The well
"If you bet a star on something then you are betting your life, if you bet two you are wagering the life of yourself and someone from your bloodline. If you win the bet then you will receive the amount bet by the other person multiplied by double of how many stars you bet. If you lose then people in your family will die, the person you bet against will be allowed to kill them. The number of stars you bet minus one is how many of your family they will kill, you have the privilege to kill yourself. The highest number of stars you can bet is twelve.
In all honesty I am guilty of both betting stars and reaping the benefits of the person I bet against losing when they have bet stars. I have cheated the system many times, my favourite being the time I told a man that he was to kill five of my family members since I had bet five stars. Never once have I suffered very much because of my gambling. I'm the only millionaire in my family and it's all thanks to the gambling system I helped create called stars. The richest man in the world is the most powerful man in the world. He holds the funds to move even mountains and can get any right-minded woman. Beautiful woman of many cultures fall at his feet and serve him for a night. He has the money for a mansion, horses, servants and can even make people do for him what they would never do for anyone else. However, even the richest man might fall from his pedestal; he might lose all he has. The richest man is an ever-changing title that I tend to ignore. The richest man in the world has a leaden tongue that doesn't begin to compare with my silver one, he holds more money than anyone but still he hopes to have what I have. His gold, his jewels, his servants and all his prostitutes do not begin to compare to me."
This is what is thought by a man named Occisor Nan Mentes. Most people could not pronounce this name so they called him Dedi which meant intelligent one or sharp minded creature. He lived in his luxury for twelve glorious years during which he truly believed in every part of his soul that he would never experience anything other than what he had then. His wife thought him pure and kind, oblivious to the many prostitutes that had seen him so much that they knew him by name, ignorant to the long list of woman with whom he had shared his bed. She did not have a mind to believe he was anything but perfect and could not - would not - try to find out whether he truly was. There were rumours, of course, but she ignored them. There were rumours of him being the reason behind the deaths of many government officials, rumours of his depravity and of his gracious sexual favours. She ignored every last one for eleven years.
On November first, Dedi's wife, whose name was Briste Um (she refused to change her last name to Mentes), finally asked him if these rumours were true. He immediately told some of his servants to lock her in her room for an hour. "I have a surprise for you that will settle your mind on this matter, but I can't have you ruining it. Stay in your room," he told her when she questioned his actions. The hour passed and at the last second Dedi arrived in Briste's room. She was asleep at this time so he carefully tied her to her bed and quietly, in the darkness of the night, raped her quiet sleeping body. Now to understand the severity of this scenario, you must understand that Briste was deeply religious and fundamentally opposed to any kind of sexual intercourse before she reached her thirtieth birthday and she was to be thirty on November second that same year. When she awoke she found herself covered in the semen of Dedi, however, she did not know who it was that had done this to her. She cried for an hour before finally taking a shower and calling Dedi to her room to find out what that surprise was. When he entered he smiled at her and held her in an embrace. She told him of what had happened to her and he feigned worry.
"What was that surprise?" she asked.
"I shall show you, but first I must know whether you trust me."
"With all of my heart."
"Then remove of the clothing you wear and let me tie you to this bed. I promise that I will not do what you ask me not to do but I need you to do this in order for the surprise to work." Briste blindly followed his instructions, wholly trusting him, wholly ignorant. Dedi looked down at her as she was tied to that bed and drew a curved sword from a sheath that he held at his waist. "I am the pure hearted Occisor Nan Mentes, am I not?!" he called out to her.
"Yes! That and so much more! You are Dedi! You are what I have always wanted!"
"Then you have always wanted someone who shares his bed with woman other than his wife!" he yelled and cut the skin beneath her breast with the blade of his sword. "Then you have always wanted someone who would violate you as you slept!" He yelled more and more things like this, each followed by a slash at her, each greeted by the scent of fresh blood. Briste tried at first to fight the ropes that held her but after a while she could no longer muster up the energy to move that fast. "Why would you do this to me?" she questioned softly looking Dedi straight in the eye.
"Because I enjoy it! I have spared you this long only so that your pain would be unbearable, and perhaps because I thought I loved you. I know now that I did not. You were never enough for me! Speak to any of my regular whores about me and they will show you scars that they are proud for possessing" his voice dropped to a low eerie sound that Briste strained to hear, "you disgust me. You disgust anyone who has ever loved you. You refuse to satisfy even my smallest of wishes, and for that you will pay in the very name of god."
"God would disapprove of this!"
"God made woman to satisfy men! That is how it should be, and you will die for failing to fulfil that cause!" he cut the ropes that held her and picked up a double sided spear from the ground. He shoved the spear into the carpet and picked her up. He left her body there, impaled.
On the twelfth year of his rich glory, on November second, Dedi found himself in a rather unfortunate scenario. He had bet a million golden coins and his opponent bet twelve stars. "Using a system invented by a man against that man is rather uncouth, but I will allow you to do so" Dedi told the man before the game began. They were betting on a game of Russian roulette between one of Dedi's slaves and one of his opponent's prostitutes. The slave raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, blood and brain splattered onto the floor after a loud bang. This caused Dedi to fall into a large debt of twenty-four million golden coins; he only had twenty-three million. So he ran, into the nearby forest and away from all of his troubles. He only took a purse full of coins, a cloak, a painting of his wife in the forest and a torch. He also carried a nice satchel to hold a few other possessions. After an hour of walking into the woods he found a well in the middle of it. Rejoiced he crouched down beside it and placed down his lantern. And then everything went black.
