Rising Shards

After what felt like six solid hours of Brambler people trying to get us to buy their stuff—which was pretty bold of them considering how much it cost to go to this just as a wingman—we had finally reached the closing ceremony, which Stella described as "No holds barred speed dating."

We were brought to another section of the event (I wondered how much space they had squared off for this thing) where a bunch of inflatable slot machines stood. Our group added a few members (making up for Mahina's new friend Vallie getting kicked out), but Stella and I were the only wingmen for it.

"You are in charge of lever pulling," a sleepy Brambler employee explained to us. "You pull this lever, and try to match the three things or whatever. Then it gives the dates a card, and they have to decide if they fold or hold or go all in with their date. If they say no, you put the card back in the little pouch behind the thing."

That was I guess kind of an amalgamate of how various casino games worked. Stella explained that one of the years a casino was the gimmick theme, and they reused the inflatable parts every other year or so.

"We can take turns on lever pulling and card-putting-back-ing, I guess?" I said.

"Works for me!" Stella said.

Mahina went first, paired up with a woman who claimed to be a big league mat ball player named Rylla. I would have searched to see if she was lying, but I had to focus on doing this lever pull right. In spite of its inflatable appearance, the inside must have been metal or a heavy plastic with some tough to crank mechanism inside. I nearly threw my back out trying it once.

"Probably should have mentioned that thing is hell to turn," Stella said.

"I'm taking that as a challenge," I said. The next turn, I put my all into it, making the slots go off. We only matched two sets of Brambler boots, but a bunch of tokens came out along with a laminated card, falling into a part surrounding the slot machine, basically an inflatable pool or ball pit.

"The tokens are just for show, do not touch them!" The Brambler employee shouted at us.

"I wasn't gonna take any," Mahina said, rolling her eyes as she picked up the card. "It says 'go on date to post office' on it."

"Hmmm," Rylla said. "Pass on that, I think. No offense to you, just I don't think post office date sounds fun."

"Agreed," Mahina said. "Can I just go again?"

"I think if you're good with the person you're with you can, otherwise we'll jump around," Stella said. "Like do you and Rylla, then another pair, then another,"

"I think we should be second," Alix said like that was a dramatic thing to declare. None of the other couples really cared about order so it worked out.

Stella adorably tried the crank and completely failed, giving the honor back to me. Somehow we were gonna turn "trying to operate a weirdly hard to use slot machine with an inflatable exterior" into a flirting game, with Stella cheering me on as I moved it. This turn had no matches, with a Teensly Street character, a heart, and a Brambler water bottle as the icons that popped up on the slots. Rylla grabbed the next card.

"This one says one night stand," Rylla said to lots of whoops and screams from our group.

"Hell, I'll cash in on that," Mahina said. "Or what do they want me to say for it?"

"I honestly can't remember," Rylla said. "But the important thing is you cashing in on me."

More cheers and screams, while I was hit with another wave of "we're really doing this, huh?"

"Brambler is...pretty nuts, isn't it?" I asked. It wasn't really an out there observation that Brambler Co. must be pretty wild to juggle dating service, a crappy teen drama, and camping gear at once, but I had to keep saying it to stay sane. Well, as long as we were all having fun that was the important thing. And as Mahina's wingman, I had to cheer too for her getting a winning draw, or slot machine or whatever this was supposed to be.

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