Chapter 35
The Gambler
Zero and I are escorted through luxury car after luxury car. Each car dealing with a different vice. The first is a cart with numerous scantily clad escorts. The second, an even more luxurious car is filled with a number of free standing art stands and a number of robed models ready to apparently pose for different exhibits. The next is a cart where rather than drawing on a canvas, the body of the person seems to be the intended canvas. I don’t quite know what to make of that car, as it seems to be a mixture of the previous two, maybe? Shaking my head, I don’t quite know what to make of the car and instead just decide to proceed onward, following my ticket agent.
The fourth car, is one that immediately catches my attention, as it is a gambling hall. I pause, instantly trying to take in everything that is going on around me.
Seeing my sudden stop the ticket master says, “I am sorry miss, but you are too young to be on this floor. If you will follow me.” He says, gesturing for me to follow him.
Reluctantly I pause, wondering why such a car would exist if I am not supposed to go to it. Still I follow the man, after this, there is what clearly appears to be a smoking car, if the thick cloud of smoke that all but assaults your senses upon entering is anything to be aware of. Then there is an deeper vice car, with people getting high on what appears to be opium. Then more and more cars, until finally we get to the middle and then the luxury passenger cars. It is at the last car, just before the conductor that our room is set.
“Here you are madam.” The ticket inspector says, holding up my ticket, before pulling out a tool to punch a star shaped hole in the ticket. Once the hole is punched, he hands back the ticket and then leaves.
This hole punching is an antiquated form of making sure people can’t reuse tickets. Of course, since this ticket is soul bound, this hole punch will be repaired by tomorrow. This does a number of things, first it tells me that this train ride will not take longer than tomorrow to complete. Also it means that if I want to do any exploring, I will have to do so quickly. With that in mind, I get into the cart, close the door behind me then look around.
“What are you doing?” Zero asks, in an oddly feminine voice.
I cock my head to the side, having never really heard Zero speak out loud. Or at least not in a while.
“What?” Zero asks again, a note of curiosity filling her face.
“Nothing.” I say shaking my head. “I need to change.”
“Change into what?” Zero asks.
“Change into whom.” I correct. Then focusing on my new Class Trait Spiritual Doppelganger I focus on the first form available and stop. It is the form of princess Octavia, the first spirit I helped to move on and one of my best choices for going on with my plan.
The minute I change into her, my body begins to expand. All of my soul bound items like my magic SWAG Cloak, my EGG Engineering goggles, my Apothecary gloves, and even my Adventurer’s necklace all expand to fit my new form. My other clothes unfortunately don’t stretch out or expand with me. So instead of wearing a relatively loose shirt, I try to buy clothes that will last a year or two with proper maintenance, the shirt is now tight as my previously underdeveloped chest is now regular sized, if not slightly larger than usual, causing my midriff to be shown off. My pants that had been loose for ease of movement are now tight. Also rather than being slightly long on me, they now make it look like I am wearing capris. Fortunately my elven hips don’t grow too much, but they are now quite snug in my pants. I instantly unfasten my belt, so that I can get circulation into my lower extremities. Then pause.
My shoes are also bursting at the seams, which forces me to instantly kick them off, lest they be ripped entirely.
Overall, the entire process of changing could have been done better and with more thought put into it. That said, I wasn’t quite expecting to be able to change my body, while my cloths would remain the same. If not for the fact that I am frugal and constantly trying to buy clothes in the next few sizes up, so I can keep and maintain them for a while, I would be completely nude right now, save for my cloak, which does still cover my chest, thanks to the no choking design. I also realize that I am now showing off a lot more skin than I generally intend to, as a few inches of my stomach, and ankles are now showing.
Thinking about my ankles I shake my head, simply scandalous. Oh well, there is nothing I can do. Looking around the room, I try to see if there are any clothes I could wear, and shifting my focus to the closet I am pleasantly surprised to see that there are in fact clothes available for me. Opening the closet, I see a long bathrobe, a complimentary t-shirt, and a pair of fuzzy slippers.
Pulling out the slippers, I place them on. They are not fashionable, nor appropriate for my general line of work. Though for the purposes on this train, they might be perfect.
Making a mental note, I plan on getting either more soul bound clothes that will scale with me, or getting a second set of adult clothes. I also make sure that I get clothing for males too. I could only imagine trying to go around as one of the male figures I have acquired, while wearing clearly feminine clothing. Though again, that too could likely be fixed by getting more soul bound items which would likely have to change due to the gender of the person I was portraying.
Ultimately this is a very powerful Trait, though I will need to disguise myself better. Then thinking about the look and not wanting to have my current body tied back to my normal visage, I take off all of my clothes, save for the capri pants, and put on the complimentary t-shirt.
So now I am down to just a t-shirt, capri pants, slippers and my underclothes that are still blessedly controlled by the game and will be forced upon me until I turn of true legal age.
With my change complete, or as close to complete as possible I sigh to myself, then turn to Zero. “So, how do I look?”
Zero cocks their head to the side and analyzes me for a second, before responding. “You look like a rich elven princess trying to slum it, but poorly.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Hearing that I pause for a second, before nodding to myself. “Perfect.”
With that, I begin walking out of my room. Everything I have is within my soul space. At least, that is where all my soul bound items are, my ticket, my EGGs, my SWAG, my Adventurer’s Necklace, my Thieves’ Guild mask, and my Apothecary gloves are all inside my soul space ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice.
Everything else, like my torn and almost destroyed shoes, my regular shirt, and most of my other belongings are on my room.
Now the only thing I have on me is my coin purse, that has the most I feel comfortable holding at one time, 10 gold coins.
With that paltry amount of coins, I decide to go and learn a new skill. No, not naked artistry, I mean gambling. I want to see how good this disguise is at letting me pass myself off as an adult. I am an adult, at least three, maybe even four times over, but in this game world I am mostly seen as a child. While I have used this flaw as a boon in the past, I can’t help but hope that this Trait will help me get past the last few limitations. In this case, spending the last of my gold on learning a new skill that I hope to have mastered by the time my character is an adult.
Going through the different cars, I can’t help but feel the way people ogle me as I pass by. Most try to be subtle about it, only waiting until I pass them to stop and stare, but I can see it all. Honestly, the level of realism in this game is beyond compare, as I could almost swear that most of these people are actual regressors like me. Though I know I am still the only one here thanks to my ever growing title that is still being accumulated.
I also see the timer for my Skill counting down. I have it, the skill I want, written down and immortalized before me.
Class Skill Perk: Spirit Magic Spell Creation (3/10): With this skill you intend to set the class Void Walker as the premier spell creation class for spirit-based magic spells. You intend to have this skill be based on the following Attributes (Endurance, Personality, Sociability, Appearance, Perception, Intelligence, and Willpower) (7/10). Time remaining to make the skill permanently related to your class: 23 hours, 05 minutes…
Yes, that skill was my pride and joy, it was a direct representation of why I originally went to Arcanarus University, and since the implosion of the university, this spell would likely remain out of reach forever. While the one originally offered by the school was an omni-or all magic skill, this one was perfect for the Void Walker class. Also by just focusing on Spirit Magic, I was able to get that component down to just one of the ten skill hooks. Then a second a third hook were for the Spell, and Creation portions of the skill. I could have had one more component go to round out the skill description, but there was nothing that fit. Also getting the first portion down to three allowed me to get the skill to cover seven different attributes for the remaining seven out of ten hooks.
Oddly enough the system didn’t seem to argue with me over the different attributes chosen. Instead it just asked if I was certain with my choice, which I was, after which time it began the countdown timer. Now all I could do was stare at it. I could go into the skill design, mess around with it to see what I could get for four hooks in the skill title, but any changes would reset my twenty-four hour timer.
This was a security feature of the game. Basically it allowed the Class Architect, that was the term for the first person of a class, the Class Architect, for the way we design and build out the class; as a class Architect, I was given 24 hours for each major change to ensure I didn’t have any buyers remorse. This was both annoying, and remarkably reassuring, as it meant the class architect had time to sit back, think, and hopefully ask others. I of course had no one else to ask for assistance from, as both Hector and Golum wouldn’t quite understand. Also, with this being my second skill I created, I had a slightly better idea of what the system would and would not accept. Also, with this skill being mostly magical in nature, I was forced to take all Mental Attributes as part of the base package, not that I minded, but it showed the game still had certain balance features in mind.
I realized I was likely hindering our class in terms of spell power, at least at first, but this skill should help us evolve past that. So long as people could learn the skill and focus their minds on what they wanted to create they should be fine. I would also be the first person to try out the skill so I could see if I totally screwed us over, or if I made us one of the most overpowered classes based on raw spell potential.
Still all of that was a minor distraction to the world that was going on around me. Right now, I was pretending to be Octavia, why use the same name as the actual spirit whose form I stole, simple. The name is right there, right in my mind. Also this means that I don’t have to come up with a different alias, as this form is already an alias. Granted, it would likely be a huge set back to force me to get rid of this shell for a different one, shuddering to myself I imagine going around as Tobias, and instantly nix that decision. That would be a form I would take only if I absolutely needed to have an alias I didn’t mind burning.
For now, I was Octavia, spoiled rich girl trying to pretend like she was slumming it, while slipping away from her honor guard. This would explain the way she only had the bare minimum of clothing on this luxury liner, along with the complimentary t-shirt, and slippers to help further her disguise.
With this I made my way into the gambling car.
Walking up to the window, I pulled out my ten gold coins, which were promptly exchanged for gambling tokens.
As soon as I received the ten tokens, I let out a sigh of relief. This meant that my disguise worked, and that my new class Trait was more than capable of making me look older.
With that, I pretended to look around the room. There were a couple of blackjack tables, but I had my eye on…perfect.
Looking around, I spotted off in the corner a table where people were playing Texas Holdem. Seeing the table, I immediately began my walk over, but I pretended to look at all the different tables.
I still couldn’t see for the life of me. Though I could tell that my eyes in this form were normal, well as normal as I could expect. They felt more alive and less powerful and glowey than my normal eyes. Yes, glowey, as I can all but feel my normal eyes radiating waves of energy all but screaming to the world that I am a Shade Touched. That reminds me, I still don’t know what the true capabilities of a Shade Touched dark elf are. As per the battle in tower, Shade Touched elves could consume energy of enemies they slew. They could also consume so much energy that they eventually burst and create a new dimension. If that was the case, I did not want anything to do with gorging myself. I am certain that the amount of energy that could be consumed was likely based on the level of the Shade Touched individual. Meaning that my level 10 body would be diced and sliced if I gave into such temptations. Which, I can assure you, I do not have any inclination towards.
“Oh, this looks so interesting.” I say, my voice sounding almost too bubbly and light for my ears. The sound is so jarring that I almost break character, almost. Still, I manage to recover, and portray the dumb rich elf girl. “Do you all mind if I sit and watch for a few hands?”
At that the others all turn to each other. I notice the way the dealer looks to one player in particular, but then stops themselves before their instincts could give them away. Still the tell was there. In fact, I felt I was reading a lot from these people based solely on the way they were interacting with each other.
The person at the end, they were clearly the highest roller, as everyone at one point turned to him. The other three just sort of nodded. But it wasn’t until the high roller turned to the dealer and asked, “is it okay if she sits in?”
The dealer paused, for a moment, but then responded. “There is nothing against company policy for having someone spectate at the table, though it is frowned upon.”
“I intend to join, just as soon as I understand the rules of this game.” I say, trying to act innocently.
“Very well, you can watch a hand or two.” The dealer says, once again giving a sidelong glance to the middle player, not the high roller.
Then the hands are dealt.
Instantly I notice my suspicions are confirmed, the dealer and the player seated in the center of the table are in fact in cahoots with each other. The way I can tell is based on the deal. The dealer uses a top level deal for the regular players, and a bottom level deal for the middle player. I am not certain those are the terms for such cheating mechanics, but that is the best way I can describe them. The dealer sends each player the top card for every deal, except the ones to the middle player who is dealt the bottom card each time. The movements are so smooth and natural, that I almost miss it. The only reason I know anything has happened at all is that the image at the bottom of the deck changes three times.
I also realize that my Angel’s Sight is going to make this super easy, as I can see the cards that each player is dealt before they get them. This makes me trying to predict the possible outcomes extremely easy. With this system, I won’t even need to look at my cards, as I will know what my cards are as they are dealt. I am so focused on this, that I almost miss the next comment that is made.
“What do you say we make this interesting?” The high roller in the back asks.
At that everyone pauses and turns to him. He is the big blind, but it seems that in addition to the two-gold buy in, he has something else in mind as well. “In addition to the two-gold buy in. What do you say that we wager 1,000 experience points as well?”
With that, a system notification is sent to my mind.
Player: Johan Vagner has asked to raise the stakes of this table. In addition to the two-gold high blind, a 1,000 experience buy in per hand is also requested. Do you agree? Yes, or no?
At that notification, I felt my heart begin to pound rapidly, as I knew I had to be part of this game now.