I go up the stairs and walk into the blackjack room. Or at least one of them. There were four rooms, and I walked into the last one. Sitting in the dimly lit room were four burly men wearing tank tops and drinking heavily, and a woman who looked to be in her early thirties also drinking heavily. The table had a green-felt surface and a deck of cards that rotated from person to person.

The woman noticed me first, “Can I help you?” the woman asked with a slurred voice.

“Umm, can I join your game?” I asked meekly.

One of the men turned to me and scoffed, “Only if you’ve got the coin.”

I nodded, “What’s the buy-in?”

“Two hundred and above,” the woman answered. I walked up to the table and placed two platinum on the table. The woman considered it for a moment and nodded, “All right. You’re in. Pull up a chair. Derik! Give her some chips.”

I looked around the room and found some chairs along the far wall. I collected one and pulled it up to the free space between the woman and one of the men. The man on my right, who I’m pretty sure is Derik, gave me ten grey chips, five red chips, four blue chips, and a green chip.

“Thank you, uh, Derik?” I said.

Derik nodded, “No problem, missy. You know how to play the game?”

“This is blackjack, right?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Then yes, I do.”

“Good, then we can play without delay.” One of the other men said, the deck of cards in his hand.

For those who don’t know, blackjack is played until you have a card value of twenty-one. You can hit, pass, and/or bet on your turn. Aces are worth one or eleven, and face cards are worth ten. Usually, this would be played with six decks of cards at a time to help prevent card counting, but this game was played with one deck. And once the person goes through the deck, they pass it on to the next person. Each player receives two cards, one card face up and one face down, while the dealer gets two cards facing up. The dealer has to hit twenty-one, be the highest hand, or go over.

Now, remember the card counting I mentioned two seconds ago? Yeah, I know how to do it. And here’s how. If the card is two through four, that counts as plus one. If the card is five through nine, that is zero. And if it’s ten through ace, that’s minus one. You want as high a number as possible, meaning more face cards and tens are in the deck.

Now, back to the game. The dealer says, “Anti up,” Everyone puts two grey chips in the center of the table, and I do the same. The dealer split the grey chips up evenly between two piles. Then he passed out two cards to everyone, one faces up and one face down. I looked at my cards, and I got two fives. Meaning zero. Then I look at the other face-up cards. There is an eight, six, seven, ten, and the dealer has two twos. Meaning plus one.

The dealer nods and gestures to the guy to his left. I’ll call him guy-two. Guy-two puts in a blue chip and waves his hands over his cards. Then the next guy to the left, Guy-three, throws in a blue chip and taps his cards, and the dealer passes another card to him, face up. He receives a queen. Now at zero. Guy-three curses, “Shit! Fold.”

The dealer puts the cards face down in a discard pile. Now It’s Derik’s turn. “Call,” He says as he puts his last blue chip in the pile.

Now it’s my turn. I put in a blue and tap my cards. The dealer passes me a Jack, and I wave my hand over the cards to stay. Minus one. Now it’s the woman’s turn. She puts in a blue and taps her cards. She gets a six and waves her hand over her cards, still minus one.

The dealer nods and says, “Reveal.” And we reveal our cards. Guy-two has a ten and a king, making twenty. Minus two. Derik has fifteen. The woman has nineteen, and I have twenty. The dealer then puts in two reds, his last, and starts dealing cards to himself. Ace, nine, four, and a nine, he busts. Leaving minus two.

The dealer then splits the chips up evenly between Guy-two and me. In the pot the dealer gave us were six grey chips, two red chips, and five blue chips. He gave me three greys, two red and two blue, splitting the last blue into two reds.

Then he collected the cards to put into the discard pile before asking for the anti and passing out the cards again. Derik had to exchange a red chip for five more greys before he could anti up. I looked at my cards, an eight and a king. Making eighteen and minus three. On the table were three, nine, seven, ten, and the dealer had a two and a queen. Minus five.

Guy-two looked at his cards and tapped, getting a seven. Making his hand at least ten, and I was still at minus five. Guy-two smiled and put forth two blue chips before passing his turn. Guy-three called and tapped his hand, receiving an ace. Minus six. He tapped his cards again, getting a three. Minus five. He tapped again, getting a king. Minus six. He cursed and tossed his cards in, “Fold.”

Derik laughed, “You have no luck at this game, Greg.”

“That’s rich coming from someone with eighty Lucre,” Guy-three, Greg, retorted.

Derik shrugged as he looked at his cards, “True,” then exchanged his one green chip for two blues and a red before he waved his hand over his cards, “I’ll stay.”

I put two blue in and asked, “I’ll stay. Before we go any further, what are the chips worth?”

The woman sighed, “The grey is worth two Lucre each, the red are worth ten, the blue twenty, the green fifty, and the blacks are worth one hundred.” Then the woman threw her cards in and said, “Fold.”

“Why does the dealer keep taking half the anti and setting it aside?” I asked.

“The dealer has a name,” the dealer said, “I’m Chiou, and I’m putting half into the big pot. One the half that is won every hand is the hand pot, while the second one is the big pot that can only be won if you get twenty-one. Reveal.”

“And so you know I’m John, and that’s Jill,” Guy-two, John, said and gestured to the women. Then he revealed his cards with everyone else. He had an Ace, three, and a seven, making twenty-one. Derik had king, seven, making seventeen. And I had king, eight, making eighteen. Meaning minus eight. “Looks like I won it all,” John laughed and took the big pot and hand pot.

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I counted the number of chips on the table to see how much I could win. The total number of Lucre on the table was 1,200 Lucre. John had twenty grey chips, five red chips, fifteen blue, and one green, meaning he has 440 Lucre. That’s four-hundred and forty Lucre that I will be taking, along with the other seven-hundred and sixty Lucre.

I nod, “Yep, looks like. But I’ll win it all later. So, enjoy while you can.”

John laughed, “I like you, kid. Let’s keep playing.” And so we did. Chiou started the next hand. He dealt out a twenty-one immediately to himself, so he won both pots. And the deck was passed onto John. First hand, plus two with a pot of eleven greys and five reds. Then the reveal of a three-way tie between Derik, Jill, and I with seventeen, bringing my plus two to minus two. Then John drew a card as the dealer got a jack for minus three and won the hand pot.

And the game went on like this for an hour. Minus seven. Minus ten. Minus ten. Plus one. Minus four. Minus seven. It didn’t take long for the others to run out of money, starting with Chiou, then Jill, then Greg. Leaving Derik, John, and I to fight over the remaining scraps of chips.

The other three stayed to watch but didn’t participate, and it was John’s turn to deal. The big pot had a black chip, a green, two blues, and two greys. He dealt the cards. Derik had a seven, I had a Jack, and John had a king and a three. Minus one. I didn’t look at my second card, so I don’t know what it is. But I was going to leave it up to chance to win this game. We placed our anti-ups, bringing the big pot up to five greys.

It was Deriks turn first. After looking at his card, he put in a blue and passed the turn. John chuckled, “Feeling lucky?”

Derik shrugged and smiled, “Maybe.”

John nodded, “All right, your turn, kid.”

I didn’t look at my cards and gnawed on my cheek as I thought. Then I said, “All in.”

John blinked, “W-what?”

“All in,” I repeated.

“But you didn’t look at your cards.”

“I know. All in,” I said and held back a smile. John was looking nervous. He didn’t expect me to go all in and guess. This may be a game of calculations, but it is still a gambling game, and I was going to win this bluff.

John counted his chips, and I counted along with him. Fourteen blue, seventeen red, thirty-seven grey, and one green, totaling five-hundred and seventy-four Lucre. Then he looked at my stack, which totaled two-hundred and eighty-six Lucre. John thought for a moment more and said, “All in. And you’d better have the difference, kid.”

I nodded, “I’m good for it.”

“Well, I guess I’m all in, too,” Derik grumbled and held his head in his hands. Poor guy only had three grey and six blue.

John nodded, “Reveal.”

Derik flipped his card, revealing a seven and eight. And I flipped over a Jack and an Ace … twenty-one. Blackjack. I smiled, and John scowled. As the dealer, he had to draw a card, and he had a three and a king. He drew the card and revealed an eight. Twenty-one. Blackjack. The tension at the table grew as we now had a tie.

I began to feel the nervous energy as John took all the cards and said, “Sudden death.” This means he’ll deal cards between us face up until either one person has a higher card than the other or until we bust and the lowest bust wins. He dealt two cards face down, and we revealed at the same time. Five five. Tie. Two more cards face down. Reveal. Three three. Tie. Ten king. Tie. One more card for each of us. He flipped over a four. Bust with twenty-two, and I flipped over … a three. Twenty-one. Blackjack!

As everyone cheered for me, I jumped up excitedly and exclaimed, “HELL FUCKING YEAH! I WON!”

John slammed his fists on the table and screamed, “FUCK! YOU CHEATED, KID! I KNOW YOU DID! YOU HAD TO HAVE CHEATED!!”

“Hey! I didn’t cheat! You dealt those cards yourself! I won fair and square.”

“NO! That’s bullshit!”

“John!” Jill yelled over him, saying, “She won fairly, and she’ll get the rewards she’s due.”

John punched the wall and cursed as he walked out of the room, cursing up a storm. “Who knew he was such a sore loser,” I said, looking around at everyone else.

“Don’t mind him, darlin’,” Jill said, “He’s always been that way. That’s why I always hold the money so he doesn’t go berserk and start beatin’ on people.” Jill pulled a pouch of coins from her pants pocket and tossed it to me, “Here you go, darlin’.”

I caught it and counted the twelve hundred Lucre, “Thank you very much for a good game.”

“Any time, darlin’. Derik, you got the money you owe the miss?” Jill asked.

Derik shook his head, “No. I might in a couple of weeks.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, shocking the man.

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. John covered the difference for you,” I answered with a smile and a wink.

Derik chuckled, “Thank you, miss.”

“No problem,” I said, taking a swig of my mead, which was warm and had a sharp and bitter aftertaste. I wrinkled my nose and put the mug back down. “Well, I’d better go and get some sleep. I’ve got a big day tomorrow,” I said with a stretch and made my way to the door.

“Darlin’. One more thing,” Jill said, stopping me.

I turned, “Hmm?”

“Are you Zeana Si’enn? The one for the tournament?”

“Maybe,” I said, with a wink and a smile. I then walked through the door and back out into the bar. The barfight had stopped at some point, and lying in the middle of the floor were Scarlet and Cami, both looking very beaten and bruised. “Oh, my gods!” I exclaimed as I rushed to their side and cast a healing spell on each of them.

The bartender meandered over, still polishing his glass mug, and said, “Hey, miss. Umm. There seems to have been a mix-up.”

I looked at him and asked, “What kind of mix-up?”

“Well, after I filled that blond girl’s mug, I had apparently run out of non-alcoholic mead. So as they downed their mugs, I thought nothing of it. Until the blond one challenged the black-haired girl to an arm wrestling match, then five-finger-fillet, and so on until they got like this. And have been lying there for the past ten minutes,” the bartender explained.

Cami and Scarlet both groaned. “I won,” Cami groaned.

“Bullshit, I did,” Scarlet countered.

I rolled my eyes, “How much was their drink tab?”

The bartender blew out some air while he calculated the cost, “Well, between the mead, the five broken bar stools, the two tables, and the hole in the floor beneath them,” as he said this, Cami and Scarlet tried to stand but fell through the floor instead.

“We’re okay,” Cami called up, followed by the sound of someone throwing up, “We’re less okay.”

“And the cleaning costs,” the bartender continued, “That’ll be about twelve-hundred Lucre.”

I groaned, “They owe me so much now,” and then handed the bartender the bag of money I just got a minute ago.

The bartender took the bag of coins and counted them out, and said, “Well, thank you very much.”

I looked down into the hole to see Cami and Scarlet stumbling to their feet a couple of meters below. Cami looked up at me and yelled, “Hey! Zeana! Do you see my tooth up there?” I shook my head and left. “Zeana! Hey! Wait for us! Zeana!!” Cami called. I ignored her as I left the building and took to the skies. I was going to bed and was going to take the money they owe me while they were stuck in the hole, and I was going to sleep very well that night.