Chương 6: Chapter 5 - A Friendly Game

The city was larger than anything Kiara had seen before. It dwarfed the village she grew up in, and even made the town near her village look small. Large, twenty-foot-tall walls surrounded the city, and guards stood outside the gates. Kiara hurriedly put the diamond coin back into her soul space before anyone else could see it. The line to enter the city wasn't long, and she quickly made her way to the front of the line.

"State your name and purpose," the guard said, looking her up and down. She instinctively tried to give the guard her name, 'Kiara Dunsun', but was unable to say the words. After a moment, she remembered the World Engine's warning, and instead gave her new name.

"Shian Yountal. I uh… need to find a map." The guard gave her a strange look.

"A map?" She nodded.

"I'm a bit lost, see. I need to figure out where I am." The guard sighed.

"This city is Livalia, Ershod province. I suppose someone inside might have a map for sale, I'd try one of the markets. The city entry fee is 5 iron coins." Kiara glanced to the side, where another guard was giving a similar spiel to someone else from the line. She watched as the person handed over 5 irons. She had never had to pay an entry fee before, but then again her village and the town nearby didn't have walls or gates. She shrugged, and went to pay the fee, but didn't find anything in her pockets.

She smiled, and then pulled 5 irons from her soul space. She kept her hand in her pocket while doing it, so that it looked like the coins had been in her pocket the whole time. After handing over the entry fee, the guard waved her through, and she entered the city. Inside, she was immediately assaulted by sales people from the nearby market trying to sell her things. Well, not just her, but anyone who entered the city. They quickly picked her out as a newcomer, and tried to sell her their wares.

Fine silks, fancy rugs, beautiful pottery, weapons and armor. It seemed that anything she wanted could be found right here at the city gates! One man even tried to sell her a rather large hat, claiming that it was enchanted and would make her luckier than normal. She didn't remember seeing a luck stat on her Stats page, so she wondered if there was any truth to the man's claim. She didn't really know that much about magical artifacts though, so she just shrugged and kept walking.

She did keep her eye out for anyone that looked to be selling maps, but didn't immediately see anyone. She even asked a few of the sales people that came up to her if they knew where she could buy a map, but none of them did. In fact, once she asked, they mostly ignored her, realizing that she wasn't interested in what they were selling. Unfazed, she moved further into the city. The makeshift market near the gate quickly gave way to wide streets with buildings on either side.

All of the buildings looked like storefronts of some kind, many of them with small signs out front swinging in the wind. She didn't see any that looked like houses, and figured the residential district must be further into the city. She picked a street at random and walked down it. She checked the names of the shops as she passed them.

'Marks Marvelous Masks', 'Sally's Pub', 'Adventure Outfitters', and the list went on. After walking past a dozen or so buildings, her stomach growled fiercely at her, so she doubled back to the pub, and went in to get some food. Loud laughter and the smell of alcohol filled the air as she went inside. She couldn't hear anything from the street before she came in, even with the door open, and wondered if there was some kind of sound dampening spell on the front door.

The room was full of round tables, with chairs around them, and about half the tables were occupied. She picked an empty table in one of the corners, a little out of the way, and sat down. A few moments later, one of the bar maids came by.

"Welcome to Sally's pub, miss. What can I get ya?" The barmaid had to speak loudly to be heard over the noise of the pub.

"What food would you recommend?" Kiara asked. The bar maid snorted then leaned in conspiratorially.

"I wouldn't recommend the food much, it only starts to taste good after you've had a few beers. I guess the potatoes aren't too bad though, if you're starving." Kiara nodded and smiled.

"Ok, how about some potatoes then. And some cheese if you have any. I'll just have a glass of water to drink." The barmaid nodded.

"It'll be 8 iron coins for the food." Kiara handed over the coins, then asked, "Where can I find a place to spend the night?" The barmaid pointed and said, "There's an inn a few blocks that way. Their prices are a bit high, being so close to the city gates, but the area is safe. If you're tight on coin, you can go deeper into the city and find better rates, but the guard patrols are less frequent further from the gates. Maybe that's what you're looking for though?" Kiara shook her head.

"No, the inn nearby sounds great. I'll check it out after this. Thanks!" The bar maid nodded and walked back towards the kitchen to get her order started. As she passed by one of the drunk men, he called out to her and pinched her leg. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Hey!" She yelled at the man as she turned. She shoved him sideways off his chair, but she had a small smile on her lips. She didn't seem to mind the attention, so Kiara figured she knew the man. Maybe he was a regular here. The bar maid didn't seem like a pushover though, she knew how to handle a tough customer base. A few minutes later, a plate of baked potatoes was delivered, with some slices of cheese and a glass of water.

The bar maid was right, the food wasn't that great, but Kiara was hungry enough that the first few bites seemed like heaven. Once she had eaten most of it though, the novelty wore off, and she didn't seem able to finish the rest of it. Instead, she just pushed the food around on her plate with her fork while she watched some of the other customers. In the center of the room, a group sitting around one of the tables was playing a game of cards.

Others were standing around them, placing bets on the outcome of each hand. After a while, she noticed that a third group at a nearby table was even placing bets on the outcomes of the betters standing around the first table. She shook her head and smiled. It did seem like a lively atmosphere. She stood and made her way over to the table to see what the card game was. As she approached, one of the men at the table lost the current hand and grumbled something under his breath. She watched the next hand.

She wasn't sure of the rules yet, but each person was dealt four cards, and seemingly only looked at their own cards. Well, she assumed that you were only supposed to look at your own cards, because each player seemed determined to hide their hand from the other players. Each player then had to make claims about the overall state of the table, including which of the other players' hands they thought they could beat.

The game was reminiscent of a war, where each player knew their own strength, but not the strength of the others, and had to rely on bluffing their own abilities as much as they had to rely on their actual strength. The same man that had grumbled about losing the previous hand lost this hand as well, and was the first one out twice in a row. He looked a bit young, and was having a hard time controlling his temper. This time when he lost, his grumblings weren't as soft.

"Cheaters! The lot of you. Especially you, Dustin, how do you always know what I have?" He glared at one of the men across the table. The other man, Dustin, was quite handsome, and Kiara found herself staring at him longer than she needed to. He had dark hair and blue eyes, with a sharp jawline and well defined features. The perfect hint of stubble graced his face and neck. Dustin just smiled at the young man that had lost, but didn't respond. The hand ended with Dustin getting the top spot on the table.

Kiara watched as people standing around the table made bets with each other over how each round would go. It seemed that Dustin was the favorite, as the bets against him didn't have very good odds each hand. The next hand started and she watched with interest. The man she was standing behind glanced at his cards, but did it so fast that she only got a glimpse of them.

One of them had the number 4 on it, along with a lightning symbol and a fire symbol, and the other three cards were two 2s and a 1, but she didn't catch the symbols on them. The man seemed rather smug about his hand. She watched as each man around the table took turns making general statements about the state of the hand, progressively getting more specific with each turn they had to say something. By the time the man in front of her had his third turn, he turned smugly to Dustin.

"My army can beat your army," he said confidently to Dustin. Dustin simply nodded, and handed one of his cards to the man. The next person was a woman, who claimed that her army could beat one of the other men's armies. The man didn't agree, so they both exchanged hands to look at each other's cards. Kiara couldn't see from where she was what either of them had, but after they looked at each other's hand, the woman's face fell, and they gave each other back their hand of cards.

The woman's army was weaker, so she was forced to pay the man a bronze coin. Kiara started piecing together the rules of the game as she watched. From what she gathered, the game was called 'Royal Bluff'. The first time around the table, it seemed that each person made a general statement about the state of the hands on the table, like 'I think there are three 4s', or 'I think there are twelve 2s'.

The statement, as far as Kiara could tell, was nothing more than a shot in the dark, with absolutely no basis in truth. The second time around the table, each person had to make a statement about their own hand, which once again could be completely false, or true, as they saw fit. She wasn't sure what the purpose of these two rounds was, other than information gathering of some kind. She didn't know enough yet about the game's strategy to know what a good or bad statement during these rounds would look like.

Starting with the third time around the table, each person had to call out another player that they thought their army could beat. If the other person agreed, they would simply hand over one of their cards, which Kiara supposed represented a soldier of some kind. If they didn't agree, then the players would exchange hands, and whichever hand was stronger earned a bronze coin from the losing player.

So the player with the stronger hand either earned another soldier, which made their army stronger, or they earned a bronze coin, which was the real prize here. Eventually, someone's 'army' would grow to be unbeatable, and everyone would just hand over the rest of their cards, then the new hand would be dealt out. Everyone had to give the winner an iron coin. Not all of the cards were dealt each time, and so the actual makeup of the armies was always a mystery each hand.

Each player had to put up a bronze coin to participate in the hand before the cards were dealt. The young man who was having a hard time seemed intent on claiming that his army was the strongest each time, no matter who he challenged. He didn't seem to fully understand the strategy of the game. A few of the other players understood the strategy a bit better, but seemed intent on getting the strongest army, rather than on earning the most bronze coins.

As Kiara watched, she realized that Dustin was the only one who optimized for earning the most coins each round (or losing the fewest), rather than gathering the strongest army. He was also the only one not touching his drink. That was the only cheating that she saw him doing. The other players were clearly not thinking as well as he was. A few more rounds went by, and each time the young player got more and more frustrated.

Even on the rounds when he had a strong army, he didn't seem able to recoup his financial losses from the other rounds. Dustin's pile of money, on the other hand, kept growing. Kiara had to admit, he did seem to know an awful lot about which players had armies that could beat his own each round, even though he only ever looked at his own cards. Kiara still wasn't sure how to tell which 'army' was stronger than another one, but she was more interested in the betting strategy of the game anyways.

She watched as Dustin masterfully accumulated wealth from the other players. After one particularly frustrating round for the young player, he finally blew up. He was red in the face, and started shouting.