Something did emerge from the android’s mouth, but it was less predictable. She began spitting gleaming coins, freshly minted from Everson’s blade. They tinkled brightly into the android’s hand until there were twelve in all. She then approached the apron-topped table and, with a tilt of her silver head, indicated that she wanted Everson to follow.

The android woman settled into position on the far side of the table, and Everson stopped on the side opposite, facing her. With a slight of hand almost too quick to follow, she laid out the coins on the apron in alternating squares as if starting a board game. She looked up to Everson expectantly. The prince eyed both the board and the strange android dubiously.

“You must think I’m dim,” Everson said. “What are we playing for, my life?”

The android simply tapped the table.

Everson sighed with as little petulance as possible and simply muttered, “Blazes.”

He scanned the board for a moment and made a hesitant move, unfamiliar as he was with the rules of this particular game. The android moved without hesitation. Everson moved again, more confidently this time, a strategy materializing on the checkerboard pattern before him. Again, the android moved immediately after. And so it progressed, quickly and with growing aggression until Everson gleefully jumped every one of the droid’s pieces with one of his own.

“Ha!” the prince exclaimed triumphantly.

His victory was short lived. The blue neon grid exploded from the checkerboard with a metallic growl, and Everson cringed. The coins in their blue squares began to glow with an intense silvery light. The points of light quickly detached from the metal and floated upward, stopping at varying heights above the tabletop. Everson studied the configuration and, for the first time in this disingenuous dungeon, understanding came quickly. The android moved around the table to join him, assessing Everson like a mentor awaiting proof of a postulate. Everson nodded slightly at his silver hostess.

“I know what that is,” he said simply.

It was the Aurora Constellation, the harbinger of Mano’s dreaded Prophecy.

The android scooped up all twelve coins from the apron with one sweep of her silver hand. As before, the blue grid and would-be stars tumbled to the tabletop and disappeared. With an almost stately air, the android proffered the coins now neatly stacked in her outstretched hand.

Everson considered the coins with a mixture of surprise and unexpected gratitude. Having been born into royalty, it was not the money that impressed him, but the act of unsolicited generosity. It was a virtue he often associated with his mother.

“Thank you,” he murmured as he took the money, slipping it into his satchel. Before the tinkling of coins stopped, the door to a third chamber scraped upward with an ominous groan. The android gestured politely in that direction. Everson nodded and moved toward the opening—only to be stopped by a double tap on the tabletop. He turned to find his silver hostess gathering the apron and presenting it to him with a courteous bow.