Quoted By:
>INSPECT slime trail
Lester Six has taken your 'what's up' as a legitimate invitation to ramble, and you're taking that as an invitation to poke around while you nod and mm-hm through it. There is, you have noticed, something on the floor that wasn't there last night: a clear sticky trail, like a dog-sized slug might make. Or a human-sized slug. Did Lester leave this? You squint at it: it's melty, certainly, but it is shambling around on two shoed feet. Hmm.
The trail leads out from (into?) the hallway, winds through the lobby, and ends (begins?) out of sight around a corner. Is that where the gift shop is?
>TEACH blackjack
"whaTRE you doing ??" Lester Six leans over you.
Shit. You were less discreet than you thought. "Uh— I don't know, what does it look like? My legs got tired. Hey, do you know how to play blackjack?"
"whaT kind oF ToTaL Fucking moRon canT jackblack??"
Wait, really? Was Pat lying or just plain wrong? "Oh, man, okay. Uh... it kind of sucks ass with two people, since someone has to be the house, but... I'm usually that, anyhow." (The curse of managing Game Night.) "So it's fine. Maybe we can switch off. Do you have a deck of cards on you?"
It doesn't have a deck <span class="mu-i">on</span> it: rather it extends a gloppy arm and extrudes— you can watch the shadow inching towards the palm— a deck from inside it. It splats onto the low table.
"Was that—" you say, and think better of it. "Okay. Cool. Give me a minute to shuffle and shit, then we'll get going."
Shuffling is far more difficult than anticipated: some of the cards are bent or glued together, and your fingers are stiff and tacky to boot. You contemplate about dipping them in the water tank to regain some flexibility, but worry about controlling fine movements. (You have weird problems these days.) Eventually you give up and do the kid-shuffle of mixing the cards around on the table. Lester doesn't seem to care.
You learn why immediately: it doesn't know how to play blackjack. At all. Or possibly any card game, ever, because to your great annoyance you find yourself explaining what <span class="mu-i">suits</span> are. Kites, Claws, Shells, Scales. King beats Lord beats Lady beats Ace (kind of). You always discard the Magicians, they're not part of the game. The worst part is that Lester Six refuses to acknowledge its deficiency: when you press it on why it doesn't know this shit, it babbles something about being a busy man.
(1/2)
