I winced hard, my entire body going rigid in my seat, teeth clenching so violently I tasted copper where I'd bitten clean through the inside of my cheek. Every muscle screamed at once, a full-body rebellion sparked by pain that refused to be localized, refused to be reasonable, refused to be ignored.

And yet...

I kept smiling.

I refused—absolutely refused—to let the expression falter, even as tears spilled down my face in hot, involuntary streams, my body responding to trauma with the sort of honesty my pride would never allow.

Even as my severed finger lay there on the altar, stark and undeniable, like an accusatory footnote appended to a long history of questionable decisions. The smile stayed. Stretched. Hardened into something manic and defiant, the kind of grin that didn't ask whether this was a good idea, only whether it had been noticed.

I forced my breathing to stay controlled, dragging air in through my clenched teeth and releasing it with careful restraint. I held that grin in place with sheer will, because giving Oberen the satisfaction of watching me crack—of seeing anything akin to weakness flicker across my face—was not an option I was willing to entertain.

Through the haze of pain, sharp as shattered glass, I caught flashes of my crew at the edge of the crowd, their reactions cutting through with uncomfortable clarity.

Julius's eyes were blown wide, dark with fascination, his expression caught in that peculiar limbo between horror and something dangerously close to admiration. I could practically see him cataloging the moment already, filing it away as material for some future performance where tragedy and spectacle would blur into applause.

Grisha, meanwhile, wore a faint smirk, her tusks catching the light as she tilted her head, clearly impressed that I hadn't immediately passed out or vomited.

Willow and Nara were clutching each other at the edge of the crowd, bodies pressed close as though proximity alone might anchor them to reality. Their eyes were wide, unfocused, tracking the altar with stunned disbelief, shock rendered physical in the way their shoulders tensed and their breathing synced into shallow, panicked rhythm.

And Felix—gods, Felix. He looked genuinely, heartbreakingly terrified. His small hands were clamped over his mouth as if he were afraid that any sound might somehow make this worse, his eyes blown so wide I could see white ringing the irises, fear stripped of any protective layers.

The sight punched straight through me, sharp and unwelcome, a flare of guilt igniting in my chest for dragging him into this spectacle, for letting him see the cost so clearly.

I acknowledged it for exactly half a second—then shoved it down hard, because sentimentality was a luxury I simply couldn't afford right now

Internally, I was under no illusions. I knew exactly how insane this was—had full awareness that a sane person would've walked away, would've taken Oberen's offer, would've chosen intact hands over whatever victory I was pursuing. A reasonable person would have weighed the costs, assessed the odds, and decided that no plan was worth this price.

But this wasn't about sanity. This was about pushing through, about proving that I wouldn't break under pressure, about making this plan work even if it meant sacrificing pieces of myself in the process. Sometimes you had to be willing to bleed to show the universe you were serious.

Oberen's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts with surgical precision—clean, sharp, and perfectly timed—slicing into my internal monologue like a blade through flesh. An unfortunate metaphor, all things considered.

"You look pale," he observed with mock concern. "Understandable, given the blood loss. This is where most people realize they've made a mistake, where survival instinct overrides stubborn pride and they admit defeat before losing anything else important. I predict you'll follow that pattern within two or more rounds, once the shock wears off and the pain becomes impossible to ignore."

"Shut up," I said through gritted teeth, "Stop gloating and start the next round. Or are you too busy congratulating yourself on winning one challenge to actually continue the game?"

Oberen chuckled. "As you wish," he said, gesturing magnanimously. "It's your turn to bid. Let's see if pain has improved your judgment or simply made you reckless."

We rolled. I peeked at my remaining four dice. Two fives, one four, one two. Oberen studied his own roll with that same casual attention, and I began calculating probabilities with renewed focus despite the throbbing agony radiating from my hand.

I had two fives visible. A conservative bid—say, two fives total—would be safe, verifiable, and utterly uninspiring. Safe bids in Liar's Dice were a trap; they handed your opponent breathing room, space to escalate safely.

An aggressive bid, on the other hand—four fives, maybe even five—would force Oberen into a corner, daring him to either challenge or commit to an even more aggressive counter-bid.

"Three fives," I announced at last, threading the needle between caution and audacity, my voice steady despite the pain.

Oberen considered this with slightly more attention than he'd given my previous bids, his fingers drumming against the altar—carefully avoiding the blood pooling across its surface—before responding, "Four fives."

I studied him in silence, letting the moment stretch just long enough to make it uncomfortable. My gaze combed his face for cracks—for a twitch at the corner of his mouth, a tightening around the eyes, any microscopic betrayal that might whisper bluff or certainty. There was nothing. Oberen's expression remained infuriatingly smooth, a mask of serene confidence.

The numbers clicked into place anyway, indifferent to his theatrics. Four fives across nine total dice was possible—uncomfortable, but not outrageous. It sat right on the edge of probability, that dangerous slope where caution and cowardice began to blur together.

If he was lying, this was my opening. My chance to claw back ground, to prove that the previous round hadn't rattled me nearly as much as the blood suggested. If I hesitated now, I'd be conceding more than dice—I'd be conceding momentum.

"Liar," I declared.

The overseer stepped forward without ceremony. Cups were lifted. Secrets spilled into the open. Oberen's dice revealed themselves first. Three fives, two sixes.

I had two fives. Five fives total. The bid was short. I'd won.

The crowd reacted a heartbeat later, realization rippling outward as the math settled in. Julius's cheer cut through the rising noise, sharp and delighted, his voice cresting above the roar as spectators collectively grasped what had just happened—understanding now that this wasn't going to be a neat, one-sided slaughter, not a foregone conclusion wrapped in ritual and blood.

This was a fight. A real one.

The atmosphere in the casino shifted palpably, fascination sharpening into investment as people leaned forward, already rewriting their expectations, already constructing narratives about resilience, defiance, and whether I was brilliant, unhinged, or both.

The overseer removed one of Oberen's dice, then activated his device with that same clinical precision. The mechanism responded instantly—no flourish, no pause—just the cold certainty of action.

The blade fell, claiming its due at the knuckle, and the altar bore witness as the cost of the bid was paid, joining the quiet tally already etched into the night. Blood sprayed across the altar to join mine, creating an abstract painting that would've sold for ridiculous amounts if anyone had the stomach to preserve it.

Oberen didn't even flinch. Didn't even blink. He simply kept smiling—that same infuriating, unbroken smile—as though losing part of his hand was no more noteworthy than an inconvenient haircut.

The composure was absolute, polished to a mirror shine, and that was what unsettled me most in a way that felt wrong. Not emotionally—this wasn't about sympathy—but in the way that perfect performances feel when you know they're being executed by professionals.

And that's when I noticed them, the faint, nearly untraceable lines crossing his fingers. Old scars, subtle enough to escape casual notice, but unmistakable once seen—marks left behind by prior losses that had been medically repaired or magically restored.

He'd played this game before. Multiple times, judging by the pattern. This wasn't his first round of Liar's Dice with dismemberment stakes—this was practically routine for him, familiar territory where muscle memory and experience gave him a psychological advantage I couldn't hope to match.

The realization should've terrified me. Instead, I filed it away as useful intelligence and kept playing.

The rounds blurred together after that, each one building in intensity as the dice counts decreased and the margin for error shrank proportionally.

We traded wins and losses with grim symmetry, the overseer's motions becoming almost metronomic as fingers were claimed with mechanical regularity. Blood pooled and spread across the obsidian altar until its glossy surface looked less like a ritual table and more like the aftermath of a particularly artistic massacre.

The crowd fed on it. Each drop of a blade sent a fresh surge through them, gasps cresting into cheers, horror transmuting seamlessly into exhilaration.

Their energy rose in waves, and somewhere along the way I found myself slipping into a strange rhythm where pain became background noise, dulled by repetition and adrenaline, while the game itself sharpened into absolute focus.

And then—quietly, insidiously—I noticed something else.

It wasn't dramatic. There was no sudden reveal, no triumphant flash of insight. Just a subtle sense of wrongness creeping in around the edges of my awareness, clearly unmistakable once I knew to look for it.

Oberen was cheating.

Not the clumsy sort of cheating, not the amateur fumbling that relied on distraction or desperation, but something far more insidious. He was swapping his dice. Subtly. Elegantly. Trading the standard pieces for ones that were almost certainly weighted, engineered with a level of craftsmanship that bordered on artistry.

Nothing crude. Nothing obvious. The kind of work that would sail cleanly past casual inspection and still evade most professionals unless they knew exactly what to look for.

And I did.

I'd spent years studying sleight of hand—not as a hobby, but as a survival skill. I'd trained my eyes to notice when motion and intention drifted out of alignment, when hands lied just enough to betray themselves.

And Oberen's cups were doing precisely that. Not much. Not enough to raise alarms on their own. Just slightly wrong.

There were micro-pauses when he lifted to peek, fractional delays that suggested he was doing more than just looking—he was swapping dice from some hidden reservoir built into the cup's base or possibly his sleeve, replacing unfavorable rolls with ones that better suited whatever bid he was planning to make.

It was brilliant. Genuinely, infuriatingly brilliant. An elegant mechanism that let him roll honestly when it suited him, preserving credibility, then quietly assert control when the stakes demanded it.

He could shape outcomes without ever tipping his hand, manipulating probability while wearing the comforting mask of chance. To the crowd—and even to most opponents—it was just Liar's Dice. To him, it was a performance.

I chuckled quietly to myself, the sound entirely internal because laughing out loud would've given away that I'd noticed. Of course he was cheating. Of course he was. Because that's what people like Oberen did—they stacked every advantage, rigged every system, then congratulated themselves on their brilliance for winning a game they'd sabotaged from the start.

I kept playing anyway, kept making bids and challenges, kept bleeding onto the altar while Oberen taunted me with renewed enthusiasm.

"You're doing better than I expected," he said after I won another round. "Though 'better than expected' still results in you missing half your fingers, so perhaps my expectations were catastrophically low."

"Funny," I replied, forcing my voice to stay light despite the waves of pain threatening to drag me under. "I was thinking the same thing about your cheating. Very subtle work on the dice—professional quality, really. Almost couldn't tell they were being swapped if I hadn't been paying close attention. You must be proud of yourself."

Oberen's smile didn't falter, but something in his eyes sharpened. "Careful," he said softly. "Baseless accusations of cheating suggest desperation. It's unbecoming."

"Oh, I'm not accusing," I said cheerfully. "I'm simply stating facts. But please, continue. Keep cheating. It doesn't matter. I've already won."

Oberen laughed then—loud and bright, the sound echoing across the sand pit with genuine amusement. "You've already won?" he repeated, clearly delighted by what he perceived as delusion. "You're down to three fingers. You're bleeding profusely. You look like you might pass out at any moment. And you're claiming victory? That's adorable. Genuinely. I almost feel bad about what's going to happen next."

I smirked even wider, ignoring how the expression made my face ache. "You'll see. Just keep playing."

Oberen's expression flickered then—just for a moment—a momentary hitch, a whisper of uncertainty crossing his features before being crushed flat by sheer force of will.

It was the look of a man who'd begun to suspect that something in the equation had shifted, that my confidence might be anchored in something sturdier than bravado or shock-induced delusion.

Pride, momentum, and sunken cost had him neatly boxed in, and besides—the numbers were still on his side. He had weighted dice. He had more fingers. From a purely logical standpoint, he was winning. Which meant the safest course of action was to keep going, to press the advantage, to trust the system he'd so carefully engineered to ensure his victory.

So he continued on, making deliberate slip-ups in bidding to stray from suspicion. He lost rounds he didn't need to lose, allowed blades to fall when he could have avoided them, all in service of maintaining the illusion that this was still a fair contest.

That outcomes were being shaped by skill and chance rather than precision-crafted fraud. It was clever. Subtle. The kind of long-game deception only someone deeply comfortable with manipulation would attempt.

The rounds pushed on, bleeding into one another until pain, blood, and the hollow rattle of dice fused into a single, surreal rhythm that set my teeth on edge. Shake. Bid. Challenge. Drop. Each fall of the blade ripped a scream from the crowd, raw and ecstatic, while every successful bid sent a fresh roar rolling through the pit like thunder.

And through it all—through the screams, the clatter, and the steady, creeping horror—Oberen and I kept up our verbal sparring with practiced precision, trading barbs and smiles like seasoned performers locked in a macabre duet.

And then we reached it. The final round.

And then we reached it.

The final round.

We were both down to a single finger, the altar's surface slick and shining with thick pools of blood. I felt myself growing dizzy, vision swimming slightly as the delayed consequences of blood loss finally caught up to adrenaline.

The world blurred at the edges, a soft, treacherous haze creeping inward—but I straightened anyway, forcing my spine rigid, my posture immaculate, my expression confident. Collapse could come later. Not now. Not in front of him.

Oberen's face had gone manic with false competition, eyes bright and far too-wide, his smile stretched thin and feverish, as though intensity alone could substitute for inevitability.

"Final round," he breathed, clearly savoring the moment. "Winner takes everything. Loser goes home with five fewer fingers and a valuable lesson about hubris." He leaned forward across the altar, close enough that I could see my reflection in his eyes. "Any last words before we begin?"

"Yeah," I said, pushing the word past lips that felt numb and distant, my voice steady by sheer obstinacy. "Just one—if you're going to lecture me about hubris, at least wait until you've actually won. It's terribly gauche to celebrate mid-sentence."

We rolled our final dice with an almost ceremonial restraint—just one each now, the game stripped down to its barest bones, all the elaborate scaffolding of hidden information and layered deception collapsing into a single, brutal exchange.

I lifted my cup and peeked beneath it, the motion feeling oddly heavy, as though my body itself were protesting the inevitability of what came next. A three stared back at me. Not disastrous. Not inspiring. Just a three—perfectly average.

Oberen examined his die with the same maddening nonchalance that had characterized him all evening, his attention languid, almost bored, as though the outcome were a foregone conclusion and this was merely a formality he was indulging for politeness' sake.

When he glanced up at me, his expression was triumphant. "I bid," he said slowly, "one six."

The math, at that point, was mercilessly simple. If he truly held a six, calling him would cost me my final finger and the game along with it.

The math was brutally simple now. If he actually had a six, challenging would lose me my final finger and the entire game. If he was bluffing, if that confidence was theater and nothing more, then challenging him would hand me everything in one decisive, glorious sweep.

No room left for clever maneuvers, no space for gradual advantage—just a single, irrevocable choice and the consequences waiting patiently on either side.

The crowd's whispers had risen to a roar, people shouting speculation and encouragement, the noise building to levels that should've been impossible in an enclosed space.

My hand was shaking in its restraint, blood still dripping steadily from my ruined fingers to join the pool below. My vision was blurring at the edges from blood loss and exhaustion. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to stop—to preserve my final digit, to accept defeat with what dignity I had left, to sit down somewhere quiet before I lost consciousness, bled out, or achieved the rare and prestigious feat of doing both at once.

But I'd come too far. Sacrificed too much. And most importantly, I'd planned for this.

"Liar," I declared.

The overseer glided forward for the final time, robes flowing after him like liquid shadow. The crowd's noise reached a fever pitch, people climbing over each other to get better views, voices overlapping into incomprehensible sound.

He lifted Oberen's cup first. A six gleamed up from the altar, pristine and perfect, exactly what Oberen had claimed.

My stomach dropped. My vision tunneled. Every muscle in my body went slack with shock.

Then he lifted my cup.

A three.

One six total. The bid was accurate.

I'd lost.

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