As Marco went outside he saw several people walking around town, all of them looked human unlike the lizard men in the house. There were all kinds of people in town, a lot of them looked to be travellers and there were even children playing around in the snow.

«I wonder if children have the mark as well.» Green

As Marco was on his way to the doctor’s house someone demanded his attention. A well dressed young man was calling for him near one of the houses, he was sitting in a chair near the door and had a table set in front of him with 8 cups of clay.

“Hey boy! Yes, you! Come over here I got a deal for you!”

“A con-artist in this era?”

“Con-artist? Sorry boy but I’m no artist just a regular street entertainer!”

«He’s definitely a scammer but I like his vibe»

“What do you want?”

“I can see you arrived recently and let me guess. You don’t have a single piece of gold with you?”

«If he knows I have no money then why does he want to talk to me?»

“You see this bar behind me? It’s the dear deer, if you want to be entertained then this is the best place in town.”

“As you just said, I’m broke, how do you expect me to go in there?”

“Your backpack, you have some good quality brand new items in there.”

“So you want to buy them?”

“Buy them? Oh no no no, I’m not a merchant. I want to play a game with you.”

“If I win will you give me money?”

“If you win I give you gold, if you lose you give me an item from your backpack.”

“And the game is?”

“I will put this steel ball inside one of the cups, then I will teleport the cups between each other, if you can tell which of the cup is the correct one by the end, you win.”

As Marco heard the rules he developed a huge grin on his face, this man was a goldmine.

“Sure thing buddy, I’ll give it a try.”

“For this round I will bet one gold for all your string.”

“Sure thing go ahead man.”

The man placed the ball in one of the cups and started moving his fingers up and down, left and right. Along with his movements the cups looked like they were jumping in pairs, then they jumped in trios and then the man stopped.

“Oh this is tricky, so you make them teleport but not to high so it looks like they are jumping in place, all of this makes it hard to track the movement of the actual cup.”

“It’s hard but if you get the hang of it you will get it right most of the times.”

“That sounds about right.”

«This is definitely bullshit, he teleports them in a way that makes it ridiculously hard to guess, then when he does it in trios there’s no way to know which cup is which since there are three switching places at the same time. To make things worse even though they are made of clay I cannot tell the difference.»

«If it wasn’t for my power I would be screwed.»

«The cups 1 to 8 from left to right, is the correct cup number 1?» Red

«Is the correct cup number 2?» Red

«Is it number 3?» Red

«Is it a even number?» Green

«Is it number 4?» Red

«Is it number 6?» Red

“Boy if you couldn’t track it then just pick at random.”

“Yeah, this is really hard, I will go with the one on the right then.”

“You got it right, this is what I call beginners luck, it’s basically free money.”

The man handed Marco a golden coin, it had the number nine-hundred on the front and what looked like fairy wings engraved on the back.

“No need to admire that one coin, for next round I will give you five gold if you gamble your string!”

“Go ahead.”

As the men teleported the cups once again, this time he did the trios bit earlier and for longer.

“I see what you tried to do there but its not going to work.”

“Oh really, then go ahead, pick the cup.”

«Is it a even number» Red

«Is it greater then 4» Red

«Is it 3?» Green

“It’s this one.”

“You got a good eye, here is your gold, want to keep going?”

“As long as I’m winning I’m playing.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Marco and the man played five more rounds with higher stakes, Marco won every single on of them and was now in a total of 76 gold.

«It’s amazing he still lets me play.»

“Alright boy, I’m going to propose a special round.”

“Go ahead.”

The man proceeded to slam a bag of coins into the table.

“A hundred gold if you win, all of my gold back if you lose.”

“Regretting your choices now?”

“I can’t let you beat me that many times, I have my pride.”

«This one will have some sort of trick, but I can still win it.»

“Go ahead.”

The man started teleporting the cups but much faster and ended it by swapping four cups at once. He had a big smile on his face as if he knew Marco was definitely going to fail this time.

“That’s dirty play, give me some time to think.”

“As long as it doesn’t extend to my lunch time, I can wait.”

«Is it a even number.» Green

«Is it on the rightmost side?» Green

«Is it number six?» Green

«Wow, first try.»

“It’s this one.”

“Sorry man, out of luck.”

As the man raised the cup he revealed there was nothing there. Marco grabbed the cup and tried looking inside but the ball was not there. That’s when he realised the truth behind the game, he had been so caught up on the fact that the game would be extremely difficult for the normal person that he failed to realise the game might be rigged.

Even though there was a huge red flag for this round he still fell for it.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You cheated! The ball had to be there.”

“No, it was here.”

The man raised the second cup revealing the ball.

“Look, I feel bad for you so let me offer you a deal, I will let you receive all your money back plus twenty gold if you bet your coat.”

“I’m in, start it.”

The man did the same as he did before, an incredibly hard round, but tracking the ball was not the problem, this man was cheating. Marco had to find a way to win the game by understanding how the man cheated.

«Is it a even number?» Red

«Is it a number greater then four?» Green

«Is it number five?» Red

«Is it number seven?» Green

Marco put his hand on top of cup number seven.

“You think that’s the one?”

“I’m still thinking.”

«Is the ball still on this cup» Red

«That bastard, I see what he did now.»

Marco had finally realized how the game was rigged, he had moved his hands during the whole game so that when he stopped, you wouldn’t assume he was using his power. Furthermore, he made the attention fall on the cups when he could just as well teleport the ball. Even if you picked the right cup he was able to make it the wrong cup whenever he wanted.

«Is there a way for me to even win this game?» Green

Marco checked where the ball was again, but if he choose that one then the man would just make another one the correct one.

«I get it now, if I can’t predict the current location, then I will predict the next one»

Marco put his hand on the current correct cup and as soon as the man looked at him he raised the next correct cup. However, there was nothing there.

“Tough luck, whatever you were trying to pull out didn’t work. Now hand me the jacket.”

“Did you realise how I was winning before?”

“No and I don’t care enough to, give me what you owe me.”

Marco handed him the money he had gained and his jacket.

“Come play again someday!”

«This man, he really pisses me off.»

Marco had got so caught up in the game that he had forgotten he was to go to the hospital, as he went down the path he began to feel the difference of wearing that jacket out in the snow.

When Marco arrived, there was one more wounded person in there but the girl was nowhere to be seen. Her absence however was not the focus of Marco’s attention.

“Doctor when did that man come in?”

“Oh him? He got injured during his guard duty yesterday.”

“Where was he injured?”

“He is one of the guards on top of the walls, someone attacked him from the outside.”

“If he was down, couldn’t someone get in over the wall?”

“Why are you making all this questions?”

“Because I know who might have done this.”

Marco was certain of it, this guard, his arm perfectly cut off, even part of his leg was missing along the line of the attack. The one who did this to him was whoever killed all the people outside of town.