After the initial dumbfondedness wears off, they're quickly struck by a different type of awe when they fully witness the grandiosity of the casino’s interiors. The floors are checkered marble. Tables and machines, packed to the brim with customers, circling the golden statue right in the center. It looks like the lady of justice, except, she’s in a steampunk dress and her eyes are cogs. The scales, loaded with gold, tipping over and overspilling to the podium beneath her that perches her up. The other hand, instead of the sword, she holds a furled-out fan of poker cards. Sparkling so brightly beneath the candle lights of the crystal chandelier right above. It's almost blinding. But the noises of loud pings and dings has already deafened Lilith's ears atop the cheesy music that’s playing through the speakers.
She continues following the curvature of the ceiling, eying each tier above them, held up with ornamented gold beams embedded with expensive looking jewels to a dome like roof overhead. Velvety red curtains draped between them as decorations.
Holy heck! Alyss’s absolutely loaded. Why did she even ask Killian to pay her for her shift to begin with, the woman doesn’t even look like she needs it.
Cyan grounds her again with a pat on her shoulders, it’s so loud he has to yell,
“I think our trial is here.” pointing to the map he’s zooming in. The red dot’s off to the opposite end, where the ATMs are lined. But, it’s weird, because aside from the markers she’s seen,
“Green is for examinees, red is for examiners, what’s orange?” a section of the map is completely clustered with orange dots. But, judging from the layout of this room. The orange dots are beyond the wall, to the outside, where they’ll be hovering midair. It doesn’t make sense. Cyan returns her a shrug,
“I don’t actually know. It’s been confusing me too.” they’re traversing forward, narrowly brushing shoulders of other customers and bunny ladies holding platters of drinks, as they make their way towards the red marker,
“I don’t think our examiner is a person this time even. I’ve been looking at it for a while, and it hasn’t moved a single step.” they stop beside an oddly modernized looking machine in sleek black. Almost resembling a window pane. It's utterly out of place with the rest of the aesthetics. This definitely isn’t Felmane technology. In fact, there’s a little copyrighted checkmark of Andora ingrained into the bottom of it. That'll explain why it's so high-tech.
The screen itself is a holographic display, projected from the four little lamps in each corner, making a spinning crown right at the center. Quite alike the panel that Alyss was fiddling with earlier. Now it makes Lilith wonder, are the adventurer rings Andora technology too? She knows they have functions aside from being authorization badges, but Killian never does much with his except use it as an inventory to keep his weapon.
Checking their map, they’re perfectly stacked on top of red dot. Yeah, this machine seems to be their examiner alright.
Cyan presses their credit card against the digital reader off to a side. The moment he does, the display changes to a rotating glass map, labelling 3-2, with a hefty price tag of 100 million beneath it. Does this mean,
“We’re supposed to buy the next map?”
Cyan reaffirms, “yeah. It's likely so.” pointing the numbers beneath that writes, ‘current inventory: $19 830’ and a button, ‘exchange for tokens’
She can’t help but to wonder,
“Why were we given such an odd number?”
“we’ve spent $170 on clothes earlier.” right. Rufus actually gave them $20 000 from that last trial. But, 100 million? It’s absurd!
“The price is an utter rip off!” is that how Alyss got so rich? She’s watching Cyan fiddle around with the machine, he’s at a page with black electronic bracelets hovering on the screen, each with a small bracket he’s keying $9915 into, splitting their money in half. The moment he presses confirm, the bracelets manifest. He catches it in his palm before they fall and hands one to her,
“I think this trial expects us to win money.” he explains as they strap the device onto themselves with a little click,
“The trials are usually designed to test certain skills. I don’t think being rich is exactly a skill.”
"Right." that's probably it, she replies as she examines the device. Realizing, she can wave circular tokens in and out of existence in divisions of fives. Each value is denoted by a different color. Taking them out physically deducts the inventory sum, and putting them back in increases the inventory sum. After a few more moments of tampering and figuring things out, they decided to check out the tables.
Going down the rows, they started discussing the current knowledge they have about casino games. Both of them aren’t well-versed. So, they decided to try their hands on each game they come across. The first are the slot machines. Getting three of the same pictures guarantee a payout apparently. But after ten attempts and losing a hundred dollars, they realize it’s completely RNG based and decided to drop it.
They were intending to check out the blackjack tables next, but a commotion’s broken out with a customer being accused of cheating. They decided to avoid that for now and go to the roulettes.
It's extremely crowded here. Customers, packed like sardines holding batted breaths and anticipating eyes to watch where the little marble ball lands. She has a vague idea how it’s played considering Killian had one in his tavern when she was younger. That's until unlicensed gambling became illegal and he has to retreat it into the basement to collect dust.
With some finessing, they finally manage to squeeze themselves to the front. Revealing the betting mat in the center of the table where people are placing their tokens on. The gist of the game seems self-explanatory, they can either bet on black or red, odds or evens or individual numbers from 0 to 34. The more unlikely the chances, the higher the payout multiplier.
They initially attempted $50 with Cyan putting his money on black, and Lilith on red, but they realize after one round. They’re not making any profits like that, whatever one of them loses, the other gains. There’s no easy guarantee wins in this without taking risks. They’ve tried a couple of different strategies, each of them, placing $50 on different numbers and when that didn’t work, Cyan urges her to use her phone to search the web on the most advantageous bet placements. After four hours or so, they’ve only managed to gain $200 more than what they’ve initially started with all the push and pulls of wins and losses. It’s already past midday at this point and they’re thirsty and hungry.
They decided to take a break.
After swiping two glasses of fizzy drinks and some complementary cupcakes off another bunny lady that’s passed them with a tray, they decided to tuck themselves on a cushioned sofa off to the corner to figure out their next plan. The thirst’s made her take a huge gulp at the clear soda looking liquid. It tastes off. Cyan immediately mentions that she should probably remain sober for now. Is this Alcohol? Champagne actually, he corrects. No wonder it’s yucky. She’s basically just drank very old rotten grapes. How do adults even enjoy this thing? At least the cupcakes were good. They’re pumpkin flavored, decorated with a little chocolate stem and twine sprayed brass with food colorings.
The next few minutes were spent ricocheting ideas back and forth. Consulting with the all-knowing internet, to realize that, all the exploits they’ve thought of, has already been tested and countered by regulatory rules. The odds are always going to be against them. It’s starting to make her frustrated,
“Is luck actually a skill set that’s tested?” she wonders out loud because it sure seems like what’s going on here. Cyan’s starting to get skeptical too, that’s why he’s pulling out the map again to check,
“I don’t think so. We might be doing something wrong if a trial is trying to get us to luck out to pass.” he flicks his head about,
“Besides, I’ve noticed most of the max bets here are only at $5000. So, it’s going to take an abysmal number of wins to even get close to winning a million. Much less a hundred million. We might as well use the money to buy a lottery at that point.” then he focuses on the map again. Noticing something. He zooms in on one of the green dots that’s emerged,
“It says here, there should be another examinee right in front of us?” she flicks her eyes to where he's pointing. Nobody's there. Packed as this casino is, they’re the only people in this corner. Everyone else is busy gambling their life-savings away. That's strange.
Cyan’s starting to figure it out,
“Wait a minute...” he double taps twice on the bottom of the map. The layout changes. He’s now shuffling it up and down, scrolling past the twelve floors this building contains, before it strikes her too,
“We’re on the wrong floor!” That’ll explain why the orange dots seem to be hovering outside the wall in midair. That was so dumb of them! How did they miss this? Although, she’ll blame it on the lack of proper overlay indications to levels above and beneath them. According to their map, the dots are four levels down!
With that, they search for the stairwell to descend, realizing that it’s literally right beside the ATM machines where they’ve gotten their bracelets from. They’ve completely blind sighted it earlier.
The level beneath them is apparently another civilian opened area, offering the games that couldn’t fit on the entrance floor. The next belongs to VIPs for bigger spenders. Although, the max bet allowed here is still far beneath the amount that they’ll need to collate, capping at 500k. Following that is a fancy looking restaurant serving the finest Felmane cuisines known for their craftsmanship of making extremely lifelike machines with food. Although, she’s always wondered, who will be appetized by pastries shaped like mechanical snails? They’ve finally reached where they're supposed to be.
It opens up with a balcony outlooking the office tier of the city. A few fancily dressed customers are smoking cigarettes against the rails and adding to the air pollution. Along with, wait, are those prisoner uniforms on the three guys huddled by the bin?
It’s the same as she’s seen on that runaway earlier today, only with different numbers printed behind them. They have blue Magia seals around their wrists too. Except, it isn’t activated as shackles so they're able to part their hands to take puffs. Does it only trigger if the prisoner’s actually outside of the building?
On the wall side of the building, there are two grand entrances to what looks like exhibition halls. Label with different buy in prices. One of them being 10k, whereas the other’s hiked at 5mil.
Another prisoner, a rather young man this time, with messy, two-toned hair, blue on the top and white at the longer streaked ends, has just exited 10k room to heading towards the 5mil room. She recognizes him by the black decorative plaster with small white skulls on his nose. He’s another one of those organ traffickers that were mentioned on the television earlier. That means, he used to be an adventurer too. Plaster guy notices her staring and quickly swipes away the hologram projection from his bracelet. But she’s already caught glimpse of the numbers on that screen. He has 13mil in it! Then, he quickly disappears into the next hall so she stops observing.
Beside her, Cyan’s finally figured it out, telling her,
"The orange dots represent the prisoners. That’s who we're supposed to be playing against." he points towards the interiors of the 5mil hall, isolating a few people sitting around a circular card table,
"Other examinees have already advanced forward." it aligns with the green dots they saw. Plaster guy is joining them. Summoning a large pile of chips. Checking the map again, Cyan says,
"But the fancily dressed commoners aren’t on the map" guessing,
"Those are probably the rich VIPs here to crash the fun too. The spell lock's subduing the prisoners so they can feel the danger of facing against criminals without actually putting themselves in danger. They’ve got money to burn."
Now that Cyan’s mentioned it, she finally notices the Felmane adventurer at the end of the walk way. He’s slouched against the wall. Browsing his phone and nearly dozing off, looking bored out his mind. It’s no wonder the previous prisoner escaped when this bum’s on the job.
Well, with the amount they have on them, guess they can only start with the cheaper hall. It’s further down, so they’re making their way towards it.
They pass a translucent barrier to get inside. The moment they did, a green ding goes off on their bracelet. A hologram manifesting the words 'entry registered' scrolls across their faces, as well as, "A, J, Q, K cards acquired, wave to retrieve."
But the notifications disappear too quickly for them to fully comprehend it, so they're left staring at the interiors.
Unlike the commercial casino upstairs, it's sparsely decorated, scattered with chairs and tables looking like the set up for a high school exam. Only, there’s neither rigidity of the strictness nor solemnness here. It’s not any less rowdy. More so in fact, with a group of prisoners getting into a squabble off to the side. Their uniforms are different. It's striped instead of brown. It takes a few more moments for Lilith to figure out, they're commoner law breakers. The fact that they don’t have Alyss’s Magia around their wrist to bind them in case they decided to go on a rampage gives it away. Actually, majority of the players in here are common prisoners.
The Felmane adventurer on the stage, at the opposite end of the room, doesn’t seem interested in breaking up the verbal accusations of cheating being thrown around. Is cheating allowed here? But he does stop them with a holler,
‘Hey! No fighting!” when one side attempts to draw punches. The adventurer’s pointing to the holographic panel above him that’s listed the Hall rules. It says,
1.) No violence is permitted.
Followed by,
2.) Upon entering, please take a number tag from the basket by the entrance and pin it to yourself.
3.) Bets are decided in alternate, with first bet randomly assigned to a player.
4.) A game cannot start if the player has 0$, if bets exceeded player’s total inventory amount, the winning player will only be paid losing player’s maximum bet inventory.
5.) 10k exit fee needs to be paid before anyone can leave.
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Beneath that, there’s another set labelled, Kingdom, Game rules,
1.) A < J < Q < K, but A > K. Bet winner is decided by which player’s played the highest card.
2.) If both players played the same card. It’s a draw and both the cards disappear.
3.) Upon winning a round, the winner takes the loser’s card.
4.) Four cards must be played in each game before any player can withdraw. Game may forcefully end when one player no longer has cards to play.
5.) The first set of cards are given for free upon entering.
That must be the game they have to play? It seems that way with the duels going on between the prisoners on the tables. But one thing's pretty self explanatory. Cyan and her have to make 5 million each in here for both of them to advance to the next hall.
Following the rules, they scrummage through the little basket on a stool beside the entrance to collect their number tags. She’s tried searching for her favorite number, lucky seven, but it looks like it’s already taken. So, she instead randomly settles for 420. Whereas, Cyan, found the 69 and proudly snickers at it whilst he pinned it to himself.
They then figure they should try the game out amongst themselves first before diving to challenge other players. Securing a table right at the last row, they wave in the physical copies of cards they were given. It’s similar to poker. The unique face on one side whereas the backs are identical. A mono-colored brown with a golden crown in the middle of it. They’ve gotten one of each. A, with the picture of an Assassin, J, the Jester, Q the Queen and K the King.
After observing the other tables for a few moments, they manage to figure out how to start the game. Both of them have to say challenge, followed by opponent player’s number.
The moment they do, a hologram rectangle appears by their sides with their current balance reflected. Each of them, holding $10 015.
A green light goes off beneath her hologram, that must indicate, she has first bet, right? She tries,
“10 dollars.” another writing’s manifested beneath the current balance, bet: $10 and a countdown begins ticking in the center of them for 20 seconds.
They place their selected cards face down on the table. The moment the counter hits zero, the cards flip over by themselves. She’s put down the Assassin whereas Cyan’s placed the Queen. The pictures on the cards animate. The queen’s running over to the assassin to behead him with her sword, before leaping back into her own card and freezing her position again.
Then, both cards automatically slide to Cyan’s side, indicating his victory, at the same time, a green ding goes off beneath his hologram, followed by a written notification,
Current Winning: $10. Leaving her with 3 cards remaining and him with 5. She tries to lean over to physically snatch the card back. But now, she can’t touch it anymore, so her fingers just goes right through. Cyan’s holding them no problem though.
It’s his turn to bet next, but before she does, it reminds her,
“Wait. Since we’re testing. We should probably tell each other what cards we’re going to put down.” flicking her head to the rules board, “it says that if we draw, our cards will disappear. So, I’ll put K and you put something other than K.” he agrees,
“Okay.” before continuing, “50 cents” it didn’t register. They can’t bet in decimals, so instead, he tries, “1 dollar.” that one worked.
Again, they place down the cards. It flips open after twenty seconds, revealing her K and his A. Another animation plays. This time, the Assassin’s sneaking up upon the asleep King on his throne. Stabbing the King in the back. The cards again, slide over to his side. His current winnings, updating to $11.
Now she only has JQ remaining in her hands, whereas Cyan has AAJQKK in his. She's fucked. Having A and K's quite important in this game. Cyan is guaranteed two wins by just playing Kings against her in the next two rounds since she wouldn’t have an Assassin to counter it anymore.
It’s her turn to bet, so she tries,
“100 million.” she didn’t expect this bet to actually go through. But her screen’s displaying, current bet: 100 million. She places down her Q; he’s put down the K. The third interaction shows the Queen on a knee before the King. Offering her sword by his feet. It surprises her further that the game didn’t end there.
Instead, it’s just upped Cyan’s current winnings display, $100 mil+. Looks like, the bets are only deducted right at the very end. It wouldn’t forcefully end the game even if she has no money left. Minimum of four rounds must be played.
On the fourth round, he plays his A against her remaining J so they could see another interaction. It’s showing a scene of the Jester outing the panicking Assassin in court, getting the Assassin killed by the guards. Giving her the win.
However, the game doesn’t automatically end on the fifth either as long as both of them have cards in their hands still. So, this would mean, the only bet that actually matters, is the last bet that is played.
They went on for few more rounds to see the two remaining interactions they haven’t seen.
King and Queen against the Jester both share the same interaction, with the Jester ordered to be hung by the imperials for his poor juggling.
They’ve also tried what happens if they didn’t select a card before twenty seconds. Apparently, the game randomly selects it for them by sneaking a card away from their grasps to place it on the table. The countdown can also be forcefully initiated by any player if they tap a card against the table, but card selection wouldn’t be locked in until the twenty seconds is up. If no bets are made, then the game automatically registers $1 as the minimum bet.
They spend a few more seconds trying to figure out how to stop the game. They find out through observing other players around them; they have to say, withdraw game for it to conclude.
The final resulting in, Lilith’s current winnings: $20 and Cyan’s: $100mil+, however, when it actually starts deducting from her bank accounts. It simply drops her available balance to $0, and increases his to $20 030.
And like the rules suggested, Cyan couldn’t start another game with her having no money in her account. However, he is able to pass her the physical cards after the game ends. But to transfer money without playing the game, they have to go to the Felmane official standing on the stage to formalize the transactions. They’ve also tested, what happens if one of them started the game with only one card, and they found out, the game can forcefully end before four rounds, if one of them runs out of cards.
Alright!
Now that they’ve learnt how the game is played, they can actually start! But before they’re able to leave the table, someone calls out to them. It’s a chubby middle age prisoner with a bald-patch on his head and bulging belly hardly contained by his striped uniform. The type that sounds so generically shady when he speaks. He’s inviting them to play a game against him.
Cyan gives her a skeptical look, whispering, perhaps it’s better if they were to observe the room for a little while longer. They don’t know the players and one thing’s for sure. Haven't she seen gambling movies? In a game like that, everyone would want to exploit the newbies. Especially a slimey opportunist like him.
So, she instead suggests with her most innocent voice,
"How about you answer a few questions first? Then, we can play!" Bald-patch chuckles a little,
"Sure. Hit me."
“What purpose do the prisoners have playing this game?” he's very eager to explain,
“Everyone here’s a death row inmate or life sentenced. But we were given the opportunity to buy our freedom with 100mil before the adventurer’s exams end or before the pool dries out.”
“How much is the pool?” he was basically saying there is a limit to the total money that can be won from others in this trial,
“Alyss Mildred has only circulated 500mil in this game, distributed amongst 500 prisoners, each of us received 1mil. The rich snobs,” he flicks his head towards a fancily dressed VIP member that's currently in a game with a prisoner,
“Like them, contributed the rest. Right now, it’s the total liquidity is estimated to be around 700-800mil. But unlike us, they can choose to cash out anytime.”
This would mean, the prisoners are equally motivated to win too. More so perhaps. Cyan’s right. They should try and scout their opponents first. Bald-patch seems to be pretty generous with his information so far, she can continue milking,
“Did anyone win yet?”
“Yeah, two actually. A rebellion guild adventurer and another examinee like the two of you.” in other words, they’ll have to complete this before five others, reliably three others, to pass this trial. That’s all she needs to know.
"Thank you! I think we'll hold out for no-" before she can finish her statement, Bald-patch brings up his hologram, revealing 83k in it,
“Oh. It’s a shame then. I guess, I’ll take my bets elsewhere.” it immediately makes her change her mind in a heartbeat,
“Wait. I’ll play!” it upsets Cyan, snapping at her,
“How many times do you need to get baited? Remember the last time you agreed to follow a shady character? You almost died!”
“You were the one that said, I lived, it’s all that matters!” arguing with him, “besides, if we beat this guy, we’ll instantly quadruple our balance!”
“You’re being a cliché right now! Call me a prophet but I can already foresee how this is going to play out. You’re going to get swindled by him and lose all your money!” his accusation's getting Bald-patch to nervous chuckle something about he has no bad intentions, he just wishes to play a game. Cyan's talking over him,
"The only reason why he's asking for a game is because he's confident he'll beat you." even she can tell Bald-patch is trying to take advantage of them because they're clueless children, but she can't help but to challenge,
“Why do you have so little confidence in me?” If she doesn't play, she wouldn't learn.
“Because you’re an idiot!”
“No you!” Cyan rolls his eyes at her, crossing his arms,
“Fine, do whatever. You’re on your own! I can’t be arsed anymore. You’re such a burden!” he steps aside to let Bald-patch slip into his seat,
“I’m going to play my own games. Don’t come running to me after you lose everything.” Geez, what’s gotten into him all of the sudden? Cyan’s seems uncharacteristically annoyed at her with how he is turning to walk away and not bothering to make eye contact. But she shakes herself into focus when Bald-patch’s readying,
“Challenge, 420.” and she repeats in kind, “Challenge, 13.” to start the game.
The holograms pop up again, she gets first bet. Now that she’s in an actual game, she can’t help but to feel slightly unnerved, it’s completely different than the trial runs she’s played with Cyan. Now she can actually lose.
Looking at her cards, she’s deciding the card she should start with. Definitely not the Assassin considering there is only a 25% chance of him picking the King, and if she loses her Assassin card in the first round. She might as well have already lost the game considering she doesn’t have any cards to counter his King anymore. But she can go aggressive with the King. There’s a 50% chance of him playing either Queen or Jester, 25% chance of him playing King, and 25% chance of her losing the King to his Assassin. Even losing it, wouldn’t be immediately game over. She still has her Assassin as the safety net.
Yeah, she’ll go with the King, making her decision,
“Bet...” wait, if she bets too high, he might know what she’s thinking of,
“$5000” it’s a middle number. She only has $10 015, it shouldn’t be easy to read. Bald-patch decisively slams a card down on the table.
How is he this confident? It’s making her doubt herself now.
Does that mean he’s already read her? What the heck? Did he play an Assassin? Should she... play safe and go with the Queen? The timer’s ticking, she only has five more seconds to decide, she’s starting to fumble, she should play safe! Deciding to go with the Queen on the last second. She holds her bating breath as the cards revealed themselves.
Fuck! He’s played the King! She’s thinking too much! She’s watching the numbers tick up on Bald-patch's side, now it says,
No. 420 Current Winnings: $0
No. 13 Current Winnings: $ 5000
“I was hoping you wouldn’t play King too.” he’s taunting her! What a jackass!
She’s lost half the amount she has with just one turn and now she only has AJK left in her hands and he has AJQQK.
In this game, the less cards she has, the more disadvantageous it becomes because it limits the options that she can play. And it’s Slimy Bald-patch's turn to bet next,
“$5000” he’s already placed down his next card. That was so quick! He’s trying to get all her money in two turns! She isn’t given enough time to think! He can probably tell she’s panicking now. What is that? Staring at the face-down card, she can’t actually tell!
He still has four different cards he could play! She shouldn’t play her Assassin. If she loses it this round, she’s instantly fucked. J or K?
Which one should she play? J is the safest bet. The game can’t end even if she’s lost all her money in two rounds. They’ve tested it just now. At least four rounds need to be played. So, even if she loses her J to him. She still has two of her most important cards in the game to play the third and fourth rounds.
Wait. No. she needs to calm down. She’s already baited like this once. This isn’t a game that she can win by just playing her safest hands. She needs to be predicting what he’s thinking.
What will he be thinking? What does he see? A stumbling girl that got baited into losing the first round. Cornered into losing the second round.
In this position, he should already know she wouldn’t play her A. He must’ve played the King again! That’s his safest choice! And he’s counting on her to not want to lose, that’s why if she plays the safest hand, she will lose.
He’ll play the King in this instance! She puts down her Assassin before the last second drops. Crossing her fingers, hoping that she’s right. How is her heart actually beating so quickly in her ribs right now. This is even more nerve wrecking than being in an actual fight.
The cards are revealed. Her Assassin has just backstabbed his King.
She’s right! She’s actually gotten it right! She retrieves the cards sliding over to her side, as her current winnings ticked up,
No. 420 Current Winnings: $5000
No. 13 Current Winnings: $5000
It’s alright now. They’re evened out. Inhaling sharply to get rid of her panic. She now has AJKK in her hands, and he has AJQQ. Her cards are higher. Bald-patch isn't actually that strong of a player. She can win this. He’s swearing under his breath,
“Fuck.”
She needs to counter attack too. She bets to start the countdown,
“$80 000” she has an advantage since he has more money. She can only lose $10 000 in total, but he can lose eight times more.
He wouldn’t want to lose his A. He only has one. It’s the only card that can keep him safe in the fourth round. The same way her J is now her most valuable card because that’s the only card she has left to kill his Assassin in the next round.
That’s precisely why, a schemer like him he will play it!
5 seconds left. She places it down on the table. He isn’t so decisive this time with the way he’s dragging his fingers back and forth his cards to choose. 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, he’s placed it down.
She’s predicted him! Her Jester got his Assassin killed. She’s actually got this in the bag! Their numbers now show,
No. 420 current winnings: $85 000
No. 13 current winnings: $5 000
She just needs to not fumble the last round and she’ll win! And she can’t fumble. He only has JQQ, and she’s got AAJKK. If she plays K, slipping her card down, she wins no matter what!
He’s frustratingly slamming his card holding hand on the table. Accidentally triggering the count down, yelling,
“Shit! Fuck,” and repeating, “Withdraw challenge” flutily. The game wouldn’t let him end until they’ve played at least four rounds. Hunching defeatedly. He’s trapped in a dead end. Repeatedly swearing, dammit, dammit as the numbers ticked down closer to her victory. She’s looking at it, 10, 9, 8...
It’s at this point she catches glimpse of Cyan in her peripheral. He’s leaned against the wall in the distance, behind the tables of other players. In a fidgeting panic. Rapidly flickering his eyes down to his arm where he crossed before his chest. Trying to get her attention to the finger that’s drawing something on his upper arm in repeated motions.
Squinting, it looks like... a triangle? Why is he drawing a triangle?
What does that mean?
5, 4... It suddenly clicks in her head.
Wait. No... No! She’s made a grave mistake based on one faulty assumption!
Retrieving her choice, she quietly slips a different card on the table, in time to Bald-patch yelling,
“$95 000” just fast enough for it to register.
The counter reaches 1!
He slowly lifts his head up,
“You should've listened to your boyfriend's warning.”not looking at the results but directly at her, gloating his victory,
“Consider this a learning lesson, child. I’ve let you win the two rounds. Made you confident in yourself, all so you’ll play the King right into my hands.”
Heaving a sigh of relief, she slumps into her chair. Thank fuck she's figured it out in time. What the heck, this game can be so sly! It's more about deception rather than predicting your opponent's moves. Bald-patch's starting to go on a generic villainous spiel now. He hasn't realized it yet, so she points, requesting Bald-patch to look before he spends another 5 minutes into elaborating his slimy ingenious plan.
He’s staring at it for a moment, rubbing his eyes as if he’s questioning himself, he’s seen it right. Before he’s choked out of breath. His eyeballs, almost popping out of his sockets.
She’s swapped the King out in time.
“Wait... How?” he’s accusing,
“What kind of a moron will play a Jester, when I should have JQQ in my hands!” that was what she was assuming. And if not for Cyan hinting her, she would’ve been brutally baited. The rules didn’t say, four unique cards need to be played but four cards, that was her oversight she’s made throughout the game.
Her Jester has just outed his Assassin in court.
No. 420 current winnings: $175 000
No. 13 current winnings: $5000
Cyan wasn’t drawing a triangle, but the letter A. He must’ve caught a glimpse of Bald-patch's cards. Bald-patch didn’t start out with AJQK like she did. He’s started out with AAQK, he’s counting on her to play the King in the last round because she believed that he didn’t have an Assassin remaining. That’s why Cyan had to get her attention without him noticing. Bald-patch may get suspicious and change his card too.
He really is slimy!
She gets herself out,
“Withdraw challenge.” funneling her winnings into her inventory totaling her at $93 015 and him at $0. Rushing beside her, Cyan sounds utterly exhausted when he faceplants into her shoulder,
“Dumbass, I really thought you were going to lose.” it finally makes Bald-patch realize he’s got tricked instead,
“You were pretending to have a fall out at the start?” Cyan must've yelled at her to make Bald-patch drop his guard. They're lucky Bald-patch's underestimated them,
“I wouldn’t say we’re pretending. We argue all the time.” but Cyan’s dragging her away,
“You don’t have to justify yourself in front of a shitty swindler.” from the devastated man, accusing in a raging fury,
“You scheming, cheating rats!” into the now empty table whilst Cyan flips a finger at him and sticks out his tongue to taunt,
“Reap what you sow. You tried to con her first.”
Once they’re isolated in a corner, she finally gets the chance to ask,
“What makes you so confident that I'll catch onto what you’re conveying eventually? What if I didn’t understand or didn’t see you in time? You were pretty far away.” but he nonchalantly shrugs,
“We’re friends, right?” before playfully flicking her forehead,
“If you can’t read my mind as well as I can read yours, I’ll be offended.” how is he so adorable? Lilith can’t help but to tackle him into a hug, then predicts him,
“What the heck!” in unison. Before both of them laugh it off.