“That’s what I’m talking about!” Vincent exclaimed as his marble landed on a 500 square.

The medium-sized crowd around him and erupted in cheers. Some of them chanted Vincent’s name, some of them just chanted for the sake of chanting, and some of them threw insults at his opponent.

His opponent, who was a middle-aged woman with shadow-black skin, let out a disappointing sigh. She picked up her marbles, tapped her display screen to send her bettings over towards Vincent, and walked away from the Rolldago table.

“So, Vincent,” a man who emerged from the crowd started to say, “that looks like another one down. You really are shoving it to those diamond elites.”

That man was a leaner gentleman, whose hands were constantly rubbing. The lithe nature of the man’s stance complimented his darker, baggier attire.

“I guess so,” Vincent replied, collecting his winnings.

“I’m really happy that there’s someone in this place that is actually down to earth,” the lithe man continued to say. “Aren’t you glad you have a following of people like me?”

“Knock it off, Filtra,” another man commented, looking at the lithe man. This man was a bit bigger and wider than Vincent, and he was leaning back in his chair, which was seated at a nearby poker table. He wore a black suit with an orange bowtie and was smoking a cigar.

“Piss off, Damien,” Filtra snapped. “You always ruin the fun.”

“Don’t care,” Damien replied, taking a puff of his cigar.

Filtra looked at Damien with slitted eyes and then at Vincent with widened ones. He then continued to glance back and forth between those two before slithering away into the crowd.

“Thanks, Damien,” Vincent said.

“I ain’t tryin’ to help you, boy, I just hate that guy,” Damien countered. He then started to shuffle his deck of cards. “He’s just like the rest of those clowns you beat at Rolldago, except he just likes to talk and never actually puts anything on the line.”

“Still, you’ve been a great help today. I damn well know my dumbass brain couldn’t figure out how to reserve a table.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m just doing this ‘cause it’s fun to watch the egos of these rich assholes break because some kid kicked their ass in a game of marbles. Plus,” he said, his eyes scanning Vincent’s following, “I’ve never really seen anyone garner any sort of popularity in these upper pillars; just notoriety.”

“I have no idea what that means, but I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Damien shook his head and took an even deeper inhale of his cigar. He smoked it all the way to the end in one, meaty breath. He set the ashes on an ashtray and pulled out another cigar. He lit it and took a drink of his beer.

“Just be careful,” Damien warned, “momentum is a tricky thing in this dreaded place. I’ve seen many promising young men get caught up in their initial boom and fall into obscurity.” He then took another drink of his beer and another puff of his cigar. “Or worse, they fall right back down into the Collider.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vincent asked.

“Just look ahead and not around you,” Damien answered. He chugged the rest of his drink and told Vincent, “You got another challenger.”

Vincent looked ahead with excitement—he was having so much fun. He had been playing Rolldago since the moment he woke up in the morning, and was on a winning streak. With each win, the crowd around continued to swell. And while that didn’t matter to Vincent, he was annoyed by the voices that were ever present as he played his game. He just had to keep himself busy until the day of the mission, when he would be able to enact the distraction he had in mind.

Looking at the challenger who approached his table, smiling, he asked, “You ready to play?”

***

Quiet. It was almost too quiet in Zander’s bedroom. He was sitting on the bed fiddling with a small, round, uneven piece of gold. The piece was no more than a half of a centimeter in diameter, but it still fascinated him.

He continued to say nothing, and instead, he stared at the wondrous, jagged sphere. The way it unnaturally sparkled in the light was full of temptation. But if he looked at it for more than a second—if he looked beneath its surface—its shine was one of death.

After an hour of doing that, he finally put the gold flake on his bed stand. He buried his head in his hands and just breathed. Thoughts continued to flood his mind. Thoughts of future plans, understanding the information he was just given, and even the random mathematical equation continued to pile up in his mind.

He hated it.

He just wanted to stop thinking for once in his life, but each time he would try, another new piece of information would fall into his lap. He would naturally explore it and he would bear the weight of that information’s meaning solely on his mind’s shoulders.

Even though he wanted to sleep more than anything at the current moment, his ever-firing mind wouldn’t let him. After all, how could anyone sleep after going through such a revelation?

He effortlessly flopped back into his bed and thought to himself, I can’t believe that what she said was true.

His eyes drifted to his bed stand, but he forced them back to staring at the ceiling.

It’s almost comical how well that fits, he continued to think. But, if one of my theories on it all is correct, then it actually makes complete sense. I mean, the evidence was in my stomach and is now on my table. I held it in my hand, so I can’t deny it.

“Fuck,” he said out loud, releasing a giant sigh. “It looks like we're in for a doozy when Sunday comes. Although, it’s not like I hadn't considered and even planned for something like this to be the case. It’s just funny how that this, of all things, is how she controls everyone. Pretty ingenious use of her ability.”

He then turned off his lights and tucked himself in his bed, cuddling up with his sheets. As he hugged them, he thought, I hope Livia knows what she’s about to do. I mean, I guess she understands the risks, seeing as she dumped all that on me before leaving.

He gripped his blankets even tighter.

“I can’t believe this is all real.”

His body began to shake.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“It’s terrifying when I stop thinking so much and just look around.”

Before his exhausted body forced him into a deep slumber, he had one last thought. In the pure state of sleep-induced delirium, where all thoughts come from the heart, rather than the mind, Zander thought, I need to tell my friends about this.

***

It was well past 10:30 PM, bordering on 11, when Livia decided to make her move. She had just left Zander’s room after telling him all that she had recently discovered. What she had heard from Shades was something that needed to be shared, even before her current mission.

Even though the Setting Sun never sleeps, the people who play within it have to at some point. The regular daytime crowd was long gone and the eccentric nighttime crowd was just starting to filter into the Diamond Pillar.

Livia maneuvered her way around the maze of rooms that made up the pillar, making her way to her desired destination. She made sure to interact with as few people as possible. She wore generic, but common attire that blended in with the average gambler of this pillar and the next.

Eventually, using passages that she knew like the back of her hand, she made it to the maintenance room. Taking one last look around, she opened the door and let herself in.

It was almost pitch black, but sight was something she didn’t need when navigating that room. Like a sixth sense, she dodged all sorts of tools, equipment, and miscellaneous things that were scattered around the floor.

Because he was moving more stealthy, it took her a solid 20 minutes to reach the other side. When she did, she felt around the walls for a familiar crack. The moment her fingers glided over it, she took 5 steps to the right and pushed on the wall.

Although barely audible, she heard another small piece of the wall bulge out. She then made her way 13 steps left of the original crack and bent down. She reached inside of the space that was now available and pulled out a key.

The only useful thing that Hanzo’s ever done, and he doesn’t even realize it, she thought to herself.

She pushed the open space back to how it was and made her way to the maintenance elevator. Again, she carefully maneuvered around the stuff that was on the ground. She eventually arrived in front of the caged, rickety-looking elevator.

She opened the chained door as quietly as possible, but the rusted iron squeaked. Once the gap was large enough, she shimmied her skinny frame to the other side and closed the door. When she got inside, she pulled out her recently acquired key and inserted it into the panel next to the floor buttons. The moment she turned the key, she heard the latch above her open.

Just like every other time, she told herself, cracking her neck.

She then jumped up, grabbed the ledge of the now-opened section of the elevator ceiling, and pulled herself up. After shaking her hands loose, she grabbed onto the elevator cable and began to climb it.

Higher and higher she climbed, but she knew where she was going.

After 10 minutes of climbing, she knew that she had made it. She reached a foot out and found the ledge. With a couple of deep breaths, she let go of the cable and grabbed onto the edges of the ledge that her foot was on.

She immediately took out a different key from her pocket, put it into a slot on the wall, and turned it. When she did, the doors in front of her opened, and she instantly walked through them. She took that same key and inserted it into a slot next to the elevator buttons on the other side of the wall, closing the doors.

Phew, she thought, that never gets any easier.

Looking around, she found herself in an empty, but all too familiar room. There were no doors, windows, or any visible exits to the room; just blank walls. She naturally made her way over the leftmost wall, and turned on her phone’s flashlight, seeing as it was even darker in that room than the elevator shaft.

She shined the light across the wall until she found the mark she was looking for. A small section of the wall’s tiling was slightly off, forming a L shape if you took a few steps back and knew that it was there. Otherwise, it just looks like a crappy wall.

She found the wall tile that was directly at the middle section of the L and pressed on it. As she did, a person-sized portion of the wall jutted out. She then pushed against that section and it rotated on a 360 degree axis. That section of the wall allowed her to make her way to the next room.

She finally made it. There was a single bed in the room, one that was twice the size of a queen-sized bed. It was surrounded by a golden and beautifully crafted bed canopy. Purple, partially opaque curtains dropped down from the top of the canopy, obscuring most of the contents of the bed.

Livia gently pushed one aside and saw that the bed was empty. She nodded to herself, seeing exactly what she expected, and moved on. The rest of the room was grand, to say the least. As she moved through it, she passed by a dozen book shelves, full of books, trinkets, and priceless jewels. Although they were present, she paid no attention to the uncountable amount of paintings that littered the wall, covering every inch of it.

As she made it to the end of the room, she took a deep breath. Even though it was something she had done a dozen times over, for some reason, there was weight present that had never been there before. Every other time she was in that room, she was invited. This time, however, she was the intruder.

It’s been too long, she thought, but not long enough.

Building up her resolve, she opened the door that she was standing in front of. Behind it was the office that was normally locked by 3 different locks. However, she knew that if a Diadem meeting was taking place during the night, those locks would be unlocked. She didn't know why they were left unlocked, but it was something that she noticed during her countless visits.

Once inside, she closed the door behind her, gently. She did not move for a few seconds as she took in the gravity of the situation. She then took a few steps forward, slowly and carefully. After a few more steps she felt something touch her forehead.

She instantly froze in place.

She waited a few seconds to see if something would happen. Nothing did. After waiting another few seconds, just to be sure, she reached up and grabbed at whatever she felt. As she did, she felt it between her thumb and pointer finger.

Pulling it back in front of her face, she realized that she was holding a long piece of string, no thicker than a spider web.

She laughed a bit to herself, thinking, Even though you have all the money in the world, you still can’t clean your office properly. How do spiders even get in here? I swear, they can get into even the most secure in the world.

Throwing the piece of string to the side, she continued forward until she reached the only desk in the room. When she did, she pulled out a pick and a small, iron rectangle that was way longer than wide. She jostled them into the lock of the main drawer and began to pick it.

It took a little over 3 minutes, but she finally managed to hear a click out of all 6 tumblers. Turning her rectangle tool, the lock unlocked. As she opened the drawer, her ears thought they caught another sound.

She ceased all movement and listened, hiding behind the desk. After a few minutes of concentrated listening, she didn’t hear a single sound.

I can’t be hearing things and psyching myself out. Not now, of all times.

She then opened the drawer and began to look through the hundreds of papers that were scattered in it. All of her concentration began to funnel into the papers, reading each and every headline, and then glancing back at her phone’s clock. She knew that she had only 2 hours, at most, left before she had to leave.

As she poured over the countless documents, she began to lose herself in the sheer volume of the task in front of her. Minutes flashed by like seconds, and her mind began to work harder than ever before.

There has to be something, anything, in this palace. This is where she keeps all of most important documents. There has to be something here.

Her pace increased, throwing aside anything that didn't immediately sound like something incriminating. It amazed her how many legal and legitimate papers she found. She was sure that the room was going to be layered with things that could be used as evidence for the casino’s existence. And yet, there was nothing of the sort present.

She eventually set the papers down and grabbed at her head. She couldn’t believe that there was nothing. Just as the hopelessness of the situation started to sink into her mind, she heard something that caused her to truly feel despair.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” a voice called out from the other side of the room.

She didn’t even need to look up—in fact, her mind wouldn’t let her. It wouldn’t let her see the reality of the situation with her own eyes. Because if she did, her mind wouldn’t believe it.

“It seems my worst fears were true,” the voice continued to say.

Livia felt the coldest hand she had ever felt touch her shoulders. It was colder than the touch of death, itself.

“For the first time ever,” the voice said, “I feel truly betrayed.”