Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah was impressed.

They’d found the casino fairly easily, and it was strikingly similar to what he’d seen of them on Earth. A brightly lit, colorful building with a variety of different ways to gamble and far too much food and alcohol.

It had taken Lee a grand total of three minutes to run through all three hundred of her gold. Noah had watched in shock from the chair beside Lee as she repeatedly tried her luck at a card game – and repeatedly lost in spectacular fashion.

He did try to gently stop Lee a few times, but it was pointless. As soon as she lost her fist round, it was a death vendetta. Noah still had yet to actually figure out the rules of the game, and was still midway through trying to pick everything up when Lee announced that she’d spent the entirety of her gold.

That should have been the end of it. Noah had already started berating himself for letting Lee waste her money at a casino – she still knew so little about the world that it felt like he’d basically let a child gamble.

But, as Noah went to pull Lee away, her fortunes shifted. That shift came in the form of a half-drunk noble who ordered a massive platter of food and promptly threw up before he could even start on it.

A waiter had gone to throw it out because of how much space it took up on the table when Lee stopped him.

“I could eat that in less than a minute,” Lee said, eyeing the tower of greasy meat and bread.

One of the other men at the table let out a snort. “A little thing like you? Not a fart’s chance in a hurricane, kid. I’d sooner believe you’ll win a hand of King’s Gambit than you could finish that, much less eat all of it in less than a minute.”

“Do you even have any more gold?” a rounding, middle aged woman asked. “You said you only had three hundred when you sat down, and you’ve already lost all that.”

Lee sent a look to Noah. “Please?”

This is going to be the easiest money we’ve ever made.

“I don’t know,” Noah hedged, glancing to the side. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. That’s a really big platter of food.”

“I can do it!”

“Hear that?” the man asked, plucking at his moustache as the rest of the table laughed. “She can do it. How about putting up fifty gold?”

“Fifty?” Noah turned his nose up. “That’s hardly worth it. It won’t even cover the cleanup if she pops after trying to eat all that.”

The table burst into laughter again, and the mustached man pulled a bag of gold from his belt and slapped it on the table while the dealer looked on in growing annoyance at the delay in his game.

“Five hundred. How’s that?”

I don’t have five hundred gold that I want to spare… but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for very long.

“Deal!” Lee exclaimed.

“Not asking you, pipsqueak. I’m asking the scruffy guy.”

“You sure you can do this?” Noah asked reluctantly, chewing his lip to try and really sell it.

“Yeah!”

“Fine,” Noah said. “Five hundred gold. She’s got a minute.”

“Starts when she takes the first bite. Go on, kid. No rush. If you need to wait a bit to digest the last meal you ate, I won’t–”

Lee grabbed the plate and pulled it closer to herself. Squishing the food into paste, she started shoveling it into her mouth, not even pausing to breathe.

It took her a grand total of ten seconds to polish the entire thing off.

Leaning back, Lee let out a loud burp. She eyed the plate, then looked at the bag of gold on the table. She slowly reached over and snagged the stunned man’s bag of gold, sliding it across the table to sit before herself.

The moment of stunned silence passed as everyone at the table other than the mustached man erupted with a mixture of cheers and applause. Even the dealer looked somewhat impressed.

“What the – is this a grift or something?” the man demanded.

“You’re the one that chose to gamble, hon,” the middle-aged woman said, covering her laughter with a hand. “I don’t think you could have found a better way to lose, though.”

“How’d she do that?” another woman asked, walking around to stand behind Lee and peering under the table. “Did she hide it somewhere?”

“No. I was hungry.” Lee squinted at the woman. “Why would I hide food unless I was saving it for later?”

That sent the table into another fit of laughter. The irritated dealer waved his hands at Lee, trying to shoo her off.

“You clearly aren’t playing the game anymore,” the dealer said. “Go on. Git. You’re wasting my time.”

Probably for the best. We’re actually up two hundred gold. Now’s the best time for us to get out of here, before –

Noah blinked. Lee was gone.

“Over there,” the portly woman said, nodding over Noah’s shoulder. He turned just in time to see Lee plop the sack of gold down and place its entirety on a coinflip.

“Tails!” Lee proclaimed.

“It’s heads,” the dealer said, looking down at the center of the table. He took Lee’s bag of gold.

Noah opened his mouth, then let it close as his shoulders slumped and he let out a defeated sigh. “I should have seen that coming.”

“Then you should probably see that too,” the woman called from behind Noah. He raised his eyes just in time to see Lee slip between two waiters and make a beeline toward the far end of the casino.

Noah swore under his breath and rushed after her. Lee had a unique talent for managing to generate chaos at an incredible speed. He’d yet to get banned from a casino, and he wasn’t eager to make this one the first.

As he pushed through the crowd in hot pursuit, Moxie fell in step beside him.

“Where’d Lee go?” Moxie asked.

“That way. She lost all her money immediately. I’m trying to catch her before she does something else.”

“I feel like we should have seen this coming,” Moxie said, shaking her head and accelerating her pace. “What happened?”

“Card games happened. What have you been up to, by the way? I lost sight of you once we walked in here.”

Moxie didn’t respond. Noah looked over to her, surprised to find that she was sheepishly looking to the side. Noah followed her gaze to a large spin-wheel that had a variety of stuffed animals propped up on shelves behind it.

It reminded him more of a game that would have been in a fair more than something that fit a casino, but considering both places thrived from being equally rigged, he supposed it made sense.

“…you lost your money, didn’t you?”

Moxie cleared her throat. “I invested it in having some fun.”

“Can’t fault you for that. You had fun, then?”

“I didn’t win,” Moxie grumbled. “The whole point of these things is to win, isn’t it? I spent way more gold than any of that stuff was worth. I could have gotten fifty of those prizes for the amount I spent trying to get one.”

Noah patted her on the shoulder, which was a fairly impressive maneuver considering they were still pushing through the crowd at a rapid pace.

“It’s about the experience. I doubt I have to tell you, but gambling often isn’t a very good idea. Maybe we can write this off as a one-time learning experience, eh?”

Moxie grunted. “Yeah. Let’s just find Lee and get out of here before something happens.”

***

They got banned from the casino.

Noah wished he could say he was surprised, but after the three of them got shoved out and had the front door slammed on them, all he could do was shake his head. Lee gave him and Moxie a sheepish grin.

“Sorry.”

She’d been remarkably effective at evading their pursuit – which could have been passed off as coincidence, but Noah knew Lee more than well enough to understand that she definitely smelled them coming and had been keeping distance on purpose to avoid getting pulled out of her fun.

Noah had just barely manage to see her win about three more bets, all food related, before promptly losing all her money every single time – and always zipping back off right before he or Moxie could catch her.

The casino probably would have been completely fine with Lee feeding them more money, but that all ended when one of her bets pointed out that they’d agreed that Lee could eat everything on the table, not just the food.

They’d probably thought it was a clever way to get out of paying Lee out. They certainly hadn’t expected Lee to grab all the betting chips on the table and start shoveling them into her mouth – along with the cards, silverware, and a woman’s hat.

“It’s fine,” Noah said, rubbing his brow. “We didn’t get fined at least. Getting kicked out and banned isn’t the worst result that could have happened. In the end, we’re only down a little gold. It’s not a big deal.”

I’m just glad they didn’t fine us. Getting away with a ban is actually a pretty lucky break.

“So when can we go back?” Lee asked.

“Never. We’re banned.”

“Oh. That’s fine. Gambling is lame. It’s just a bunch of old people taking your money and getting pissed off when you eat their food.” Lee stuck her nose into the air as they headed down the street.

“It’s not a great habit to pick up,” Noah said. “Maybe it’s for the best you didn’t love it.”

“I wanted to get enough money to get a cool Rune,” Lee said with a disappointed frown. “They’re a bunch of cheaters. I never got my payout for eating all the stuff on that table.”

“We’ll just ask Brayden to Imbue a bit of his Rune and pay him for his troubles. It’s way more effective than screwing around in there.” Noah ruffled Lee’s hair. “Forget that stuff. You know, we’ve still got that one job that we never got around to doing. The one with the rock golems.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that because of the creepy old guy,” Lee said. “Do you think rock monsters have Space Runes?”

“Probably not,” Noah said. “But they do have money, and we can’t get banned from beating up a bunch of rocks. If we want to get a Rune from Brayden, we should be able to pay him for his troubles.”

And I need to get some more money to buy Moxie something. She really seemed to want one of those stuffed animals. I never thought she liked cute things like that, and I’m not sure one of those will replace an actual gift, but maybe I could get her a cloak or something and put it on a stuffed animal when I give it to her.

Would that be too much? Eh. Either way, I need money. I’ll figure the rest out later.

“Okay!” Lee gave him a grin, her annoyance at the casino completely forgotten. “Let’s go do that, then.”

“You good with it as well?” Noah asked Moxie.

“Yeah. I did just waste more gold than I care to admit, so replenishing can’t hurt. Getting some more energy for my Runes will be nice as well. Every step toward Rank 4 is a step in the right direction.”

Noah nodded, and the three of them set off toward the edge of the city.

All things considered, Noah could tell that Moxie and Lee had enjoyed themselves, even if it wasn’t an experience that was going to get repeated anytime soon.

I suppose paying a few hundred gold to relax after mopping the floor up with that disgusting bastard Gentil isn’t really a big waste. It’s nice to take things a bit easier every once and a while.

A thought struck Noah and he hid a grimace.

I just hope that cat doesn’t pop up and cause trouble while we’re dealing with the rock monsters.

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