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You try and put the dice and the cheat and the prospect of multiplying your silver out of your mind, but before you've even halfway across the room, you're already turning around to join one of the games. The dice tables are a bit lower and curved inward slightly to keep the dice from spilling out. You spectate a few rounds at first, getting a feel for the players, for the rules of their particular variant of dice. The leader of the group seems to be a brawny, hairless man with a large brand (the letter 'M') over his right eye, who goes by the moniker Joko the Egg. Once you show the two staters you're willing to wager, it is he who swipes them off the table, and snatches the dice from another's hand to place them into yours. The rules of the game are simple enough. The caster declares a number, if he rolls that number immediately, he wins. If he does not, he either loses with some numbers and continues to roll with others, depending on the number he declared. If he continues to roll, he must match his first roll to win, or match his declared number to lose. Any other number lets him keep rolling.
It is similar to the games your father played in, with one small difference: the caster may place a side-bet after his first roll, whose winnings carry over to each subsequent roll until he either wins it all or owes the accumulated stake. Normally such side-bets are only allowed to the bank, who are made up of the players, but it is as much to your advantage for you can win more than equal stakes, and with your cheat, win with certainty.
On the first roll, you declare a 7, but roll a 6. Your second roll is a 7, so you lose. Normally the dice would now pass to the next player, but you ask if you can have a second try, with the air of desperation you've often heard in your father. Joko the Egg, silencing all protests with a horse-like widening of nostrils, hands you the dice a second time. Again you declare a 7, and this time you win, rolling a 7 at once. You only bet a single stater that time, so you've but broken even, but the point was to see if they could catch your trick. None seem the wiser, so you cast again, once again declaring 7. You bet 3 this time and when the roll is neither win nor loss, you place a side-bet. The second roll leads to a third, which matches your first, earning you the win. Because the side-bet pays out 3 to 2, and with your original bet, you come out ahead a whole dozen silvers. Joko offers you the dice again, his massive hand hovering over the mess of staters you've just won, but you beg his pardon and, sliding the coins out from under his palm into your purse, beat a hasty retreat. Joko follows you as far as the door of the inn, but when you look behind your shoulder, he has gone back inside. It's probably for the best that you'll be out of town for the next few days.
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