“Are you still pouting about your language skills being useless on this planet?” Jen texted to Sam as they moved up in the line to enter Casino City.

“It was literally the first skill I received, and it’s useless since the Decks translates for everyone,” Sam replied.

Jen looked at him with disgust as she texted, “You have 12 skills…spells...whatever; our muscles, bones, and joints are getting tempered with the BC spell. Travelling here we learned the spell “mental overclock” which has allowed our mind to keep up with our agility, and for some old-man reason, you wish it was more difficult to talk to people, so you could use your ‘Words of Understanding’ skill. Jeeze Boomer, get over it.”

The “Boomer” comment finally got Sam to crack a smile.

Jen noticed that most of the people wearing peasant clothing like them were level 3 and 4 farmers. As they approached the gate, Sam was going to answer questions and pay the entrance fee, while Jen would use her psych ability to “Forge” their levels, stats, and abilities to make it look like they were level four instead of Level eight. They weren’t sure if other people had the psych ability, but they both had the paranoid survivor title for a reason.

“What’s your reason for entering the City?” droned the gate guard. Sam gave the same answer that all the other peasants entering the city had given. “We are here to buy some supplies for our farm and do some gambling.”

Looking past Sam and Jen, at some of the more interesting people in line, the guard held out his hand and said, “That will be eight copper or try your luck at spinning the wheel.” Sam handed over eight copper, and they entered Casino City without incident. Jen seriously doubted anyone would even remember them entering the city.

The city streets were laid out fairly well, but the crush of people made it difficult to get anywhere quickly. According to Ronald, the city was supposedly one of the larger Cities in the First Deck with around 500,000 people. There were commercial districts and traders’ districts. There were also clearly defined and separated residential districts for the poor and for the ruling powers in the city, but most importantly to Sam and Jen, they could see there was a crafting district where they hoped to find out more about tools, weapons, and mana.

No matter which district of the city they walked in, there were mini casinos and gambling stalls. One could spot system gambling junkies everywhere at the gaming tables. They looked like the heroin addicts back on Earth. Sam kept his eyes on their surroundings and directions as Jen constantly used her psych skill to scan for any hostile emotions and intent.

“It was almost too easy,” Jen thought. She would notice most of the potential problems in advance, and for any sudden changes in attitude toward them, Sam would power up the forgetme charms. “The beasts in the city are just like those in the forests,” Jen mused.

While looking towards a garment stall with fancy robes for sale, Jen received a random gambling quest.

System Message:

The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

==

Gambling Quest: Steal a robe from the merchant!

==

Requirements: Steal at least one robe from the merchant and successfully escape!

Steal a robe and escape in the next 10 minutes – odds of failing 74% Reward of 1 ability point and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 3.

==

Accept: Yes/No

==

“NO,” Jen immediately selected. “What the hell is this crazy shit!” she messaged to Sam, as she forwarded a copy of the quest she declined.

After Sam read the gambling quest, he understood why Jen looked so stunned and replied, “These System messages encouraging chaos is perverted.”

As they continued exploring the city, every couple of hours, one of them would get a similar quest. They learned to just automatically ignore and decline the messages.

They went to an appropriate restaurant for peasant farmers, which meant it was disgusting, but they found a secluded booth. “We’ve been burning through the forgetme charms. I’ll need to craft some more tonight,” Sam texted.

Jen and Sam always mentally texted anything important. Every now and then, they would grunt a word or two to each other to appear like normal peasants in the City.

“I agree; let’s first change clothes, and then find a reputable place to stay tonight.” Jen texted, as she was inspecting the contents of her ring.

Their “food” arrived a short time later. Surprisingly, it was edible, but maybe that was because they had been eating rations for the last few days.

After finishing their meal, they spent the next few hours getting a better feel for the city, while also slowly upgrading their clothing by going to multiple stores, hoping not to draw any attention.

To any outside observer, their movements appeared to be random as they finished crossing the city, and making their way towards one of the luxury inns they were referred to by a tailor.

The inn they were staying in was expensive, but it was clean, and came with security to protect its guests. Thanks to the silver looted from the bandit Ganjo, they discovered they had plenty of money to last them several weeks in the city. They learned there were 100 coppers to 1 silver, and 100 silver to 1 gold, and 100 gold to 1 platinum. Based on the cost of items they had seen so far, Jen estimated that one copper was like a dollar, and one silver was like a $100 dollar bill, and one gold was equivalent to $10,000 dollars. Jen was determined to figure out a way to collect on the 1,000 silver bounty while staying anonymous.

“First thing tomorrow we need to find a library or bookstore and learn more about the Seven Decks, learn how we can collect the Ganjo bounty, then start working on a plan to gain experience while earning money.” Jen said.

Sam spent most of the night making more forgetme charms. He was complaining to himself, “These charms are so frustrating to make. I get almost no experience from them; they burn up quickly, and I know there has to be better material in this world to make them from, soon I want some quality time to experiment on making better enchantments!”

After several hours of working on charms, Sam’s stomach was not feeling good from eating the peasant food. He looked over at Jen, and thought how serious she looked going over her notes, and that’s when a plan came to him.

“What is he up to?” Jen thought, as she watched Sam walk slowly over to her with a strange look on his face.

Sam leaned over Jen, pretending to look at her work, then he laid five pieces of paper down on the table with the word “Stay,” and then he activated them. He immediately let out the wettest and nastiest sounding fart.

“Oh my god, that’s disgusting. What crawled up your ass and died? Paybacks are hell!” Jen screamed at Sam, as she was stuck in place.

She then noticed Sam’s look of alarm as he clinched his butt cheeks and waddled off to the bathroom. Less than 10 seconds later the enchantment wore off, and Jen was finally able to get out of the area of contamination.

Jen would get him back, but a big part of her was laughing inside at hearing that 51-year old giggling about a fart joke, as if he was only ten. “I wouldn’t trade true family for anything,” Jen smiled to herself.