vindaloo, I briefed Rose on the status reports and deadlines on the whiteboards. Rose added a financial timeline, showing different ranges where we’d run out of money. Those ranges didn’t overlap with the completion estimates in the slightest. I didn’t bother asking Rose about using the cash in our savings account, so I was floored when she brought it up.
“It’s simple business,” she said. “We passed ‘good money after bad’ a year ago. Now the only chance to see a return of any portion of our investment is to go all in, and I want to see a return. I’m tired of this company interfering with our wedding plans.” She sucked the meat off three chicken legs and dropped the bones in the trash. “It’s Las Vegas, after all. Isn’t going all in on a risky bet and winning what that city is all about?”
“No, it’s about losing everything and pawning your clothes for a bus ticket home.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Let’s go for it anyway. It makes a better story that way.” I looked at Nadia and asked, “How many junior family members have the skills we need, and how many of those could you get to come to Colorado?”
Nadia shrugged and poured herself more mango lassi. “How many can you afford?”
Chapter Three
The Odds May Be Never in Your Favor
The flight attendant woke me up just before our flight started its final approach to Las Vegas. Local time was one thirty in the morning. BuzzCon setup started in six hours, and Rose wouldn’t be here until tonight with our clothes and luggage. My bag allowance had gone to three big honkin’ steel cases holding a server and a dozen laptops.
I schlepped the cases out of baggage claim and went through five cabbies before getting one driving an SUV. The driver was five-foot nothing, around ninety pounds, and she lifted the cases as though they were tin lunchbox totes.
While we drove, I asked, “Do you work out, or just bench press luggage all day?”
“Neither! I am delicate Russian flower.” She laughed. “I did body building in Israeli Defense Force. I am from Moscow, but my family moved to Tel Aviv. I move to Vegas eighteen years ago. I kept up the weights. Also I kept up Krav Maga. Someone gets stupid with me, I break them. That’s why I stay. All the stupid in the world comes to Las Vegas.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Soon enough, the distinct Sun Elven architecture of the Trove hotel and casino came into view. White marble towers crowned with crimson tiles and highlighted with gold leaf, flying the rival banners of Law and Chaos over the city. Vegas had casinos based on New York, Paris, Venice, and ancient Egypt, but the Trove was, literally, like no place else on Earth.
The taxi slid under a crimson and gold Way Gate—the Elven version of a Japanese torii— and up to an immense, full-size replica of the marble gates to the city of Stormhaven. The battle-scarred crenellations loomed over the porte-cochere, “majestic and defiant, despite the gouges left by the Great Dragon Manduvexilloncar’s claws.”
That’s the actual quote from the hotel brochure. I shit you not.
A nine-foot Minotaur in full battle armor lumbered up to the cab. His gear had to be an epic set; parts of it were glowing and his axe had a ball of plasma in the middle of it. He leaned into the window and thundered, “ Jeka chagat choov? ” The rough translation is, “How can I help you?” The actual phrase in Morga means “What else are you incapable of?”
I pointed to the cases and said, “ Choov ha deka! ” That was Morga for “You carry my burdens.” Since Minotaurs refuse to carry anything but armor and weapons—and the money to buy more—it was a heinous insult that also happened to be both short and easy to pronounce.
The Minotaur roared an oath to the Great Sky Bull to kill me and use my skin as a drum before storming off. He went in through the gates as a bellhop with a trolley came out. The bellhop loaded my cases up while I
“It’s simple business,” she said. “We passed ‘good money after bad’ a year ago. Now the only chance to see a return of any portion of our investment is to go all in, and I want to see a return. I’m tired of this company interfering with our wedding plans.” She sucked the meat off three chicken legs and dropped the bones in the trash. “It’s Las Vegas, after all. Isn’t going all in on a risky bet and winning what that city is all about?”
“No, it’s about losing everything and pawning your clothes for a bus ticket home.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Let’s go for it anyway. It makes a better story that way.” I looked at Nadia and asked, “How many junior family members have the skills we need, and how many of those could you get to come to Colorado?”
Nadia shrugged and poured herself more mango lassi. “How many can you afford?”
Chapter Three
The Odds May Be Never in Your Favor
The flight attendant woke me up just before our flight started its final approach to Las Vegas. Local time was one thirty in the morning. BuzzCon setup started in six hours, and Rose wouldn’t be here until tonight with our clothes and luggage. My bag allowance had gone to three big honkin’ steel cases holding a server and a dozen laptops.
I schlepped the cases out of baggage claim and went through five cabbies before getting one driving an SUV. The driver was five-foot nothing, around ninety pounds, and she lifted the cases as though they were tin lunchbox totes.
While we drove, I asked, “Do you work out, or just bench press luggage all day?”
“Neither! I am delicate Russian flower.” She laughed. “I did body building in Israeli Defense Force. I am from Moscow, but my family moved to Tel Aviv. I move to Vegas eighteen years ago. I kept up the weights. Also I kept up Krav Maga. Someone gets stupid with me, I break them. That’s why I stay. All the stupid in the world comes to Las Vegas.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Soon enough, the distinct Sun Elven architecture of the Trove hotel and casino came into view. White marble towers crowned with crimson tiles and highlighted with gold leaf, flying the rival banners of Law and Chaos over the city. Vegas had casinos based on New York, Paris, Venice, and ancient Egypt, but the Trove was, literally, like no place else on Earth.
The taxi slid under a crimson and gold Way Gate—the Elven version of a Japanese torii— and up to an immense, full-size replica of the marble gates to the city of Stormhaven. The battle-scarred crenellations loomed over the porte-cochere, “majestic and defiant, despite the gouges left by the Great Dragon Manduvexilloncar’s claws.”
That’s the actual quote from the hotel brochure. I shit you not.
A nine-foot Minotaur in full battle armor lumbered up to the cab. His gear had to be an epic set; parts of it were glowing and his axe had a ball of plasma in the middle of it. He leaned into the window and thundered, “ Jeka chagat choov? ” The rough translation is, “How can I help you?” The actual phrase in Morga means “What else are you incapable of?”
I pointed to the cases and said, “ Choov ha deka! ” That was Morga for “You carry my burdens.” Since Minotaurs refuse to carry anything but armor and weapons—and the money to buy more—it was a heinous insult that also happened to be both short and easy to pronounce.
The Minotaur roared an oath to the Great Sky Bull to kill me and use my skin as a drum before storming off. He went in through the gates as a bellhop with a trolley came out. The bellhop loaded my cases up while I
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