After a night of tossing and turning, Vincent eventually was able to sleep until the morning. It was strange, Vincent’s body knew that it was morning, but there were no windows and no natural light that enforced that notion. Either way, he felt rested enough to start the day.

As he began to throw the covers off of himself, he smelled something delicious that wafted through the air. He immediately recognized the smell, because it was something he longed to have again—it was the smell of fresh waffles. Without hesitation and still in nothing but his boxers, Vincent rushed towards the source of the smell. Rounding the corner of the bedroom, he saw Eliot with an apron on, making breakfast.

“Woah, there’s a kitchen that comes with this hotel room?” Vincent asked with surprise.

Eliot turned around and just smiled. He was taking the newly made waffle out of the waffle maker and moving it onto a plate that was already stacked with other breakfast essentials.

“I figured it would be nice to get a room with some essentials,” Eliot said, squaring up the contents of the plate. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice it before.”

Before he could respond, Vincent saw a disheveled Zander, sitting at the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen, put down the paper that he was reading. “I’m not surprised, he collapsed on the bed the moment we walked in,” Zander added, sipping his coffee.

“Don’t mind him,” Eliot said to Vincent, smiling and rolling his eyes, “he’s just upset that we spent more money than we had to for a hotel room.”

Zander didn’t respond, he just sipped on his coffee and continued to read whatever he was reading.

“Go take a seat, Vince, breakfast is almost done.”

He didn’t have to hear another word—Vincent was already excitedly making his way towards the table before Eliot even finished his sentence. Within a few moments, Eliot brought over a plate of freshly made breakfast for all three of them. He sat down and they all began to make their way through their meal.

Nobody said a word while they ate. As opposed to it being awkward, the atmosphere was actually peaceful, and despite where they were, they each felt a sense of momentary relief. That being said, it didn't last forever. It was the calm before the storm that was reality.

As soon as they all finished their meal, a wave of despair and gloom started to slowly wash over each and every one of them. This despair took many different forms. For Eliot, the despair grew into anxiety that gripped his heart and tugged on his emotions. For Zander, it took the form of doubt—doubt about where he was, what he was doing, and why he was doing it. And for Vincent, that despair took the form of claustrophobia, which was strange. He normally never cared for tight spaces or anything of the sort, but the feeling of restriction that seemed ever-present chilled him to the core.

No one spoke a word. Everyone was caught up in their own darkness that started to swirl around them. That was, until Vincent stood up and exclaimed something to them all.

“We gotta do something!” he said.

Shaken by the sudden outburst, Eliot stood up, too. “Y-you’re right, we have to do something about this,” he added.

Zander was the only one who remained calm, still sitting at the table. He finished what was left of his coffee and gingerly stood up. “I agree, besides, if we don’t, we'll be stuck here forever,” he stated.

He then looked at Vincent and said, “We’ll show them how dangerous we can be—your brawn and my brains will be unmatched.”

“And I’ll always be here to support you guys no matter what!” Eliot added.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Vincent smiled towards Eliot.

With their confidence and motivation back at what it needed to be, the group began to make their way towards the Silver Pillar’s main gambling rooms.

The first thing that they noticed about those gambling rooms compared to the Stone Pillar was how much nicer it was. It wasn’t a 5-star grand resort by any means, but it still had some polish to it that wasn’t present in the previous area at all. The other thing that was noticeable was the lack of people compared to the amount of space available. There were 3 different rooms for gambling in the Pillar—one for cards, one for slots, and one for other games—and each one was at least twice the size of the entirety of the previous pillar. Even with that size, there was just about the same amount of people gambling as there was in the previous pillar’s gambling room.

The group slowly walked through the main room and took account of their surroundings. They saw a few workers, some empty-looking people, some decently happy-looking people, and a lot of things that were lined with silver.

The group realized how big of an area it was and that they needed to cover some ground. After some debating, Zander proposed that they should split up a bit and try to locate the games and methods that could get them the most money the quickest. With that being the case, he gave Vincent a little of the money that they collectively had on the condition that Eliot went with him to keep him in check.

Vincent agreed to those terms with little resistance, took the money, and began to make his way towards the first thing that caught his attention. Zander went in the opposite direction, probably towards the card game room.

Vincent quickly found an interesting-looking machine that enraptured him. It was a giant wheel that was surrounded by touch screen panels. It lit up with gold and white lights, and the entirety of the perimeter of the wheel was lined in silver. It was the most marvelous thing that Vincent’s eyes had seen so far that day.

In front of the machine was a young Egyptian female, no older than 19 or so. She wore clothes that weren’t in horrible shape, but they had obviously been worn for a number of days in a row. The girl herself had tanned skin and curly, brown hair. She seemed to be feverishly playing the machine.

Strolling up to the girl, Vincent asked, “How do you play this one?”

The girl didn’t respond, and instead, put another coin in and pressed a red button that was on the front panel.

Confused by the lack of an answer, Vincent just watched her play the game. After watching her play it a few times, he pretty much figured out how it worked. The machine was a game of both skill and chance—you started the game by pressing the red button, then lights would circle around the wheel, and then you pressed the red button again to stop the lights. Depending on where the lights stopped on the wheel, there was another game that had to be played on one of the corresponding touch screens. That was as far as he got when it came to understanding how the machine worked; both because he never saw the girl win and because it was too complex for him to enjoy.

Eventually, it seemed that the girl ran out of money, but instead of leaving the machine, she just stood eerily still. He gave her about three seconds to move, and when she didn’t, he started to tap on her shoulder to ask her to move.

The moment he touched her shoulder, the girl immediately swung around and knocked his hand away, and backed herself against the machine. There was a bit of a shocked and panicked look on her face. After a few seconds of both of them staring at each other, the girl’s expression relaxed a bit, although there was still some obvious tension.

“Whatcha so jumpy about?” Vincent asked. “I was just wonderin’ if you were done with that machine—I wanted to give it a try.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. And yeah,” the girl replied, staring at the machine, “I suppose I am done.”

“Fantastic!” Vincent replied, rubbing his hands together in excitement. But before he could move to try it out, he heard another person speak out.

“Vince,” the voice said in a somewhat disappointed and annoyed fashion, much like a parent watching their child jump into a mud pit.

Looking back, Vincent saw that it was Eliot who said that. He had forgotten that Eliot was with him.

“What?” Vincent asked, genuinely confused by Eliot’s tone.

Eliot only rolled his eyes and shifted his attention to the girl. “Are you ok?”

Within a second, tears began to flow down the cheeks of the girl and she began to silently sob. There was a bit of an awkward silence while the waterworks in her eyes were emptying themselves. Once she was apparently done, she wiped her eyes, looked at Eliot and said, “No...”

Eliot just gave a warm and empathetic smile and asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s wrong?”

“This place is just horrible—it took everything from me,” she replied.

“Welcome to the party,” Vincent added in a half-joking manner.

Eliot immediately shot him a dirty look that screamed Read the room, and he immediately shut up and backed himself out of the conversation. Eliot then turned back to the girl and gently asked, “What’s your name? And what happened?”

The girl sniffed and replied, “Well, my name is Zahra and I’m all alone now.”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother, Baako, and I accidentally ended up here when we were searching for answers to this weird power he got. The moment we realized where we were, we tried to escape.” Her demeanor then grew sour and resentful. “We made it this far, but we would have made it even further if it wasn’t for that man.”

Eliot kept his look of genuine concern, but there was now a hint of confusion on his face. “What man?”

Zahra looked to her left and then back at Eliot. “One of Lucretia’s top recruiters.”

“Recruiters?” Vincent interrupted.

“Yeah, recruiter. They are some of the only people allowed to come and go from this place. It seems like they are the only people that Lucretia seems to even trust in the slightest. From what I heard, they bring in people from the outside in order to always have people in the Setting Sun to feed off of, or so they say.”

“That’s horrible,” Eliot sadly replied. “And how did this recruiter hurt you here?”

Zahra took a deep breath and said, “They still are patrons of this underground casino like you and me, so they still gamble and play games—just sometimes they play in order to get certain things for Lucretia. It seems like she even plays by her own rules.” Another tear began to form in her eyes. “And it seemed that the recruiter we ran into was in the market for servants, as he called them. We lost everything to him, and in order for me to live somewhat free, my brother offered himself as a servant in exchange for my debt.”

Eliot recoiled a bit upon hearing that and stumbled backwards. Luckily, Vincent was paying attention and caught him before he lost his balance entirely. Eliot then righted himself but seemed to struggle to respond to what was just said.

Seeing Eliot’s silence, Vincent asked, “So crap like that is even here, huh?”

“Anything and everything can be bought and sold,” Zahra dejectedly responded.

With a bit of fire now lit in his heart and his motivation revving up, Vincent asked, “So where is this asshat anyways?”

With a bit of surprise obviously thrown across her face, Zahra stuttered, “H-he’s at the table all the way in the back-left corner, but I—”

But before she could even finish what she was going to say, Vincent had already made up his mind: he was going to teach this little shit a lesson. He began to make his way towards where Zahra mentioned, when Eliot called out to him. It was already too late—Vincent was dead set on this. Besides Lucretia coldly murdering a man, this was the worst thing he’s heard of so far in this casino.

He carelessly pushed his way through people, weaving around all sorts of gambling machines and tables with incredible speed. His destination was set, and there was nothing that would stop him. When he reached his destination, a chilling realization coursed through his veins. Out of all the things he expected to see, what he saw before him was one of the last.

“You?” said the man who was sitting at the table that Zahra described. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

Vincent just stood in place, his mind filled with his burning rage and the chilling reality of what was before him. He knew that he had to pick a side—let reality freeze him in place or give in to his fiery passion. Finally, he gave in to his anger and fire and responded, “Fuck you.”