For the umpteenth time in the past half hour, I sat up from my cold stone seat to alleviate the chill. The babbling streams of water pouring forth from the water jugs held aloft by marble statues warred against the droning mass of the anxious and anticipatory.

“I can’t fathom how you’ve endured that icy throne for this long,” I said as I casually observed those who had gathered for the start of the next round.

“It’s not that bad, you just have a low temperature tolerance,” Lloyd fired back.

“No, the sad reality is that you’re just too tolerant.”

“Hm. That might be true. After all, I am able to put up with you,” he said as nonchalantly as possible. That got a laugh out of me.

“Um, sir?” Hartwin timidly spoke up. “I think it’s starting.” I looked back and saw heads turning and heard conversations dying down. All eyes seemed to concentrate on the solitary figure that stood atop his perch on the roof of the highest building overlooking the plaza. The hood of his mottled gray cloak had been pulled down, revealing chestnut hair, piercing green eyes, and a mischievous yet emphatic grin.

Everyone sans Gino had gathered together in the central plaza of the orange district. It was a large, spacious area that could easily accommodate the, according to the average between Falur’s and Roska’s estimates, one hundred participants for the second round of the Heist game.

“How’s it goin’?” Cadius bellowed through cupped hands, his voice having been projected using his Imperium. Still gotta get used to calling it that. It’s a bit more convenient though. Lloyd quietly sighed.

The crowd roared with excitement, from the participants that occupied the inner portion of the plaza to the spectators that pushed and shoved their way through to secure a spot along the out edge of the plaza.

“Ha! That’s what I like to hear! For a moment, I worried if I had worn you lot out with the first round being so intense,” there was a pause, “only for a moment. The people of Lowestoft aren’t that weak, are we?” Cadius shouted with a raised fist.

In response, the city exploded with shouts, jeers, roars. The citizens cried out to all that would listen, that no, they- we aren’t weak. We may be thieves, not soldiers, but we’ll give it our all when it comes down to it.

“Now, that said, I already planned for this round to be far less physically demanding than the previous one. Let’s get right to it, shall we?” Cadius scattered into the air several small objects that quickly ballooned in size. Five giant copies, four or five feet in diameter, of the wooden tokens we had been given rotated slowly on differing axes as they hovered in the air above the plaza, as if he had thrown them out only to hold them in place, letting them continue to spin. “You should have received fifty of these tokens when you registered for this round. If you didn’t, too bad,” he shrugged.

I clutched at the pouch hanging from my belt.

“The game for this round is a rather simple one, a game you should all know well,” he began. There were murmurs of speculation in response. “The second game will be… Rogue’s Dice!”

The deafening roar left my ears ringing. My bones felt as though they were vibrating. And worst of all, I hadn’t heard of this game before. There hadn’t been any opportunity to go out and get shitfaced yet, Lloyd had caught me every time I tried sneaking out. Therefore, I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn of this realm’s drinking and pub games.

“The goal is to be one of the top twelve earners by the end of the round! Obviously, you’ll be using the tokens we provided.”

Cadius paused for only a moment before continuing. “Surprisingly, there are quite a few new faces this year, so an explanation of the rules is in order. However, I’m really not feeling a whole long-winded spiel, so I’ll let you teach each other,” he quickly rattled off as he turned his head away. That set of bursts of laughter throughout the crowd.

“Cadius’s flippant attitude is common knowledge. Wonderful,” Lloyd said with a small sigh.

“Yes, but that’s just how he is,” Roska commented.

“Yeah. Except, I’ve heard he can get serious sometimes,” said Dan.

“Yeah, my old man said he once saw Cad’ get all angry when one of our foreign bases got wiped out. My old man had been an assistant to one of Cadius’s higher-ups at the time. They were in a meeting when a messenger burst in and said twenty of ours had been killed in a raid. According to pops, Cadius’s face got all twisted and the whole room started shaking.”

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Yeah, I’d be about that pissed if someone had gone after the kids back home.

“Woah,” Johan muttered. The response was a mix of admiration, sympathy, and apprehension. Admiration for the leader that cared so deeply for his subordinates. Sympathy for the man who had lost so many friends and allies. Apprehension at the reminder of the man’s status and position as a demigod and the power that he wielded.

There was lull in the conversation. Despite the heavy atmosphere within our group, the second round had already been underway for a few minutes. We hadn’t immediately sprung into action. That was my doing. Since Roska had suggested this was a game of wits, rather than strength, I figured we should start by gathering information and carefully observing the competition.

Falur filled Lloyd, Hartwin, and I in on the specifics of Rouge’s Dice.

“In short, all you need to do is lie through your teeth,” he said.

There was a pregnant pause. “And?” Lloyd raised an eyebrow.

“Oh! Right. So, you roll some dice and hide them from the other players,” he began.

“Let me stop you right there,” I said, holding up a hand. No way am I going to follow along with a verbal explanation. “Can we just do a practice round first?” I asked, then pointed to an empty table, “let’s use that table over there.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

“I love this game!” I shouted, sporting a shit-eating grin. Seated at the table with me were Falur, Lloyd, and Dan. Roska and Johan both claimed to be so terrible at bluffing that they’d rather just watch than slow us down, so they elected to stand by and observe. All three of my opponents were currently in a state of disbelief, having lost without catching me in a single lie.

In short, this game was practically made for me. The primary goal is to catch the person who went before you in a lie. The subject of the lie being the minimum number of dice at the table that have a certain roll. Players take turns either increasing one or both of those values, or accusing the previous player of lying. If they lied, they lose a die, but if they told the truth, the accuser loses a die instead. Players get three dice, in other words three lives.

Then I belatedly remembered I’m in possession of a very unfair tool. Imperium. I look down at the dice.

Before that, I defined a circular zone that encompassed our group that distorted outgoing noise and muted incoming noise.

If I had to come up with a comparison, I’d say, to me, controlling Anima is like swishing water around in your mouth. But rather than the inside of your mouth, the Anima resides throughout your entire body. Also, I’d describe it as being closer to clay than to water.

Moving on, I found it relatively simple to alter the appearance of the dice to whatever I desired. The Anima usage was minimal and had no trouble creating the illusion while remaining inconspicuous.

With the brain on my Imperium, thoughts naturally drifted towards his Imperium. “Lloyd, can you move around the dice using your shadows?” I asked.

Lloyd blinked. “I think so, yeah. Give me a second to figure something out.” He looked over his surroundings, presumably to find the best location for which to hide a shadow and still reach the dice.

“The cup,” I supplied the answer.

Lloyd paused for a moment, then turned it over, peering into it with a frown. Flipping it upside-down, he reached in and used his Imperium to fiddle with the darkness within. He frequently paused to check his work. Only a minute had passed since he started

About a minute later of fiddling, he grabbed three die and rolled them. He noted the results before covering them under the cup.

A handful of seconds passed. He lifted the cup, revealing the dice. As far as I could tell, none of them had shifted position, but the values were different.

“Hm, let me try one more thing,” he said. Lloyd replaced the cup and stared at it intently. We waited nearly a minute in relative silence. “Ok, I think I got it.”

The cup was lifted, revealing three sixes. The speed needs some work, and that die over there is slightly off. That said, well done, Lloyd.

We had our aces. “Just so you all know, we’re only deploying these weapons at critical moments to win big,” I informed the group. If we started winning every round, rumors would quickly spread. No one would want to play against an unbeatable opponent. Therefore, we needed to save these tools for decisive moments.

“The other issue is knowing how many tokens we’re going to need to get in the top twelve,” said Johan.

“Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that yet,” Dan said. We just needed to earn more tokens than twelfth place. But there was no way of knowing who was in twelfth place or how many tokens they had.

“That’s true,” I nodded. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll be sending just the two of us to the next round,” I declared.

There were a few confused looks around the table.

“The challenges we faced during the first round were more than enough to get a better understanding of your character,” Lloyd stated. “Therefore, Von and I have decided to use the remaining two events as a training exercise.”

I leaned over to my right and gave Lloyd a light jab in the shoulder. “Don’t say it like that,” I turned to face the others, “we aren’t saying we want you to leave. In fact, I’d love it if you stuck around.”

“Eh, sure, boss,” was Dan’s rather prompt response.

“Are you kidding me? This is the most exciting event of the festival, and that’s not even counting the fact that the Apostle and Attendant are participating!” Johan smirked.

Roska followed with a sage nod.

Falur folded his arms and rolled his eyes.

“T-thanks,” I stuttered awkwardly. Breathing deep, I calmed my excitement and nerves.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

After a brief planning session, I look up at the side of the building from which Cadius had made his opening remarks. The familiar clockface had appeared there soon after the start of the round. Of our one-hour time limit, ten had already passed. That was fine, as we had decided to spend the first thirty minutes in low-risk games while we familiarized ourselves with its more subtle aspects and the overall flow. To keep up with the overall state of the economy, we split up and spread out across the plaza. After the thirty-minute mark, we would gather to discuss our findings and decide on our final targets; the ones who had accumulated large quantities of tokens.