The King bearer three

Part 9: Jay

If there was ever anything that you could never trust a Hermes kid for, it was to deal a fair hand in Poker. True, there was a lot you probably shouldn't, or couldn't trust Hermes kids for, but one of those things was a fair game of Poker. This information first came to light for a girl called Chen Jay around the age of six. The same information was useful for a young miss Chen at the age of seven. This information was then mastered by miss Jay Chen, until she became the most feared player in the entire cabin. She knew how you played a bad hand. Or, more accurately, that you didn't. 

Instead of wasting your chips on a bad hand, you folded, dropped out of the running and saved your chips for a rainy day. You then left the table, or you waited for the dealer to deal you in, with a more favourable set, in the next hand. This was especially useful in the Hermes Cabin, where the dealer and one of the players were usually in a back room deal to make the player a profit, and so wouldn't appreciate someone dropping out instead of dropping chips. This did two things; one, it made it easy to tell who the dealer was playing favourites with, as whoever reacted the worst or the fastest was usually the player set to win, and two, if you waited at the table, it made the dealer more likely to give you a better hand, in order to keep you at the table as long as possible. It was never really possible to win against a biased dealer, but by making to leave, you could turn the dealer's bias more in your direction, and that got you cash money, if you kept your chips right. 

This was how she played. Jay Chen, played to win, she played for chips, and she played for observation. She didn't play for money. Under the Hermes Cabin's house rules, chips would be traded back to the losers, in exchange for something valuable. For most people, this meant money, and while she would turn chips into money, sure, that was how you played, but she saw that she could use that money to get information. She'd contact gossipers and tap them for dirt, or just trade chips back to the losers for a secret or two. She got what was valuable to her in the end.

It was why the Hermes Cabin's gamblers so feared her. She had dirt on every single one of them, she always did, and no one could deal her a biased bad hand or risk breaking a deal and losing chips. Some called her unconquerable, but that was a lie, a complete fabrication. She knew it more so now as she stared at her cards, and the cards on the table. She'd lost plenty of times, and she could always lose more, if her luck ran cold. This moment was a fine example. "I fold," she said, gently dropping her cards onto the table and putting her chips away. The dealer, a young camper around the age of seven, looked worried, "Did I do something wrong," he asked. Jay could have laughed, but thought it would be mean. It seemed the kid had been listening to the liars in the cabin, "Of course not," she said reassuringly, "I just decided to drop out. Besides," she added, getting up, "I may need the loo." The kid giggled a bit as she got up to leave, clearly not having grown out of finding toilet humour funny. Jay hoped he never grew up. It was a cruel, hard world that awaited those that did.

She was emerging from the toilet when she heard a thump at the door. No one else seemed to notice it, probably too absorbed in their card games to care, and so she didn't pay the sound any heed, rationalising it away as she sat down at another table. She was two hands into a game of Texas hold 'em when the door was nearly thrown off its hinges, and Tobias Grimier fell through the doorway, soaked to the skin and probably cold, onto the cabin floor. He quickly scrambled to his feet and looked around, seeming stunned. Then again, it wasn't every day that someone walked in on the Hermes de Monte Carlo gambling club. 

The Hermes de Monte Carlo gambling club was created before many could remember, by Hermes Cabin councillors, as a way to forge connections between the many, many children of many different gods living under the Cabin's roof at any one time. It had continued as a tradition in the Cabin for years, usually occurring when most of the younger members were asleep or busy with something else, such as dinner, which is what many of the younger campers were currently busy with. Its members were sworn to secrecy the moment they were initiated, or expressed interest. It had once been a rule that you had to live in the Hermes cabin to join, but after the creation of the minor gods' cabins, it had become an inter - cabin organisation, with half weekly meet ups to play anything from Poker to Roulette.