For half a heartbeat, the casino suspended itself in something close to reverence. Not silence exactly—silence implies intention—but that exquisite, involuntary pause where the world inhales and simply… forgets to continue.
Reality hovered there, awkward and unfinished, as though it had encountered an unexpected variable and was frantically recalculating which emotional response protocol to deploy.
Then, like a dam breaking under pressure it was never designed to withstand, the space erupted into sound so deafening it made the previous noise seem like polite library whispers by comparison.
The roar slammed into the sandstone walls and rebounded with interest, applause cracking like artillery fire as bodies surged with renewed purpose. Most of the crowd erupted in fervent approval of Oberen, cheers swelling with triumph.
A few spectators—including my crew, bless their confused little hearts—remained horrifyingly still, frozen mid-breath like mannequins whose animating spirit had stepped out for a cigarette. Their expressions hovered between disbelief and existential fatigue, the unmistakable look of people whose brains had briefly shut down and were now considering early retirement.
And at the center of it all, Oberen laughed.
It started deep in his chest, a low, satisfied rumble that suggested a man savoring the flavor of inevitability, then bubbled upward into something thicker, richer, soaked through with hubris so dense it practically had weight. His shoulders began to shake as though his body couldn't quite contain the joy flooding his system.
Then that chuckle grew, or more so devolved. It shed any remaining pretense of dignity and escalated into full, unrepentant cackling, the sort of villous laughter usually reserved for those who've just monologued their evil plans and actually gotten away with it—before he threw his head back and let it loose completely, unrestrained and gloriously excessive, the sound rolling across the sand pit in booming waves that announced his victory not only to the assembled masses but, presumably, to any inattentive gods within shouting distance.
It was laughter with ambition—laughter that wanted witnesses, that demanded to be remembered, swelling until it felt less like sound and more like a declaration carved into the air itself.
Meanwhile, maintaining his clinical precision, the overseer activated my device one final time. The mechanism answered with that now-familiar click—and then the blade fell.
It severed my remaining thumb cleanly at the knuckle, shearing through bone, tendon, and nerve endings with a brutal efficiency that would've made any medieval executioner nod in solemn approval.
Blood sprayed across the already-saturated altar in fresh, vivid arcs, layering itself onto the macabre tableau we'd been steadily assembling. Pain exploded up my arm in a wave so intense it made the previous rounds feel like gentle warm-ups by comparison.
My vision went white at the edges, tunneling down to a pinpoint before reluctantly expanding again, and somewhere very far away I registered my body's desperate attempts to convince me that passing out would be a perfectly reasonable response to current circumstances.
However, on the outside, I barely flinched. I didn't scream, didn't cry out, didn't give Oberen the satisfaction of watching me break even now when I had every justification to lose my composure.
I just... took it.
I let the pain do what pain always wanted to do—wash over me, through me, and eventually settle into that familiar, grinding undertone that all the other agony had long since been reduced to. It became background noise again, a constant, insistent hum beneath my thoughts, something I acknowledged without indulging.
The severed thumb joined its fellows in the growing collection of my former body parts decorating the altar, and in that moment I found myself thinking with detached fascination that I really should've eaten more before attempting something this stupid because blood loss on an empty stomach was proving remarkably unpleasant.
The overseer undid the restraint on Oberen's hand, releasing him from the device. Then he stepped back, drawing himself up to his full, imposing height beneath those impossible robes, posture immaculate, presence absolute.
"Victory is confirmed," he declared, his voice cutting clean through the crowd's noise. "Oberen has prevailed in all prescribed conditions. Two hundred thousand crowns in value are hereby transferred to his possession." He paused, letting the words settle like stones into still water. "The match is concluded."
Oberen surged to his feet with such explosive enthusiasm he actually kicked his stool back, sending it skidding across the sand in a graceless sprawl that would've comedic if he weren't currently radiating enough smug satisfaction to choke a small animal.
He slammed both hands down on the altar—directly into the pooling blood, I noted—and declared at a volume clearly intended to carry into legend, "I Won!"
The words rang out like a verdict he'd rehearsed in the mirror, triumphant and swollen with self-satisfaction.
And then—because apparently a simple declaration of victory was woefully insufficient nourishment for his particular species of ego—he launched into what could only be described as a masterpiece of obnoxious boasting.
"Did you see that?" he crowed, sweeping his blood-slick hands toward the crowd as though presenting them with a priceless work of art. "Did you see what I just did? I demolished him! Absolutely obliterated this upstart little schemer who thought—who actually thought—he could waltz into my establishment and challenge me through pathetic schemes and amateur tactics!"
His voice climbed higher with each sentence, swelling toward dramatic crescendos that made my ears ache and the sand beneath us seem faintly embarrassed. "Look at him! Just look at this sorry excuse for a gambler, sitting there all ruined hand and shattered dreams, probably regretting every decision that led him to this moment of spectacular humiliation!"
He spun to face the crowd more fully, arms thrown wide in a gesture that practically begged for applause, basking in their attention like a performer who'd never learned the concept of an encore.
"This is what happens when you challenge me! This is the price of hubris, the cost of thinking you're clever enough to outsmart someone who's been running this casino longer than most of you have been alive! I've broken better schemers than this—crushed them beneath my heel like insects and walked away whistling cheerful tunes about their suffering!"
He was practically dancing now, his feet moving in little excited steps that carried him back and forth across the sand, movements jittery with adrenaline and glee, making him look less like a conquering mastermind and more like an overgrown child.
"Two hundred thousand crowns! Just handed over like tribute to a conquering emperor! And what does he get in return? A handful of severed fingers and a valuable lesson about knowing one's place in the natural hierarchy of predators and prey!"
Oberen paused then, his manic energy settling slightly as he turned to gauge my reaction, clearly expecting to see devastation, despair, the broken expression you'd find on anyone who'd gambled everything and lost in the most public way imaginable.
But I said nothing. I didn't react. I didn't move. I didn't even blink in any way that could be interpreted as meaningful. I simply stared at him with vacant, unfocused eyes, my expression perfectly neutral—not defiant, not smug, not wounded. Just… absent.
And then—because the universe, when it chooses to be cruel, does at least have impeccable timing—a small group of attendants descended upon us with soft-footed efficiency.
They placed two small boxes lined with velvet in front of each of us before working quickly to collect the scattered finger pieces decorating the altar, stuffing them into their respective containers before presenting them before us.
Oberen accepted his with a faint smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes. The cracks were more obvious now—subtle, but there. A tightening around the mouth. A flicker of irritation that bled through despite his best efforts, my lack of reaction bothering him more than he wanted to admit.
I collected my slightly heavier box in hand then stood up and yawned. Not a polite, discreet yawn. An extravagant one. I stretched my jaw wide and let the sound roll out unrestrained, long and drawn-out enough that my jaw cracked audibly at the end.
It was deliberate. Theatrical. Designed with surgical precision to communicate that I found this entire ordeal roughly as stimulating as watching paint dry on a particularly boring wall.
This set something off in Oberen, whose expression shifted from smug victory to genuine confusion threaded through his mounting irritation.
"What—" he began, his voice rising in incredulity. "What is that? That expression? That demeanor?" His hands gestured frantically at my general existence. "You lost! You've been destroyed completely! Your fingers are in a box! Your money is mine! Your entire scheme collapsed in the most spectacular fashion possible! So why—why—are you standing there looking like you just woke up from a mildly pleasant nap?"
I didn't bother replying. Didn't see the point, really—partly because explaining anything at this juncture would've utterly ruined the surprise, and partly because watching him spiral into confused frustration was proving to be deeply satisfying in ways I lacked both the vocabulary and the moral clarity to properly unpack.
Around us, the machinery of decorum snapped back into place. The two Velvet guards at Oberen's side stepped forward in perfect synchrony, joined by a small army of attendants who descended upon the altar, the dice, the devices, and the stools with coordinated precision.
They worked quickly, efficiently, clearing away all evidence of what had just transpired until the pit was once again completely bare—just pristine sand unmarked by blood, violence, or the consequences of our terrible decisions.
Oberen's demands grew louder and more erratic with each passing second, his voice climbing in pitch and volume as he scrambled to provoke something—anger, despair, tears, interpretive dance, anything at all that would restore him to his preferred position at the center of my emotional universe.
"Answer me! Explain yourself! You can't just—you're supposed to be broken! Defeated! Crushed beneath the weight of your own arrogance! That's how this works! That's how it's always worked!" He gestured wildly, spittle flying in deeply unflattering arcs. "Say something! Anything!"
I maintained my silence, calm and serene, savoring every second of his confusion.
Eventually—after several more seconds of increasingly frantic demands that I continued to ignore with the tranquil dedication of a monk who'd taken a vow of petty silence—Oberen gave up.
He stalked past me, deliberately slamming his shoulder into mine hard enough to make me stumble back half a step. It was a profoundly small gesture from a man who moments ago had been declaring himself a titan of industry, and it revealed, quite beautifully, that his emotional maturity had taken early retirement and wasn't planning on returning anytime soon.
I turned to watch him leave, that violently green suit and absurd white fur coat carving an unmistakable silhouette against the sand—less fearsome casino overlord and more deranged winter goblin who'd lost a bet with a tailor and decided to commit to the look out of spite.
That was when I smiled.
Not a polite smile. Nor a brave one. The kind of smile you put on when you know something delicious and irreversible is already in motion.
It spread slowly, deliberately, the biggest, most unapologetically shit-eating grin I'd ever managed to produce—stretching across my blood-streaked face like a confession written in teeth.
And then it happened.
The crowd began to grumble, a few giving a themselves a slight chuckle before I heard it, the sharp clink of a chip coming from somewhere above me, the sound small but distinctive, cutting through the ambient noise with perfect clarity.
The chip landed directly at my feet, glinting faintly in the magical lighting.
And then came the torrent.
Chips began raining down upon me from all three levels of the casino—red chips worth five crowns, blue chips worth twenty-five, black chips worth one hundred, green chips worth five hundred, and then the ones I'd never seen before, crafted from materials that bent the light around them in ways that made my eyes ache, denominations so high they probably required special authorization to possess.
Platinum chips worth five thousand crowns each. Diamond-encrusted monsters worth twenty-five thousand. One chip that looked to be made of condensed starlight, humming faintly as it fell, worth an amount I couldn't even begin to conceptualize without a ledger, a mathematician, and a mild existential crisis.
They fell like rain, like hail, like the universe itself had decided to upend its pockets and see what fell out, clattering against each other in musical sounds that built into the distinctive symphony of compressed wealth.
Oberen froze mid-stride.
His entire body went rigid before he whipped around at velocities that made me worry about his spine, his neck muscles, and his general skeleton filing formal complaints about the sudden motion.
His jaw dropped—actually dropped, hanging open in an expression so comically shocked it would've been perfect for a painting titled "The Exact Moment Someone Realizes They've Been Played." His eyes were wide enough that I could see white all the way around the irises, his certainty evaporating in real time as the rain of chips continued unabated.
A few nobles strolled up to me directly, bypassing Oberen entirely as though he'd suddenly become invisible or simply irrelevant, and patted my shoulder with casual familiarity.
"Excellent show," one said, genuine appreciation coloring his voice. "Truly excellent. Haven't seen someone play the crowd like that in years." Another nodded agreement, adding, "The commitment to the performance was remarkable. Actually sacrificing your fingers for the sake of entertainment? Brilliant theater. Absolutely brilliant."
My crew looked beyond stunned, their faces cycling through expressions so rapidly I could barely track them. Confusion gave way to disbelief, disbelief edged into horrified realization, and then everything stalled out at raw shock as they tried—valiantly and unsuccessfully—to assemble a coherent explanation for what they were witnessing.
I could practically see the thoughts misfiring behind their eyes, logic tripping over itself as it attempted to connect performance, mutilation, applause, and applause's much wealthier cousin, patronage, into a shape that made sense.
When the deluge finally stopped, when the last chip had clinked down to join its fellows, there was an entire flood of them at my feet. A small mountain range of compressed wealth glittering in every conceivable color and finish.
Even being conservative, even rounding down in the interest of emotional self-preservation, it had to be over a million crowns in value. Possibly more, if those strange, iridescent high-denomination chips were worth what I strongly suspected they were.
Oberen exploded.
Not literally——though the look on his face suggested he was negotiating fiercely with the concept. His skin flushed through a series of colors deeply unapproved by biology, and a vein in his temple began to throb with such violent enthusiasm that I briefly considered flagging down a doctor for preventative measures.
"What—how—this is—that's not—you can't—" His words came out in fragments, broken pieces of sentences that his brain couldn't assemble into coherent thoughts because coherent thoughts required processing power he'd apparently exhausted.
"The crowd—they're throwing—but you lost! I won! The overseer confirmed it! Your money is mine! So why—how dare—what is the meaning of this absolute—" He gestured frantically at the chips surrounding me, his hands shaking now. "Explain! Immediately! At once! I demand—no, I require—an explanation for this—this travesty of—of—"
I started laughing. Couldn't help it, couldn't contain it, the sound bursting from my chest in waves. I laughed like a maniac, clutching my stomach as tears began spilling from my eyes—not from pain this time but from pure, unadulterated joy at watching Oberen's world collapse in real time while he stood there sputtering like some malfunctioning automaton.
It took me a moment—several, really—to wrestle my breathing back under control. Each inhale threatened to collapse into another fit, each exhale came out trembling with leftover mirth, my chest aching from the effort to contain it.
But eventually, gloriously, I managed.
I straightened just enough to look at him properly, lifting my head and meeting his gaze with a smile so wide it made my face ache, stretched tight with delight and sharpened by absolute certainty. Then I said with perfect, crystalline clarity:
"You really are a dumbass, aren't you?"