“Here are the rules.” Both heads spoke at the same time giving off a horror movie vibe. “The race will be determined solely by luck. You and the Goblin King will continuously activate the slots on your machine and depending on your results you will either go forward, stay in place or move back. If you make it to the hoard before the king, you win. If you don’t, you lose. Simple enough. Are you ready?” I was about to answer before the heads interrupted me. “It doesn’t matter. On your mark, get set, PULL.”
Jumping at the sudden yell from both heads, I clutched the slot machine handle and pulled as hard as I could. The slot machine under my digital head spun. They spun so fast I wasn’t able to tell what any of the symbols were. The Goblin King’s roulette spun as well but it stopped almost immediately matching up three of the number 2. His slot machine rocketed forward and the slots began to spin again. By the time his had stopped and matched up three number 1s, my slots had only begun to slow down.
“Hey that’s unfair,” I yelled at the machine.
“Unfair?” the machine said back. “This isn’t a game of skill, it’s a game of luck. Speaking of.” My slots finally stopped and none of them matched up. “Man, that’s some rotten luck. Better hurry and spin again.”
I growled and pulled the lever down again. This time the slots stopped quickly and matched up three 1’s. My machine moved forward. It wasn’t much but it was a start. I pulled again and matched up three 1’s again. As I pulled a third time, I looked up to the Goblin King who hadn’t made it super far ahead of me, which allowed me to calm a little. A feeling that was short lived when the numbers I matched up were all -5. My character zoomed backwards removing all the little bit of progress I had made.
“I hate this,” I said as I pulled the lever. “How did Aunt Erin ever enjoy this so much?”
After an excruciatingly long moment of the spinning slots, I matched up three 20s and my slot machine rocketed forward, even passing the Goblin King. A burst of adrenaline and joy shot through my body making me jump up and cheer.
“That was amazing.”
The next few matches inched me forward with a couple of them sending me back and even one making me sit still for one spin. The Goblin King slowly caught up to me and we were now almost neck and neck.
As we both approached a wooden bridge the machine spoke again. “You’ve approached a road hazard, The Gruff’s Bridge. Underneath is a Goat-Troll. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It waits underneath the bridge in the hopes that you drive into one of its holes so it can eat you as you fall. Here’s the really fun part, we won’t tell you where the holes are. Good luck.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Oh, that’s fun,” I said sarcastically, as I pulled the lever.
I matched up a trio of 3s and made my first movement onto the bridge. Thankfully nothing happened. The Goblin King made his way onto the bridge as well a few paces ahead of me and unfortunately did not fall.
Inch by inch and number by number I moved over the bridge, each movement making me wince as I expected to fall through the hole. Both the Goblin King and I made it over the bridge without incident, but before we could move further the screen turned to face the bridge and a monstrous figure broke through it and landed in front of us. It had the ugly and fat pale gray body of a troll and the head of a mountain goat with twisting horns. It wore only a loincloth and carried a wooden club in its hand.
“That’s now how this works,” the Goat-Troll roared. “I was promised one of you and one of you I will have.”
“Uh, oh,” the machine said. “Looks like even though you crossed the bridge safely, you can’t escape the clutches of the Goat-Troll. The fact of the matter is that either you or the king is going to be taken by this monster. You must roll to see who the victim will be. A pair of dice appeared on screen. Whoever has the highest number will continue on. Now roll.”
“Um how?” I asked out loud.
“Press the screen stupid.” The voice came from my left. I turned thinking it was Grinny, but instead it was a brown hairy person who resembled Bigfoot. Besides them a group of people had gathered around me.
“Why is everyone watching me?”
“Because,” the Bigfoot person said, “this is a rare game. Now hurry up or the timer will run out and you’ll lose by default.”
I turned my attention back to the machine and touched where the dice were. They were tossed into the air and bounced a couple of times before landing on a five and a six.
“Hell yeah, eleven,” I said, pumping my fist. There was a murmur of excitement from the crowd of people behind me.
A new pair of dice flew from the Goblin King and landed in front of mine, coming to rest on two six’s.
“What?” I yelled, slapping the machine.
The Goat-Troll laughed. “Been a while since I’ve had human.” The troll walked over and picked up my machine before jumping back through the destroyed bridge and making the screen go black.
I stared at the screen as the realization hit me. Everything was over. I had no car, no money and no means of getting out of here. “I’m sorry Grinny,” I said quietly. “I lost.”
“Hey, who the hell said anything about losing,” the machine yelled at me. “The game isn’t over yet.” The screen turned to a scene inside an underground tunnel with a small stream of water. My machine was sitting in the middle of it while the Goat-Troll towered over me. “You have encountered a bonus challenge. Ever play that game Dragon’s Lair? The one where you have to hit buttons in the right sequence to escape the traps and rescue the princess. This challenge is a lot like that. If you manage to escape the Goat-Troll, you will be placed ahead of the Goblin King in this race. However, if you don’t, well then it really will be game over.” Four arrows pointing up, down, left and right appeared on the screen. “Bonus game, start.”
The camera angle of the screen changed again until it was behind the digital me again and the machine began moving forward just as the Goat-Troll roared, shaking the walls of the tunnel and causing three stalactites to fall right in front of me.