999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Part #10

Part 10: Casino 2

There's only 2 things we really have to do in a set order, but for convenience - and just a little bit of streamlining - we'll get the slot machines out of the way now.

All right, let's put the coins from that bag in here.

What happened? I heard an odd noise.

Uh... Well, to be honest, I don't know.

(I pressed some of the buttons and smacked the machine once or twice, but nothing happened--)

Oh dear...

Well, that's this slot machine rendered unusable. Great, isn't it? At least we still have two more to go try. Might as well start with the most convenient one.

And by "most" I mean "least."

You got the coin stuck in the machine on the left. Please don't make the same mistake again. That would be bad.

I know that! It'll be fine!

(Jerk. I'll put this coin in this slot, and that'll show him.)

Do you intend to lock us in here?

I-It's not my fault! The coin just got stuck all on its own!

Ha... Oh boy.

I think someone should probably take the coins off of Junpei before this actually happens. I'm sure if given the chance, he'd find a way to screw up enough to make it a possibility.

But, since that's not going to happen we've only got one more machine left. Let's make this one count!

(Come on you little bastards, I only need one of you.)

Ah, good, at least this one works. It's not much of a puzzle, since it's just a matter of getting the slots to line up right.

This is, of course, based on lining up with the blue icon on the right and despite what it looks like getting club-diamond-hearts here isn't all that easy. I don't think I can manage it!

And what is so "tough", if I might ask?

Hitting these reels just right. The timing is...well, it's not easy.

I don't believe you need to "hit them just right".

...Huh?

...Snake, what do you know that we don't? Anyway, we'll give this another shot but still can't quite do it.

Junpei, are you trying to time your button presses to the reels? Are you quite sure you need to focus so much on their movement?

Look at the buttons on the machine. You see the symbols? You've seen these symbols somewhere before, haven't you?

I don't think I saw any particular symbols of special note on the machine. It might be worth a second look though.

Hm? What do you mean?

The symbols on the reels. They're the same as the playing card symbols that I saw over the fireplace. But this is different...

Huh?

Don't you think the symbols might be found in other places as well, apart from the reels?

Oh, I... I think I see it now. Something like this:

For this, timing doesn't even remotely matter. The only thing that affects whether or not you're going to pass is the order you hit the buttons. So long as you hit the club, diamond and heart buttons in that order it will always come out as 7-7-7.

Impressive, Junpei. It would appear to be unlocked now. There is something akin to a drawer in the bottom part of this machine, yes? That is a pick-up drawer for dividend. Probably the lock for the drawer got unlocked. Please open it, if you would.

Yeah, a playing card. And... a key with the [Venus symbol] on it!

Excellent, Junpei! Now we will be able to open the gate!

Then we just need to figure out how to get out of this room.

Correct. Come on, Junpei! Hurry up!

(And he's off. There was a playing card and a Venus key. Better put the key in my pocket for later. As for the card...)

With this, we get two potential solutions for the next puzzle. Both are equally valid and whichever one is used is irrelevant.

The best one to tackle next is, of course, the only one we can do next. Let's take a look at this baccarat table then.

You just asked me "are we really supposed to play baccarat", right?

Yeah.

Well, I was thinkin' and... You might be right. See, in baccarat, players calculate their score by taking the sum of all the cards they've got and just play using the single-digit numbers. Just ignore the stuff in the tens place, is what I'm saying. But this game seems a little different.

So you take the sum of your 3 cards, and your play is the digital root of your cards. In other words...

Hmm... All right, let's give that a shot.

(Before I start, I'd better make sure I've got the rules right. There are 3 empty indentations. I just gotta pick a card and play it. I figure if I put them in the right spots, something oughta happen.)

All right, let's give this a try.

Y'know, I'm beginning to think I might not be all that cut out for these kind of things because I can't find either answer.

You get it? If we wanna win (8), we gotta have (9). That means we gotta make (9) with the digital root of 3 cards. An' there's only two ways we can do that:

You see what I'm sayin'? We gotta make (9) or (18) with 3 cards.

9or 18, huh...

9 or 18? That's easy enough to manage. We can get 9 from 2+3+4 which is the answer you'd first think of if you missed the bit about the answer possibly being a digital root.

Alternatively, since we could've done this before, we can get 18 out of 5+6+7 which, of course, gives us 9 via its digital root.

Yes! Open for me!

Great! You did it, Junpei! You think it's telling us to take the (8) card?! C'mon, let's grab it!

Just one more area to look at, and it's the one best done last since we can only go to it really after getting the 8 from the Baccarat table.

But, y'know, I'm not entirely convinced we have everything we need yet. Maybe we should go take another look around just in case.

Junpei. Let's try an' sort this out, all right? There's the ace of spades on the left side of the card slot and a (9) on the right side. That ace is a (1). So we gotta make (9) using (1), and the other cards we got.

Oh, so that's it...huh.

Well, in that case, the card we need is...

Turns out we do have everything we need here after all.

It seems we have another device to contend with, yes?

There are 3 slots in this one...

Well, we don't know of any other possible places to check out so we might as well examine the new device.

And there's a (9) right below them.

So, that probably means we gotta make (9) with the 3 cards we put in the slots, right? Just like what we did over at the baccarat table...

All right, let's give it a shot.

Since we already have three cards and there's nothing lese left to check out, we might as well just solve this and move on. We'll take a look at the alternative dialogue eventually, though.

What happens now?

(Is that...? Yes! I did hear something from the exit!)

Excellent work, Junpei! Wonderful!

Let's go!

I can think of one thing we should probably go back to take a look at again, since we can leave whenever now. We do usually get unique dialogue for that, even if it sometimes isn't all that interesting.