim determination of one who wishes to forget — heartbreak, disappointment, responsibility, what they ate for lunch. Possibly all of the above.

They order another. The dubious bartender obliges. Three rounds in, Titania's eyes roll back and they topple off the stool. Two Aldani escort them out the front door with brisk efficiency, and Titania return the favor by throwing up in the casino's landscaping.

⚔️

Outside the entrance, Rampart waits for the valet to bring his car around. A downcast man joins him.

"Lose your stake, friend?" Rampart asks, gently.

The man nods. He tells Rampart that once he’d run out of money, he'd tried, unsuccessfully, to gamble with bottle caps. Now he tries to convince Rampart that his luck is about to turn any moment now. The barbarian declines to fund him further after the one gold piece he does hand over disappears immediately into the nearest slot machine with no payout.

At about this time, Rampart watches Titania get sick just beside the casino door. The valet arrives with his car, and he offers to drive them home. "The Hex," he asks, cautiously, "or your home home?"

"It's not my home," Titania howls, and rides the rest of the way with their head hanging out the window like a very sad, very drunk dog. Rampart tucks them in, leaves a glass of water, and asks if they need anything else. They do not want water.

He leaves Titania's room and stops Alternate Hester as she returns from the casino. "Can I ask you something, Hester?"

She is unprepared for what comes next: Rampart suggests they skip town—together— head for Waterdeep, just the two of them. They can start over, no complications. As friends only — no romantic entanglements. "It's because you're easy to talk to, Hester," Rampart tells her, with genuine plea in his voice.

"You mean leave school?" alternate Hester stutters.

"Well, yeah. I'm a garbage student anyway, and you hate what your dad is making you study. So let's just leave."

Alternate Hester, panicking on the inside, asks, "Can I sleep on it? I need some time to think," breathlessly, then backs toward her bedroom. Rampart stands alone in the hex living room, looking defeated.

"Hester?"

She looks back at him fearfully from behind her nearly-closed door. She does not want to continue this conversation.

"Would you mind keeping this to yourself, at least until tomorrow? I wouldn't want KFC to find out beforehand from someone else. I don't want to marry her, but I don't want to hurt her either. I'm going to break things off as soon as I can."

"Sure, Rampart."

Alternate Hester closes the door and succumbs to a panic attack on her dorm room floor.

⚔️

After Rampart leaves, a poisonously hungover Titania rises and heads out to the Biblioplex for yet another search to find a text that might contain magic that can separate them from Alistir. Reaching high on a shelf, they nearly overbalance, catching a slim handwritten volume that tumbles into their hands.

It is the book.

It describes the condition Titania and Alistir suffer from — a shared body — and the ritual that might undo it: four casters, spell components rare but not impossible to find.

Within the confines of their aching head, Alistir gasps. "This is it, Titania. We can return to our own lives. This is what we've dreamed about!"

"Later," Titania snarls, tossing the book into their bag. They have more pressing matters to attend to. Discovering whether the alternate Titania is a terrible mother, for instance.

As Alistir, they harass the librarian, trying to get her to share some dirt on the alternate Titania — anything to justify not leaving Squid in her care. The librarian is sympathetic rather than annoyed, and has nothing bad to say. "Are you mad at Titania again, Alistir?"

Alistir flees into the dawn light and bumps into Professor MacDonald, out walking his enormous Great Dane, Otto. He interrogates the professor about Titania's foibles.

"I'm not sure what you want, Alistir," the professor says, flummoxed. "I can't talk behind the back of one student to another, even if they do share the same back."

"I just want to dish dirt on Titania! Like all fey, we love dirt. Need dirt."

"Try Professor Ivishuss, in Witherbloom. She's a wood elf, I believe, and might traffic in 'dirt,' as you say."

⚔️

Alistir pays a visit to Professor Ivishuss — poisons specialist, expert in antidotes, eyebrows arched sharp enough to cut glass — fishing for dirt on the alternate Titania under the thin pretext of "academic improvement."

The professor serves tea of suspicious color, delivers a gentle but pointed assessment of Alistir's own moral character, and then asks after the wellbeing of Titania's child.

Alistir and Titania, sharing a body and a spiraling sense of guilt, both burst into tears at the same moment and flee the office as a falcon. The professor is left holding a teapot — and within the hour, spreads word that Ayan, Titania's child, has died.

Like all fey, Professor Ivishuss loves dirt.

⚔️

As the sun comes up, Rampart remains in the Hex that is not his own. He is staring at the closed doors of the two people he likes best in the world.

It is here that Diro and his Stand, up early, find him.

"Sup?" Diro yawns. "You here to get KFC for sparring?"

"Not this morning. I think I'll let her sleep in."

"Need someone to spar with?"

Rampart, Diro, and the Stand head down to the lawn for a match. It ends almost immediately, with Rampart flat on his back, unconscious, and bleeding copiously from his trunk.

Diro and his Stand argue about whose fault this was — which is, at this point, simply how they communicate.