Inside the shop window there was kimonos, and china dresses, and even a shrine maiden outfit…
These were all clothes from Japan!
It was a far-away island nation, and because of that…
They really liked sailing!
Boats were a big part of their culture.
So much so, that the school uniform for girls was a sailor’s outfit!
Of course, it was a cute version, and not really what a girl would wear on a boat these days…
The one in the shop window featured a white blouse with short sleeves, and a distinctive blue sailor collar with an eye-catching red ribbon neckerchief! It also featured a matching blue skirt, and long black socks, and shiny brown loafers.
Mr. Cat raised a paw and pointed at the outfit.
“That’s it! That’s what the Goddess of Shopping told me to tell you to buy!”
“Okay, let’s get it!” Lily said.
She was in no mood for any more delays!
She hadn’t been in any mood for delays before lunch, and that had taken forever!
She was getting a little impatient!
They went inside, and were greeted by the shop owner and tailor.
“Welcome!”
“Hi, I’d like to get that outfit!” Lily pointed, and got straight to the point.
“Ahh, the sera-fuku, I see you have excellent taste, young lady.”
There was a little back and forth as the shop owner made sure the sizes were all right, and then…
Lily stepped out of the dressing room.
“Ooh!” the shop owner said, and then she started clapping. “You look wonderful, young lady. Very kawaii!”
George and Lily’s Mama also joined in the clapping.
Lily did a little twirl.
“It’s very cute,” George said.
“Yes she is,” Lily’s Mama agreed.
“Mrow,” Mr. Cat said.
“Okay!” Lily said, done twirling. “Let’s go save Papa!”
“Wait, Lily!” Ghostly Duke said.
“Huh?” Lily stopped and looked up into apparently empty space.
“You have to pay!”
“Oh, right.”
Lily got her wallet from her Mama, and went up to pay the owner at the register.
“You know,” the owner said, “they say that’s a lucky outfit, especially for Japanese games.”
“Japanese games?” Lily repeated.
“Yes, like shogi, or mahjong.”
The shop owner pulled out a pamphlet, and showed Lily.
It was an advertisement for more gambling!
Ugh, advertisements were everywhere!
But Lily looked, and sure enough, there were a few women in the pictures wearing sera-fukus like Lily was.
Sally leaned over and looked at the pamphlet as well. “Oh my, what a detailed drawing…”
She wished she had a drawing of Lily in her outfit like that!
“Oh, no, it’s a printed photograph, they’re all the rage these days…”
“Ah, Mama, look!”
In the back of photograph, wedged in a corner at a mahjong table…
It was Papa!
“Huh?!”
Sally snatched up the pamphlet and brought it super close to her face.
“That’s Bill!”
The owner pulled out another pamphlet.
She had a whole stack of them!
She handed it to Lily, who also looked closely. And her ghosts leaned in as well.
“So that’s Lily’s Pops, huh?” Ghostly Duke said, leaning in close and overlapping with the other ghosts.
“Wow, it sure is!” Mac said.
“What’s he doing in a picture of a casino, though?”
“Wait, it looks different from the other pictures, though…”
Most of the pictures were of pretty fancy places.
Bright lights, smiling faces, well dressed people…
But the picture with Lily’s Papa was on a whole other level.
The furniture was super nice, and gilded with gold, and Lily’s Papa was wearing a tuxedo! And the other people in the picture were dressed just like…
“Hey, don’t the other people in the picture look like the fancy nobles from France?” Ghostly Duke said.
“Meow…” meowed Mr. Cat as he looked.
They did!
“Ah, Sally, weren’t you going to get a disguise?”
“Huh? Oh, right.” Sally put down the pamphlet.
She looked at the dresses.
A kimono didn’t feel right, and it would be hard to move in.
A china dress would fit in at the casinos, but she was a Mama…
“Mama, try that one on!”
It was a shrine maiden outfit, with a white robe and long sleeves and a long red skirt, all the way down to cover her shoes, and…
“Look, it has a mask!”
It had a mask included, to cover her face, and the mask was a fox face!
“That’s a shrine maiden outfit for Tricksy, the God of Tricks and Trials,” the owner explained
Sally tried it on, and…
“Ooooh! Mama, you look really good!” Lily said.
“And with the mask on, it makes for a good disguise!” George added.
“Meow,” Mr. Cat meowed.
He had found a see-through green plastic visor! It fit on his little cat head perfectly, leaving room for his ears!
He looked quite dashing!
“So, which casino is this one?” Sally asked the owner, pointing at the picture with Bill in it.
“That one? Oh, that’s an exclusive casino for the nobility. It’s invite only, too.”
The Prince’s Palace Casino…
It was a casino exclusively for high rollers with lots of money!
“Wait, the Prince’s Palace…?” George said.
The owner nodded.
“Yes, the Crown Prince converted his palace into a casino.”
“Oh, well, then I know where that is.”
“Yay! Let’s go!” Lily said, jumping up and down.
Lily paid for their costumes as fast as she could!
And so, they all climbed back into the car, but…
They reached the end of the road!
There was a parking lot, and they all got out.
They were at the edge of the Great Swamp.
It was a foul place, with murky, muddy water and reeds. Near the parking lot, there was a dock with rows and rows of gondola boats that people could ride in. Out in the distance, there were fancy looking buildings, half submerged in the muck, and there were shabby looking shacks out there as well.
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“This is the edge of the Great Swamp City, the capital of Appalashia,” Mayor George announced.
“Mrow…” meowed Mr. Cat.
He didn’t want to get wet!
Cats don’t like getting wet!
“Hey, look!” Lily pointed.
There were people walking in and out of the swamp!
Men and women in business suits and fancy noble clothing were walking around in the muck!
Some of them were only sinking in up to their ankles…
Others to their knees…
But a lot of them were waist-deep, or even more.
Some of them were up to their necks and eyes!
“Swamp creatures…” George muttered.
Sally just looked with wide eyes, but she was wearing her mask! Nobody could see her expression!
Her fox-face mask simply gazed at the swamp with a cold smile.
The more corrupt the people of the Great Swamp City were, the deeper they sank into the muck.
You might think that was a bad thing…
But the swamp creatures liked it!
As they walked around, they could exchange letters and bribes in secret, underneath the murky swamp waters!
Nobody could see what their hands were doing!
And then when they needed to do official business, they would climb the steps up to the fancy stone buildings, and pretend to be good and honorable…
But as soon as they were done pretending, they went right back into the swamp!
“Eugh, are we gonna have to go in the swamp?” Lily scrunched up her face.
She had just bought this sera-fuku! She didn’t want to get it dirty!
“No, thank the Gods. There are gondolas for the visitors. We can ride in a boat to where we need to go.”
George led them to the docks, and found a reputable looking boatman.
“Can you take us to the Prince’s Palace Casino?” he asked.
“Sure,” the young man shrugged. “But they won’t let you in without an invitation.”
“We gotta save my Papa, mister boatman!” Lily explained.
“Hey, how did you know my name?”
“Huh? Oh, geez!”
It was happening again!
“I’m Johnny Boatman,” Johnny introduced himself.
Everyone else introduce themselves as well.
“I’m George, Mayor of Three Creeks Village.”
“I’m Lily!”
“You can call me Mr. Cat.”
“I’m, er…”
“Don’t worry, one of Tricksy’s Priestesses, right?”
Sally nodded.
“Don’t worry about it, Miss Priestess, just don’t trick me too bad, alright?” Johnny laughed.
He was a good sort of fellow!
Besides, he had ferried Tricksy’s priestesses around before.
They always used fake names, and played tricks!
It was easier to just call them all ‘Miss Priestess’ and hope they were feeling nice.
Plus…
If you were nice to them, later, good things would happen!
Tricksy was that kind of God.
He was a bit of a rascal!
So, they all clambered into the gondola, and Johnny poled them through the murky, foggy swamp…
They boated their way through the people walking around in the muck, and overheard various shady dealings, passing the fancy stone buildings with pillars and carvings on them, until…
There it was!
The Prince’s Palace Casino!
It used to be a really classy, fancy stone palace rising above the swamp, where the future king of Appalashia would live and learn how to govern.
Now, it was half sunk into the swamp, letting swamp creatures enter in without even having to leave the muck.
Johnny poled them up to a guard at the entrance, who was only up to his knees in the muck.
He was wearing a black suit and had a shaved head! A real tough guy!
“Welcome to the Prince’s Palace Casino!” the muscle man said. “Can I see your invitations?”
“We don’t have invitations,” Lily declared. “We’re here to save my Papa!”
The guard frowned at them.
“Look, kid, if you don’t have an invitation, you can’t come in. And besides, you have to be a noble to enter the Prince’s Palace even before that.”
Sally put a hand to her face mask’s cheek.
They were commoners!
Lily pointed at George.
“What about Mayors?”
But the guard shook his head. “Nope, you gotta be a real noble: a Baron, Earl, Count, Duke, or Royalty.”
“Ah!” Lily plopped a fist into her hand. She turned to her Mama in the shrine priestess outfit. “Ma—I mean, Miss Priestess, can I have my wallet?”
She fished around inside it, and…
Pulled out a ring!
“I’m a Countess in France!” Lily declared, showing him the ring.
It had the royal seal of Queen Marie on it!
“What? Where did you get this…?” the guard asked as he inspected the ring.
It was real!
“In the Glorious Sun Kingdom of France!” Lily said.
Duh!
“Well, let me check the list…”
The guard pulled out a big book of French Nobility!
It had pages that could be added or removed easily, listing everyone who was a noble from that kingdom!
And, sure enough…
“Whoa, well I’ll be. You just became a Countess this week!”
The page had been added yesterday, when the news came in!
“So now I can come in, right?” Lily asked.
Sally breathed a sigh of relief.
She had forgotten about that!
She had been more focused on teaching the Queen about baking cakes…
But, the guard shook his head no!
“Nope, you still need an invitation, even if you’re a Countess, milady.”
He was being more polite now!
But he still wasn’t letting them in!
“Well, how do I get an invitation?” Lily asked.
“You gotta rank up, of course.”
“Rank up?”
And so the guard explained.
All the Dave Dealerman associated casinos had a points system based on what games a person played, and how much money they gambled.
The more they gambled, the more points they got!
And as they gained more points, they moved up in rank!
There were bonuses at each rank, like free drinks at the casinos, access to better hotel rooms, and VIP gambling areas where they could gamble even larger amounts of money!
The guard handed them a pamphlet explaining everything.
There sure were a lot of pamphlets going around!
It was a system designed to make people gamble more, and keep gambling…
But Lily knew the value of a dollar!
She had worked really hard doing all those chores!
And then she started a business!
And she was a good-at-math girl!
Basically, the more she gambled to earn points…
The more money she would lose!
Johnny Boatman poled them over out of the way, so the guard could check other people, and they all looked at the pamphlet.
“I can’t make heads nor tails of it…” George admitted.
“Hmm…” Sally could only hum as she read.
“Grrr…” Lily growled.
She growled!
The thought of gambling away her money and wasting even more time was really frustrating!
The ghosts couldn’t help either.
“None of us are gambling experts…” Mac said.
But…
Mr. Cat meowed!
“Meow!” he meowed!
Everyone looked at him.
Mr. Cat was an expert at avoiding hard work!
Lily remembered.
He bragged all the time that cats were too smart for loans, and that was why nobody lent them money.
They could always use the rules to avoid paying it back!
He tapped the pamphlet with his paw.
“Look at this, meow. Mahjong gives the most points, and it has the most bonus points for winning big!”
The VIP rank required one hundred thousand points.
Playing on a slot machine gave one point per pull.
Playing cards gave three points per hand.
Playing dice gave five points per roll.
Mahjong gave one hundred points per hand, and there were four hands in a round, and four rounds in a game in a full game. That was one thousand, six hundred points per game, just for playing!
And there was bonus points.
Winning by drawing, which was called tsumo, gave another hundred points.
Winning by another player’s discard, called ron, took a hundred points from that player and gave it to the winner.
And if the dealer won, and they got another hand as dealer, they got increasing points. One hundred, two hundred, four hundred, it doubled each time!
And different casinos had different multipliers for their mahjong games…
It was totally game-ified!
It got people focused on accumulating rank points, and gambling more, and distracted from the money they were losing!
But…
Lily was short on time!
She needed to get up to VIP rank as fast as possible!
“So I’ll have to play mahjong…” Lily said.
George frowned.
“Nothing good ever came of mahjong,” he warned her. “It’s a game that ruins lives, even if the house doesn’t have an edge…”
“But I gotta save Papa!”
Johnny poled them back over to the guard.
“Hey, Mister Gu—”
The guard raised an eyebrow.
“Ahem, I mean, may I ask for your name?” Lily asked.
“It’s Gerald Guardman,” he said, still giving her a suspicious look.
That was a close one!
“Mr. Guardman,” Lily continued, “I want to confirm, does Bill work here?”
She showed him the pamphlet, and both his eyebrows went up!
But then he frowned and looked back at Lily.
“I can’t talk about that. If you have questions about debtor’s prison labor, you need to go visit the debtor’s prison.”
Sally frowned behind her mask.
She was pretty sure Bill was here!
But the guard wouldn’t answer any more questions.
Sally and Lily huffed, but didn’t say anything as George directed Johnny to take them over the debtor’s prison.
“Nyaa, this is a good thing,” Mr. Cat said.
The two frustrated women looked at the fluffy grey cat.
“Wouldn’t it be better to skip this whole gambling arc and just get Bill free? He was wrongfully arrested, after all.”
Mr. Cat was on it!
That would be a lot less work!
Mayor George nodded. “Right. I never signed off on the arrest warrant, and Lily, you have the money to make the payment, right?”
Lily nodded.
She had lots of money from her super chores and franchise openings!
She had about fifteen thousand dollars.
That was a lot of money for an eight-year-old!
But she was a business-owning, cattle-rustler-catching, dairy-cow-saving, revolution-ending Countess!
And so, they arrived at the debtor’s prison.
