The Gambling Hall of Intense Gambles Commissioned By L'Arachel, The Beautiful Princess of Peerless Beauty
The site wouldn't let me put the full title in the official title, but here it is in all its glory, just how it was meant to be.
The sun was beginning to slide beneath the horizon. Children were being called back inside from their play; horses were being stabled for the night; owls began to stir in their sleep; the night patrol was preparing to relieve the evening patrol; flies began to be replaced by mosquitoes; various couples began to anticipate their... night activities; a mysterious man in a top hat was sharpening his blades; and L'Arachel had just flipped a coin in her gambling hall, caught it and placed it on the back of her hand.
"Ha! I've won again!" she cried as the coin turned up heads. Her opponent groaned in despair.
"What? How? Twenty games in a row and I didn't win once?"
"I have just done you the honour of teaching you about the evils of gambling! Now, show me the money!" The man felt about in his pockets and pulled out a small amount of gold.
"This is the last of my gold!"
"On the table!" The man reluctantly did as he was told and left muttering to himself. As he passed through the archway that led out of the building, he looked back and yelled,
"Something's wrong here! It's impossible for anyone to win against you! You must be cheating somehow!"
L'Arachel screeched back at him, "I don't cheat! Cheating is an abominable practice and all who partake in it should be cast in chains! How dare you accuse me of such an abhorrent thing?!" The man shook his head and quickly left. L'Arachel turned to Rennac and Dozla, who had been watching all this time, and gestured to her pile of gold, saying,
"Look Rennac! Look Dozla! Look at all the gold I won!"
Dozla beamed and said, "Gwah ha ha! That's wonderful Princess L'Arachel!"
Rennac eyed the gold and remarked, "Yes, that's all good and well, but you haven't lost a game yet. What happens when people realise that when they play against you, they'll just end up with an empty wallet, hmm?"
L'Arachel scoffed at Rennac and retorted, "Nonsense! It is a great honour to play games with me! If anything, they should be paying gold just for the opportunity to do so!"
Rennac shook his head and muttered something about L'Arachel's ego before saying, "Well, I suppose I'll just take this gold to your private store now. No sense in leaving it here overnight."
L'Arachel beamed at him and said, "Oh Rennac! You can be so splendid!" Rennac muttered under his breath again as he left, but this time he spoke of L'Arachel more kindly. L'Arachel smiled to herself and said,
"How can I have ever thought less than highly of that man?"
L'Arachel's happy feelings evaporated as she surveyed her gambling hall and realised that it was now empty.
"Dozla, what is this?! Everyone has gone!"
"Fear not Princess! It is late, you know. Everyone has left to go to bed! Perhaps you should do the same?" Dozla said.
L'Arachel thought about this and declared, "Very well! I shall retire and return in the morning!"
The sun began to creep over the horizon, signalling the end of the night. Birds began to sing praises of the new day; a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees; bees began to buzz, readying themselves for another day of hard work at making honey; the smell of fresh porridge wafted from several houses, slightly rejuvenating any who would pass; horses began to lament the certain tedium of the coming day; flies began to stir, ready to irritate all who dared leave their doors open; a man was about to be urged out of bed by his impatient wife; the body of a recently mutilated prostitute lay in the middle of a road, waiting for a knight to happen upon it and declare that, due to it being the third one in a month, there was surely a serial killer on the loose; and with the sun falling on her eyelids, L'Arachel opened her eyes.
Drowsily, she got out of bed and looked in a mirror. Dissatisfied with what she saw (she had a reputation to uphold, after all), she spent the next half hour washing herself, combing her hair and generally revitalising her glorious features. With her beauty brought back to her lofty standards, L'Arachel then began rifling through her wardrobes to find suitable attire for the day. Eventually, she picked out a dress very similar to her usual one, (after all, it is very difficult to improve on perfection and she had not discovered how to yet) then went for the door and flung it open. She was unsurprised, although she gave every appearance to the contrary, to see Dozla standing there. He smiled at her and said,
"Good morning, Princess L'Arachel! Did you sleep well?"
"Good morning Dozla! I had a most wondrous dream! In it, we three were smiling and erecting magnificent buildings and statues simply by waving our hands and shooting gold coins from them! And Rennac was about to run off again, when-" L'Arachel looked around and realised that Rennac was not there. This dampened her spirits somewhat. "Where has Rennac run off to this time?" she wondered aloud.
"He'll turn up sooner or later." Dozla assured her.
"I suppose you're right." L'Arachel said uncertainly. She began to wonder why Rennac constantly ran away, but this failed to occupy her for long, because she then remembered the gambling hall, called, "Come along Dozla!" and began to run as fast as she could to get there and enjoy another day of gamb- err... teaching people that gambling was bad. Dozla trailed behind her. He did not really know what had run through L'Arachel's mind, but he was not concerned in the least.
After a minute or two, L'Arachel remembered her uncle and realised that it would be impolite if she didn't say 'Good morning!'. So, she set off for her uncle's chambers and met him approximately halfway. She beamed at him, with more enthusiasm than she felt, which was still a considerable amount, and said,
"Why, good morning Uncle!"
"Good morning L'Arachel. How are you on this fine morning?"
"I am quite well. And you?"
"I am also well." Her uncle scrutinised her carefully. "You aren't planning on spending the whole day in the gambling hall again, are you L'Arachel?"
"Yes, I am. What of it?"
Her uncle sighed. "L'Arachel, I'm worried about you. You spend all of your days in that hall. I admit that I was hesitant to allow you to commission it, but you insisted so much that I could hardly refuse you. However, the last thing I expected was for you to overuse it!"
L'Arachel just stared at her uncle. "Uncle, you are being absurd. After all, any gold that I accumulate from the hall will only fund noble causes. Haven't I told you this several times before?"
"L'Arachel, gambling is a sin. If you only partook in it occasionally, that would be more acceptable; you could easily atone with some honest prayer. But you gamble every day, all day. Your soul must be quite black by this point."
"Uncle-"
"Not only that, but your reputation with the people is suffering also; rumours have begun circulating that you are a cruel charlatan that swipes everyone's money and uses it for your own selfish desires."
"What?! I-"
"I'm sure that's not the case, but please keep what I have said to you in mind."
L'Arachel thought for a while, then said, "Very well Uncle. I will remember." Before her uncle could further detail his point, L'Arachel left with Dozla. Pontifex Mansel gazed sadly after her. Could his niece be beyond help at this point? He shook his head. No, there was surely hope for her yet, he assured himself.
To L'Arachel's dismay, the gambling hall was empty. There was no-one at the coin flip tables, no-one at the dice tables, no-one at the roulette tables and no-one at the poker or blackjack tables. It was enough to make L'Arachel sigh dejectedly, which she did.
"Where is everyone? Why is no-one here?" she wondered.
"I'm sure that people will come later. They've probably all slept in." Dozla told her. Deciding that he was right, L'Arachel sat herself at a roulette table and waited. After a while, someone walked through the large archway, but to her disappointment, L'Arachel saw that it was only Rennac.
"Oh Rennac! I thought that you were someone come to play with me!"
Rennac looked at her and replied, "Empty? I told you that this might happen. You've driven everyone off with your incessant victories. It's hardly surprising that people refuse to come if they have no chance of winning every once in a while."
"Oh! You do speak such utter nonsense Rennac! It is a great honour to play games with a beautiful princess such as myself!"
"Of course. Everyone is keen to throw away their money for the sake of your entertainment." Rennac replied drily. However, L'Arachel did not pick up on his sarcasm and assumed that she had won the brief battle of words. Annoyed by the lack of an intelligent response, Rennac took a seat with Dozla at the table. After a while, Dozla looked at Rennac's feet and noticed that he was wearing new shoes. He frowned, but decided not to bring it up.
No-one ended up coming at all for the rest of that day. When L'Arachel went to bed that night, she did so in low spirits. The next day, she tried again, with the same results. By the end of the week, she decided that people really had tired of her. Taking it as a personal insult from the whole nation, she fell into a deep melancholy. In all honesty, if L'Arachel were a normal person, it would have merely seemed like a mild bout of moping. Nonetheless, everyone was very concerned about her.
Dozla tried everything he could think of to brighten her spirits, including an attempt at composing a poem that heaped praise upon her, offering to play games in Rausten's stead and insisting that everyone was just working to earn enough money to stay in the hall for a much longer time.
Rennac was much more subtle about his concern. For his part, he went along with Dozla's schemes to cheer L'Arachel up, but he also offered occasional, mild praise, such as telling her that she was probably in his list of the ten most attractive women he had ever known for more than a few days, that green hair was his second favourite hair colour and that he could do a lot worse than work for her. To his irritation, this had no effect on her mood. Things continued in this way for a few weeks, until one day, L'Arachel took Rennac and Dozla aside and said to them,
"Rennac, Dozla, I am ashamed of my recent behaviour. After much pondering, I have realised that I truly have been gambling because I enjoyed it. It was truly immoral."
"So you're admitting you did something wrong? There's a first." muttered Rennac.
"However, I have come up with a splendid way to atone for it."
"Oh? Let's hear it then."
"I propose that we leave Rausten incognito and go on another crusade to banish evil from all of Magvel!"
"Wait, what? What?! WHAT?!"
"Gwah ha ha! What a splendid idea Princess L'Arachel! It has been so long since my axe has seen action!" said Dozla.
"So, it's agreed then! We leave at once!" said L'Arachel.
"Oh no, no! Not again! Not another bout of foolishness! Please L'Arachel!" begged Rennac.
"Stop complaining Rennac. Come along now!"
Rennac sighed. "I'm going to regret this..."
The midday sun was shining brightly in the sky. Children were playing Hide and Seek and tag; bold knights were sparring; priests were performing their daily jobs; housewives were preparing lunch for their families, except for the occasional household where the wife was head of the family, in which case, the husband was preparing lunch; sunflowers were stretching themselves toward the sun, trying to be taller than the others; an eagle was swooping down to kill a careless rabbit; a knight was slacking off and was about to be reprimanded; a fish that had been trying to drown itself had been caught by a fisherman; the mysterious man in a top hat had been arrested and was due to be hung the following week; and a beautiful, fair, courageous, generous green-haired princess was travelling in the direction of Rausten's border, followed by a middle-aged, axe-wielding man and a handsome, yet exasperated, rogue.
THE END