The Final Bet Teaser
Morgan set down the delicately prepared charcuterie at the center of the green felt table. He had arranged cigars and wine, some of them fine but most of them not. This is the kind of stuff you have at a poker game, right? Morgan placed an unworn deck of cards on the table and placed another deck off to the side in case he needed it. He was in the middle of peeling the crisp, plastic wrapping off the new ceramic chips, when the shrill siren of his aged doorbell rang. The first of his guests had arrived.
This marked the beginning of a meeting 50 years in the making. Morgan's first guest was a man by the name of Tenente Moretti. Bizarre circumstances had led to their meeting half a century ago during the Great War. Moretti, during his tour in the Italian armed forced, was tasked with guarding a prisoner of war camp where Morgan had found himself unwillingly interred. While rotting in that jail cell, ever confident, Morgan let his cockiness get the better of him. Barely eking out the words in half remembered Italian, Morgan made a bet that he would live to see the day his jailer dies. For this, he wagered his every worldly possession - Moretti would be Morgan's sole inheritor and likewise for Morgan. Half in jest, the amused jailer Moretti accepted the wager expecting a quick resolution as Morgan's health failed in that dungeon, but much to his dismay, Morgan was released from his guard the following day. The lucky Brit was a part of a prisoner exchange for a valuable Italian diplomat. Laughing as he rode away, Morgan promised Moretti that he would honor his wager. Moretti didn't believe it for a second.
During the remainder of his time in the service, Morgan had grown quite fond of that particular bet, making it over and over again. Occasionally he used it as an intimidation tactic, catching his enemies completely off guard, as was the case with Commander Tatsumi at that bay in the Philippines and Hans Wilhelm, the Luftwaffe Pilot who chased Morgan into a cave behind lines in southwestern France. Once he used it to bolster a friend on the verge of death; the hope of the wager producing the shred of will Private Warburn needed until she could be stitched up at the field hospital near Cairo. Morgan made that bet with chance encounters the world over slowly amassing a cadre of heirs, both friend and enemy, who had pledged their entire estates to him hoping, whether they really believed it or not, that they might receive the same in return.
Moretti, now grayed by the passage of time, having received a mysterious letter inviting him to the estate, made his way to that felt table. Morgan, himself now aware of his own old age, gazed upon his enemy, recalling the bet. The doorbell rang again. The rest of the guests were arriving.
In The Final Bet, you play as the old members of an ancient wager. Morgan, his massive wealth promised in full to everyone in attendance, won't live through the night. Drink (and maybe smoke) your way through the deck and discover who the killer is in this 3-6 player mystery, or you might be next.
Coming soon!