Sitting on a stump by an outcrop of evergreen trees and with colorful spring flowers blooming all around, Peter pushed his blond hair out of his face, looked blankly through his light brown eyes, and wondered just what he had gotten himself into.

What seemed like just hours ago, he was walking home from work. He was making his way through snowy Boston streets, with every expectation that the next day would repeat his normal routine.

Yet now he was in an unknown place with only a handful of hard facts, none of them good.

Thinking back to how he ended up here, nothing made sense.

It started when, walking home from his job at the brewery, he had chanced on an old hobo who had a cup out - apparently begging for change.

Now normally, Peter would never give hard cash to the homeless but the mans age coupled with the wintry weather weighed on his heart and fishing out a few 5-dollar bills, he stuffed them into the man’s cup.

Turning to walk away, he was stopped by a somber voice.

“No money in the cup.”

Turning around, Peter wondered if he had mistaken this old man for a hobo and insulted him, but after looking the old wretch up and down, he was sure this man didn’t have 2 nickels to rub together.

Seeing this and feeling that his good-will had been denied, Peter shrugged and moving quickly went over to get the money back he responded rapidly: “Whatever, dude.”

Reaching his hand into the cup, he felt the paper bills and pulled, but weirdly, there in his hand was not the few 5dollar bills but instead appeared 6 bone 6-sided dice.

“What th-“ he was about to say, but was cut off when the old man looked at him with piercing eyes that almost made Peter fall back.

Speaking with a voice that sent chills up the younger man’s spine, the old man then spoke: “The wager has begun, roll the dice.”

“Wager?” asked Peter after an embarrassingly long period of time when he found the courage to do so.

Seeing no response coming from the old man, he tried to drop the dice and realized to his astonishment that they wouldn’t leave his hand.

Shaking his hand with more and more urgency, Peter stumbled backwards and shouted: “What kind of joke is this?”

Again, he spent an embarrassingly long amount of time doing so, until he realized that neither the old man would answer, nor that the dice wouldn’t leave his hands and so stopped struggling and asked another question.

“If this is a wager, I need to know what I am supposed to be betting.”

This got a response, and it wasn’t one that Peter liked: “You’re waging… everything.”

Hearing this, Peter’s eyes urgently scanned the old man.

He, himself, was roughly 6ft tall, in alright shape, and naturally could fight given how he grew up.

The old man in front him was perhaps 5ft tall, skeletal in figure, and because he was wearing nothing except rags Peter could tell that he wasn’t armed.

If he had been annoyed at first, now he thought it was a joke, and laughing he said: “Yeah, very funny.”

With that laugh, he forgot his prior fear and decided to roll the dice and got 1-1-1-6-6-6.

“Good roll.” Said the old man before Peter could respond, and snatching up the dice with inhuman speed, rolled them himself.

2-3-5-5-2-4.

“Tie.”

Confused by this, Peter had been unknowingly caught under the old mans spell and laughing he sat in front of the specter rolling and re-rolling the dice.

He lost some but won most, until finally the old man fixed him with a ghastly eye, angry for some reason, and said: “One more roll” “And the wager?” Peter asked, happy because he had won so many rounds.

His joy didn’t affect the old man, who just looked at him evenly and said: “A one-way journey to [The Fated Place].”

Shrugging, Peter didn’t take anything this old pauper said seriously, and so said: “Haha, yeah sure, loser goes to [The Fated Place].”

Picking up the dice, he rolled 1-5-4-2-3-2.

“Not bad, 17.” Said he, and waited for the old man, who, looking at Peter deeply picked up the dice and threw them… 4-2-2-4-4-2

“huh? 18-”

And that was the last thing Peter remembered before waking up near an outcrop of trees in the middle of nowhere.

After checking that he still had his kidneys, his teeth, and was missing no parts of his body, Peter sat there cursing the old man and himself for being so dumb.

He sat there for several minutes until he heard…

[Ding! Congratulations High Roller!]

Seeing a blue box suddenly appear in front of him, Peter flung himself back off the stump screeching like a wounded animal.

“What the actual f*&$?!” he yelled audibly, talking to himself but got a response anyway.

[Ding! Welcome to the Fate Casino!

High Roller Status! Current Winnings 8,500,000]

“The Fate Casino? Dude, I’m trippin, I must be trippin! God, I’ve never done hard drugs in my life! Damn, that old man must have slipped me something!”

Waving his hands side to side, Peter suddenly paused when the blue screen changed.

[Caution, Recommended to Cash Out before leave Fate Casino]

[Dismiss Fate Casino

Yes/No?]

Suddenly stopping when this message appeared, Peter didn’t know what to think, but something in his heart told him to not be hasty and so he carefully poked the air that said ‘No.’

When he selected ‘No’ the blue screen rebooted and he was back at the highlighted [Welcome to the Fate Casino] screen, and after tapping on the message, he saw 8 options pop up underneath.

[Adaptation]

[Appearance]

[Item]

[Reincarnation]

[Skill]

[Species]

[Spin to Win!]

[System]

Somewhat confused, Peter still understood what ‘cashing out’ meant and so clicking [Adaptation] he was awed though not totally dumbfounded when he saw an incredibly long list of powers.

Many of the things on the list could not be called ‘powers’ and were more like genetic traits such as:

[Hitchhikers Thumb – .1FC]

or

[Morton’s Toe – .1FC]

And then, there were some wild adaptations such as:

[Regeneration (Model, Deadpool, Marvel Comics) – 3,800,000FC]

[Regeneration (Model, Wolverine, Marvel Comics) – 4,000,000FC]

[Super Solider Serum (Model, Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5) – 1,000,000FC]

[Super Soldier Serum (Model, Captain America, Marvel Comics) – 2,000,000FC]

[Super Soldier Serum (Model, Luke Cage, Marvel Comics) – 1,500,000FC]

There were so many, literally every conceivable Adaptation, that Peter could have been looking at them for days without reaching the end.

He had 8.5m points to cash out with, and suddenly that didn’t seem like very much.

Then again, he didn’t understand why these prices were fixed in such a way.

After all, Captain America was physically much weaker than either Luke Cage or Albert Wesker, so why should his serum be more expensive?

Peter didn’t know this, he remembered about as much about comics as any casual fan, and just figured he must be forgetting something.

And naturally, that higher price was more enticing because of it.

Moving down the list, the [Appearance] tab was exactly what it sounded like.

For next to nothing he could change his physical appearance, for only a pittance he could even add muscles.

But in the end, he decided not to venture too far in this tab, Peter was certainly no underwear model, but he was 6ft tall with blond hair and brown eyes and had generally always been satisfied with his looks.

The next tab was [Item] and it had far more options than [Adaptations].

It seemed that the Fate Casino treated buildings as [Items] because mixed in with things like [Philosopher Stone (Model, FMA) – 3,000,000) there was [Rebel Starport (Model, Star Wars) – 800,000).

Luckily there was a search feature, and so browsing around the item list until midday, Peter highlighted a few cool items.

[Excalibur (Model, Arthurian Legend) – 4,000,000FC]

[Elixir (Model, Final Fantasy 7) – 550,000]

[Master Sword (Model, Legend of Zelda) – 4,000,000FC]

[The Golden Fleece (Model, Chrysomallus) – 6,000,000FC]

Of course, there were many items that Peter searched for fun that he couldn’t even think of wanting like:

[Infinity Gauntlet (Model, Marvel Comics) – 99,999,999,999FC]

Or

[Aule's Forge (Model, The Silmarillion) – 999,999,999,999FC]

Moving on from the [Item] tab was [Reincarnation] and from there Peter saw a list of scenarios that he could buy.

These scenarios were relatively cheaper, and it looked like he would get relatively more, but being that he’d have to die in order to redeem them, he naturally moved on.

The [Skill] Tab was almost as expansive as the items and contained every move he had ever heard of, from the [Kamehameha (Model, Dragon Ball) – 1,000,000FC] to the [Hadouken (Model, Street Fighter) – 150,000]

Again, as Peter sat on the stump, he was confused how this so-called Casino made its prices.

Surely the Kamehameha was many, many, times more powerful than the Hadouken.

Besides these there were skills like [Kung-Fu], [Fire Manipulation], [Second Wind], [Astral Magic], and even [Blood Magic].

Each and every [Skill] had its own Model which made the list much wider.

Peter wondered how these would all work, he didn’t know where in the world he was but surely, learning [Fire Manipulation] was a waste.

In the end, due to the costs of other things, Peter only highlighted a few Skills to come back to.

They were:

[Second Wind (Model, Borderlands) – 200,000FC]

[Vectors (Model Lucy, Elfen Lied) – 8,000,000FC]

[Wraith Abilities (Model, Shadow of Mordor) – 5,000,000FC]

Finally standing up and walking around to stretch, Peter couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the Vectors.

He was never a huge anime fan, but he had seen that particular anime and joked that if nothing else he could become Earths most successful hitman.

In truth though, the [Skill] tab was the first really practical tab that Peter had seen.

As cool as it would be to gain the abilities Albert Wesker and shoot around Kamehameha’s, in reality that wasn’t so useful.

So, besides these Skills that were obviously fantasy, Peter highlighted more down-to-Earth abilities such as [Monetary Theory], [Mathematical Affinity], and [Enhanced Memory]

Going past the [Skill] tab he moved to the [Species] tab, took one look and dismissed it.

He had no interest in turning inhuman, and powerful humanoids like [Saiyan] or [Kryptonian] were naturally more expensive than his 8.5m FC.

Interestingly though, [Kryptonian] was more expensive than Saiyan, Martian, and basically everything else under the realm of Deities.

Shrugging his shoulders, Peter figured that was due to the fact to be a powerful Kryptonian took nothing but time as long as you were under a yellow sun.

The [Spin to Win!] was just a roulette wheel, and at the price of 500,000FC per roll Peter was not very interested in it, sure maybe he could get a Saiyan body, or maybe he could get a [Chicken] which for some reason was under the [Items] tab.

Moving to the final tab, [System], Peter was met with initially a much barer bones list than the others.

Each [System] had a wide cost range, some started as low as 500,000FC and some reached the same heights as the [Infinity Gauntlet].

Being 21 years old in 2022 and having lived through the pandemic, Peter naturally played games.

But he didn’t play or need nearly enough to recognize what half of these names were referring to.

[Strongest Sword System]

[Gamer System]

[Super Gacha System]

[Pokémon System]

[Fat Bastard System]

[StarCraft System]

Etc.

Etc…

Scrolling down the list, ignoring almost all of the names on it, he was focused on the price ranges and stopped at one that he actually knew.

[Mount and Blade System (Model, Warband): 3,000,000 – 15,000,000FC]

Peter hadn’t played that many games in his life, and those he had played were mostly single player strategies.

But he loved Mount and Blade, and quickly tapping the icon he was astounded by the extent he could modify this system.

The barest bones [Mount and Blade System] were just a character sheet, an inventory, and a backstory – which by itself was nothing small!

Having anything that could replicate ‘stats’ was naturally powerful, Peter thought, and having an inventory was like an invisible backpack!

Of course, he couldn’t figure a need to have a backstory – he may not be in Boston right now, but he still had his clothes and ID on him.

Hell, he even still had his lunch box, that old man was really strange!

Thinking that he’d never actually use it, Peter sat down and started fiddling with the System in front of him.

Hilariously he could use cheat codes on the Character and Inventory Screens, and quickly made his ‘Character’ level 60 with 200,000 Denars.

Sure, these upgrades cost more FC, but Peter wasn’t really going to select this power.

He had already decided to select really useful skills and items to make money with. Clean and simple, he didn’t care about having superpowers or anything else.

But still having fun, he selected the Mount and Blade System, he increased the character sheet level and amount of Denars, he selected his Banner, and finally finished by making the backstory of a poor Noble pushed out of his house.

He had to say, all of this was very cost effective, and he could have it all for a ‘mere’ 4.2m FC.

There were other functions for this system too, such as the ability to ‘Recruit’ from various in-game factions, although the price of this upgrade was steep, and Peter figured out where the range of cost came from.

To recruit from the Mercenary Faction added 500,000 FC, to recruit any of the 4 major factions started with 800,000FC and quickly jumped with each consecutive selection.

‘Doesn’t actually seem that bad, but I wonder what it means by Recruit?’ thought Peter.

5.5m FC for this System seemed very good value compared to the others, but Peter wondered if that was because at the end of the day Mount and Blade Warband took place in roughly the 1500’s Europe, and in general was nowhere near as powerful as having ‘Vectors’ or ‘Wraith Abilities’.

By now it was past midday, and looking up, Peter thought he needed to move before it got too dark.

He wasn’t scared of the dark as such, but his lunch box only had a left-over sandwich that he was already craving, and he was afraid of going hungry in the woods.

Getting up and stretching his legs, he did his best to ignore the holographic blue box in front of his face and started walking.

There had been nothing in the small clearing beside the thicket of trees he was near, but he readily noticed a hill and decided to go and take a better look from up there.

Walking step by step, Peter felt happy.

Of course, he considered that he may have actually lost his mind, but for now, until he used the Fate Casino, he would be glad.

He thought so until he walked about halfway up the hill and started hearing noises, now naturally in his situation you’d think hearing noises was a good thing!

But in reality, the noises he heard were pops, yells, and in general the sounds of mayhem.

Wary but undeterred, Peter boldly moved step by step until he christened the hill, and despite first seeing tall mountains in the far distance, his eyes naturally wandered downwards and what he saw made his bowels turn to water.

‘My God…’

There was a giant battle happening what must have been only a couple miles away and fumbling for his phone Peter zoomed in and clearly made out green creatures fighting fully bearded men wearing thick armor.

The bearded men were outnumbered at least 3 to 1, and though Peter had never had to estimate numbers before, there were at least 5,000 green-skinned monsters attacking between 1 and 2 thousand bearded folk.

Standing there alone on top of the hill with his mouth ajar, his eyes were drawn to movement in the near distance, and he saw scores of wolf-like animals smashing into the line of armored bearded folk, and feeling the crash from where he was, Peter didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t hesitate, he didn’t think, he didn’t even breathe, he just dropped his lunch box, turned around and ran as fast as his legs could go.