The Sliver on the Wheel
With the casino stripped to a single slot machine and its guards fled, Imani turns the Wheel of Fortune onto the one winning sliver and holds it there until the floor opens, and Louis says his goodbyes and drops through to the Pineapple Cabaret; Carl swears in front of everyone that he will get all of them out no matter where they end up. Mordecai warns that a mimic infestation cannot be rooted out without fumigating the whole Desperado Club, that mimics dodge most detection spells and are labelled as crawlers by the System until unmasked, and that the party needs safe words from now on, so Carl has Imani write a warning and leaves it on Clarabelle's empty chair. On the way to the finish line Donut spends the last two garage keys she looted from Dwight to steal Onikuma the bear and Old Shuck the dog for a parade nobody has explained, Elle corners Carl over the Eye of the Bedlam Bride and the secrets he is still keeping, and the crew passes the floor's giant NPC copy of Imani, trapped in the lobby with a Maltese and talked into closing her eyes by an invented happy ending. In the interlude, Carl's attorney Quasar watches the chicken truck reach the stairwell with 203 crawlers up and 172 deals taken, drinks with his old law-school friend Kiki, and then takes a call from his niece Tempest, who has just shot two of Princess Chandra's Taurin enforcers dead in his brother's house. He takes the summons anyway rather than lose Carl as a client, and retains Kiki with a single credit for both kinds of help.
First appearances (3)
- Kiki (Character) — Syndicate attorney · dromedarian · Daniel Bautista's counsel
- Tempest (Character) — Quasar's niece · Nullian
- Chandra's Contract on Quasar's Family (Event) — The interlude · a hit on opposing counsel
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