Betting Man
Riverside was better by rooftop. Down on the streets, freshmen art school kids were out in force today; they sat on every corner, drawing pads in lap, milled about in the middle of foot and vehicle traffic with their cameras, and chalked their work onto the sidewalks and walls. Some university must have had an initiative planned for the day. It looked annoying, especially for a man as entrancingly photogenic as me, so I'd opted to jump from a raised subway platform directly into someone's roof garden, heading to Kas's from there.
I waved hello to several groups of parkour enthusiasts training atop the eclectic architecture of the neighborhood, and a few of my fellow roof runners in the middle of their parcel deliveries but didn't stop to chat. Kas had texted me to get to his place pronto and give him a call; he was in a hotel lounge somewhere in Bavaria and only had so much time to talk. He'd mentioned a surprise, and when it came to my oft-drunk and highly impulsive mentor that could mean literally anything. I wouldn't have put it past him to have a miniature pony waiting for me in his kitchen, but if he was insisting on a call, then I assumed it was something confusing enough to warrant an explanation.
I entered Kas's from the back, using my spare keys to slide the two deadbolts in his ridiculously heavy, solid wooden backdoor. Kas had bought the antique from Andalusia on a vacation and had it shipped back and installed, all supposedly on impulse. Before the game had started, that had sounded believable, but now I couldn't help but wonder if the old man had another reason for replacing the old French window with what was essentially a security door.
There was an envelope and a still-hot cup of coffee with a coaster on top of it to keep in the heat better. I rolled my eyes at the mug, dialing my mentor on my new, fully insured, phone.
"Did you make Alex come here just to leave me a cup of coffee?"
I could hear the smug smirk in his voice. "Nice touch, right? Did you open the envelope yet?"
"Not yet." I took a sip of the coffee. It was almost lunch, but I always appreciated a free coffee. "Mm, it's good."
"Former baristas make great personal assistants. Now, come on already. I've been excited for this – you have no idea."
The envelope had the Mazzy's logo on it, one of the larger casinos in town, and Kas's favored haunt. I dumped out the contents, three plastic receipts, like movie tickets, and tried to decipher them. I recognized my name, but most of the rest of the text was in abbreviations, and my mind was boggling at the numbers I was seeing.
"What are these?"
"They're fucking real, is what they are! Go on, let them sink in."
"No, I mean, literally what are these? I see my name and I see numbers, but I'm not sure how they're related."
There was a pained sigh. "The youth these days, I swear. They're betting stubs, James, old-fashioned ones."
"Okay."
"…and you still don't know what you're looking at, do you? You've never done any sports betting, James? I thought half your generation was on those phone apps."
"Nah, that shit's boring. If I'm going to make money on sports, then I want to be competing, not watching."
"Huh, alright, respect." His excitement returned suddenly. "Well, kid, let me be the first to walk you through your first bets! I decided that it was both very stupid to bet against you, and bad form as your coach to influence your development over a wager."
Almost exactly a week ago, I had bet Kas that I could learn his ultimate technique, the Six Star Meteor Kick in under seven weeks. It had taken him seven years to develop, and he was, understandably, a little affronted by the claim. If he won, I had to move out of my apartment, which Kas had hated since the minute I moved in, and if I won, he had to pay for an all-inclusive trip to Mexico for me and Annie.
"Which is why I unilaterally," he continued, "altered our previous wager a little to be more sporting. First of all, learn the Six Star if you want, or don't – I'm not going to question your ability to do so, nor the time frame you could do it in. Instead, I made some inquiries at Mazzy's about gambling on the Last Chance Qualifiers and sent Alex to open some positions the moment they finalized the odds. Which was last night at around midnight, by the way; as of now, all registrants for the Qualifiers have been selected. The first position was with thirty thousand dollars, what I was planning on spending for your vacation if I lost, on a bet that you'd take first place in the Qualifiers at twenty-to-one odds."
"Twenty-to-one! I deserve way better than that."
"Heh, funny you say that because Mazzy's agrees. We should be glad that I sent Alex to the counter at midnight—"
"You sent Alex to the casino at midnight then had him come by in the day to leave me a mug of coffee?"
"And it turns out I was right to do so since your odds skyrocketed by this morning," he answered, cleanly ignoring what was actually wrong with giving your assistant a work schedule that included both midnight and noon. "I'm thinking they may have made a little mistake, or their Martial World researcher dropped the ball in a major way. But hey, it's our win. That's an additional six hundred thousand for you if you take first, on top of the prize money. Pretty cool, huh?"
It took me replaying his words a few times while holding the stub up to my face to register just what he was saying and what he'd done. "Oh my god, Kas, I don't know what to say…Wait, a minute, if that number represents the payout for the bet—"
Kas laughed maniacally. "That's right, son, I didn't stop there. I had Alex inquire into a few parlays for me while he was there, and the odds were just too good to pass up. Oh, by the way, I opened up all the same positions for myself at ten times the money; win the Qualifiers and you'll be making me six million dollars."
I shook my head. "So, you weren't planning on making these other bets when you sent your PA to the casino? Because judging by the payouts on these stubs, I think this might be the most degenerate gambler shit I've ever seen someone do."
"Pshaw, relax. You're a safer bet than death and taxes, kid." Kas paused, putting the phone to his shoulder as he ordered a few drinks in German, and lit up a cigarette. "Anyway, second bet's a simple parlay, thirty grand at a hundred-fifteen-to-one that you go undefeated in your pool and take first in the tournament. Can you believe those odds? I'm telling you, someone's going to lose their job over this."
"Didn't you say there were forty people in each pool? I don't know if I'd call beating thirty-nine people in the same day a guarantee."
"You got this, don't worry. I was so confident in those two winning out, that I decided to make one fun bet while I was at it – you know, get a little spicy with it. This one's for less, only ten grand, and you'll have to go undefeated while also winning more than half of your fights without taking a single hit, with at least one of those fights being in the top sixteen, but, the odds are ridiculous, as you can see."
I groaned. "You put seven hundred thousand dollars on me, old man? Jesus Christ…"
"Best investment of my life!"
"Four hundred grand of that on pure impulse?"
"Ah god, you sound like my ex-wife. I thought you'd be thrilled! You're going to be a millionaire, kid! A multi-millionaire, buy a fleet-of-yachts-millionaire!"
"Why would I want a fleet of yachts?"
"I dunno, piracy?"
I continued rubbing my temples. "Kas, so many things could happen between now and the Qualifiers. My life is pure chaos, man – I got my ass saved by ghosts two days ago and I'm still beefing with a fat rat. Hell, tonight I'm meeting with the Cranes to discuss what I'm pretty sure is a simmering gang war. The city's a powder keg right now and if it blows, then I'm not sure I'll be available for a public sports fighting tournament."
Kas started to respond but as he did, a notification screen from the system popped up that took immediate priority.
"No fucking way," I muttered.
"Hm, what? Something come up?"
"Yeah. Listen, thanks for these, uh, gifts. I do appreciate them, but I got to get going."
We scheduled a video call in a few days, and I found somewhere comfortable to sit while I went through the lengthy messages from the Producers.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL WEEK FOR ARCANE RHAPSODIES: LEGENDS OF LOVE AND BATTLE, ECHOES OF FATE, WHERE LEGENDS CONVERGE AND DESTINY RESONATES!
I'd forgotten how stupid the official name for the game was. They should have gone with the working title we'd given it while making characters, Love Fight, much catchier.
But 'Tutorial Week', huh? It was simultaneously hard to believe that I'd been here for a week, and that a week had already gone by. Last Thursday, I'd woken up as a struggling stunt actor with a lot of friends and decent prospects for the future. In the time since, I'd made close companions out of Annie, Marianne, and Maki, enemies of the Tigers and rivals out of Kuze and the rat, become frenemies with some anonymous Yakuza boss, mastered my Art, been adopted into the Shinto Shrine by a ghost, defeated a Lesser Evil, championed a Death God, almost transcended my humanity, and drawn the attention of every supernatural entity for dozens of miles.
Man, I needed a vacation. When I lined it all up like that, it kind of sounded like my life was spiraling out of control.
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> [Group Quest Completed!]
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> Survive Tutorial Week while separated without losing a member of your group to death or Corruption.
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> Reward: 100XP, Gain a random Major Feat from your Social Archetype (Sister Wives), Gain a random Major Martial Feat from your Style (Punching Dummy)
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> [Major Feat (Harem Protagonist)] Sister Wives
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> The feelings you have for someone you're in a romantic or sexual relationship with will guide how your other partners feel toward that person. If you are sexually attracted to someone, then your other partners will gradually develop the same attraction towards them, overcoming natural preference and prejudice in time. If you view a lover in a maternal light, then she will likely become the 'harem mom' as your other lovers start to develop the same feeling. The greater your affection, love, and attraction are for your lovers, the greater the effect and, naturally, the more harmonious your harem.
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> [Major Feat (Black City Kung Fu)] Punching Dummy
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> Few excel at rolling with hits more than you do, combined with your abilities in stage fighting and performance, and your supernatural slipperiness, this has coalesced into a powerful defensive ability. Once per round, you may negate Damage of any type by half of your Dice in the relevant Attribute rounded down, i.e. physical with Agility, psychic with Willpower, etc.
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Tears welled in my eyes, and I nearly slid off my chair in relief. I felt light enough to float away on the breeze. They're alive. Everyone's alive. A near-existential anxiety that had gripped me from the start of this adventure finally let me loose. I could count on them; my friends could survive on their own. I'd wanted to believe in their ability to adapt and navigate their new lives, desperately so, but I couldn't let myself until now.
> You've had some time to acclimate into your role, and we at SkinDimensional have had the opportunity to observe the rule set in play, so it's time for Patch 1.1! We've made 22,430 individual rule changes, so for your convenience, we've selected those most relevant to you.
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> [Patch 1.1]
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> -Tutorial Difficulty Switch: Injury Thresholds are now calculated by the highest of either your Endurance or Willpower Attribute as opposed to the sum.
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> -Item Creation System Consolidated: Our various Item Tokens are being consolidated into a simple Artifact system that works similarly to the Base Upgrade system. Players who have accumulated Item Tokens will be compensated in equivalent Artifact Tokens. All Players receive an Artifact Token for free.
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> -Bleeding Rules Change: Whoops! This is why we're running a playtest. Due to an oversight in the rules for bleeding out, we've modified the mandatory Stabilization checks to occur at the end of a Scene and/or once every hour. Players who had to come up with in-universe explanations for the out-of-context ability to avoid death by blood loss will be given a feat in accordance with their excuse, for the sake of narrative consistency.
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> -Some Skill Prerequisites for Feats were found to be too restrictive. To counteract this, we'll now allow more combinations of Skills to be viable alternatives for certain Feats. For example, some Feats that required 5 Dice in Performance (Acting) can now also be purchased if the Player has a sum of Dice in Performance (Acting) and Deception equal to 7.
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> -Relationship System Total Overhaul: Rather than the unintuitive Title-based relationship system, every NPC now has five social metrics that determine their feelings towards a Player. These are Trust, Affection, Respect, Lust, and Curiosity, and are measured on a scale of -5 to 5, with 0 being 'no strong opinion'. Relationship Tokens now increase a metric by 1 point. In compensation for the relative weakening of the Tokens, Players will receive four additional Tokens for every one they received in the past. All Players receive a Relationship Token for free.
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> -We've created thousands of lewd Feats based on viewer input and Player habits. Check them out!
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> -Created the Challenge system to bridge the growing Experience gap between party members.
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> [Minor Feat] Muscular Vascularity
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> Your control over your muscles is such that you are only at risk of bleeding out while unconscious.
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> [Accept Challenge?]
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> The top three members of your group have far outperformed our expectations, earning hundreds more Experience Points than we had anticipated. While we are grateful for your cooperation, unfortunately, this means that the Experience gap between the top three and bottom five party members is larger than we would prefer. The Challenge system seeks to address this gap by offering unique debuffs to each of the top three Players, in exchange for distributing additional Rewards to the bottom five. The Challenge, if accepted, will be in place until your fellow Players are comfortably in your 'tier of play'.
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> Challenge: As the top performing Player, you have been issued the hardest challenge. If you accept, you will no longer be able to decide how to spend extra Successes in combat after the results are rolled. Rather, you will have to determine how would you spend any extra Successes ahead of time, should you roll them.
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> Reward: Bottom five Players will each receive 75 Experience, +1 Random Attribute, +3 Random Skill every week, starting the moment you accept.
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I had to take the Challenge, every core aspect of both my personalities demanded it. Pride, duty, love, honor, concern, none of them would let me even consider not shouldering the burden for my friends. It was rough though, to no longer be able to metagame fights, that was for sure, and a serious difficulty spike in combination with the now extremely brutal Injury system. Together, they dragged me down back into the muck of mortality, no longer operating as an out-of-context threat.
That change to Injury Thresholds made the entire world fantastically bloodier and more dangerous. As someone who had managed to hit the Injury Threshold in the old ruleset, I was shocked, to be honest; the game had hardly felt easy during the 'Tutorial'. Doing an entire Injury Threshold in Damage with a single Attack allowed you to break a bone or remove a limb if dealing Murderous Damage. I was going to be taking eyes and legs, left and right if I survived.
I would have died limbless had I fought the Egui with the new Injury rules and those claw strikes would have paralyzed me back on the rooftops. I could still feel them if I thought about it too hard, my flesh and bones being torn and shattered, the bile rising to the back of my throat. Sure, perhaps that should have, realistically speaking, had a greater effect on me at the time, but did the Audience really want to watch a man get ripped to pieces by a ghost?
Almost as soon as I had the thought, came the next, more welcome notification.
> [Viewer Popularity Poll Winner]
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> Congratulations, you've won the Popularity Poll for the first week! The following have been selected from our highest tier of Rewards by your appreciative Viewers, with a few thrown in from us, your grateful Producers, as courtesies for your continued active participation.
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> Skeleton Key Fob – 3 charges; Point at any electronic or mechanical lock to instantly lock, unlock, or activate its mechanism. Fob refills its charges at midnight. Will return to you after 24 hours if lost or destroyed.
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> Peach of Immortality – Consuming this divine fruit extends the eater's natural lifespan in excess of 3,000 years. Can be lost, stolen, or destroyed.
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> Producer's Care Package – 1d6 Talisman of Recall (x1); 1d6 Base Upgrade Tokens (x5); $5000 added to Black Card Account
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"Aw fuck."
I stared at the aesthetically perfect peach in my hand with open horror. It was radiating not Qi or magic, or any Earthly power I had ever felt, but pure divine power – and I did mean radiating. A faint breeze had begun to creep in through the closed windows, the sun's rays felt brighter, and an illusory sound just at the edge of perception of a fire alit in Kas's hearth from the other room; They were beginning to notice, the Gods. I recognized the sensation from when I first entered the Shinto Shrine in Little Tokyo. The Eyes of Fate were turning upon me.
My sense of reason was telling – no, screaming at me to eat the Peach immediately, to waste not a second longer. That was the safest thing to do, eat the fruit, obliterate the seed with fire, and move on. And yet…
I pulled out my phone and dialed from muscle memory, eyes still locked on the Peach. She answered quickly, thank god; I had no backup plan for what to do if she hadn't.
"Where are you right now?" I asked, putting all the urgency I could muster into every syllable. The answer was curt, clearly upset by my tone.
"Stay there, I'm coming. I need to see you," I said. She tried to talk, but I continued, cutting her off, "It's too important to waste any time. We can talk after."
I hung up and put my phone on silent – I couldn't let anything distract me from my mission.