The semi-silence lingered in the gray interior of the Stone Pillar’s main hall for a while, but it didn’t seem all that out of place for the space. The only sounds that could be heard were those of the various machines and the people calling their hand in whatever card game they were playing.

Eventually, Vincent made his way back to his friends, although his pace was a bit uneven and slow. When he got back, he saw that Zander was standing and the pain that was plastered all over his face was almost gone, leaving just some discomfort.

Wordlessly, Vincent pushed by his friends and walked over to Livia, who had not moved from where she had been standing. There were still flames burning in his chest, and just like every time those flames were in there, he had no idea what to do with them.

He then grabbed Livia’s shoulder and looked at her dead in the eyes—his simultaneously empty and burning eyes meeting her still quivering pupils.

“What did you say her name was?” Vincent asked through his clenched teeth.

Jolting back from Vincent, Livia swatted at his arm and tried to right herself.

“I-I um…” she trailed. She took a deep breath and continued her thought. “That was Lucretia M. Deth, the owner of the Rising Red and the Setting Sun. Most people simply refer to her as Lucretia.”

“You’ve got to freakin’ kidding me.”

Vincent then turned around and finally focused on his two friends, although he failed to meet their gaze with his own. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to look them in the eyes. There were so many things swirling around inside him—anger, nothing, fear, and so much more—and those things fought for dominance within him. There was no single emotion that stood above the rest in order to diciate his actions, and thus, he felt as if he could do nothing. It was strange. He had never really felt this way before, and oddly, he had never felt so awake before in his life, either.

Brushing off the dirt on his nice polo, Zander said, “Did you both hear what she said?”

“You don’t actually think…” Eliot began, the sound of his voice conveying a sense of disbelief.

“How many other Lucretia’s do you think are in the world, nevertheless in Egypt? Eliot, when there are coincidences in the world that are this specific, they aren’t just coincidences, they are connected.” He then looked directly at Vincent. “And it seems we found quite the connection, here.”

“Yeah,” Vincent replied, still averting his gaze. Even that one phrase was a bit hard for him to get out.

It was at that moment that a small rush of emotions started to come back to him, filling up the small patch of emptiness that threw his mind out of whack. The imbalance of emotions began to calm themselves and he started to feel like himself again.

“Alright,” Vincent stated, his old confidence coming back to him.

“Alright?” Zander asked, inquisitively.

“Alright, I’ve decided,” Vincent exclaimed. “I’ve decided to beat this bitch at her own game. She wants to play a game with me? That’s too bad for her, cause I love games and I don’t lose.”

“Normally I would disagree with you, but I’m with you on this one.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliot frantically asked. “She had you on the ground, squirming in pain and coughing up blood.” He then looked at Vincent. “S-S-She pulled out a g-g-un and killed someone.”

Zander then patted Eliot on the head in response. “I understand that, but there’s nothing we can do about that. Vince is right, we have to find a way to get out of here and sitting here in fear isn’t going to do us any good. I’ve seen my father deal with plenty of criminals, getting them the justice they deserve, and she isn’t any different. She just thinks that she is untouchable in her stupid little fort, but it’ll come crashing down soon.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Vincent responded with a slight smile. “I hate people who take away the freedom of others, and death is the ultimate way. I could never do something like that. We’re gonna take her rules and shove them up—”

“Now hold on, Vince. I think the best course of action is to follow the rules—”

Vincent immediately shot him a dirty look.

“—for now,” Zander finished.

Vincent was content with that answer.

“So what do we do now?” Eliot asked.

“Well, that depends,” Zander said, now facing Livia. “How do we get to the next Pillar? Or more specifically, how much money does it cost to make it to the next area?”

Livia, now somewhat back into her usual persona, straightened her attire and answered, “Well, for the Stone Pillar, it isn’t terribly hard to get out. People usually end up here because they lost it all in one of the higher Pillars, whether it’s from being bad at betting or from overindulgence, it’s pretty evenly split.”

Zander then snapped his finger and replied, saying, “Money. Numbers. What’s the number we have to reach to get through.”

Livia narrowed her eyes in obvious annoyance.

“To leave the Stone Pillar, you will have to go through those double doors,” she stated, pointing at the set Lucretia went through earlier, “and pay the Praetor, who are the people who watch over the elevators to the next Pillar. For this Pillar, it costs the equivalent of 2000 American dollars to advance.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“In addition, you have to be worth the equivalent of at least 1000 dollars to remain in the Silver Pillar.”

“So we only need like three thousand dollars, right?” Vincent interjected.

Smacking Vincent on the back of the head, Zander replied by saying “No, you smooth-brained simpleton, we need at least nine thousand to move on—2000 each to advance, and 1000 each to keep.”

“I mean I don’t really get it,” Vincent replied, “but sure, that sounds right to me.”

“The real question is how we get that amount.” Zander then fumbled around in his pockets and pulled out the three gold coins. “I suppose we can start with the value of these.”

“Actually,” Livia interjected, “I can tell you the exact value of those. Those are each standard-issue gold coins of the Setting Sun. They are worth their weight in gold, and right now they are valued at 1500 dollars apiece.”

“Shit, we pretty much have enough,” Vincent replied. “We just have to go all in one time and BANG we got ourselves enough.”

“We are NOT betting it all at one time, Vince,” Zander annoyingly replied. “I was thinking of trying my hand at some cards, seeing as slot machines are purely luck-based and rigged.”

“Oh good idea, you always seem to beat us in cards,” Eliot added.

“Not every time,” Vincent snapped, although no one seemed to pay him any attention.

“Exactly, Eliot,” Zander agreed. “I’m confident I can turn some of our money into more, but we’ll have to be slow and careful about it. I was thinking about starting with some of the money that Robert gave us. How much do you have, Vince?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Vincent began, hoping to strike a deal, “I’ll let you have some of my money if I can gamble with it too.”

Zander didn’t respond right away. It seemed like he was seriously contemplating Vincent’s proposal, which was something that Vincent wasn’t used to. Normally, Zander would just blow his ideas off without a second thought, but lately, he had been listening to more of his ideas.

“Fine, but you have to play the same games that I am,” Zander proposed.

“Done,” Vincent replied, taking his wallet out. He grabbed all the money out of it and gave half of it to Zander. “I got about 500 dollars or so in Egyptian pounds, so you can take whatever half of that is.”

Vincent then turned towards Eliot and asked, “Do ya want to play some games too?”

“Uh, no, I’m good for now; gambling isn’t something I’m too fond of,” Eliot replied.

“Alrighty then,” Vincent replied. “So what are we playing first?” he asked, turning back towards Zander. “I can already feel the money burning a hole in my pocket.”

“I’m sure it is,” Zander retorted. His eyes then seemed to land on a particularly large crowd that was gathered around a card table. “Why don’t we start there.”

Vincent immediately strolled over to the table, followed by Zander, and trailed behind by Eliot and Livia. At the table, there was a pretty clear divide among the players. In total, there were 5 players, most of them devoid of most of their poker chips.

Sitting by himself, with a mountain of multicolored chips, was a suave-looking gentleman. He wore business casual attire and had a smile on his face, which was rare in this Pillar. His style oozed casual confidence, especially his fancy, diamond-encrusted watch that he wore backwards around his wrist.

Just as Vincent approached, three of the players at the table stood up and scooped the remnants of their chips, probably trying to save the last few crumbs of worth to their name. As one of them left, they grimly looked at the suave man and said, “Go screw yourself, Venzo.”

The suave man then replied, holding up his glass of wine, “Don’t be mad, be glad that your loss was to me, Venzo Mercury, the greatest card player there is. This is but a stepping stone to my inevitable climb to the highest pillars, and eventually, to becoming a Diadem.”

And with that, all but one of the players had left the table. The one player that remained seemed to have nothing left on the table—no chips, no money, and nothing of value. They just looked down at their hands and began to weep.

“Please,” they wept, still not looking at anyone in particular, “I don’t want to go back out to the patrol. Please, let me borrow something to bet with, anything. I just got out after saving up in hopes that I could climb and get out of here.”

“You knew what this place was. I do feel sorry for you…” Venzo started to say, “sorry that you suck at gambling. Guards, take this one away—he has nothing of value left on him.”

Swiftly, casino workers approached the broken player, grabbed them, and carried them across the room and through a door on the leftmost wall labeled Dawn Patrol. Confused, both Vincent and Zander simultaneously asked what was through that door.

“That is where people go to become part of the Dawn Patrol, which are essentially the manual laborers of the casino,” Livia replied. “People who go there either go there to earn a little bit of extra gambling money, or if they have nothing of worth, they slave away for Lucretia in order to earn enough to feed themselves and stay alive. Trust me, no one would go there if they had the choice.”

“And how much would it cost to just live?” Zander followed up.

“In order to eat something and pay for a place to sleep for the night, it usually takes about sixteen hours of work.”

“So Lucretia gets labor out of them, and then gets the money she paid them right back when they have to buy the daily essentials? Pretty sickening system you have in place—no matter what position you are in or how little you have, she can still squeeze value out of you.”

Before the conversation could go any further, the group was interrupted by a loud coughing sound.

“Ahem,” the voice said.

Looking at where it came from, Vincent saw that it was that Venzo Mercury guy.

“What do ya want?” Vincent plainly asked.

“Well I couldn’t help but notice that you all were standing, not sitting at my table,” Venzo stated while gesturing towards a chair at the table. “Are you interested in playing a hand or two? I seem to be on a bit of a hot streak right now.”

“Is that supposed to intrigue me? I don’t think you’re supposed to tell people that,” Vincent laughed.

“Well, I pride myself as being fairly good at reading people, and you seem like someone who is only intrigued by a challenge,” Venzo replied, shuffling a deck of cards.

“Ah what the hell? I’m in for some fun.” Vincent then plopped down on a chair directly opposite Venzo.

“But do be warned,” Venzo warningly said, waving his finger in the air, “I do play for higher stakes than the sticks and stones that people bet with here. As a matter of fact, I already have more than enough value to ascend to the next Pillar and then some.” He then smiled, his tongue poking out of his lips, licking the right side of his mouth. “But I’m always up for taking more.”

“Funny,” Zander interjected, gingerly sitting down in the chair in between Vincent and Venzo, “I was about to say the same thing.”