Rising Shards

Our plan to sneak across the catwalks was abandoned, and I didn’t feel too bad about that. Just stepping kind of close to a high up ledge like that had my legs wobbly.

“On the plus side,” Oka said. “The Sharai are all hypnotized down there, so maybe getting past them won’t be so bad now? On the downside…how do we get down there?”

“Surely there’s an elevator of some sort around here, right?” Marmalade said.

“This place looks somewhat hastily constructed so it could go either way,” Diast said. “Does everyone still have the sunglasses Oka gave them? I recommend getting those on again now.”

“Because…they’re cool?” Oka asked.

“They are, but they also might give us extra protection against the hypnosis.” Diast said as she got out her own sunglasses again. “We should also probably change the settings on the gear to blend in a bit more.”

Diast added a new setting to our adaptive gear, that turned them into classy monochrome suits to complete our security disguises.

“Oh, wow,” Oka said as soon as I changed my gear into the suit.

“What?” I asked, blushing.

“You look so good in that!” Oka said.

“Aww, thanks! You look super good in yours!” I said. Oka in a suit was something I wasn't prepared for, she was very hard to look away from. Despite the circumstances, I definitely was near drool state almost immediately.

“Flirt later,” Lillia demanded.

“My bad, sorry Lillia,” Oka said.

“Dr. Diast, any update from Caya?” Lillia asked.

“I got some pings from Caya and some other RS students down there, but still no luck calling her.”

“That’s…probably really bad, right?” I asked.

“Probably,” Diast said. “But she could also be in the middle of a bunch of fights, she tends not to answer calls when she's beating up monsters.”

“If you had to guess one of those to be the more likely situation, what would you pick?” I asked.

“Sometimes Caya has a punch first ask questions later mindset,” Diast said, choosing her words carefully. “I’m speculating that may have been her strategy here, and because of that she’s probably maybe also hypnotized right now and glued to one of the poker tables."

“Have a little more faith in me, Dr. Diast,” Caya said.

“Right, sorry Cay—wait.” Diast said as we whirled to see Caya waiting for us. “Ah, damn.”

“You can make up for that absence of faith by coming with us downstairs for some exciting gambling courtesy of Chumbler!” Caya also had the swirling pink energy in front of her eyes, as did the two students she was flanked by, Amara and KJ. Caya with a beaming grin shilling Chumbler’s casino felt more wrong than a lot of the really wrong things I’d seen in the void.

“Yes, let us proceed to the ground floor for gambling and watching of our most beloved Rain!” Amara said.

“Aaaand Amara’s even talking weirder than normal,” Oka muttered.

“Great, now we really have to figure a way to break the hypnosis here.” Diast said, clearly thinking out loud.

“That doesn’t sound like gambling talk to me!” Caya said. “Nor is it talk about Chumbler. Topics not about gambling or Chumbler are forbidden here.”

“Rain as well!” KJ said.

“My apologies, any of our esteemed stage performers are fair game for talking about,” Caya said. “But gambling and Chumbler are by far the most important. Now come along, the stairs are this way.”

Diast shrugged. We didn’t have much of a choice but to follow the three of them down a winding stairwell that made me glad we had the sunglasses because the walls were all the bright neon screens showing Chumbler, Kitty, and the Kanibari guy dancing around/doing standup.

The ground floor smelled like cigarettes and debts.

“I guess the disguises were kinda pointless since we got caught immediately,” Diast said.

“Well, we can change back later,” Oka said. “It’s too busy here to change now, so we might as well…continue enjoying the tactical boost they give us.”

“You make it really clear what you’re scheming,” Diast said.

“Do I?” Oka asked.

“Enough talk, it’s time for you to gamble.” Caya said. “The first row is slots. Second are the card game tables. Third row is extreme furniture building.”

“How is furniture building gambling?” Marmalade asked.

Caya stomped over to Marmalade, igniting her bloodsaber.

“Whoa, maybe let’s chill a little,” Diast said, trying to calm the hypnotized Caya (still beaming widely, which was now terrifying with her angry) by gently grabbing her shoulder to get her to not go berserk on Marmalade, who looked incredibly grateful Diast was quick to step in. “She’s just curious about…the mechanics of such an extraordinary casino such as this!”

That seemed to calm Caya down. “So where would you like to start?”

“We were wondering if we could see the performers up close,” Diast said.

“You can’t just start by seeing Rain,” Amara said. “Not when she’s giving an excellent performance as Sweetheart Blue."

"You have to earn Sweetheart Blue.” KJ said.

“Is Rain performing as well? I didn’t see her up there.” I said, only just realizing that I didn’t see Rain on the stages.

“Is she performing, can you believe this stupid moron?” KJ said, elbowing Amara.

“Hey!” Oka said, clenching her fists as she approached KJ.

I was mostly too overwhelmed by everything going to be offended by KJ's remark, but I still realized that it could be a line that didn’t sink in until a much later cry session, so I appreciated my girlfriend sticking up for me. A spotlight above on the catwalk whipped to Oka’s direction.

“Uh…” Oka said.

Towards the end of the slot machine section, two Sharai started fighting over a seat. The light on Oka moved quickly to them. A giant laser beam shot down, incinerating the two memory sprites into goop.

“That’s an excellent reminder,” Caya said. “There is no violence permitted at Chumblerosa. You will get fried to a crisp instantly by our highly advanced security system, built by none other than the gorgeous Queceilitrex.”

“I know it sucks, but play along,” Diast said, just loud enough for us to hear.

“Rain has the most important performance of all,” Amara said. “She’s the brains of this place. She’s the fuel, the lifeblood of Chumblerosa.”

“So what would it take to see her?” I asked. “Or any of the others?”

“Well, to get a ticket to the front section, you have to win a ticket,” KJ said. “And to win a ticket, you have to win a lot of tokens.”

Diast nodded along, as if she expected that to be the case.

“Right…” Diast said. “So which of these rows gives a hearty amount of tokens, would you say?”

“I’m gonna bet furniture building yields a lot of points,” Marmalade said. “My vote is we head there.”

“You don’t get any tokens for extreme furniture building,” Caya said, shaking her head in intense disdain. “The risk reward there is all about the thrill of successfully putting cabinets together. Will you have a fancy new shelf for your framed Chumbler pictures? Or a pile of wood useful for nothing?”

“Sure, sure.” Diast said. “We’re gonna head out, then. So maybe you should go greet the next guests?”

“I’d rather stay with this group,” Caya said.

“Yeah, I think these broads are gonna cheat.” KJ said.

“We can’t have that,” Amara said.

“No we can’t,” Caya said. “So I will have my eyes very closely on you lot. And maybe if you win, we’ll all get to see Chumbler, Kitty, and Typo perform together!”