CHAPTER 14: WINNER’S LOUNGE

"Fi?" Cee called to the woman sitting at the bar.

"Cee!" The girl said, sliding off her bar stool in one fail swoop. "I knew you'd make it, I just knew, I knew it!"

She reached out and grabbed her body in a giant bear hug that nearly wrestled Cee to the floor.

"Fi...wait...cant'..." She struggled to break free from her vice-like grip, until she realized there was only one way to escape.

[ Activate Slip Lv. 1 ]

[ ACT SUCCESSFUL! ]

Like an eel she managed to get out of Fi's hands and step back away with her hands up ready to push her back if she was going to try again.

"Wow, you're a slippery little frog, aren't you?"

"Fi, what have you told me about personal space?!" Chance called as he hopped off the bar stool and stood next to see.

"What, we're friends aren't we."

"You just met her barely an hour ago." He said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, but I got a good feeling about this..."

"That's more of a hypothesis, I thought a math whiz would know something about that."

"Um, wait, what's going on here." Cee said, breaking the conversation. "How did you two get here?"

"Well, if you're here, I assume you already went through the 6 challenges."

"You mean those blessed who had the names of time?"

"I thought it was appropriate considering this is the 11th hour of this event. I was surprised someone new had enough diverse skills in order to make it this far. Unlike someone here who just stumbled in through the backdoor." He leered at Fi.

"Well, it's easy if you look for one." She said, twirling her feathers with pride.

"Wait, wait, slow down? Backdoor? There was a backdoor."

"She just go lucky is all...dumb lucky."

"We'll it's a funny story, really why don't we have a seat and I'll tell you all about it." They gathered together around the furniture as Fiona began to tell her story. "I was looking all around the Lily pond looking for a sign of a switch or secret panel, but then it occurred to me that the solution was hiding in plain sight. The path was right in front of the stage."

"I didn't see anything pass the stage, except for 6 doors."

"Exactly." She said with a bright shining face. "I started to examine the doors from front to back, that's when I realized that nothing was blocking me from moving past the door's themselves. So I just started walking into the darkness and I walked and I walked, using only the light of my Starry Strut skill to guide me. Then suddenly I saw a light that didn't just come from my sequin dress, then Boom!" She mimicked a great explosion. "I wound up in this place, with all these fancy digs, that's when Chance appeared. Boy, you should have seen the look on his face, it was just like a bunny boy, you know, hopping mad."

Chance sneered with his nose scrunched up like a rabbit as his rabbit-eared head dress stood up in anger as Fi laughed.

"Yup it was just like that." She pointed.

"Not that you'd know, but some of us actually have to work too hard for this, bubble head. You totally defeated the purpose of the challenges and just got lucky."

"Well... technically this is a game of luck." Cee added.

"Now you're on her side?" He said in disbelief.

"I'm on nobody's side, but I'm starting to realize that there's a fine line between luck and skill when it comes to this game. I mean, in the past few challenges I've learned like half a dozen skills."

"What?!" Chance said in disbelief.

"Seriously?!" Fi said squealing with glee. "You are so luckyyyyyy!"

"Luck is one thing, but that is a statistical anomaly?" Chance said with almost an integrating-like manner. "Are you a breaker?"

"A breaker?" She said as she backed up against her seat. "Are you calling me a cheater?"

"Cheating would imply you're working against the system, and you'd be immediately booted out. I'm saying there's something that's gotta be responsible for it, have unlocked a lucky streak? Are you a Luck Devil or is it your luck day? Tell me."

"Would you give the girl some breathing room bunny boy." Fi said pushing between their heated conversation. "The system is so complex that not even a NASA Scientist would have trouble breaking the code. I've tried and believe me, some people are just lucky and all you can do is hope that some of that will rub off on you."

Chance looked at Fi and then turned around heading back to the bare stool to sulk in peace.

"Don't mind him," Fi whispered. "He takes this whole thing way too seriously, he's trying to be pro don't you know?"

"You can be a pro-gamer in a game of luck?" She asked.

"Oh sure, if you got the right skills and right win to lose ratio, people will just tune in to watch you play just like any game. It's more popular in the PvP crowd than in just playing the slots, but if people like anything it's all about how much you put in."

"Kind of like the world championships of poker, or those old viral videos of people putting a thousand dollars all at once on a slot machine?"

"Exactly, except you literally don't know what's going to happen, especially with PvP because it's a lot different than fighting NPCs. Players can do the unexpected things you never saw coming, sometimes at a major loss but make up for in subscriptions. Not that this place has streaming capabilities anyway, but you know what they say, if you become too predictable, people will lose interest."

"Do you do that?"

"Nah, I just help out bunny boy with the occasional challenge or two. You know, give the viewers a little eye candy, because let's face it if he'd lighten up a bit more he'd have broken the bank a long time ago."

"You know, I can hear you right?" Chance turned his face with a glare.

"I wasn't trying to hide that face!" Fi said to the top of her lungs.

"Back to what I was saying, what kind of skills did you get?" Dealer? Wheeler? Busker?"

"A lot of passive skills apparently."

"You're kidding? Passive skills? You must be a reeeeally lucky frog. Passive skills are not something you win by chance, the odds are at least 10 times less like gaining an active skill, and I know the retail cost is about the same, but even at level 1 you could get 100 times more it's value if you sold it. It almost makes me wish I'd actually gone through one of those doors."

"Wait, how many skills did Chance earn?"

"None." He said pouring himself a glass of fizzing water from a bottle he pulled out a thin. The bottle read "Lucky-Luck Juice '' and he poured it like a fine glass of champagne into brandy glass with a frown on his face. "I thought this game was not like the real world, but once you get past the flashing lights and sounds, it's exactly the same."

He sipped his glass as a window appeared above his head.

[ You have earned 1 Luck Point. ]

"Some people are born lucky and others are just lucky to get ahead. I mean, I started this game way before either of you and somehow she managed to get her by dumb luck, and you earned a bunch of passive skills on you first time...where's the justice?" He took another sip of his glass.

[ You have earned 1 Luck Point. ]

"Hey cheer up bunny boy." Fi said approaching his seat at the bar. "What you used to say, luck, everything is a chance for the wise."

"Yeah, I know how I got my own name Fi, but I also said there are no rules to luck and obviously I was right about that too." He said as he chugged the green beverage all at once.

[ You have earned 1 Luck Point. ]

"You can afford to be happy-go-lucky, I mean you're rich enough. Some of us have lives that we actually have to struggle to keep. You think the world needs philosophers as much as math-letes like you?"

"That's unfair." She said taking it seriously made her makeup shine less brightly. "It's easy to blame everyone else when you think you've got it rough, but just because I have means, doesn't mean I'm always happy. Try to think about someone other than yourself for once, bunny boy!"

"Hold on, both of you!" Cee said for once getting involved in their struggle. "I'm not one for butting into other people's business, and believe me I rather not. Yet, if you two are going to argue about such stupid things, at least hear what I have to say about things."

Cee sat next to Chance as Fi sat on the opposite seat of her as she pressed her hands on the table and gazed deeply into the crystal polished surface of the countertop.

"I wasn't born rich or lucky, but I guess you could say I was lucky to be born. You see... my mother died when I was born."

"Oh my gosh, how did it happen?" Fi asked, sitting closer.

"Give her some space, will you, bubble head." Chance said gently, pushing her aside.

"It's a complicated story, but let's just say my parents met late in life and they never expected to have a child in their 40s, even though they had been trying for years. Neither did they know I was born premature only 2 months earlier...There were complications, but my mother died soon after leaving only my dad to look after me. By all accounts, my dad said I should have survived, but...here I am."

"Must have been tough growing up without a mother." Chance said with a turn of his head.

"You still had your father, right?"

"Yes, and that's the one thing I felt lucky my whole life for." Said with a warm smile. "He raised me on his own, and the only relative he had was my aunt, but...let's just say she wasn't in the picture very much. What I'm saying is dad always had a funny way of explaining things, and when it came to bad luck he always had saying. 'If you don't look on the sunny side, you'll be looking at the blind side.'"

"What?" Chance said with a puzzle in his glance. "Sounds like a mixed metaphor you find in a cartoon."

"Like I said, funny ways."

"I think I see what he's getting at." Fi said.

"Do you really, bubble head?" Chance asked.

"Yeah, it's like the number 8. It may seem ordinary, but when you turn it around it becomes infinity, ha ha." She laughed hysterically while the other two watched blankly. "Ha, hey, that joke was a killer."

"In grade school maybe." Chance scuffed.

Just when Cee had finally got the two of them to settle down, the trio was interrupted by the presence of white glove pushing a martini glass in front of them. Behind that was 2 more glasses filled with a similar glowing liquid. One was green, one was gold and the other was red, but it was not the drinks that caught their attention the most, it was the sight of a familiar face standing behind the bar. He wore a fancy hat black coat like a butler, each player recognized the smile of that Master of Ceremonies himself, serving their drinks.

"I'm glad you've all arrived." Midnight said with a Cheshire cat smile from cheek to cheek of his point cat-like ears. "Shall we begin?"