"Just.... What the hell....is this?"
We had stepped into the train, no doubt about it and infact, we were definitely on a moving train..... However, there's no way I was looking at the interior of the train we had just entered.
"Toto, I think we're not in Kansas anymore"
Sara said, imitating that iconic line everyone's heard at least once in their lives. However, it described our situation perfectly
I was standing in a train car about eleven, no, twelve times the size of it's exterior—or any regular train car for that matter. The floors were covered in expensive red carpets with casino chairs adorned in gold, neatly arranged in different sections of the car.
If I believed in the occult I'd say we were spirited away.
"WEEELCOOME.....TO THE GRAND CASINO, A PLACE OF WONDER AND MADNESS WHERE THRILL SEEKERS COME TO WIN BIG...OR DIE!"
We were greeted by a bald dwarf with pointy ears and a loud voice— this was not a metaphor, he really had ears like that of an elf.
In contrast to my shock, the occult freak, no, believer beside me seemed to be beside herself with joy, her eyes beaming like that of a little kid.
I decided to ask the dwarf a few questions.
"How.... Exactly did we get here?"
"HUH? YOU CAME ON BOARD"
"Huh, no, we boarded a train to get home"
"DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU MISTER..."
His thoughts confirmed he wasn't lying which raised even more questions. How exactly did we get here? How come no one knows about this and other plethora of questions.
"How do we get out then?"
"FINDING OUT THE RULES ARE A PART OF THE GAME MY BOY, BUT ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS THOSE CHIPS IN YOUR LEFT POCKET ARE YOUR LIFELINE AROUND HERE"
I searched my left pocket and found 17 casino chips.
"BE SURE TO SPEND THEM WISELLLY....."
Like hell I will!— I read his thoughts during our conversation and got the full gist about where we were and the rules of this 'grand casino'.
"NOW THEN, GOODBYE"
*Poof
The man disappeared like smoke. Just what the hell is this? Ha*ry Pot*er? This day's just one thing after another.
"Guess this counts as a win for me.."
"Huh?"
"On the supernatural? Or do you have any logical arguments to explain what just happened?"
Sara asked with her usual mischievous smile. If she heard the things I did, I doubt she'll be smiling this much.
"The man's ears were probably just cosplay, and I bet there's a hidden contraption where he stood that allowed him to escape within the smoke"
"What's with you and hidden contraptions? I doubt there's anything like that here. Besides, how'd you explain the size of this train?"
"We were probably knocked out with a drug or something and carried to a separate location"
"Fufu— that's a stretch, even for you. We would know if we've been asleep for a while so that doesn't—"
"—Maybe the drug can mess with memories, so we don't remember falling asleep or waking up?"
"Such a drug doesn't exist!"
"Modern medicine is a wonderful thing..... Hooray for modern medicine."
She was definitely at the end of rope with my baseless comebacks as seen by the exasperated look on her face. In my defense though, it was the best I could do since I knew this really was a supernatural event.
And a dangerous one at that.
"*Sigh—Whatever, I'm going to look around for a bit and take some pics, you coming?"
"Nah, I'll just wait by the chairs over there."
"Kay, see you in a bit."
She said, storming off like the wind.
The loneliness gave me time to review my situation, observe my surroundings and plan my next step.
According to the dwarf's thoughts, we are aboard a train which runs between dimensions frequenting the living world and the world of the dead. Within that train is this 'grand casino'—a place where, as the name implies, people from all around come to gamble in extremely high stakes games— those stakes being our very lives.
Upon boarding the train, a medival-style coin purse with casino chips are materialized on each person, the number of chips you start with depends on your age—17 in my case. Those chips are used to place bets in various casino games and you receive chips from each victory depending on the rules of the game you played. Also, once your chips drop to zero, you disappear—literary, just poof, you disappear and die leaving behind chips in your stead to pay back the casino.
There are six cars on the train, one for storage(C1),four for regular games(C2-C5) and the last being the conductor's room(C6). To leave the train, you must challenge the conductor to a game by paying an entry fee equal to the amount you started with and win.
"Lucky for me, the conductor's game doesn't change and it's perfect for my curse, the problem's going to be clearing these four cars, what a pain!"
As fun as it'll be to just walk up to the conductor and challenge her, there are rules preventing that. One cannot enter a car of a higher number without achieving victory in all cars with numbers less than it except C1.
That means, I have to win at least once in C2 to set foot in C3 and so on. So I need at least four wins under my belt before I can challenge the boss. On the bright side, all the chips you have once you exit the train are paid as cold hard cash— With an exchange rate of 100 thousand dollars per chip.
Also, you can get a wish granted by the conductor in exchange for playing her at a higher difficulty than usual.
*Sigh———
I took a minute to process my thoughts and arrived at a decision.
"Alright, four games. I'll play, smack that conductor into next week and use my wish to get Sara of this train as well."
I didn't want to involve her because it's easier to use my telepathy freely when she's not around. Also, I couldn't help but wonder if my sleeping on the bench was what got us in this situation.
If I hadn't fallen asleep, we would've gotten on the train earlier and would probably be home by now. Instead, we ended up leaving quite late and ending up on this creepy train where we have to put our lives on line. Come to think of it, there was hardly anyone at the station when we arrived, guess everyone else got the memo not to stay out too late.
Even if I don't know for sure, I have to at least take responsibility for this. I started looking around for easy games to advance.
There were a number of games on this first train— Roulette, Craps, Slot machines,Old maid, Sudoku,darts,some game where you have to dodge some gunslinger shooting at you, a game where you shoot moving targets, VR games of different varieties like wildlife hunting, fps, racing and the likes and a bunch of other simple games.
I guess in C1 there weren't really that much stakes since everyone here were still just starting out. All the games seemed interesting but I was looking for one with a near 100 percent shot at victory after all, I wasn't here for fun, but to survive.
I decided on the game of old maid to introduce myself to the world— well, old maid with a twist. I read the extra rules that made this game a bit different and decided on my strategy.
1. Each player bets 2 chips at the start of the game. This goes into the pot
2. At the end of the game, the winners split all earnings in the pot 40:60 with priority to the second winner
3. There are only 2 winners in this game.
4. You are free to hold as many copies of the same card until the first winner is decided.
5. Cards on the players hand are shuffled after drawing a card from your opponent
6. You are only allowed to discard a single matching pair per round
7. Each player must draw one card during their turn and cards can be drawn from anyone without exception
8. The person who empties his hand first is declared the first winner
9. The person who holds the joker at the end of the game is declared the second winner
As expected, most people were aiming to be the second winner since it pays 60 percent of the pot. Because of that, Rule 4 caught everyone's attention. You could use your matching pairs as a bluff since your aim was the joker. The more cards in your hand, the lower the probability of your opponent stealing the joker. Ofcourse, this was until the first winner is decided.
This development would make snatching the 'first winner' easy for me since there's less competition there. However, doing so would be detrimental in the long run and go against the plan I was trying to set into motion.
For a second, I wondered how the house made money from this game if winnings are shared by the players but quickly discarded the thought.
I realized the player's winnings here didn't really matter since they'll still lose it all to the conductor.
My focus was the second winner spot, and I knew just how to achieve it.
The game started out slow— and by slow, I mean total stagnation. Infact, I guess you could say all we were really doing was talking.
The game went for about 6 or 7 rounds without a single person dropping a matching pair on the table, their strategy was to hold as much cards as they could to decrease their opponent's probability of selecting the joker from their hand— Ofcourse, when everyone does this, we are locked in an eternal stalemate.
I waited a bit for a certain arrangement of cards among the players before making my move.
On the 10th round after selecting a card, I dropped a matching pair already in my hand.
"*Pfft—someone got impatient! And after all your talk too. Haha, weakling."
The scruffy player opposite me said mockingly. I replied with a confident smile.
On my next turn, I picked up the Joker, but still discarded a matching pair on my hand.
A few of the players seemed to understand what was going on
"So he gave up on the joker, I see. Wait, now that I think about it, time is of the essence. Once the first winner is decided, everyone else will have to fight for the second winner title, and there can only be one winner. The more I think about it, the more the second winner spot doesn't seem worth the risk. Gotta strike before the iron gets hot"
"I doubt that guy was going for the second winner spot from the start, he was probably waiting for the right card combination to blindside us"
"If I act now, I'll get 40 percent, and leave the other fools to fight for the rest. There was no guarantee I was going to get the second winner to begin with"
The long stalemate built anxiety, and my confident dispatching of matching pairs created panic. The gamblers were starting to doubt if going for the joker was the right choice. Tensions started building up and.....
A single gambler cracked before the others and lit the fuse. He discarded a matching pair.
Others started discarding as well and with time, even those who weren't sure at first, those trying to maintain their composure and those who didn't understand the situation gave into the bandwagon effect and started discarding.
Admist the chaos, I discreetly filled up my hand while discarding at intervals to avoid raising suspicion.
By the time the first winner was decided, everyone had very few cards left—some one, others two whereas I had a full hand with the joker and no matching pairs.
At that point, it was a matter of eliminating the small fry by having them empty their hands.
With clever misdirection and body language, I had some pick up cards to match the ones they were holding from my hand. I also drew cards from those with only one card in their hands to eliminate them by default and some tried to replenish their hands but ended up selecting a matching pair instead.
In the end, I won the second winner spot with five cards in hand including the joker, exactly as planned. After all, there was no rule that said only the joker had to be in my hand to win.
Once everyone started pursuing the first winner spot they brought themselves closer to elimination. By the time the first winner was decided it was simply a matter of emptying the hands of the other players then I'll be the only one left and the game will end.
I collected my earnings and headed on to C3
"Alright, let's speedrun this thing!"
I screamed with a smug expression.
C3 Game Selected: Blackjack
Most of the gamblers on the blackjack table were using card counting and other strategies to try getting ahead. With my mind reading, I was able to determine which tables were 'hot' as well as the count. I was also able to pick up on other strategies and secure an easy win against the dealer.
C4 Game Selected: Poker
My mind reading allowed me to know everyone's hands and I placed my bets appropriately. Naturally, I used bluster and arrogance as camouflage to prevent people from getting suspicious at my plays but rather dismiss them as the skills, intuition and recklessness of an avid gambler. Some still got suspicious and tried to deduce how I was cheating but in the end they couldn't figure it out since mind reading is far too ridiculous a conclusion to arrive at.
Another easy win.
The fifth car had a lot..... weirder games. I ended up deciding on a blind shooter game called "Whispers in the Dark"
The rules were simple. There are two teams each consisting of five members—team red and team blue. At the start of the game, everyone is blindfolded and a single player is selected at random from the pool of ten members, that player is the shooter.
The other nine players are arranged randomly on a bench with the shooter standing in front of them. The shooter has three bullets in the gun provided to him and is required to shoot any three player seated while still blindfolded. The catch is, if the shooter hits even a single opponent, his entire team is eliminated and the other team wins.
Since his teammates are also blindfolded, they don't know who is friend or foe. The only thing they know is the team the shooter belongs to.
The aim of the game is for both opponents and teammates to convince the shooter to shoot them while the shooter tries to filter out deception and hit his teammates alone.
I was in team blue and selected as the shooter.
Thanks to my mind reading, I easily filtered out my allies from enemies. However, I still waited a little before stepping into action with a bit of the arrogance from C4 and my dramatic display.
"Do you honestly believe you can deceive me with your third rate acting?"
*BANG
"I can tell you're lying from the fluctuations in your speech and desperation in your words!"
*BANG
"A seasoned gambler like myself can smell lies for a thousand miles ahead, my intelligence is far superior to you peons in everyway so curse your bad luck for getting matched up with me!"
May have taken it a little too far there but I think I've got the 'arrogant gambler act' down pat.
"It's a thousand years too early to think you can lie to me."
*BANG
"Team blue has successfully cleared the game, congratulations."
And just like that, I cleared C5 with ease, all that was left was my showdown with the conductor.
I've laid the groundwork and my plan was already underway. Now, to enter the lion's den and hope my bet paid off.
"Now then conductor, bring it!"