Red lost the first round with rock versus Lady Luck's paper. They had determined to go three-out-of-five rounds.

Round Two. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot!

Lady Luck gave paper again with Red giving scissors. Red imagined a crowd cheering along with them as they celebrated their first win.

Round Three. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot!

Lady Luck threw scissors while Red threw paper. "Dammit!" Red exclaimed while Lady Luck laughed and help up her two fingers, boasting about her current score.

Suddenly Red was one point away from failure. The pressure was on. They took a deep breath, stared straight into Lady Luck's eyes, and nodded to begin the next round.

Round Four. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot!

Red used paper while Lady Luck used rock. "You cheating bastard!" Lady Luck threatened, her eyes glowing bright green.

"Only one more round to go, or do you wanna make it best out of seven?" Red teased.

"No fucking way! I'll get you in this one, for good! Say goodbye, Red."

Red wondered if they really should say goodbye, or at least apologize, to Carlyle. "No way. I've got this," they firmed up their stance and stared down Lady Luck.

Round Five. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot!

Lady Luck gave paper. Red gave scissors.

A bright flash blinded Red as they felt Lady Luck lunge at them. She tackled Red to the ground and started beating them. Her beat-down began with clenched fists striking blow after blow to Red's forehead and nose before transitioning to kneeing them in the stomach and crotch.

Red struggled to escape Lady Luck's blows, dodging what they could and just taking the others like a champ. A few seconds into the altercation, Red knew Lady Luck's name.

"Opoz."

Lady Luck stopped. "Dammit!"

She formed her fist into a tendril of green goo and stuff it down Red's throat in order to silence them. Red struggled, realizing that as long as they were stuck in the material plane, they would be at a disadvantage. Red bit down as hard as they could on Opoz's arm-tendril, tearing through the fluid and severing the appendage. The tendril that had been inside Red's mouth and throat went slack and lost its shape. Red pushed Opoz off of themselves and coughed up the goo. Opoz tried to form another arm but could not.

"Good luck binding me now, Red!" Opoz disappeared.

Red looked around the room. They had won the game but they still hadn't stopped Opoz or secured the Furious Monkey. Instead, Opoz was once again free to roam wherever she pleased, wreaking whatever havoc she wanted.

Red paged Captain Dobbs and explained the situation, including the revelation of Lady Luck's true name. He instructed them to return to the bridge. From there, they would plan their final assault and put the issue to bed once and for all.

Red carefully approached the bridge, skittish at the sound of every creak and moan of the ship. All it took was one careless crew member to take too big of a risk and cause the entire ship to explode. Even normal repairs might be dangerous in the given situation. Red tried to reel in their anxiety to no avail.

They made it to the bridge completely demoralized by their anxiety. Captain Dobbs sensed something was wrong, and ordered them to snap out of it at once. "We have no time for petty thoughts, now we must act!"

Red took a deep breath and slapped themselves a few times across the cheek. "Have you gotten any reports of her whereabouts?" Red asked.

"Not yet. But I've informed the crew of the situation. They're to report any suspicious activity directly to me at once. For now, we're back to a game of cat and mouse. However, we have the advantage this time. We're on familiar ground, whereas I'm certain she knows very little about the design of this craft or even the best places to attack. Now that everyone is aware of her, she won't be breaking through any mental defenses with ease."

"Could we set another trap for her?" Red asked.

"I don't think so. That kind of trick only works once or twice, unless she's the type to adore getting herself caught. Now that we know her name, I doubt she would willingly fall into something like that. Instead, we must catch her off-guard. The question is, where is she going?"

"Wouldn't she try to run away?"

"I doubt it. I think more than anything, she wants to kill you. At least, that's what I would want. You've certainly defeated her enough times to cause a grudge. And now you've got her name. That puts her at risk from all of us. In fact..."

Captain Dobbs sent a written message to the crew, informing them all of the name of the god. Despite not being monks, many of them were trained in the basics of protecting themselves from gods, and they understood that knowledge of an immaterial entity's true name was extremely potent protection against anything that god might do. Captain Dobbs also sent a message to the Master Gris, informing her of the situation as well as the name of the god.

"Now, even if she runs away or kills us all, she will be hunted down and destroyed."

Red realized that they should send a message to Carlyle as well. They wrote one that was just two lines:

LADY LUCK'S TRUE NAME = OPOZ
REMEMBER WHAT I TAUGHT U :3

"What else can we do to prepare, Captain?" Red asked.

"I'm afraid the ball is in Opoz's court, now. She'll get antsy and make a move eventually, even if it's just to get away. As far as I can tell, she can't just teleport. And if she travels randomly, she'll be stuck in deep space for the foreseeable future, until someone summons her. But since she's still on the ship, we can't just go back to the station."

"Can we wait her out?"

"We have enough supplies for at least a couple weeks. Maybe more now, since we're on lockdown. Given the type of god Opoz is, I doubt she's particularly patient. We should have no trouble flushing her out."

"So we just wait for her to make a move?"

Captain Dobbs nodded. "I think that's best. Return to your quarters for now. If anything happens, update me immediately."

"Yes sir!" Red saluted and exited his office.

Red quickly returned to their quarters. They couldn't relax in the slightest, so tried to get their mind off of the situation by watching a movie. They were too anxious to watch something new, so they re-watched Forty Years. It was better than they remembered it and it took their mind off of the situation."

As part of the lockdown, nobody on the ship was allowed to enter the mindscape. This meant that, instead of avoiding their emotions through vapid adventures and meditation, all Red could do was sit with their terrible feelings.

After the movie was over, Red wanted to go to sleep. Instead, their brain kept them awake with a slideshow of the horrors that had been unleashed upon them in the recent weeks. All they could see when they closed their eyes was Carlyle dying or getting horrifically injured. They couldn't believe that they almost chanced it, again, without consent or even a second thought on their part.

They understood why wanderers spent so much time alone. Most of them treated that as a bad thing, but Red thought that it was probably for the best. Without people close to you, there weren't stakes in your work. You could die without a second thought. Nothing held you back from success. Instead of acting with resolve, Red had to focus on saving their friend.

Red finally drifted off to sleep to thoughts of Carlyle.

A loud bang woke them up. Opoz leaned against the wall, looking down at them. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just kill you all," she said.

"Because you'll be stranded in deep space for all eternity. You travel as a beam of light, don't you?" Red confirmed.

"So it would only take me, what, seventy years to get somewhere else?"

"If you could find it, yeah. Until then, I hope you like being alone."

"Until someone decides to summon me... Carlyle maybe, for revenge?"

"I wouldn't count on it. I told her not to," Red hoped Opoz was too frustrated to pick up on the lie.

Opoz sighed. "So what, we're just gonna sit here and circle around each other until one of us gets bored?"

"Until one of us dies, yeah."

"A war of attrition with a god. Do you really have the heart for that?"

Red shrugged. "The captain certainly does. He seems like a brutal motherfucker. You'd probably get along with him! If you want, I can introduce you."

Opoz rolled her eyes. "Yeah, next thing I know, you've got me bound and gagged while you cut me open. Not falling for it!"

"So what are you gonna do? Just fuck around? Won't you get bored?"

"I'll find something to do, just you wait!"

Opoz disappeared.

Red immediately texted Carlyle, instructing her not to try to contact Opoz for any reason whatsoever, even in the worst case scenario. As part of their end-of-life plan, they made sure that Carlyle would be notified if anything ever happened to them.

After, Red updated Captain Dobbs on the situation with Opoz. They crawled back into bed, half-expecting Opoz to reappear to keep them awake. Instead, Red fell asleep.

They were served a meal in their quarters once they woke up. Captain Dobbs explained that, barring any unusual activity from Opoz, the Furious Monkey could hold its position for another month. Red decided to announce that allowed, in case Opoz was listening.

Red wasn't sure whether or not Opoz was actually trapped on the ship. They had never studied what happens when a god takes material form, and very little had been written about it, as most gods preferred to stand back and watch their underlings work from the sidelines.

So Red decided to spend their confinement catching up on reading. If all went well, they might have enough material to publish a manual for the Jhikae Order, which meant a well-deserved vacation from their duties. They lost themselves in the fantasy of leaving their mark on history and then retiring with little fanfare.

Day five of lockdown came and Red finally realized just how stressed out this assignment had made them. Most situations were easy to handle: find the god, kill it. The research had almost always been done or had already been formalized into a religious order, so there was no need to gather further information. Instead, Red acted primarily as an executioner. And that wasn't so stressful.

But chasing a god around and trying to guess her next move was a bit too much for Red. They had assumed that lockdown would break Opoz first, but as day ten came around, Red felt the edges of their sanity start to fray. In Captain Dobbs' daily report, it seemed that he was noticing it in others as well. Everyone on the ship was utterly fucking bored, which meant they would be prone to gambling to add a little fun to their life, and that was where Opoz would hit them.

So they had to hold steady and with resolve until Opoz broke. In reality, Captain Dobbs didn't mind if a member of the crew broke, so long as it didn't endanger the entire ship. In fact, he was counting on it happening eventually.

In the early morning of the twenty-first day of lockdown, an alarm woke Red up from deep sleep. "ALL EMERGENCY PERSONNEL, REPORT TO DECK C-32!" announced the comm.

Red put on their uniform, grabbed their spear, and head out for what seemed to be the final battle.