Otogi lead all of them to a different room where a field, similar to the one used to play Duel Monsters was laid out. The field had, however, a lot of lines separating it into a lot of equal sized squares.
"Before we get to the platform, you should make your deck, don't you think?" Otogi told his opponent.
Akia didn't reply and just followed him to where laid a box full of different dice. She had a lot of thoughts running through her mind. She had never before played a game without at least knowing some of the rules. She was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with all that was happening and she knew that that was exactly what Otogi was aiming for. The more flustered she was, the easier she'd fail. Akia took a deep breath and looked at the box. Otogi was already stationed on his side of the field, waiting for her to do the same.
"These dice... There are a few different colours here. I have black, white, blue, red, green, and yellow. I'm sure they all give different results and add different elements to the deck. Alright, now I should look at what's on these dice faces. Considering they are dice, it means that I'll be rolling them and expecting a certain result. All of these dice seem to share one symbol in common: a star shape. The number inside the star differs from one dice to another. The higher the number, the less faces have the star shape. Man, I'm getting so confused right now! I should probably just make sure I have a bit of everything." After taking quite some time contemplating and picking her dice, Akia finally made her way to the platform. When she did, the field lit up and she noticed three hearts that were in front of Otogi's platform lighting up.
"Alright, let me give you the basics of the game at least. This game works on the system of heart points. The first to lose all of his three heart points loses the game. As to how to do that, when you roll your dice and obtain two summoning stars, you will be able to place one of the dice that rolled a star on the field where it will unravel and create a path for your monsters. How you place that path is up to you, but it has to connect to either your platform or one of your existing paths. As for the rest, I'm sure you can figure it out by yourself, if you really didn't cheat while dueling Pegasus." He let out a short mocking laugh.
Akia didn't notice it, because she was paying too much attention to the setup of the field in front of her. She also thought of the dice she chose. "That's why some of them had less stars than others. Why is that? I only picked two dice with one star on them. I guess I'm lucky? Or am I not? If it has less stars, it means it's harder to summon. Wouldn't that mean that it's stronger?"
"I guess I'll start my turn. Maybe that'll give you some idea on how to play this, since you look pretty clueless." Otogi smirked as he took his three first dice and rolled them. "For my first move, I'll summon Ryu-Kishin (ATK: 10 / DEF: 10 / HP: 10)." As he said that, he pushed his dice on the board in front of him. Its hologram then materialized onto the field. The dice unfolded, creating a path in front of Otogi's platform. Ryu-Kishin then appeared from within the open dice. The Monster's stats were displayed over its head. Akia was slowly starting to get it. She still had no idea what the symbols on the dice meant, but she understood the concept of summoning.
"I'll end my turn there," Otogi concluded.
"He's ending his turn? Can't he move his monster? It probably doesn't work that way. Either he doesn't have whatever it is to move his monster, he doesn't want to move his monster, or we can't move a monster that was just summoned." While she was thinking, Akia took her first three dice. One was green, one was blue, and the other was red. The two first ones had four faces that had stars on them, while the red one only had one. She rolled the dice. Both the green and the blue one landed with a star. The red one landed on one of the other symbols that looked like a circle with three small triangles at the top and bottom, all pointing towards the centre which was completely black. It also had a x2 on top of the symbol. Akia then noticed something next to the dice dispenser. There were a bunch of symbols there too, arranged in one vertical line, with a zero next to each of them. The digital display then changed. One of the symbols looked like the one she just rolled. Next to it, the number 0 changed into 2. Akia was at a loss at what that could mean. She knew one thing, however, and that was that she could summon a monster this turn, thanks to the two stars she just rolled. She took her green dice and placed it on the smaller representation of the field in front of her.
"Alright, let's see if I'm getting how this whole thing works..." She pushed the dice in. Then with her finger, she drew just how she wanted the dice to unfold. The dice opened up, revealing Akia's first monster: Bubonic Vermin (ATK: 20 / DEF: 10 / HP: 10). "Can it move?" When Akia put her finger on her monster's display and tried to move it, one of the symbols on the display flashed red alongside the 0 next to it. It was an arrow pointing up.
"So this must be the movement symbol. This means I need to roll it to be allowed to move my monsters. Let's see... So the other symbols probably mean something that basic too. The one that looks like two crossed swords probably means attack. The shield maybe means defence. The circle here looks like those cult circles to summon spirits or something like that. Maybe that means spell? I'm just basing this off of Duel Monsters at this point, since the monsters are the same. If I go by that logic, then that last symbol that I rolled earlier means trap. I wonder how I'll be able to use that." Akia quietly pondered on how the game worked.
"I didn't expect you to be this quiet. Are you trying to come up with another ingenious way to cheat?" Otogi called her out.
Akia sighed in exasperation. There was no use arguing with that guy. He was not going to change his mind without her proving to him that he was wrong about the whole thing.
"I'm done with my move," the red-eyed girl said.
Yugi and the others were watching the duel, concerned about how Akia was going to handle the situation.
"Yugi, can Akia-chan really do this? She doesn't know anything about the rules..." Anzu asked.
"I... I believe in her." Yugi replied.
"That's nice and all, but this is a really tough situation," Honda declared.
"If anyone can do it, it's Akia," Bakura said with confidence.
Jounouchi, even in his embarrassing situation, was also very worried about Akia. He was even starting to blame himself for how things turned out.
Akia naturally frowned, deeply analyzing the game in front of her. She couldn't help but feel a little excitement as well. This was fun. It was a challenge that was laid in front of her and she wasn't about to lose that challenge. She was going to figure the game out and come out victorious.