Gambling on Mountains

“We need to let it go!” I shouted as my shoulders felt as though they were about to be ripped out of their sockets.

“I’d rather die!” Rollnaldo snapped back at me. He too looked as though he was at his limit.

“Come on, pick up the pace. It's not that much further.” Eight called down to us, not offering the least bit of help, as she scaled ahead of us.

Both Rollnaldo and I were hanging onto a snow covered cliffside, with one arm, as we each grasped the end of the rope leading to his dangling merch cart with the other.

For the past day, the three of us had been non-stop climbing the side of this mountain. Eight barely gave us time to even take pee breaks, as she pushed us to continue onward.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t hold on any longer.” At my limit, I began to loosen my grip on the rope.

“Wait!” Rollnaldo exclaimed. “I’m not about to lose everything again just like I did during my divorce!” With a sudden burst of strength from being reminded of his ex-wife taking all his stuff, he single handedly lifted his cart up to the ledge we were on. After setting it down, he momentarily laid on his back while he caught his breath.

“Hurry up you two. I can see it from here.” Eight continued pressing us with zero concern for our well being.

“Why the heck are you in such a rush? You’re going to get one of us killed!” I yelled back up at her.

“Don’t worry, statistically only one in four people die climbing this mountain. There’s only three of us, so there’ s nothing to worry about.” She peaked down at us, as she hung upside down from some rocks. For someone rock climbing in flip flops, she was quite agile. “We have to keep moving. If we don’t pull my plan off within the next several hours, we’re going to have to wait around for a week before we can try again.”

I leaned up against a rock momentarily to rest my arms and legs that felt like they were on the verge of giving out. “I have no idea what you’re planning, but it better be worth all this hassle.”

“If you both do a good job, I’ll possibly maybe probably consider giving you a cut of the profits that I’m anticipating.” She attempted to coerce us with vague monentary motivation.

Rollnaldo stood up, looking weak in his legs. “If there’s money involved, I’ll grit this last leg out.”

I grabbed his shoulder. “You don’t look good. Maybe you should rest a little longer.”

He slapped my hand away. “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

Using the remainder of our strength, we humped his cart the last dozen or so yards up the mountain. After nearly dying several times on the way up, we finally made it to the peak.

🎰🎰🎰

“Well, we finally made it, Recruits. Welcome to Lotto Lu’au.” Eight proudly nodded with her hands on her hips.

What laid in front of us were a series of large igloos that sat inside of a large hollowed out portion of the mountain. At the entrance, was a large billboard that seemed to have had the snow freshly swept off of it. Painted on it was a colorful image of tropical flowers. In the center of it, in large, Hawaiian style cursive font, it read, ‘Welcome to Lotto Lu’au. Your tropical paradise awaits’.

I turned toward Eight, confused. “Tropical paradise? This place is a frozen hellscape.”

“Aloha, my dudes and dudette!” A voice rang out. Out from behind the bill board, popped a snow man wearing a red and white floral Hawaiian shirt with a pair of aviator sunglasses on his face and a wicker hat on his head.

“Is that a talking snow man?” I muttered under my breath. Considering the fact that I’ve been traveling with a talking dice these past few weeks, I don’t know why I was surprised.

“Welcome to Lotto Lu’au Resort. What brings you folks to our paradise in the mountains.” The snowman asked.

Eight immediately took the lead. “Oh, I’m just vacationing with my fiance and our man servant here.”

“Wait, what do you mean fia-...Mmmmm.” Rollnaldo was muffled by Eight shoving a snowball in his face.

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a colorful folded piece of paper. “We’re also interested in this timeshare trial that’s mentioned in this pamphlet.”

“Oh, the timeshare, gnarly. I just so happen to have the trial paperwork on me.” With his stubby stick arms, the snowman reached into his torso, which was a ball of snow, and eagerly pulled out some forms and a pen… maybe a little too eagerly. “If you just sign here, I can show you to one of our available bungalows.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and fill those out, honey.” Eight took the paperwork from the snowman and proceeded to shove them into Rollnaldo’s face.

Rollnaldo began to page through the forms. “What exactly am I signing?”

“No worries, Dude. It’s just the terms for the free twenty-four hour timeshare trial.” The snowman reassured him.

“I don’t think it's smart to just sign a random agreement with a strange snowmen we just met.” I murmured under my breath to Rollnaldo.

He nodded in agreement. “I know. Free seems a little too good to be true. There’s got to be a cat-.”

“I don’t have all day. Just sign the mucking piece of paper!” Eight impatiently urged him.

Fog rose from Rollnaldo’s mouth as he let out a reluctant huff in the cold air. “Fine.” With the pen, he scribbled his name on the signature line of the documents.

“Radical!” The snowman didn’t even hesitate to snatch the form from his hands and shove it into his snowy torso. “If you follow me with your luggage, I’ll show you to your bungalow.”

We trailed behind the snowman, as he led the way through the ‘resort’, if that's what you wanted to call it. As far as I could see, there was nothing, but igloos. There seemed to be fresh human footprints imprinted in the snow, but there didn’t appear to be anyone around other than this snowman.

As we walked, I suspiciously glanced around. “If this is a resort, where are the other guests?”

“Probably at the beach, servant dude.” The snowman casually responded.

“Right…” I responded, not buying it.

Eventually, the snowman brought us to a series of smaller igloos.

“Here we are, unit 104 and here’s your key.” Looped around the tip of his right stick arm was a key on a ring, which he handed to Rollnaldo. “I hope you dudes and dudettes enjoy your stay here at Lotto Lu’au… and I look forward to seeing you at the seminar later, dice dude.” The last part he subtly mentioned just as he left.

“Wait, did he just say seminar?” Rollnaldo responded.

“Nevermind that, Recruit Number One. Just give me that key.” She swiped the key from his hand and proceeded to stick it into the lock of the arched wooden door that led into the bungalow. “It’ll all make sense after I give you the run through of my plan.”

Turning the key, we began to enter our igloo that was apparently supposed to be a bungalow according to that snowman…