Saintess Summons Skeletons

The dealer was flabbergasted as he rolled three sixes in a row, taking him way over the line.

“Looks like it’s our win again,” Sofia innocently said, “Ten times in a row. We should be at around sixty million points, right? Does the casino even have the funds to pay this out?”

“Of course we do! We have a lot more tha—” the dealer started before cutting himself short, “nevermind… Are you going to keep playing?”

“Do you want us to?” Sofia asked.

“Heh, honestly I do. If you cash out now I’m not getting my bonus this month anyway, so what’s another round or two… You won’t keep winning forever.”

“You’re a more honest skeleton than I took you for,” Sofia said with a thin smile, “Let’s keep going then, you’re right, we can’t possibly win forever, it’s fun to see the numbers go up, though.”

It was Pareth’s turn to go first, he grabbed a white dice, but it slipped from his fingers, bounced on the corner of the table, then against one of his ribs before rolling under the table. He started bending over to see if he could pick it up but the dealer stopped him, “Leave it, here, have another one. The cleaners will deal with this later.”

Pareth nodded and grabbed the new die. He rolled a pair of sixes.

“Oh, difficult position you’re in, you have to throw at least one die, so is it finally time you used the black die?” the dealer asked, looking at Sofia.

Hmm… This puts me in a bad position… The black die isn’t bone, but not using one now when on the surface it ups my chances from 1/6 to 1/2 would be pretty suspicious.

I’ve thrown enough dice now that I’m pretty sure I can guarantee a one… But then he’ll get two dice throws I won’t be able to influence much.

Still, no choice, not taking the black die now would look way too strange.

“I hardly have a choice, got to roll a one now.”

Sofia grabbed a black die and weighed it in her hand. It was really exactly the same weight as the white ones, just not the same material. Alright, this should be easy.

The black die rolled a one.

Thank fuck.

“Another thirteen…” the dealer grumbled picking up two dice. He did the exact same thing, rolling a pair of sixes, then grabbing a black die. “At least I might get the first draw…” he complained.

As he went to roll the black die, a skeleton waiter, who just happened to be walking behind him carrying a tray of snacks, stumbled. He bumped against the table as he fell, and the dealer’s die which was about to stop on a one was kicked up, landing on a six instead.

The dealer turned around, staring daggers at the waiter, “Ocean! Can’t you watch where you’re walking?!”

“Sorry! I think I stepped on a die… Won’t happen again, Frank!” the waiter apologized while he fixed his tray before scurrying away to serve the snacks to another table.

“Well, an eleventh win for our side. That’s about 74 Million tokens if I still got my count right.”

The dealer sighed, “Just go again already…”

“Sure thing.”

Sofia picked up a white die. She could tell the dealer was observing her hands closely, looking for any proof of her cheating, as it was starting to get really hard for him to accept these results as being just the result of pure luck.

Sofia rolled a pair of three. Pareth then rolled a four.

Roll one more. We can’t settle on any score under 12 anymore. With a ten or eleven it’s too easy for him to get a low roll with a white and close with a 6 on his black dice, and I won’t be able to do anything about it.

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Pareth grabbed the dice and threw it.

Sofia watched it leave his hand, analyzing the trajectory, before it even touched the table the first time she could already predict the outcome. Six…

She gave it a push with her aura, all the die needed was a tiny bit of help and it would land on a three instead of a six.

Something blocked Sofia’s aura—intense mana from someone with an aura stronger than hers. Though [Infinity Engine] prevented other auras from affecting Sofia’s mana, it did not prevent them from affecting her own aura.

The dice hit the table once, it would soon stop on a six, with no other choice, Sofia used the toybox for a second time in this event.

Time froze as the dice bounced on the felt tabletop.

Crap. This comes from above. That much mana… This must be the lich! He already caught onto what I was doing… I can’t use my aura to cheat anymore… How do I save this. There are too many tokens on the line!

Sofia spent a few more seconds in stopped time, trying to find a solution.

Finally she had an idea. The tabletop was covered in soft red felt.

Sofia cancelled the toybox time freeze, and with extreme concentration, she counted the bounces of the dice on the table. The dice lost momentum as it bounced and rolled. Toward the end, it stopped earlier than expected with a slightly wet sound. Both Sofia and the dealer had predicted a six, but the result was a three. A single drop of sticky summoned blood, invisible on the tabletop’s red felt, had slowed the die enough to stop it.

Just like that, Sofia and Pareth scored another 13, to the great dismay of the dealer.

The dealer was so stunned that his own rolls were shaky after that, and he ended up scoring a 14 without Sofia having to do anything, giving them another win.

“Eighty-nine million, right? I think we’ll stop there,” Sofia announced, starting to stand up from the table. With her cheating discovered, it was too dangerous to continue.

“No,” the dealer said, his voice strangely deeper than before, “Please stay. I offer you a double or nothing.”

Oh?

Sofia looked at the dealer through her mana senses, a clear mana thread linked him to the ceiling, the lich was speaking through him, somehow.

This feels like a trap.

But it’s also quite the opportunity… Double the points…

After a few seconds of silence, Sofia tried to negotiate, pretending to be uninterested, “That’s a bit too risky at this point, 89 million points is already more than I need…”

“Triple! I offer you triple the tokens if you win this next one, deal?!”

Sofia pretended to consider it for a bit.

“Alright, but I have another condition…” Sofia said, bending over the table to whisper to the dealer, “I want you to swear on your phylactery that if we win, you will escort us and our two friends to the exit with our winnings and without any trouble, mister Ak’Virad. How’s that?”

The skeleton obviously showed no change in expression, but Sofia could tell the mana link going from his skull to the ceiling wavered a bit at her last words.

“You drive a hard bargain… So be it then, I swear to uphold these conditions, should you win this next round. If not, all your winnings are forfeit.”

“Great.” Sofia sat back down.

Pestle. Big news! The lich is distracted. You no longer have to be as sneaky. I’ll try to make this last as long as possible, you have maybe a minute where you can go wild. Rob him blind!

“Looks like she’s gonna be beating our score again,” Saria told Cinthia.

“And here I thought a hundred and fifty million points was a lot…”

“I mean, that got us the historic ranking third place so it wasn’t bad. They’re gonna end up getting the new second place at this rate,” someone else commented, “your sis really ain’t playing around even outside of combat. I’m glad we went before her.”

“Told you, Brant,” Saria said, “She’s even worse than me. It’s my fault I think, I was her educator early on, sort of…”

“I guessed as much from your stories. Sovuln was truly a fucked place back then, I’m glad I had the nose to escape before the ebb rolled around, even if the Saint was vehemently against it.”

Saria nodded along, “How’d you think you’d fare against Pareth now that you’ve seen him fight a bit more? I kinda want to watch a holy knight duel like that.”

“Hard to tell, I’m easily outclassed when your sister is around to strengthen him, in a pure duel… I feel like it would probably be a stalemate.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe we’ll get to see your fake fight them later, I’m curious to see how that turns out,” Saria said.

“Yeah, I’m not. You’ve seen what they did to the orc. I’ll get crushed, won’t even be funny to watch. You’ve been silent Cin, something going on with the gods?”

“Apparently this is the first time the lich shows itself for an actual game instead of just trying to prevent people from leaving,” Cinthia answered, “So they started having bets again.”

Saria giggled, “Sofia’s just naturally good at luring out skeletons.”

“How are the odds now?” Brant asked Cinthia.

“Oh, they’ve learned their lesson by now. They’re almost all betting on her…”