[center][h1][b][color=black]❚█══[/color][color=red]Villagxor[/color][color=black]══█❚[/color][/b][/h1][/center]

Gamblerdise had never been quiet but this was a different kind of noise. Laughter, shouting, arguments and games. Children filled the open spaces between tents and huts, more than there had been a month ago, more than the valley had ever planned for. Refugees’ children ran alongside those born in Gamblerdise, barefoot or half-shod, carrying the habits of places that no longer existed.

Among them moved the Changelings, impossible to miss and ordinary at the same time. One boy with moss-green skin darted through a cluster of runners, while a girl with slit pupils like a lizard’s watched from the shade, sharp-eyed. Two siblings with skin like layered stone sat together near a low wall, fingers tracing patterns in the dust. No one stared for long. Difference was background noise here.

Teaching happened in fragments. Parents showed what they knew, when they had time and patience for it. A Game Master taught counting with pebbles. A farmer showed how to judge soil by smell. A refugee mother practiced knots and bindings with her daughter, while nearby a father tried, unsuccessfully, to explain how to calculate odds. Knowledge flowed unevenly and it became problem.

Some children learned quickly, not because they were smarter but because their parents had more to give. Others learned almost nothing beyond how to stay out of the way. Skills clustered in families instead of spreading, small islands of competence forming without intention. No one had caused this. No one had noticed it clearly either.

The valley held them all regardless. Chance encounters taught more than lessons did, and games blurred into arguments, into dares, into improvised contests. Dice clattered on stone, sticks became markers, rules changed mid-play and no one minded much. 

Villagxor did not see it coming. A small wooden marker bounced off his leg, followed by a shouted apology and a child scrambling to retrieve it before the game could collapse into argument. He waved them off, but his gaze lingered as they scattered again, reforming their loose circle with new rules shouted over one another. Only then did he really look around.

There were children everywhere. Not dozens, more than that. They spilled between huts, clustered near work areas, filled the shaded edges of Gamblerdise and the open center alike, close to the temple and the Anchor. Some played elaborate games with clear structure, others improvised chaos with enthusiasm and noise. Villagxor felt a tightness settle in his chest, not fear, not anger, but scale. Gamblerdise had grown and this was the proof of it.

He watched longer. Patterns emerged once he stopped seeing them as a crowd. Certain children dominated games because they knew how numbers worked. Others lingered at the edges, unsure when to speak or act. A few always won, not by luck but by understanding rules better than the rest, rules that changed often but never randomly. Knowledge was shaping outcomes here.

Villagxor’s hands clasped behind his back.  This was not neglect of their parents. It was the natural result of teaching being private, accidental. In a place where chance ruled daily life, understanding chance had become an advantage, passed down like a family tool. He exhaled slowly. Left alone, this would turn into something ugly. Something…sad.

His eyes drifted back to the games. Dice, markers, chants, dares, contests of guessing and risk. They were already learning, just not together. A thought took shape, simple at first, but with room to grow. If games were everywhere in Gamblerdise, woven into how people spoke, bartered and lived then perhaps teaching did not need to fight that. Perhaps it could ride it.

Villagxor clapped his hands once, sharply, then again louder. It took a moment, then another but curiosity won. Children slowed, arguments paused, dice stopped mid-roll. One by one, then in clumps, they gathered around him until nearly forty stood, sat or crouched in a loose circle. Refugees, Changelings, small and tall, confident and wary. Villagxor waited until the noise settled before speaking.

“Alright,” he said. “You play games all day. Today, I’m stealing you for one.” A few grins appeared. A boy with green skin leaned forward eagerly. Villagxor crouched and picked up a handful of pebbles from the ground, setting them in a small pile between them. “This one is new. I just made it up, so if it breaks, that’s on me.”

He explained slowly. The game had no board. No winner at first. Each round, a child would step forward and take a pebble, then answer a question chosen not by Villagxor, but by the group. Counting, patterns, knots, guessing weight, recalling a rule from another game, even judging when to walk away. If they answered well, the pebble stayed. If not, it returned to the pile. The goal was not to hoard pebbles, but to move them all out of the center.

Confusion followed. A girl frowned and asked how anyone could win if everyone shared the goal. A boy argued it sounded unfair. Villagxor smiled and nodded. “Good,” he said. “That means you’re thinking. The point is not beating each other. It’s learning what you know and what you don’t, before chance tests you harder.” He tapped the pile. “The pebbles don’t care who you are. They only care what you do.”

They tried it. At first, chaos. Questions too hard, questions too easy, arguments over fairness. Villagxor let it happen for a moment, then stepped in. He corrected gently. He asked why a guess failed, why a choice worked. When a child froze, he broke the task into smaller steps, letting others help explain instead of answering for them. Slowly, the noise changed. Less shouting, more listening.

As rounds passed, patterns emerged again but different ones. Children who struggled with numbers excelled at memory. Those who stumbled over rules were quick to sense when risk was wrong. A child with stone-like skin quietly solved problems others overthought. Villagxor pointed these moments out, not as praise, but as information. “See that,” he said. “That’s knowledge too.”

When someone failed, he did not scold. He asked them to explain what they tried to do. When someone succeeded easily, he asked them to explain it back to the group. Understanding became part of the game itself. The pebbles moved faster now, the center thinning, because they were learning how to think together.

By the end, the pile was gone. The children noticed first. A quiet spread, then smiles, then a cheer. Villagxor stood, brushing dust from his knees. “That,” he said, looking around the circle, “is how you make chance fair. You don’t control it. You prepare for it. Tomorrow, we’ll play again. And the day after. Different rules. Different game.”


[hider=Summary]
Villagxor notices that there are loads of children in Gamblerdise and the skill level /understanding of the world between them is quite limited. 'Thus, he comes up with a plan. A school of sorts! 
[/hider]