Not every game can be rigged, can it?

She failed at the hammer game. Fine - perhaps she [i]could[/i] stand to do some more push ups. Redemption was sought in the air rifle booths. This was a matter of precision and control and she should be ideal at this - and she was! Every bullet hit a target! Unfortunately none of them were [i]her[/i] target and for some reason that meant it didn't count. Speed, then! See her hands blur as she misses mole after mole! That was fine, that was just another stupid hammer game - let's find a trial of intelligence! A nice, traditional game of Go would be enough to demonstrate her devastating intellectual superiority. And yet she finds herself staring at a board run through with lines of black and her clown-painted opponent gives her a pitying shrug.

What... was this? She was the most competent person she knew. She was brilliant. She'd blitzed through university, intuiting arcane secrets that eluded the most senior researchers. She'd learned every practical art needed, from first aid to dungeoneering. She'd worked night and day to learn the true nature of reality and the mechanisms by which it might be altered and nothing had stood in her way. She'd solved Parvit's Theorem while her classmates were still getting the names of colours down. These - these [i]games[/i] should surely be lesser problems? By any objective measure she should be the most functional person in this den of wash-outs, runaways and literal circus clowns. Even if the games were rigged she should be able to figure out [i]how[/i] and solve for that!

Ailee stepped off the ride, took two steps, and fell over. She couldn't even handle a little dizziness. Everyone else was barely unsteady. What the hell was this? What was she [i]missing[/i]??

It does not immediately occur to Ailee Sundish that she has never even attempted fun in her life before.