IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a place where misadventure could begin, you can’t go past Mbargo. The nightclub’s streetfront is painted a purple so bright you’ll see it in your dreams. Strings of giant sequins shimmer in the breeze. Its phonically inventive name is spelt in silver letters that climb its three-storey terrace facade. Inside are strips of burning neon, a few booths, floorboards so marinated in drink that they have an ingredients list. Bristol is a student city on England’s south coast crowded with music and nightlife and street art. This is Banksy’s home town, and the tourism board suggests in rather strong terms that ‘you would be a fool not to see his amazing work firsthand’. The same organisation describes Mbargo as ‘intimate’, which is fair for a place where you can catch an STI standing up. Students cram into its modest dimensions while people with names like DJ Klaud battle for billing with £1.50 drink deals over seven sloppy nights a week. To get a sense of the story about to come, consider that it’s the kind of place open until two o’clock on a Monday morning, and that at two o’clock on a Monday morning, Ben Stokes still thought it had closed too early.
The Ashes of 2017–18 had disciplinary bookends. It was after that series that Australia’s two leaders went off the rails in South Africa. It was a few weeks before that Ashes tour that England’s biggest star windmilled his way into his own disaster.
In the early hours of 25 September 2017, Stokes and teammate Alex Hales were barred from re-entering Mbargo after a night out on the piss. A Sunday thrashing of an abject West Indies in an ignored series at the fag-end of the season apparently required ample celebration. After arguing with the bouncer and hanging about at the door for a while, they wandered off to find a casino in the hope of more drinking. They’d barely made it around the corner before getting in the middle of a conflict between four locals. As is said on the internet, it escalated quickly.
The 26 September reporting was bloodless. Withholding names, police stated that a man ‘was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm’ while another went to hospital with facial injuries. England’s director of cricket Andrew Strauss separately confirmed that Stokes was the arrestee, adding that he had been released without charge and that Hales had gamely offered to ‘help police with their enquiries’. Administrators had a good chance of hiding behind that investigation, and the next day Stokes was named in the upcoming Ashes squad as expected. But that night the video emerged.
Bristol student Max Wilson had shot it on his phone, then offered it to The Sun. What he thought was playing hardball was actually lowball: his opening price of £3000 was snapped up by a tabloid that would have paid ten times that. The Sun went on to make a mint by syndicating the rights worldwide. From a window above the fray, the vision showed six men on the street below performing the muddled choreography of a melee. One was right at the centre of it. One was waving a bottle, one dipped in and out, one tried to calm it. Two others floated around the edges. The central figure was unmistakable: red hair burning even in the streetlight as he launched into a series of blows against two of the men, falling to grapple with them on the ground, then following both across the street, swinging punches the whole way. Hales trailed behind, repeatedly and impotently shouting ‘Stokes! Stop! Stokes! Enough!’ The ECB could fudge issues that existed only in thickets of legalese, but not those captured in moving colour. Stokes was stood down from the next West Indies match, then suspended indefinitely. It emerged that he had broken his hand during the fight, something he’d done twice before while punching objects in dressing rooms.
The response in Australia was fierce: Stokes was a thug, a lowlife, a selection that would disgrace England. It was not entirely coincidental that a ban for England’s best player would be handy for the Aussie team, but there was also a cultural split. In England, plenty of people still minimise pub fights as lads letting off steam. In Australia, heavy media coverage as a succession of young men were killed had inverted that tolerance. The discourse now saw any punch as potentially deadly and accordingly reckless. This was more poignant in a cricket context given that David Hookes, the dashing Test batsman and state coach, was killed in 2004 by a pub bouncer’s fist.
The PR situation was bad for Stokes as details emerged of the injuries to the men he’d hit, and that one was a young war veteran and father. Stokes wasn’t officially removed from the Ashes squad through October but stayed behind when his teammates left, hoping for police to dismiss the matter in time for a late dash to Australia. His annual contract was renewed on the due date in case that came to pass. Then 29 October brought a twist in the tale.
‘Ben Stokes praised by gay couple after defending them from homophobic thugs,’ ran the headline. Kai Barry and Billy O’Connell had emerged. Not entirely out of nowhere: while Stokes had made no public comment, this story in his defence had initially been leaked to TV host Piers Morgan after the fight, as soon as the video appeared. Police body-camera footage played in court would later show that Stokes had given the same story to the arresting officer on the night. But no-one knew the identities of the fifth and sixth men in the video, and police appeals had turned up nothing.
It was The Sun again with the breakthrough. Kai and Billy were perfect for a readership not keen on nuance. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we found out they were famous cricketers. I just thought Ben and Alex were quite hot, fit guys,’ said Kai, who was memorably described as a ‘former House of Fraser sales assistant’. The paper had the pair do a full photo shoot: layering the fake tan, showing off chest waxes, mixing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton into a range of outfits. Their best shot had them standing back to back, heads turned to the camera, in a mirror-image Zoolander moment.
Suddenly The Sun was the England team’s best friend. ‘Their claims could lead to the all-rounder being cleared over the punch-up and freed to play in the First Test in Australia next month,’ it gushed, then gave a tasting platter of quotes: ‘We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero.’ ‘If Ben hadn’t intervened it could have been a lot worse for us.’ ‘We could’ve been in real trouble. Ben was a real gentleman.’ Would it be known forever as Kai and Billy’s Ashes? No. While the Bristol boys provided spin for Stokes’ reputation they didn’t influence the police. With charges still pending there was little choice – not given Strauss had previously sacked Kevin Pietersen for being annoying. Stokes remained suspended through the Ashes and a one-day series in Australia, and lost the vice-captaincy. It was January 2018 before the Crown Prosecution Service laid a charge.
That charge surprisingly came in as affray, a crime that can carry prison time but is classified as ‘a breach of the peace as a result of disorderly conduct’. The men he had punched, Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, faced the same count, charged as equal participants in a fight rather than Stokes being charged with assaulting them. Alex Hales was not charged, despite being seen in the video to aim several kicks when Ryan Ali was lying on the ground. Given the underwhelming standing of the offence, Stokes was cleared by the ECB to tour New Zealand, and kept playing until his trial in August 2018, which he missed a Test to attend. None of the three defendants would be convicted.
The reasoning behind the charges was never released and was attributed vaguely to ‘CPS lawyers’. The service gave the case to Alison Morgan, a prosecutor of a class known as Treasury Counsel who usually handle serious criminal matters. Morgan had a scheduling clash and never ended up court for the case, but in 2018 and 2019 she would go on to win damages and admissions of libel from The Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph variously for incorrectly reporting that she had been responsible for the inadequate and inconsistent charging decisions.
Morgan’s successor on the case was Nicholas Corsellis QC, who on the first day of trial was permitted by the CPS to request two assault charges be added against Stokes. ‘Upon further review,’ claimed a CPS statement, ‘we considered that additional assault charges would also be appropriate.’ This was patent nonsense from the service that eight months earlier had chosen the lesser charge. Any lawyer knows that no judge will allow new charges once a trial has begun, because the defence hasn’t had time to prepare. But such a request could deflect criticism of the prosecution service by technically making the judge the one who disallows the charge.
Working through the story from the trial and the tape is complicated. You had a Ryan and a Ryan, a Hale and a Hales, a Billy and a Barry and a Ben. You had several versions of events as to who knew whom, who was drinking with whom, who had insulted whom and who had merely engaged in ‘banter’, a word that in modern Britain has to do an unconscionable amount of lifting. The reporting had constantly mixed up the Ryans as to who had which injury, who was in hospital, who had played which part in the fight, and whose mum had which stern words to say about it.
Let’s agree that from now Ryan Ali is Ryan One, the firefighter who ended up with a fractured eye socket and a cracked tooth. Ryan Two can be Ryan Hale, the soldier who scored concussion and facial lacerations. Mr Barry and Mr O’Connell are best known per The Sun as Kai and Billy. In scorecard parlance we’ll leave the cricketers as Stokes and Hales.
Amid the confusion, Stokes and his lawyers built his case in a straightforward way. The UK legal definition of affray is ‘if a person threatens or uses unlawful violence or force towards another person, which causes another person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their safety’. That means it doesn’t account for violence that harms a target, but violence that might frighten a theoretical bystander. The wiggle room for Stokes was with ‘unlawful’, because the charge excuses violence in defending oneself or others.
This interpretation hinged on the beginning of the video, where Ryan One waves a beer bottle about and takes a swing at Kai. The version from Stokes was that he was minding his own business walking down the street when he heard homophobic abuse. He intervened verbally and was threatened verbally by Ryan One – something that Ryan One denied but that couldn’t be proved or disproved. In fear for his safety Stokes had to nullify that threat by bashing Ryan One before it went the other way. He registered Ryan Two in his peripheral vision as another possible threat, and again had only one recourse.
Stokes also had to convince the jury to disregard testimony from Mbargo’s bouncer that he had been looking for a fight. A solid lump of a man, Andrew Cunningham had not enjoyed his patron’s attempts to get back into the club after the bouncer declined an offer of a bribe. ‘He got a bit verbally abusive towards myself. He mentioned my gold teeth and he said I looked like a cunt and I replied, “Thank you very much.” He just looked at me and told me my tattoos were shit and to look at my job.’ Cunningham described these words as coming in ‘a spiteful tone, quite an angry tone’, and said that Stokes still seemed angry as he walked away.
These were details the doorman had nothing to gain by inventing, but each of them Stokes denied. By his own accounting he had drunk a beer at the game and three pints at his hotel, then ‘potentially had some Jägerbombs’ along with half a dozen vodkas at the club. He insisted that after all of this he was not drunk.
If I may take a moment here to call upon the wisdom of experience – a person who cannot definitively say whether they have had any Jägerbombs has definitely had some Jägerbombs. A Jägerbomb is an experience that does not pass one by. Further to that, a person who says they have ‘potentially’ done something has definitely done that thing and doesn’t want to admit it. A person who has had between 15 and 24 standard drinks in one evening is shitfaced. A person who tries to bribe a bouncer £300 – three hundred quid! – to get into Mbargo – Mbargo! – is beyond shitfaced.
If Stokes admitted that he was drunk then the prosecution could say he was out of control. He claimed clear recall of assessing a threat, feeling fear and deciding to protect himself with force. He confidently denied details from the bouncer’s testimony, like using the word ‘cunt’ or mentioning gold teeth. Yet on other details he claimed a ‘significant memory blackout’. He didn’t remember the punch that saw Ryan One taken away by ambulance. He didn’t remember what the Ryans had said to Kai and Billy, only that those words were homophobic. With no head injury, as one of the few people who hadn’t been hit, he had supposedly suffered this memory loss despite being sober.
The version from Kai and Billy was compatible but vague: they had been walking along, they ‘heard … shouts’ of abuse from an unspecified source, then Stokes ‘stepped in’ and thus they avoided possible harm. They claimed to have been bought a drink by Stokes at Mbargo, although CCTV showed them meeting outside. The overall implication from both accounts was that the cricketers had been pals with Kai and Billy, while the Ryans as per The Sun’s headline were a roving band of thugs.
The reality though is that the Ryans were the ones hanging out with Kai and Billy at Mbargo. Police discussed CCTV from inside the club in questioning and at trial. On that footage the four Bristolians bought drinks for one another, danced together, and Kai was noted to have variously touched Ryan Two’s crotch and Ryan One’s buttock. Ryan One told police that all of this was taken lightheartedly and wasn’t a problem. Indeed, when the Ryans called it a night the other two left with them.
This much is clear from footage out the front of Mbargo, which shows Kai and Billy exit the club and start talking with a subdued Hales and a demonstrative Stokes, who are stuck outside. The vision was played in court to determine whether Stokes was antagonistic towards Kai and Billy, as he appears to impersonate them and to throw a lit cigarette their way. More interesting is that after a few minutes the Ryans emerge, and all six actors in the fight video briefly form a prequel in the one frame.
Ryan Two pats Billy on the chest in friendly fashion with his right hand before clapping him on the back with his left. He moves past and does the same to Kai before leaving the shot. Ryan One stops to speak to Kai. They lean in for a moment, talking, then Kai turns and they walk out of frame together. Billy hangs around for a few seconds at the door and then looks after them and races to catch up. Stokes and Hales remain outside the club to remonstrate further with the bouncers. Whatever discord develops around the corner is between four men who left amicably together minutes earlier.
There’s no way to know what caused that friction. If Ryan One did use homophobic slurs, he might have been drunkenly obnoxious for no reason. He might have had an insecure macho response to some extra flirtation. He might have thought unkindness was funny – ‘banter’ once again. Or he might have said something that was misunderstood, as both Ryans insisted in court that they had not used nor had the impulse to use any abusive language.
What clearly didn’t happen was an attack by bigots on random passers-by. This kind of crime is regular enough that an audience understands the horror of it, and this is what was evoked by the public accounts of Stokes, Billy and Kai. All we know is that there was some verbal dispute among the Bristol locals, and that Stokes came along behind them and put himself in the middle of it. Ryan One responded to the interference aggressively and away they went. There are plenty of reasons to look sideways at the idea that Stokes was a saviour. Foremost, neither Kai nor Billy was called upon as witnesses in court. You’d think it would be ideal to have Stokes’ story backed up by those who benefited from his selflessness. But his defence team had developed the impression that the pair had shown a changeable recall of events amid a hard-partying lifestyle, and would be dismantled by the prosecution on the stand.
That raises the question of whether The Sun coached their quotes for the 2017 interview. Despite missing court, Kai and Billy clearly enjoyed the attention. In 2018 after the trial they did a follow-up spread in the same paper about how poor Ben had been mistreated. They got a television spot on Good Morning Britain and glowed about his heroism. In 2019 The Sun wheeled them out once more to say that Stokes should get a knighthood. In 2017 they had ‘never watched cricket’ but by 2019 were supposedly volunteering sentences like, ‘He saved us, now he’s saved the Ashes.’ Whether they were paid for these appearances is not known, but the chance to be famous for a day can be lure enough.
If you find this cynical, consider that on the night in question, the Bristol boys were so deeply moved and thankful for Ben’s intervention that they left him to be arrested and never attempted to find out who he was. Seconds after the video ended, an off-duty policeman reached the scene. You might think that someone grateful to a saviour would speak on his behalf. Instead, said Kai, ‘it all got a bit scary so we walked off. It was too much for me and we went to Quigley’s takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips.’ They didn’t give their hero a thought for over a month while police issued multiple appeals for witnesses.
As for Stokes, he told his arresting officer that ‘his friends’ had been attacked. After three minutes of chat outside a nightclub, these friends were so dear to him that he has never contacted them again: not after the newspaper piece, not after the verdict. He didn’t want to see how they were or thank them for their support. He didn’t mention them by name in his solicitor’s statement after the trial.
The Stokes defence rested on Ryan One’s bottle, which he had carried out of Mbargo to finish a beer, not to use in a Sharks versus Jets amateur production. But once he turned it over to hold it by the neck it became a weapon. Intent and interpretation can change the material nature of things. Part of Stokes’ justification in court was that the bottle implied that the two Ryans might have ‘other weapons’ hidden away. You can understand how a jury could decide that created doubt.
Not being convicted, though, doesn’t give the contents of the video a big green tick. It does not, as his lawyer claimed, vindicate Stokes. Looking in detail, Ryan One is belligerent but his movements telegraph a bluff. Hales is the person he’s gesturing at, but they’re several metres apart when Ryan One cocks his arm ostentatiously, showing off the bottle rather than bracing to swing. He skips forward but Hales skips back and Ryan One doesn’t follow. Kai stretches out an arm to impede Ryan One, who has a drunken stumble, nearly eats pavement, then staggers towards Kai and hits him in the back. That hand is still holding the bottle, but his strike is a side-arm cuff on a soft part of the body. It’s all pretty tame.
This is where Stokes gets involved. Having moved across to protect Hales, he now takes three large steps to run around Kai and booms his first punch at Ryan One. They fall to the ground and the bottle clinks away. Stokes gets to his feet to punch down at the fallen man, while Hales arrives to kick him ineffectively then runs off across the street for some unknown reason. Ice-cream van? Stokes is soon back in the grapple having his shirt pulled up to show off his Durham tan. Ryan Two steps in for the first time to pull Stokes away, prompting a couple more random punches at this new target, then Stokes trips backwards over Ryan One and sprawls in the street. Hales chooses this moment to return and aim some solid kicks at the head of the man on the ground. Nothing so far is a triumph of moral philosophy or the pugilistic arts. But if it all stopped here, perhaps you could say it was somewhere approaching fair. Ryan One has behaved like a turnip and it’s not an entirely unjust world that would give him a whack across the chops. The antagonists have disentangled, Stokes has some distance, it’s time to dust off and go home. Ryan Two steps forward for this purpose with his palm raised in conciliatory style and says, ‘Settle down, stop.’
So Stokes punches him.
It’s roughly his fifth punch overall, and he really winds up into this one. He misses so hard that he stumbles away into the shadows of the shop awnings along the road.
Hales starts shouting for him to stop. Ryan Two backs into the street, still holding his palm up. Stokes closes on him from about five metres away, six large steps, to where Ryan Two is standing on his own. Stokes pushes him a couple of times, as Ryan Two keeps trying to placate him and saying ‘Stop.’ Stokes throws his sixth punch, largely missing as his target ducks.
Ryan Two keeps pulling away and reversing, into the middle of the street now. Stokes follows him, grabbing his sleeve to drag him back. By this point Ryan One has found his feet and walked around behind his friend. Both of them are in the same line of sight for Stokes, and both are backing away. Stokes aims his seventh and his eighth punches, which Ryan Two tries to deflect, as Hales walks up behind Stokes to grab him.
Stokes yanks away from his friend and switches to Ryan One instead, taking seven paces to grab him before throwing his ninth punch of the night. He grabs again; Ryan One blocks that arm and pushes himself back away from Stokes. Ryan Two again intercedes, putting himself between the two with his palms up and his arm extended.
Stokes throws his tenth punch, a right-hander at the face of Ryan Two, then shoves him backwards. Ryan Two backs away once more, four paces. Stokes follows, steadies, lines up, then launches his strongest punch yet, his eleventh, a proper right hook from a solid base, one that cracks across the man’s head and gives him concussion. Ryan Two ends up flat on his back in the middle of the street, his hands still outstretched for a moment in useless protest until they twitch and drop to the blacktop.
Stokes isn’t done. He once more shoves away the restraining Hales and follows Ryan One, who keeps backing away saying, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ Five more paces from Stokes before another blow at the man’s head. Kai and Billy are now standing over the poleaxed Ryan Two. The video ends, but seconds later Stokes will punch Ryan One hard enough to knock him out too, before off-duty cop Andrew Spure arrives on the scene to bring down the curtain. When the body-camera footage kicks in some minutes later, Stokes is in handcuffs but Ryan One is still laid out in the street. Ryan Two has regained consciousness, folded his shirt under his friend’s head and is asking police for an ambulance.
‘At this point, I felt vulnerable and frightened. I was concerned for myself and others.’ This was how Stokes described that sequence to the court. An elite athlete with years of gym work and training to snap a bat through the line of a ball with astounding power and precision, swinging fists as hard as he can at men with none of those advantages. Punching so hard that he breaks his hand, and repeatedly shoving away a friend so he can punch some more. Frightened and threatened by two targets shouting ‘Get back!’ and ‘Stop!’
The off-duty officer testified that Stokes ‘seemed to be the main aggressor or was progressing forward trying to get to’ Ryan One, who was ‘trying to back away or get away from the situation’. The student who filmed the video can be heard on the tape at one stage exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ and testified that it was because ‘I felt a little bit sorry about the lad that had been punched and it looked like he had his hands up’. That tallied with the prosecutor’s depiction of ‘a sustained episode of significant violence that left onlookers shocked at what was taking place’.
The defendant stuck to his strategy. ‘No, my sole focus was to protect myself.’ All up, in the 33 seconds of footage after he falls over, Stokes takes 35 steps forward to keep hitting two men who keep trying to get away. Not once is he hit back.
After the verdict, Stokes’ solicitor positioned him as the victim. It had been ‘an eleven-month ordeal for Ben … The jury’s decision fairly reflects the truth of what happened that night … He was minding his own business … It was only when others came under threat that Ben became physically engaged. The steps that he took were solely aimed at ensuring the safety of himself and the others present …’ The statement was impossibly self-righteous and self-absorbed.
If there was anyone to feel sorry for it was Ryan Hale, the second of our two Ryans. He’s the one who emerged from the club with a friendly arm around the shoulder for Kai and Billy. He’s the one who interposed himself to end the fight, then kept putting himself back in the firing line, trying to calm an intimidating stranger while dodging blows. For his show of restraint he got laid out regardless, concussed in the street, then was issued a criminal charge equal to that of the man who hit him, and described in national media as a violent bigot in an untested story to support that man’s defence.
Lawyers for Ryan Two made a more convincing post-trial statement, noting that Kai and Billy, ‘neither of whom were relied upon by the prosecution or the defence team for Mr Stokes, have taken the opportunity to speak with various media outlets about the alleged homophobic abuse that they received in the early hours of September 25. Mr Hale has passionately denied this allegation throughout the course of this case,’ it continued.
‘It is upsetting to Mr Hale that although he was acquitted, the accusation that he was the author of such abuse remains. Both Mr Hale and Mr Ali were knocked unconscious by Mr Stokes, and although Mr Stokes has been acquitted of an affray, Mr Hale struggles with the reasons why the Crown Prosecution Service did not treat him as a victim of an unlawful assault.’Good question. Avon and Somerset police were the investigating force, and they were frustrated by the decision. Ryan Two was filmed clearly not hurting anyone, but police were instructed by the CPS to proceed with a charge. Hales (the cricketer) was filmed fighting but ‘a decision was made at a senior level of the CPS’ not to proceed. Police expected Stokes to be charged with assault but the CPS declined. It doesn’t take a wild cynic to think that placing the same lukewarm charge on three men for vastly divergent behaviour might ensure that none would be convicted, even as the trial would maintain the pretence that a defendant of influential standing had not been given a free pass.
A couple of years down the line, the original interview with Kai and Billy has disappeared. All traces have been scrubbed from The Sun website, its social media history, and even from the Wayback Machine internet archive. Given its headline of ‘homophobic thugs’ and text that names Ryan Two but not Ryan One, the libel liability isn’t hard to spot. Later interviews with Kai and Billy take the passive voice – they ‘suffered homophobic slurs outside a Bristol nightclub’.
The article that was once claimed to exonerate brave Ben Stokes now links only to a missing content page, with a picture of a dropped ice-cream cone and the phrase ‘legal removal’ inserted into the web URL. In terms of consequences, Stokes missed one tour. When he resumed his career in January 2018, the Australians hadn’t yet ruined theirs. Their year-long bans looked much more stringent. But the Stokes case dragged on in other ways. With no criminal liability, the Australians confessed promptly enough for the sporting world to give them the full length of the lash. Their situation was ugly but there was closure. Stokes got stuck in legal stasis, unable to be fully backed or condemned. Instead his issue was always present, a browser full of open tabs that the ECB swore they would read any day now.
Through 2018 Stokes was back but he wasn’t back, in the sunglasses and finger-guns sense. In his return one-day series he nearly cost England a match with 39 from 73 balls in Wellington. His first Test hit was a duck as England got rolled in Auckland for 58. At Trent Bridge while Stokes was injured, England posted a world record 481 against Australia. With Stokes three weeks later at the same ground they made 268. He crawled to 50 from 103, the second-slowest any Englishman had reached that milestone in 20 years. That span covered Alastair Cook’s whole career. It was apologetic batting, acting out responsibility via the scorecard. Stokes was creeping back into the team like he’d been kicked out in a blazing row and was hoping to tip-toe to the sofa.
It was December 2018 before the ECB disciplinary committee ruled on him and Hales. In a ‘remarkable coincidence’, wrote Simon Heffer in The Telegraph, ‘the punishment both players faced in terms of bans from playing at international level was covered by the amount of games they had already missed when dropped by England’s selectors, in the furore that followed the incident’. The verdict compounded the omissions around the case by not addressing the violence at its heart. Nor did Stokes, apologising only ‘to my team-mates, coaches and support staff’, and then ‘to England supporters and to the public for bringing the game into disrepute’.
The implicit next step was to rebuild that reputation. It might have been easier had his court defence not meant that he wasn’t game to admit any fault at all. It might have been easier if he or his advisers had been willing to change tack once the trial was done. Imagine a world where Stokes had stood outside court and apologised for overreacting, for the injuries he’d caused, and for the time and energy he had sucked out of other people’s lives. That would have been a show of responsibility beyond a scorecard. When the time came around to assess forgiveness, it might have meant forgiveness was deserved.

For the first page CLICK HERE (page 2 in comments etc.)
‘Oh no honey, it’s 44’’
So I finally got my Vegas experience and although it wasn’t a great success from a money point of view, it was a great first experience.
Like every player I’ve wandered about what Vegas would be like ever since I first played cards, watched 2 months 2 million and saw the famous Chris Moneymaker footage.
We go back roughly six years in time and we found a very young me in New Zealand. I was there for a Marketing internship and was already grinding the low stakes online .If you ever have the opportunity for sure go to New Zealand, and play in the SkyCity Tower Casino in Auckland. Very nice poker room with a view over the whole city . I always sold a bit of action to play live because I definitely wasn’t rolled for those games, being an intern student.
Anyways, my internship ended and I have my good friend Rick visiting me all the way from Holland. We find ourselves sitting in the Irish Pub, drinking Heino’s.
We’ve had a good amount of them and I notice an older woman a few tables further down winking at me. I’m 22 and tell Rick what I just noticed. Being a true friend he immediately encourages me to seal the deal. ‘A true milf man, you have to go for it’. I approach her, we have a drink and she tells me she’s 34 years old and from Brazil. 12 years age difference and from South America, nice.
We end up in her hotel room and the next day Rick, me and another guy are off the South Island. I can still remember the cab driver laughing when I told him about what happened the night before. During our trip in the South Island we visited the casino in Christchurch. I’m the first one to sit down and there’s an Asian gentleman next to me in seat 1, he’s in the middle of a big pot when he is handed the hot tea he ordered. Being polite he decided to take it off the waitress and put it on one of the tables close to him, but not without getting up from his chair. It was his turn to act and when he turned around, literally 10 seconds later, he saw that the dealer mucked his hand. This led to an incredible outburst which was very understandable to be honest. His hand must have been very strong. Poker is weird, if someone gets screwed it’s always funny, except when it’s you. It’s like seeing people miss the train after giving it all during a last sprint, it never gets old.
I didn’t speak to the Brazilian woman but when we were back in Auckland I decided to contact her. She’s keen to meet again that night, she’s staying at another hotel.
Being a young gentleman I invite her to a classy place for some drinks. We’re casually talking and I mention I really would love to go to Vegas one day. She said ‘Oh it’s great I’ve been there 15 years ago’. I ask her how that’s possible because she’s 34 and you have to be 21 to go out and play. She looks at me and says ‘Oh honey, no not 34, 44’. Well this was certainly interesting, the age difference wasn’t 12 but 22 years. We had a great night and apparently she focused more on her performance between the sheets than she did on making breakfasts in the past 44 years. Worst breakfast of my life.
Back in the now, I’ve returned home from Vegas and the money part starts worrying me a bit in the back of my mind. It’s not that I didn’t have money, I just didn’t want to spend money while being home. Money had better purposes, I’d rather spend it towards experiences like the Vegas trip and finding yourself in spots to sleep with 22 year older woman. However, the gap year was a calculated decision, so at the end of the day it would be fine. The only thing you can do is keep showing up and play your best.
Within 5 days I got a really good run online and won the full 5k back, this is great. Vegas has basically been turned into a free trip now. In the meantime Gary let’s me know he’s staying close to the mailbox while being home, he doesn’t want his mom or dad to find a hospital bill. I picture the scene out of Harry Potter where Harry is waiting for his letter from Hogwarts. Things are going a whole lot better for our other Irish friend Clicki, he made the final table of the Crazy 888 WSOP event! One thing is sure, that backer he wanted to keep happy, he must have been very happy.

So first there's going to be the lore dump, then a quick campaign summary, and then the most recent bit of worldbuilding.

Lore

In an alternate timeline, Earth is contacted by a race of extremely intelligent blue-colored aliens, known as the Iruki
Their motives are mysterious, but they quickly establish relations with human leaders and set up Starfall Base on their initial landing site in Japan, which will eventually grow to the Iruki city of Starfall
They bring with them the Konchu, a subjugated race of enormous bug-like creatures, whose strength, endurance, and chitinous plating over much of their bodies make them ideal muscle
Several years pass, and humanity's technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, although this masks that unease is rising; humanity is growing mistrustful of the Iruki's outward generosity and increasingly confident in their own ability to handle this themselves, the Iruki brass are arguing amongst themselves what their mission entails, and the Konchu are beginning to suspect that the Iruki are up to nothing good behind the scenes
The situation has turned into a powder keg ready to blow at any moment for any reason, but its catalyst will come in the form of another unexpected arrival from the sky
Early one winter morning, an Iruki listening post picks up a familiar signature approaching New Zealand
It belongs to a liveship of the Ekara, a race of semi-nomadic bird people with whom the Iruki had previously tangled (and against whom the Iruki may have committed war crimes, though the record is incomplete)
A visual is acquired, and the vessel is seen to be limping heavily and sporting damage inconsistent with known weaponry
Hours later, the vessel crashes in the ocean near Auckland, and a swarm of amphibious escape pods is observed escaping from the wreckage and making its way towards land
An emergency meeting of top Iruki brass is called: all recognize that the detachment is far from ready to deal with the arrival of the possibly vengeful Ekara, let alone whatever caused that damage to their liveship, but Flight Commander Valon is firmly of the opinion that diplomatic relations must be established, while First Lieutenant Lania is convinced that both humanity and the Ekara must be subjugated in order to prepare the planet for assault from space by an unknown enemy
A fight breaks out, and Lania shoots Valon with a space laser, thereby assuming command of the detachment by international law of go fuck yourself
Lania immediately proceeds to the base's research labs to retrieve an incomplete viral bioweapon their scientists had been developing, flies to New Zealand, and releases it into a waterway near Wellington
As it turns out, the Ekara are immune to the virus, but humanity is not: within a year, 90% of the human population has been wiped out, and the remaining 10% are clustered into the remains of once-mighty cities and entirely reliant on Iruki technology for survival, while being told that the virus was of Ekara origin
However, the Konchu have finally had enough of serving a government of genocidal psychopaths and, along with a small number of sympathetic Iruki defectors, revolt, fight their way out of Starfall, and disperse across the world to attempt to help humanity rebuild and the Ekara to clear their name

It's against this background that our campaign story begins (well, sort of. Going into session one, I knew that most of humanity was dead, that the Iruki had subjugated the Konchu, that the Ekara were also there, and had written literally none of the rest of it).

Adelaide, Australia, many years after the Great Plague
Mike The Mechanic, a thirtysomething human artificer more comfortable around vehicles than people, is working on a vehicle repair when Edie Unpronounceablename, an aboriginal halfling ranger, walks in
She's walked all the way from Alice Springs and needs a drink, but would rather have one with someone else than by herself
It takes some convincing, but Mike grudgingly agrees to leave his shop and walk her to the local saloon
Inside, the two encounter Mushi Bushi, a Konchu monk with a very serious demeanor but who regularly makes Jojo's Bizarre Adventure references
He's on the hunt for a bandit leader who's been causing trouble in the area around Adelaide
He's heard that they have cool motorcycles
Mike is instantly convinced to lend a hand

These three take down the bandit, then trace his funding source to an anarcho-capitalist warlord in a nearby town with connections to the Iruki, so after connecting up with Vollyte, an NPC Iruki defector wizard whose human wife and mixed son (who was going to become a fourth PC until the player ghosted me) were both killed in what he suspects was an assassination to send him a message (and no, I don't really want to think about, uh, "human-Iruki relations"), plus James, a gnome barbarian with a pet drop bear named Beary, and Captain Kangaroo, a highly trained attack kangaroo that decided Edie was its mother after Mushi probably gave it a severe concussion, this colorful band of misfits proceeds to take on and kill the warlord.
However, Vollyte is very nearly killed in the fight, and elects to let his adventuring days conclude there, just as a young Ekara rogue NPC named Aerie who helped the gang get into the warlord's bunker decides this adventuring life is great, and she's going to tag along.
Following this, the gang makes a terrible movie, steals two airplanes, gets trapped in a dimensional disturbance over the Pacific Ocean, lands in Mexico in a timeline where the movie was really good and celebrity versions of themselves also exist, light a bar on fire, almost get kicked out of a casino, learn that there is a plot afoot to steal the mythical Lifetime Disney Pass, a mysterious ticket to Disney World that predates the Plague and is apparently followed by weird, supernatural incidents, go to a lake, fight each other, fight a giant lake monster with Mickey Mouse ears, fight a kaiju Beary with Mickey Mouse ears after he eats the pass, which is also how the previous monster got like that, send James diving down Beary's throat to retrieve the Pass, then take a boat to Florida and fight a giant shark before arriving in Tampa Bay.
Now, finally, we get to the worldbuilding I did this week that I thought was really cool.

Current Session

The party's boat is guided in to shore by an enthusiastic older man in a pirate hat, with a pirate accent, wearing an old Tampa Bay Buccaneers T-shirt
He greets all happily until seeing Aerie, at which point his expression sours and he begins hurling invective
The party extricate themselves from this encounter and head into The Navel Tavern, a dockside bar with what can only be described as a very sexy orange on the sign outside
Inside, they're greeted by a human entertainer in an orange dress playing an out-of-tune piano, who introduces herself as "Florida's own Clementine O'Range" before launching into a truly mediocre piano ballad rendition of "State Of Florida" by Less Than Jake
The bartender is a tired-looking Konchu serving a clientele of about half and half humans and Konchu
Aerie and Mushi approach and Mushi remarks on how nice it is to be among his brethren
The bartender introduces himself as Arukoru and explains that following the revolution and exodus, many Konchu made their way to sailing towns upon realizing that their size, strength, and toughness made them ideal sailors: as a result, Tampa is now about 60% Konchu
He also apologizes to Aerie on behalf of "Bucky," the dock pirate, explaining that his family died in the plague when he was a child and he believes the Iruki that it was the Ekara's fault, and not to take it personally
He finally notes that the bar is supposed to be called The Valencia, and The Navel was meant to be a strip club downtown, but the signs got mixed up in a shipping error just before the plague hit and, long story short, just ended up staying where they were, so now The Navel is an orange-themed bar by the docks and The Valencia is an orange-themed strip club downtown, because doesn't that just figure
Asked about Disney World, his mandibles retract in such a way that a human's face might turn white, and he says he doesn't like to talk about that place, nobody who's returned from there has ever reported making it past "the guard dogs," and you'd be better off talking to Detective Tantei at the sheriff's office down the road
So Mike marches down to the sheriff's office to meet with Detective Tantei
He's a gruff, no-nonsense Konchu who runs a tight ship
Asked about Disney World, Tantei seems pensive
He explains that he's got his own reasons to be suspicious of Disney World, as he has seen a string of disappearances in recent weeks
Human, Konchu, and even an Ekara, any age, any gender, the only pattern is that each and every one of them had come into possession of some item of vintage, pre-Plague Disney memorabilia shortly before going missing, and Disney World seems the only logical culprit
Normally, he says, he would send some of his own men there to investigate, but it would be a suicide mission: he only feels comfortable asking Mike for help because "it's no chitin off my facial plating if a bunch of misfit strangers get themselves killed trying to get past the guard dogs."
As this is happening, Aerie and James at The Navel have struck up a conversation with an Ekara named Megan, a paladin with an array of impressive biocybernetic augmentations that appear to be of Iruki origin (yes, this is a new PC)
Upon being shown the pass, she confidently proclaims it to have been the pass of someone named Swoozie, a former Disney employee who did an expose on them and was subsequently disappeared
She paints a bleak picture of Disney as an evil empire that will permanently silence its critics without even a second look, and the pass itself as an object of immense power that must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands
Aerie says "you sound like an authority on the subject: why don't you go there with us and help us get in?" and Megan replies "Make me an offer"
So James challenges her
I swear to god
To a Yugioh duel
I allow this because I reward audacious thinking, and long story short, James wins and Megan agrees to join

And now I have to figure out WTF "the guard dogs" are.

List acquired here.
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adapters adaptive adaptor add added addiction adding addition additional additionally additions address addressed addresses addressing adds adelaide adequate adidas adipex adjacent adjust adjustable adjusted adjustment adjustments admin administered administration administrative administrator administrators admission admissions admit admitted adobe adolescent adopt adopted adoption adrian ads adsl adult adults advance advanced advancement advances advantage advantages adventure adventures adverse advert advertise advertisement advertisements advertiser advertisers advertising advice advise advised advisor advisors advisory advocacy advocate adware ae aerial aerospace af affair affairs affect affected affecting affects affiliate affiliated affiliates affiliation afford affordable afghanistan afraid africa african after afternoon afterwards ag again against age aged agencies agency agenda agent agents ages aggregate aggressive aging ago agree agreed agreement agreements agrees agricultural agriculture ah ahead ai aid aids aim aimed aims air aircraft airfare airline airlines airplane airport airports aj ak aka al ala alabama alan alarm alaska albania albany albert alberta album albums albuquerque alcohol alert alerts alex alexander alexandria alfred algebra algeria algorithm algorithms ali alias alice alien align alignment alike alive all allah allan alleged allen allergy alliance allied allocated allocation allow allowance allowed allowing allows alloy almost alone along alot alpha alphabetical alpine already also alt alter altered alternate alternative alternatively alternatives although alto aluminium aluminum alumni always am amanda amateur amazing amazon ambassador amber ambien ambient amd amend amended amendment amendments amenities america american americans americas amino among amongst amount amounts amp ampland amplifier amsterdam amy an ana anaheim anal analog analyses analysis analyst analysts analytical analyze analyzed anatomy anchor ancient and andale anderson andorra andrea andreas andrew andrews andy angel angela angeles angels anger angle angola angry animal animals animated animation anime ann anna anne annex annie anniversary annotated annotation announce announced announcement announcements announces annoying annual annually anonymous another answer answered answering answers ant antarctica antenna anthony anthropology anti antibodies antibody anticipated antigua antique antiques antivirus antonio anxiety any anybody anymore anyone anything anytime anyway anywhere aol ap apache apart apartment apartments api apnic apollo app apparatus apparel apparent apparently appeal appeals appear appearance appeared appearing appears appendix apple appliance appliances applicable applicant applicants application applications applied applies apply applying appointed appointment appointments appraisal appreciate appreciated appreciation approach approaches appropriate appropriations approval approve approved approx approximate approximately apps apr april apt aqua aquarium aquatic ar arab arabia arabic arbitrary arbitration arbor arc arcade arch architect architects architectural architecture archive archived archives arctic are area areas arena arg argentina argue argued argument arguments arise arising arizona arkansas arlington arm armed armenia armor arms armstrong army arnold around arrange arranged arrangement arrangements array arrest arrested arrival arrivals arrive arrived arrives arrow art arthritis arthur article articles artificial artist artistic artists arts artwork aruba as asbestos ascii ash ashley asia asian aside asin ask asked asking asks asn asp aspect aspects ass assault assembled assembly assess assessed assessing assessment assessments asset assets assign assigned assignment assignments assist assistance assistant assisted assists associate associated associates association associations assume assumed assumes assuming assumption assumptions assurance assure assured asthma astrology astronomy asus asylum at ata ate athens athletes athletic athletics ati atlanta atlantic atlas atm atmosphere atmospheric atom atomic attach attached attachment attachments attack attacked attacks attempt attempted attempting attempts attend attendance attended attending attention attitude attitudes attorney attorneys attract attraction attractions attractive attribute attributes au auburn auckland auction auctions aud audi audience audio audit auditor aug august aurora aus austin australia australian austria authentic authentication author authorities authority authorization authorized authors auto automated automatic automatically automation automobile automobiles automotive autos autumn av availability available avatar ave avenue average avg avi aviation avoid avoiding avon aw award awarded awards aware awareness away awesome awful axis aye az azerbaijan b ba babe babes babies baby bachelor back backed background backgrounds backing backup bacon bacteria bacterial bad badge badly bag baghdad bags bahamas bahrain bailey baker baking balance balanced bald bali ball ballet balloon ballot balls baltimore ban banana band bands bandwidth bang bangbus bangkok bangladesh bank banking bankruptcy banks banned banner banners baptist bar barbados barbara barbie barcelona bare barely bargain bargains barn barnes barrel barrier barriers barry bars base baseball based baseline basement basename bases basic basically basics basin basis basket basketball baskets bass bat batch bath bathroom bathrooms baths batman batteries battery battle battlefield bay bb bbc bbs bbw bc bd bdsm be beach beaches beads beam bean beans bear bearing bears beast beastality beastiality beat beatles beats beautiful beautifully beauty beaver became because become becomes becoming bed bedding bedford bedroom bedrooms beds bee beef been beer before began begin beginner beginners beginning begins begun behalf behavior behavioral behaviour behind beijing being beings belarus belfast belgium belief beliefs 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