Ambition

After the team was formed Noah and Julie decided to play some more, which landed Noah a negative haul of 300 chips before he decided to leave the table, his luck had left him and he wasn't going to play while that was the case.

Ultimately he hadn't lost too much since Julie had won some but this was a bitter victory, at least he felt that it was, he still had no idea how much a single chip was worth but he now had even less of them.

Since there were still quite a few hours in the day they both retired to Noah's room to come up with a plan and so Noah could get the information he wanted from the contract.

"So, what do you want to know first" her suspicious attitude had been replaced by that of a teens who had been asked any sort of question, *Can't escape it, even wherever this is, guess its fate then that all teens will be mardy*

"I want to know what happens when you get removed, seeing those black suited officials taking away the players at the table piqued my interest, call it a morbid curiosity".

"When someone is removed, there are several routes that can be taken by the casino, one is to become a player in the sports betting section, so like racing on a bike across an arena"

"Doesn't sound too bad to be honest" he had done some casual biking in the past, where he went over the racetracks that were used for professional races, but he went at a much lower speed because they could be deadly if you weren't practiced.

"No and that's because it isn't, unless your up for one of the physical games as a weakling going into the sports section is probably the best you can hope for"

`I wonder about that, I always hated P.E in school and the racing would be dangerous no doubts about that` he didn't actually voice these thoughts as he wanted her to continue and not waste time responding to him.

"Then there's the manual labour, the 24/7 administration and other sorts of jobs where your forced to work with no restrictions on workload or time" as she listed them off she put up a finger on her right hand while pointing to it with her left.

Noah couldn't help but smile at this little habit, for some reason it just felt endearing, like a warm feeling was emanating from one singular action.

"Anything else?" her face was tilted to the side like a dog would when it was trying to understand a noise it had heard.

"Where do I but things and what can I buy" this was the primary question that Noah had wanted to ask, he knew that you could buy things but not what could be bought.

"Anything can be bought at the marketplace"

"There was never any door sign that specified that as a place"

"That's because it only appears every few days, so you'll have to wait to enter"

"When is the next arrival?" he hoped it was soon so that he could check it out and get his goal set.

"The next arrival hmmmm, I think is in 2 days, I can't remember it to be honest"

`Great, I picked up someone with bad memory` his thoughts were portrayed on his face as he glared at Julie with half closed eyes.

"Well it-it was qu-quite a w-w-while ago-" she started to stutter under the pressure of his gaze, she clearly wasn't used to anything like it.

She took a few seconds to calm herself down before opening her mouth again "By the way if you use your chips for money it will be stored in a personal account until you leave, and you can't convert the money stored back into chips, once its exchanged its gone"

`So even if you had a million pounds in the bank, you could still go bust 'cause you only left a few hundred chips in your hand, that feels incredibly harsh`

"Anything else you need from me?"

"Just a question born from curiosity, why were all of you playing blackjack with no chips remaining"

"Well blackjack is a skill-less game, and can't be cheated by other races using their abilities, something many learn at the wrong time"

Something very important had just been said, Blackjack had been called skill-less, Noah could not let this go, his honour wouldn't allow it.

"How dare you call blackjack skill-less, I'll have you know that its one of the best games mathematically to win against the house, and there's a lot thought and strategy that goes into playing it at a high level, I don't ever want to hear those kinds of words come out of your mouth about blackjack again"

She seemed taken aback at the sudden outburst, but she had committed a taboo in front of Noah and was punished accordingly, as long as she didn't repeat it she would be fine.

"Moving on, you said something about other races having abilities, tell me more" This was a less important point that she had said but would still need to be expanded upon, he needed to know what he would be up against.

"Well I can tell you some, not all"

"That's to be expected if this is a fantasy, I have heard from my son that there are plenty of races out there" just remembering the times that his son used to tell him about the stories that he was reading brought a smile to his face.

Meanwhile Julie looked like she had just been hit by a heavy object, her jaw dropping as close to the floor as it could get while still being attached to her head.

"Yo-you have a son Eeeeeeeeeeh"

Noah's face became visibly angrier, people talking like that about him and his son was one of what he considered very few things to put him into a fighting mood.

Seeing this Julie immediately jumped back, her natural instincts for danger yelling at her to run but her brain telling her to stay leaving her in a state of limbo, doing nothing but watching Noah and his movements.

He quickly calmed, telling himself that she meant no harm with that comment, that was the only way that he could stop himself from popping a blood vessel, besides it hadn't actually been directed at his son, that was the difference between him calming and using a toaster to beat her with.

"Sorry that was my bad, please continue" his anger was subsiding so he signalled her by waving his hand in front of his face to replicate the cooling motion of a hand fan.

She didn't seem to pick up on this and kept her distance while explaining "Well first off you have elves who can hear incredibly well and have contracts with spirits that they use to peek at people's cards"

"Is that not banned?" this was something that if you tried to replicate it in a casino and were found out would lead to the loss of both of your kneecaps, if you were in Vegas mainly but you never knew who was running the location.

"It is.. technically" she basically murmured the last bit of her sentence which Noah thought was the most important part.

"What do you mean technically" his tone was extremely stern, practically demanding the information out of her, something he was copying from old detective movies that he had watched when he was child.

Again this made her fight or flight response begin flaring up once more, Noah was starting to see a pattern in her behaviour, she either didn't like his authoritative tone or she was scared of him when he wanted to be scary, the latter being more likely in his head.

"We-well it-it-its just that th-they a-a-a-are able to br-bribe some de-dealers" tears were practically coming from her eyes, Noah's appearance seemed absolutely terrifying in the darkness of the room to her natural instincts, with his very broad stature even when sat down, his face looking like that of a hunter's in the night staring directly into her soul.

"So your able to buy dealers off here, are there any punishments for doing so?"

"I-if you're c-c-caught then yes"

"Also stop it with the stutter, its getting difficult to make out what your saying"

"I can't help it, if I get scared I stutter, and a lot at that"

"Why are you scared of me, look at me I'm not scary at all" he had a look of puzzlement on his face, he genuinely didn't see what would make him a scary person.

"Well its that you look like a hunter from my perspective, and that sets off my survival instincts"

"How can I be a hunter, first off I don't like watching animals get hurt let alone die and secondly why would I kill a human being when my head is perfectly screwed on"

"What do you mean by your head being screwed on, are you not human yourself?"

"Its a matter of expression, see having a screw loose means being crazy so if my head is perfectly screwed on I'm perfectly sane"

"Oh and also umm" she seemed to be getting flustered out of nowhere

"Go on" he said it as softly as he could since he could tell that she was struggling to get the words out

"Well, I'm not exactly human" as she said that 2 vague shapes revealed themselves at the top of her head, looking like the outline of an animals ears, this caused Noah's mouth to progressively open itself as he slowly realised what was in front of him using what his son had told him.

"You wouldn't happen to be one of the illustrious beastmen that my son used to blabber on about would you"

As soon as she heard this she became even more flustered than she had been before, not being used to hearing a positive reaction to her being part beast.

"So what convinced you to join with this casino, you don't seem to be the sort of person to enjoy it" he wanted to direct her attention away from that conversation now, and this was the only way he could think of to do it.

"I need the money" she said it as if she was ashamed of the fact "I may not have any family left, but I still need the money to survive"

"Money does indeed make the world go around"

"yeah" she said it as more of a whisper than an audible sentence, she honestly looked like she was about to cry once more.

"Then I'll tell you why I'm here, that way we're both even"

When she heard him say that her eyes sparkled like he had never seen before, they looked like they could light the entire room up just by themselves.

"Then why, why are you here hmm, hmm?" she was swerving her head from side to side like a pendulum swinging, Noah was already regretting suggesting that he share his reason.

"How are you not dizzy?"

"That doesn't matter now tell me, tell me"

`what a change in personality, maybe its because she no longer views me as a threat`

"Well, I'm here to regain the respect and love of my son, he started to grow distant a few years ago and by yesterday he practically cut of all contact with me" his face had dropped and he could only look down while saying this, even though it had happened yesterday he still couldn't process it.

Then it dawned on him, `if I came here at night what time is it now?`

There was no way for him to check as he had no phone or watch on him, not that he would have checked he had gotten himself into too deep a depressive stupor for that.

"You know what, I think its best if I retired for the night, I will meet you in the hall at whatever time you want"

"Make it 8 in the morning then"

"Will do" and with that she stood up, gathered her stuff, and left leaving him alone again where he broke down in tears before slowly drifting asleep on the sofa he had been sat on.