It didn’t take Ulyian long to change and for them to make their way back to the Emperor’s Arms. In the brief time they had been away, more patrons filled the downstairs area. It was approaching midday, and many looked as though they were grabbing food. There were stalls on the streets selling various food choices, but it appeared many preferred to grab a drink while they ate. The bar staff were now busy delivering tankards to several tables.
Ulyian turned as he entered the bar and headed straight for the stairs. At the top of the stairs, they turned on a small landing and were met by a door. The door had a panel in it, reminding SJ of the doors she had seen in films where they checked identities before opening them. Uylian knocked sharply on the door. The panel was slid open, and the eyes of one of the orcs from earlier looked out on them.
“You back already? You better have the coin to pay your debt,” the orc said.
“I am Harf, and I have the coin.”
“Really!” Harf said, surprised.
“I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t,” Uylian said, his voice full of bravado and smugness.
“Who is that with you?”
SJ stood behind Uylian, her figure diminutive compared to the tall elf. Her hood was still pulled around her face.
“A friend of mine. She is interested in playing.”
Harf disappeared from the panel for several moments and SJ picked up a conversation with her improved hearing.
“Uylian is back and brought another female being who wants to play.”
SJ couldn’t quite hear the reply but thought it was a female voice.
“The boss says you can come in but wants the coin first,” Harf said as he looked back out.
SJ removed the twelve silver debt that Uylian had and handed it to him.
“She is paying for you?” Harf said, chuckling as Uylian passed the silver through the panel to Harf. A few moments passed before a bolt was withdrawn, and the door swung open inwards. “Enter.”
SJ followed Uylian inside. The room stretched above what SJ assumed was above the bar area below. The ceiling was not high. The large orc guards, Harf, and his companion, stood at the other end of the room, almost reaching the ceiling. The inside was brightly lit with lanterns burning the smell of oil thick in the air. There were at least six tables where various beings sat playing card games of varying styles.
A female kobold dressed in a brilliant yellow blouse sat at the end of the room. She was adorned in jewellery and trinkets, and each of her clawed fingers had at least one ring on them. Her scales were a dark blue colour, almost midnight in colour. The eyes of the kobold were bright, and SJ could see cunning in them as she watched them enter.
“Uylian. Back for more already, I see,” the gentle lilt of the female kobold carrying the length of the room.
“Yes. Lady Targosa. I am hoping my luck has changed.”
“Well, you know the rules, and I have to say that this is the fastest debt repayment I have experienced. I was expecting to have to send my boys to visit,” Lady Targosa smiled.
“Is she really a lady?” SJ whispered to Uylian.
“No. Just the title she uses,” Uylian said as he headed towards a vacant seat at a table. Taking a seat, he turned to SJ, who took the seat next to him. The being acting as croupier was a female ent. It was usually difficult to tell the gender of the ents, but her dress made it easy to tell. She had six arms and deftly shuffled three packs of cards at the same time.
“Oh. A Farlaki Ent. A long way from home,” Dave said. “The Farlaki are from the Northern forests of the continent. It is unusual to find one this far south. You can tell them by the number of arms they have. Some have as many as eight.”
‘I never saw that on the race details when I had a choice?’
“They are a rare variant of ent. There really aren’t many of them left to my knowledge.”
A male gnome sat in another chair at the table, a stack of coins in front of him, and a female human at another with a smaller pile, mainly copper.
“Uylian,” the gnome said. “And who is this with you?”
“This is Sarai,” Uylian replied.
SJ nodded her head in response, not showing her face. Her hood still concealed her features.
“If you are sitting, you must show coin,” the croupier said.
SJ removed some copper from her inventory and placed it on the table before moving some in front of Uylian. He nodded appreciatively. SJ did not know what the game was that she was being introduced to and didn’t really care as she scanned the bar with her 360 degree vision. There were no stand-out beings she could see.
A human male walked towards the table carrying a tray.
“Would either of you like a drink?”
“I will have my usual,” Uylian said, moving three of the copper SJ had placed to the side.
“I’d like a honey wine, please,” SJ said, moving three coppers to the side for him as well.
“Four copper for the wine.”
“It was three downstairs,” SJ said.
“Prices are more upstairs,” Uylian answered.
As SJ moved another copper. The croupier spoke. “Bets down.”
SJ watched as the others at the table moved coins across a line on the table. SJ did the same but only moved one copper. The gnome was playing with silver coins and stacked three across the line. The female human only moves three copper. SJ had only given Uylian ten coppers, and he bet his remaining seven straight away.
‘I have no idea what game this even is,’ SJ thought.
“It’s a simple game,” Dave said. “I think back on Earth, you call it high or low. You have to survive five calls to double your coin and then can opt to keep gambling. If they use standard rules, it will double every five turns.”
‘With three packs of cards. That makes the odds significantly different,’ SJ thought as she began to do mental arithmetic in her head, considering probabilities. Numbers were her thing, after all, and she could work out a half-decent idea of what they may be.
SJ sat furthest away from others on the table’s end, and she spoke softly to Uylian as the ent turned the first card.
“Did you say this Olivia cheated earlier?”
Uylian sneered as he looked across the room to where a woman worked on another table.
“The cheating bitch is over there,” he said.
SJ took note of the woman, not turning her head, and observed where she worked. She was a human female, probably in her thirties, looking at her appearance. She was dressed in the standard uniform the other croupiers were wearing, telling them apart from the customers.
The first card that was turned was an emperor. SJ watched as the gnome moved his coin to a mark on the line with an arrow pointing towards him. An emperor was equivalent to a king, and the probability of it being a lower card was obviously significant.
‘I assume emperors are the highest?’ SJ thought.
“House rules vary, but most of them will be in card value order—one to ten, then knight empress and emperor,” Dave said.
The hand continued as they moved the coins depending upon what they believed the next card turn would be. The emperor had been followed by a three, then ten, and the fourth turn was a six.
“How are you working out the probabilities of card turns so quickly?” Dave asked.
‘What?’ SJ thought.
“I can see how quickly you are calculating the probabilities and change in probability for each card value. There are three packs in play, yet your neural pathways are in overdrive. It is as though your brain has just been set alight.”
SJ didn’t even consider what she was thinking. Numbers were just numbers to her.
‘Can you not calculate probabilities as quickly?’
“Well, yes, of course I can, but I have a huge amount of memory and am able to complete multiple computations at once. You have a human brain. I have never seen so much activity in your brain before.”
The six card being turned immediately placed the odds in the house’s favour. The chance of calling the correct guess was much more difficult. SJ left her copper coin where it was on the lower line. The three others moved theirs to higher. The croupier turned the next card, an empress.
“Winners on one, two and three. Four loses,” the croupier said as she collected SJ’s coin before doubling the amounts of the remaining players.
“Why did you not play the odds?” Dave asked, surprised.
‘I want to see what she does and get a feel for the game.’
With the empress showing as the card, all three of them stayed in, allowing their doubled coin to ride for the next five turns. It only took four more turns before all three of them were out, having lost their coin. The gnome thumped the table angrily as the croupier collected his six silver. The dealt cards were moved to the side and placed in a neat pile as the croupier called for bets.
Uylian was already out, having lost the coppers she had given him, and he stood from his seat, collecting his drink that had been brought.
“Good luck,” he said to SJ as he stepped back.
SJ moved two coppers to the line this time.
“Last bets,” the croupier said as she turned the first card. As the game continued, SJ carefully watched the female human named Olivia and Uylian, who had walked towards the end of the room. There, Targosa the kobold sat almost regally on her throne, overseeing her gambling den.
‘I need to discover if that is the Olivia that is on the quest,’ SJ thought.
“Switch tables. You don’t have to stay here,” Dave said.
The hand continued, and the house turns, allowing for triple-stacked wins. SJ’s copper had turned from two to eight after fifteen turns with a knight showing. SJ was doing what could only be classed as card counting as she reworked the probabilities in her head at each card that was turned. They had been through twenty-three of the one-hundred and fifty-six cards the three packs held over the two hands so far.
‘One hundred and twenty-three cards divided by five gives twenty-four more sets to get through. If I doubled my winnings each time, I could win over one hundred thirty-four million copper. That’s equivalent to one hundred and thirty-four platinum, and knowing how many beings lived on such meagre incomes, the chance of winning so much from an initial two copper coin bet explains why beings may indeed gamble.’
“You know the odds are beyond minuscule?” Dave said.
‘Of course I do. But as the probability changes with card removal, the probabilities adjust accordingly.’
“Yes. But there are also push cards, which haven’t happened yet.”
‘What are they?’
“When the same value card as shown is turned. This negates a card, and another is drawn.”
SJ allowed her brain to flow through permutations as she decided to continue with the fourth set. She didn’t believe she had ever seen the numbers clearer than she did now.
‘I have to say, I am finding these calculations much easier than I would have expected.’
“That is what is amazing to me; your neural network is in overdrive.”
The gnome had fallen at the third stage, calling a turn on an eight incorrectly, but with the knight showing, the odds were currently stacked in SJ’s favour—the female human who was also playing decided to stay in the game. Uylian had finished talking to Targosa and had returned to the table. He stood next to SJ and watched as she continued to move her coins to the higher or lower mark as cards were turned. By the sixth round, SJ’s coin stack was now 64 copper. SJ noticed one of the orcs walking towards Targosa, bent down and whispered in her ear.
The human female called a stop at the sixth round with a seven on show. She had started with four copper and was now sat with two silver fifty-six copper. She squealed in delight as the card for the sixth round had been turned, and as soon as the coin had been added, she pulled her bet. SJ continued playing.
By the time the tenth round had ended, SJ had ten silver and twenty-four copper sitting in front of her, but it also drew the attention of not just Targosa but several other patrons, who were now standing watching the game unfold. SJ knew that considering the gnome had been betting silvers without any due consideration, her current pot was tiny. It was just that to survive ten rounds had apparently not been witnessed for a long time.
“Luck is on your side,” Targosa said as she walked towards the table.
“It appears to be,” SJ replied. She still hadn’t removed her hood and didn’t look up and meet the kobold’s gaze. One of the orcs was standing just off behind her, and she could see how tense he looked.
“Olivia. Come and take over, will you? It is time for Sharista’s break.”
The table where Olivia had been croupier was now empty, and the two patrons moved to watch the action on SJ’s table. The woman walked over with a warm, friendly smile.
“Of course,” she said as she slipped into the seat the ent had vacated. “Ten hands in, you are doing well.”
‘If I can reach the fourteenth hand, that will be over a gold in winnings.’
“Twenty more cards,” Dave said, SJ hearing the excitement in his voice. She knew that it must be torture for him to watch her sit here gambling when he had a problem.
The cards kept turning, and SJ kept recalculating and moving her stack of coins. By the time the thirteenth hand had concluded, her stack was now eight-one silver and ninety-two copper. An ace had been the final card of the last stack.
“Take your money,” Uylian urged as SJ sat there. She was showing no emotions, calmly calculating her chances at each turn. Luck had been on her side so far; after all, a probability was just that, a probability and the chances of the successful run she had already achieved were ridiculously low as it was.
“Are you staying in, or would you like to quit?” Olivia asked, her silky, smooth voice making SJ feel as though she were playing with a spitting cobra waiting to strike.
“Let’s keep going,” SJ said.
Several gasped as Olivia smiled and turned the next card, a two.
‘There it was,’ SJ thought.
“What?” Dave asked.
‘As she placed the two, I saw her flick her other wrist, and a card was slid to the top of the pack from her sleeve. I bet the next card is an ace. There is no way a normal person wouldn’t leave it on higher and allow the cards to turn,’ SJ said as she reached for her stack and moved it to lower.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Uylian spluttered.
SJ didn’t respond to the gasps and calls of madness around the table but did notice the stiffness that suddenly appeared in Olivia’s movements. As she reached for the top card, her hand trembled ever so slightly.
An ace was turned.
Those around the table erupted in a gabbled mass of excitement and comments of unbelievable, and many other more colourful words were spoken.
“She has to be using magic?” one of the patrons called.
The voice that spoke up surprised SJ. “She isn’t. I would know if she was,” Targosa replied.
Three more card turns would turn the two copper stake into one gold, sixty-three silver, and eighty-four copper.
As SJ continued to play, the crowd got more excited with every card turn; when the third card, showing an empress, was turned, cheers erupted.
“Fourteen rounds,” Uylian said open-mouthed. The look of shock on his face said it all. What SJ had achieved so far was obviously unheard of or such a rare occurrence that none of those now watching could quite fathom her luck.
Olivia counted her winnings and added them to the stack in front of her. A bead of sweat was on her brow. Targosa stood behind Olivia, observing SJ’s every move. SJ could feel her eyes burning into her. Her hood still hid her face.
“Would you like to continue?” Targosa asked before Olivia had the chance.
SJ looked up and saw the kobold’s eyes for the first time. There was no sign of anger on the kobold’s face or frustration that SJ could tell. However, from her enhanced senses, she could feel the tension in the air that could be caused by all those now watching the game unfold.
“Could I get another honey wine?” SJ said.
“Bring a wine,” Targosa said, her eyes not moving from SJ’s.
Olivia’s hands were now clearly shaking, although she was trying to keep calm under the circumstances.
‘Once more,’ SJ thought.
“Are you sure?” Dave said with surprise.
‘I started with two copper. It isn’t as if I will lose anything if I do lose. I didn’t have it to start with.’
“But you have won over a gold.”
‘I want to see what they try next. Targosa wouldn’t be observing me if they weren’t planning something.’
The whole time that SJ had been looking at the kobold, she hadn’t taken her focus off of Olivia and her hands. An empress as the face card meant that only an emperor would allow for a higher turn. The problem was then the other four turns after that.
“Here you are,” the waiter said as he brought her another honey wine and placed it on the table. SJ went to pay for it when Targosa interjected.
“No cost,” she smiled. To SJ’s surprise, her smile reached her eyes and appeared genuine. This kobold’s ability to keep a straight face was uncanny, and SJ could never imagine playing her directly at any card game.
“Thanks,” SJ said, lifting the glass and sipping the wine.
“So, will you continue?”
SJ again looked at Targosa and, returning her smile, replied. “Let’s go once more.”
