PART ELEVEN

I made 386 give me a demonstration of his powers. He couldn't make changes while I was in the dungeon so I had to hover in the entrance like a wet dog.

I won't bore you with the details but he could unmake a trap and remake it without losing any mana. Or he could unmake a trap and get his mana back. If the traps were made from his stockpile of wood and glass he could unmake those traps just as easily. Basically, moving the furniture wasn't going to cost us anything (except a tiny bit of time). So we could get rid of Lair Hockey and not lose anything. Except face.

And my face is my fortune! So Lair Hockey stayed, like that one party guest who just won't leave even when you're throwing cake-encaked paper plates into black bags and deliberately bumping past him saying 'EXCUSE me'.

I made 386 remove everything from the dungeon. Then we put it all back, one element at a time, very slightly optimised. For example, the best games were moved furthest away from the entrance to make people walk a tiny bit further. And now the rooms had a more natural flow and had a consistent pathing system.

Once we'd agreed on basic layout principles, we doubled the size of the entire dungeon. You're probably yelling right now. 'Bro! Don't go overtrading!' But we had loads of building materials from all the swords and arrows and stuff heroes had dropped or fired back in the dungeon's heyday.

In the kid's area we added two more Spider Smashes. 386 wasn't the sort of dungeon to repeat himself. He made the second one greenskin-themed, so you had to whack orcs (warrior, shaman, chieftain), goblins (warrior plus engineer), ogres, and snotz (little tiny gremlin-type creatures who I'd never heard of). And 386 made the third one 4x4 instead of 3x3.

I asked him where he got his creative tendencies from but he furiously denied he was in any way artistic, saying he was just 'seeking more data points'. Yeah, right.

We also added another skill game inspired by/wholesale copied from Pop-A-Shot (the basketball game). We couldn't make anything from plastic so we just had very thin, hollow wooden balls that players would throw through nets to score points. We called it Hoops ("hollow oops"). I tested it and the balls 'flew' quite nicely and the game worked well.

Then we had a new room that expanded the casino area, in which 386 devised FOUR different one-armed bandits. There was a free version that would sometimes pay out a bit or two. There was one that cost a bit to play, but instead of bells, lemons, and sevens, it was spiders, skeleton heads, and tentacles. There was another one that was 'hero' themed (elf, dwarf, healer etc) which also cost a bit, but it came with a button you could press to nudge one of the cylinders. It was a fraction easier so the payouts were a fraction lower. Finally, there was a gorgeous machine that fairly gleamed and had four cylinders instead of three and was just generally a more premium version of the hero model. It cost a silver to play. 386 added a box on the wall into which you could pour 10 bits to get a silver. Thinking of his customers while making it easier for them to lose what they'd won? The guy was a genius.

But what made him create the mid-level bandits already? I asked 386 why he'd done it, seeing as our customers had so far been kids and apprentices. Folks who didn’t have a lot of silver coins. He replied, "If you build it, they will come," and refused to tell me if he spent his nights watching Hollywood movies or if he just had a list of quotable quotes handy.

Lennie the Lucky

A quick aside. So far, Lennie hadn't shown much interest in any of the games. But the one-armed bandits drove him nuts. He was crazy for them! He'd play the free one until he got a bronze, and then he'd stick his non-existent tongue out and wiggle over to the 'hero' machine and play that one. His cash should have run out, mathematically speaking, after one or two spins. But somehow he'd end up winning five or six bits, which he'd take to the 'monsters' bandit, where he'd slowly lose his cash and then go and have a nap.

386 denied that he'd given Lennie special treatment in the algorithm. So either that was a dastardly lie and 386 had ruined the purity of his code to give his most loyal defender better outcomes, or Lennie was just a lucky dude. Either way was pretty heart-warming.

And Lennie's gambling addiction turned out to be quite pivotal to everything that followed, as you might be able to guess from what happened next.

Cut To: Our Regulars In Da House

The expanded dungeon was bustling. Most of the kids and adults who had come before were there, plus a few extra friends. One of the apprentices had popped in during his lunch break and had spread the word about the new areas and games.

Hoops was... something of a flop. Basketball just didn't resonate with these medieval/Victorian AIs. Watching the tape the next day in the cinema room, I realised that while it was all well and good using real-life games, it would be sensible to create some that were more aligned with what these people did for fun. Market research needed! Still, as 386 said to me in what I now realise was a VERY patronising tone of voice, "some people liked it."

The problem was that the ones who liked it liked it so much they took the balls home with them, costing us more in lost wood than we gained in mana, according to 386.

The wider range of Spider Smash was... well, it was a smash. The NPCs went bonkers smashing the orcs, to the extent that more than half of the models ended up wrecked. 386 wasn't bothered - as long as they didn't run off with the scraps of wood it didn't really cost him anything. It left a sour taste in my mouth. If I went to an arcade and saw loads of broken games I wouldn't go back.

Then there were the one-armed bandits...

Cut To: Me Watching The Tape

"Say," said one of the new guests. "What's the reasoning behind this ole thingumajig?"

"Gosh, John, it's simple, ain't it? You pull the lever there and things happen, some of which may be advantageous to your person and some what cause you dismay."

"Goshtarnit, Cletus, why do you put on airs when girls is around? You never talk like this back on the veranda."

"Just pull the lever, John."

They got into the swing of things extremely quickly. 386's idea to have one bandit that gave coins for free was incredible - it meant guests could stay in the room ten times as long, and unlike real Chicagoans the NPCs were polite when forming a line.

"Dad," said one little brat to the guy who was currently playing the free bandit, "I'm hungry."

"All right, son. We'll be going soon."

Refreshments! We needed to provide food and drink to keep folks around longer.

"Now, Cletus, I notice you're pulling the lever real slow, there."

"Sright John. It's much Luckier this way."

"Ain't no such darn thing as Luck. You know that same as me."

"See, I think that's where you're holy hick what in the blazes is thayut?"

At this moment, with all the guests pretty much ready to leave, Lennie shuffled into the bandit room. He scratched the back of his pelvis and walked towards the free machine. The man who was playing saw the skeleton boss and quacked. He scampered away and ducked behind one of the other machines. Lennie put his left hand on top of the bandit, leaned forward so he could gaze at the cylinders as they spun round, and pulled the lever.

One of the men had a truncheon of sorts, and he slowly crept up behind Lennie. The room was totally silent except for this man's heavy breathing and the shhhh-clunk of Lennie pulling the lever. The man got into coshing range, and Lennie turned and noticed him.

"Oh," he seemed to say. "Is it your turn?" He rose to his full height and eased away, gesturing to the man to take his spot. The man looked confused, but he put the truncheon back onto his belt and pulled the lever on the bandit. Lennie leaned in to see the result. Spider, spider, tentacle. Oh, so close! Lennie slapped his forehead. The man grinned and Lennie waved at him to go again. After three more rounds, Lennie tapped the man on the shoulder and then indicated that he would like to play. The man said, "Oh, sure, we was leaving anyhow" and made space for him. The man noticed that the rest of the humans were near the door and said to the skeleton, "Uh, bye." Lennie tried to give him a special goodbye handshake like I'd taught him, but the man didn't get it. Still, it was clear that Lennie wasn't a threat and the fact that he was just as enamoured with the one-armed bandits as they were seemed to create a bond between them.

That would prove useful later.

Especially during the whole heist thing.