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Seifer Almasy      Ul'dah.

     It's the jewel of the desert, that's for sure. It's built around a single massive superstructure whose dome's shadow covers most of the city. The buildings dominate the skyline, high spires, more brightly-colored domes in brightly-colored patterns, and criss-cross walkways from which hang banners and business-flags devouring much of the night sky above. The stars are matched by the glittering streetlamps that illuminate the clean and safe-looking streets. Men and women in red-lined leather armor and brass masks patrol, weapons at their sides; different soldiers in tall hats and fireman-style coats watch the corners, wearing an emblem of scales balancing flame and diamond on their armor.

     There's hanging banners all over the place reading WELCOME MULTIVERSALS and UL'DAH RECEIVES FIRST CROSSWORLD PARTIES and UL'DAH - COIN AND COUNTRY, dangling from the walkways. They're beautifully-colored, dyed silk that ripples like the flames the town is so proud of, waving in a gentle and warm breeze.

     Out on the street, people flock to get glimpses of the new incoming folk. Some of them are tiny, tiny midgets; some of them are huge people with green-tinted skin; some of them are giant furry humanoid lions; some of them are literal actual bunny-girls; some of them are the Mi'qote that the Multiverse has come to know through N'Raha and Amelris; some of them are dragon-people, with horns and scales and tails (though no wings). And then there's regular humans. All of them come out to clap, applaud, cheer, and be impressed. This is an *impressive* display.

     It's meant to be.

     People are generally funneled to the Platinum Casino. It's past the Pugilist's Guild, where a bunch of people are training bare-handed against dummies, showing off some pretty impressive (if amateur) brawling techniques. An old man drinks on the step, watching the party pass.

     The Casino itself has a big diamond above it. It glitters in silvery platinum light, with two lanterns out front. The pair of bouncers - one a huge blue-furred lion-man called a Hrothgar, the other one of the tall green-skinned women called a Roegadyn take one look at the group; the Hrothgar puts a hand to his ear and mutters something, and then opens the door. The bouncers certainly send a message about what sort of establishment this is.

     It's not the Gold Saucer, that's for sure.

     Where the Saucer is a big and spiralling affair full of fun mascots and bright colors and happy music for everybody to enjoy, the Platinum Casino is *invitation only*. You go to the Casino because you're a high-roller. Because you're a big name in a tournament. Because you *earned* a spot in here.

     The inside of the Casino is no less posh. Red velvet floors. Hanging chandeliers that provide a quiet, intimate light. A catered bar with both an actual bunny-girl - a Viera - and a long-eared girl - an Elvaan - dressed as a bunny. A grill. Card tables. Roulette tables. Craps tables. Blackjack tables. All catered by handsome men and pretty women of every race in fine suits.

     In the middle of it all is Teledji Adeledji. He comes up to maybe waist height on most of the Multiversal guests. He's dressed in an incredibly rich green-and-red desert-merchant outfit, a dark blue hat with gold inlay sitting on his platinum-haired head. A little moustache and beard dangles off his chin like the gold and jewels dangling around his neck.

     Adeledji walks forward, arms open. "Welcome, my *friends*." He places a hand over his chest and bows, and everyone else in the casino does the same. "Please, please. I'm honored, truly honored."

     "I am Teledji Adeledji, and I welcome you, first to Eorzea, then to Ul'dah, then to the Platinum Casino! I've graciously provided a small gratuity of a hundred platinum chips." He grins one of the shadiest grins a merchant can. "Please feel free to enjoy yourselves. Have a drink. Have a sandwich off the grill. Have whatever you like; food and drink are on the house tonight. Just good business."
Revali Actual gambling? Not just minigames? Such a strange notion! Surely there must be at least one booth where you work an actual cannon to play a basic Battleship clone, right? Or one where you shuffle slowly around a dance hall while trying not to bump into the other dancers, right? It's absurd, is what it is. Not even a big field full of shallowly buried treasure to dig in.

That'll all come later, though. For the time being, Revali drinks in the attention being given by the royal treatment. He *drinks it in* like it all is one big milkshake as he takes part in the procession going from the warpgate to the casino gates.

"Revali, grand-master archer. Rito Champion. Yes, yes." If someone holds out something that looks like an autograph book, he signs it.

(Behind him, a small handful of other birds quietly land on a rooftop and watch from a distance, just in case. "A lot of cats," notes one to the others.)

Once inside, after Teledji gives his little spiel, he takes his stack of gratis chips and casts a critical eye across the games on offer. Cards, cards, cards, tiny balls... not a mouse-shaped bomb in sight.

"Hmm."
Damocles Damocles is in attendance with this procession, despite being fairly new to the 'multiverse scene'.  Fittingly enough, this is because he won an invitation in a poker game.  He needed some startup capital for the 'gambling' part of the casino, which he acquired through some light crime:  Stealing some equipment from the Imperial Guard and selling it elsewhere in the multiverse.  Not the cleanest method of generating money but shut up, magical science isn't a field you get into for the profits.

You do it for the *prophets*.

Speaking of, the whisper of Chaos in his head is suspiciously silent about being here.  Tzeentch didn't say anything about coming here, but is still seemingly content about it.  That makes Damocles more nervous than anything else.

Given the ceremony, Damocles wasn't sure if he should dress up in a suit (Where does one get a suit when they're 10 feet tall?) or his armor, or what.  In the end, he decided to compromise and came in his armor armor, but with a bow-tie.  That should make sure all his bases are covered.

Once inside the casino though, he's forced to stop and look around.  Immediately, the silence of Chaos seems to make more sense to him.  This place reminds him of the ancient temples of the Emperor, built on top of more ancient dark-age ruins, that were themselves built on top of alien ruins.  Layers enough that an archeologist could spend a lifetime just cataloging all the research the next generation of researchers need to start doing.

Damocles times a moment looking over the proprietor of the establishment, but quickly elects to avoid him.  That man looks like a tornado:  Either you steer out of his path or dive in, but you'd better decide which in a hurry or you'll be dragged in whether you want it or not.  And Damocles isn't here for the local color, he's here to /play some games/.  He immediately searches out a card table.  He doesn't know what kind of crazy monkey poker they play here, but he's -going to learn it-.
Tony Stark Tony Stark is a man with many, many options to arrive in a city. There's the most obvious, as 'Iron Man', but something tells him that arriving in a hotrod red powered armor in the middle of Ul'dah would not be recieved well.

The 'something' is a scraping of news about the world. Really not a good look to be in the technology-as-magic business locally!

So, instead, when one arrives in style, one arrives in a towncar. Black, with tinted windows and an italic 'Stark Enterprises' logo plastered on either side like helvetica wings. Purring like a tiger as it rolls up to the club - literally - the driver in a smart chaffeur's suit steps out, and opens the rear door with a white glove. Sliding out of the seat is Stark himself, charcoal grey suit and pants with vertical silver lines, oxford shoes, silver tie, platinum tie clip, and dark sunglasses. He slides his left hand into his pocket, using his right to wave to the gasping crowds as he just straight up walks past security, not bothering to be checked. If he was checked, that loses Teledji points. He is Expected. He is here to be Expected.

Once inside his shades lose their tint but he makes no move to remove the now 'normal' glasses. Instead, he moves right for the master of the house, and, practiced, drops casually to a single knee, becoming...

Well, OK, he's still above eye level with Teledji, but it's far closer with him down like that.

"Teledji Adeledji, owner and proprietor of this fine establishment and many others, if the tales are true." Stark's smile is broad and as genuine as can be. His hand extends for a firm, businesslike one-pump handshake. "Tony Stark, of Stark Enterprises. You've put on quite the show for us, sir. Makes one feel welcome!" He jokes, like with an old friend. "Heck of a way to scout who's good at cards before the private tables!"

He's in no hurry to spend Teledji's free stake at the tables. The tables will wait. This is Face Time.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur Lowell is here.

    Arthur is, technically speaking, the winner of the Multiverse's Halloween Poker Tournament, a game played against factional leaders of the time. That, presumably, is how he managed to score an invite to a place far classier than he is. Not to say he came under-dressed: His GODLY ROBES have shifted to a snazzy tux, of course, with a stylish space-whorl tie-pin. Shoving his way through the doors dramatically, he strides to the man greeting them. "Fuckin' SNAZZY kinda place. I LOVE IT." He's already grabbing a sandwich, and chowing down in his typically obnoxious way. As he's offered a HUNDRED PLATINUM CHIPS, his game interface of course works with it. They vanish, but displays appear.


                    ________________________________________                    
                   |                                        |                  
                   |                  PLATINUM ROLLER INDEX |                  
                   | -------------------------------------- |                  
                   |                                   ^^^  |                  
                   |             DIVINE WILDCARD(10000000)  |                  
                   |                KING OF GAMES(1000000)  |                  
                   |                  PRO GAMESTER(100000)  |                  
                   |                 HIGHEST ROLLER(10000)  |                  
                   |                   HIGHER ROLLER(1000)  |                  
                   |                      HIGH ROLLER(100)< |                  
                   |                           HUSTLER(10)  |                  
                   |                       CASHED OUT!!(0)  |                  
                   | -------------------------------------- |                  
                   |                            CHIPS: 100  |                  
                   |                                        |                  
                    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                    

    He claps his hands together. "ALRIGHT, GAMERS." He declares. "I'm here for SCORE." He has, of course, no idea about anything related to investigation. He is here to get lots and lots of Number Go Up. As a gamer, he is highly experienced in such things -- and also very, very interested in bright flashing colors and shining surfaces. Where's the most ostentatious gambling facility here? And what all could a /gamer/ achieve there? Unless something stops him, Arthur intends to dive right in with aggressively substantial bets and limits, and absurd UI, plus an outrageous theatricality to his efforts.
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry Princess is not dressed for the occasion. She hardly ever is in general, but today is particularly egregious. This is a town that sweats and bleeds opulence- at least, the parts of it they're being shown- and she's here dressed in street clothes and a black hoodie, with a bulky duffel bag on her back. At least her hair is combed this time; whether due to a newfound self-consciousness or the echoes of Lilian's prior scolding, the world may never know.

     The unearned adulation visibly weighs on her- she draws in on herself uncomfortably, squirming and angling as if to physically dodge it. When the little man gives the group a bow, she anxiously half-returns it, desperately trying to bleed off some of the social heat through whatever passes for a gesture of humility here.

     "Being a hero" is a social context where she expects, and can absorb, that kind of praise. But this isn't that. They're lauding her for... coming here and maybe spending money? This is all wrong. She doesn't deserve it.

     The Paladins' mission, at least, gives her something to vaguely fixate on. Booting up the Nuke Stick to power her powers is likely to raise several alarms even in a place like this- but Arthur, fortunately, snags her eye. She matches pace with him and captures his hand in hers. "Hey, Lowell! I'm kinda lost around here. Only gambling thing I've ever seen, I think, was- you know, the machine at my gas station. Could you show me how these darn things work?"

     Then, quieter: "Where's your adult?"
Ritsuka Fujimaru Of the three main cities in Eorzea, Ul'dah is the only one JEanne hasn't been to yet. There simply hasn't been a reason to until now, but with the generous invitation from the Monetarists and an incredibly shady midget, who could say no?

She could, but she didn't. Promises of free food and opportunities to see just how shady the people here can be will do that for someone like the Dragon Witch. She comes dressed for the occasion, too, donning the usual navy-blue coat and black thigh-length dress/shirt she's become rather fond of rather than her usual armor.

The wide variety of humanoid races and decorations from various cultures isn't what catches her eye, though. It's the weird midget with the moustache. Jeanne can barely hide that skeeved feeling in her gut as she stares right at him when he greets the lot of them. She forces it down by the time Tony finishes his greeting, though, even managing a well-practiced, if still prideful smile. "A pleasure, Adeledji. I won't waste your time with honeyed words, so."

And then she goes right on to the food table. She knows what she wants, and it's FOOD. A bit of everything, but not so much to be gluttonous. She needs enough energy to head over to the GAMBLING AREA to see just what it is has Arthur and Strawberry Princess so intrigued.

She looks like she's looking for someone else, though.
Staren     Aren't these the same guys Arkae stole her airship from? Still... if an invitation has been extended to even Concord elites despite that and Eggman's activities, he should at least try to go and make a good impression on the Concord's behalf, right? Okay, well, it'd be ruder not to go, right?

    Staren's visited Ul'dah before, briefly. But at that time he was being stealthy, following Inga in cat form to make sure she was doing okay. This time... all eyes are on him, at least for a moment as he passes by.

    He's trying to at least look the part of someone who would be invited to this sort of thing. The military-style uniform he used to use as formal dress has been replaced, chiefly, with a long white coat. It's not even a labcoat, but it tries to look somewhat scholarly and also fancy, with a mantle, gold trim, and a golden emblem on the back that looks like a cross inside a gear, with 'circuit traces' eating away at them from the negative space. Under the coat he's ditched the scarf, and sewn extradimensional pockets into the coat rather than carrying his messenger bag, but the synthetic red shirt, black pants, and black boots, while possibly passing muster for middle-class formal, are clearly not the clothes of the /truly/ rich. He tried, he really did!

    He smiles and waves a bit nervously to the crowd. It seems kind of surreal to see people making this big of a deal from a world he hasn't literally just helped save or something. He wonders if the people throwing this party paid some people to fill out the crowd...

    When greeted by Teledji, he bows in return. "Staren Wiremu, Gifted of the Concord. It's, uh, an honor to be so welcomed." He smiles politely, and then heads off towards the food as invited. After facing the crowd he'd like a quieter moment, but... Everywhere he looks, every bit of furniture he touches, seems to exude showy wealth in a way he's never seen before. Grand Dorado doesn't go this far with every individual item, but it's not the tacky gaudiness of Yu Shan or babby's first VR metaverse. Everything here was chosen by or for someone very rich who knows that wealth doesn't mean putting gold and gems all over everything.

    It makes it just a little bit harder to relax. He's extra careful not to spill any food on anything. He'll start with whatever grilled meat sandwich is on offer, and a cool, non-alchoholic, preferably sweet drink of whatever type is preferred locally.

    Arthur's presence is a welcome reprieve and gets a smile. "Hey. Good to see you here, this place is a bit..." he vaguely gestures.
Tamamo     Tamamo no Mae has arrived in the city. She is not dressed in that vaguely shrine maiden-like outfit in which she was summoned. She is not dressed, thank the heavens, in her beautifully tailored winter coat. No, she's dressed both appropriately for the hotter climes, even if maybe those gloves weren't strictly necessary, and to impress, in an appropriately daring cocktail dress of her signature deep blue, with dark ribbons and ice-blue flowers. It's the sort of dress with the kind of long trail that spins in dance but would be horrid in dusty streets, with its many pleats and its waist-high split, just beneath a larger-than-life assumedly-cloth peony. It's the kind of outfit that could only possibly be seen in the most upscale establishment of any given nation, by any reasonable estimate. It would just be strange to see it any other time.

    Tamamo is here as a guest, an obvious off-worlder with three tails and golden eyes above a folding fan that demurely hides half her face. It snaps shut long enough for her to smile when greeted properly, but to say little, her presence being loud enough on its own. She listens attentively. She hears much and more, but keeps the secrets to herself. Mostly.

    She does whisper, loudly enough to not be a terribly secretive whisper, to her arm-in-arm companion as they pass the Pugilist Guild. "An unruly sort of monastery, is it not? I wonder if their master should be of the zuiquan style--but then, a monk with a bottle is merely 'any monk,' one might say." The guards pass without mention, Flames or otherwise. She plays to the crowd only a little on the way in, knowing that few here would actually know anything about her, and they're merely excited to see 'someone new and different.' Still, it's a part she plays well. Flamboyant dress can be its own way of showing respect to a meeting.
Arthur Lowell     "GAMES." Arthur declares, as his hand is captured. He transitions it quickly into a fast-paced series of coolkid handshakes with Strawberry Princess. With his free hand, he sips sparkling water classily. "Lemme give ya those TUTORIALS." Arthur then frowns. "WHAT. Hey, I don't got an ADULT! I don't NEED an ADULT, I'm COOL." He pushes his lips together like that'll stop a slanderous invasion.

    No notice of Jeanne. /Yet/, anyway! Probably later.

    He also greets Staren with one of his trademark coolkid handshakes. "A bit BRIGHT? A bit GOLDEN? A bit EXPENSIVE? What, never seen CLASSY STUFF before? This is the HIGH-ROLLERS, homie. I thought you CONCORD HEROES got to be on the TOP LEVEL of that WEALTH PYRAMID, you tellin' me you ain't AT HOME in the VELVET, dawg? C'mon, at least show me you got what it takes for BLACKJACK there, RAINMAN. Don't worry, I'mma BACK YOU UP."
Seifer Almasy      Arthur is immediately a big damn stir. Nobody knows what to make of it. This is Eorzea; they're not *backwards*, not by a long-shot, no matter how much people like Eggman and the Garleans might claim they are, but this is something so far outside their ability to grasp that it's not even funny. They stare at Arthur over Strawberry's weird attire (which, really, is not that much weirder than a lot of adventurers wear - there's a lot of mercenaries around here). After a minute of solid gawking, though, one of the roulette table minders gestures for Arthur and Strawberry to come over there. "If you're looking to win big, you won't win bigger than the roulettes. Card tables have a betting limit, and a lower payout."

     One of the 'blackjack' dealers laughs. "He's just sore because nobody goes for his rigged tables! No bonus if nobody spins!"

     The guy rolls his eyes and grins. "Ignore him, sir. He counts cards. Nobody likes a counter in Limsan Lotto."

     "Hey! You jealous bastard!" It's a well-rehearsed routine for the guests. A little bit of fun. Performance art. Dinner and a show. Everything's a show. Everything's misdirection.

     Damocles sits down. The man across the table gives him a nervous grin. He's huge and in power armor in a world where Power Armor = Invader. Of course the grin is nervous. "Evening, sir. A game of Sultan's Crown to light your night?"

     The man fans the cards out on the table. "It's very simple, sir. Each face card is worth a certain number of points. You place the cards face down in 'castles'-" he demonstrates, laying the cards on the table face-down, "And aim to collect points by building combinations, or 'suites', of cards. A card can be in more than one suite at a time. A list of suites has been provided for you on the table."

     There's a lot of them. Syndicate's Reach is the second-highest, and the second-most complex; Sultana's Chamber is the highest and requires multiple other suites to build.

     "We lay four cards down, getting a replacement each time; alternatively you can choose to discard a card for two new ones, but you can't place something face-down on that turn. After four cards we flip our suites and show them, spreading them out, discard our hands, and start again. This goes for four hands; at the end of which, all individual points are counted, then all suites, to determine the winner."
Lilian Rook     Having picked up on this one in advance, Lilian Rook has had some time to consider her dress. Normally, it'd involve dropping an enormous sum on a rush order to match very specifically the place she intends to grace, but she'd very recently come into some things she'd much rather wear instead, and planned an outfit around that.

    Specifically, jewelry for the occasion mostly fashioned of gold that could only be mistaken for ordinary gold in the dark, flawlessly perfect, practically cast aglow with light shone on it. An elaborate hairpin of white gold lilies and gem peonies, crisscross laces of fine chain and diamond fittings for wrists and forearms, matched earrings with the stone in one being deep sapphire black and the other pale blueish white, and a light choker of linked, elaborately etched segments. She very, very, very much wanted a chance to wear these. Gold and jewels plus plus. It's the perfect occasion to flex a form of luxury-wealth beyond all earthly measure, making a first impression here. A merchant would have to be blind and brain damaged to think any of it were normal precious metals and stones.

    She is, in fact, taking the procession like a VIP royal at a casino. The black dress with the back window and the high slit and the layered edges, the long hair tied up in an elaborate celtic knot updo and pinned back, only free to touch the shoulders in front, the obligatory long gloves so as not to touch chips handled by other people, the heels that add a few inches of height. That, and the way her presences seems to passively *demand* attention. A sense of spellbinding fascination, even infatuation, and gravitas hangs around her like a shadow, like something straight out of a folk tale of a fairy queen masquerading as a mortal horsewoman passing by on the road.

    Also she's basically arm in arm with Tamamo as per the red carpet thing you do when arriving with esteemed company, which is only going to exponentially multiply the general photogenics of the situation. She spares time to glance and then murmur back to Tamamo at a polite level of volume. "When they call it a 'guild', you can usually expect 'unruly', I find. It's a name that belies a certain amount of rough, mercenary informality. A drop in and out, work hand to mouth lifestyle. The old man might be a skilled martial artist, training rookies, but . . ." She just trails off and grins at the bit about a monk with a bottle. It's funny.

    From there, she basically just hits her radio bead before entering, to the Elites she'd brought in on this. "Remember what we're here for. Names, connections, businesses, where money is going."
Lilian Rook     Then she hits the casino doors and it's all business. The expression of quiet curiosity and attentiveness disappears, wiped away over the threshold to be replaced with some mixture of intense satisfaction and a lot of smiling business. With one arm occupied, she does what is possible to basically signal the return gesture to Teledji with her free hand and her dress. "Charmed~ The reception here is by far more than I'd expected. More than I'd even dreamed, in fact. I'd heard this was the 'city to be in', but they certainly hadn't given me a such a grasp of why."

    She looks like she's about to hold out her hand, then realizes how condescending and obnoxious it'd be to bend over and shake the little guy's hand, so she just puts her fingers to her collarbone instead. "Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook." Then she gestures to Tamamo. "Tamamo no Mae." She leaves off 'Amaterasu no Bunrei' for now, since you do that with titles on introducing a friend, so they can use them if they like. "I'll be pleased to take you up on that, though, if you don't mind, don't go too far for too long! I'd like to speak with you again before the night is up!"

    From there, she splits off long enough to check out the full spread of things. She nudges Tamamo and points to the woman at the bar who isn't a bunny, being maid to dress as a bunny anyways, and then stops to take a deep breath, blinking several times in succession. She hazily glances to the roulette table, hitting her comm again to the same people as if half asleep. "Don't touch the roulette table for too long. It's rigged. Extremely rigged. Throw some chips away to make it look like you don't know anything, small denominations, then leave to try something else."
Seifer Almasy      "A *champion*, are you?" Teledji puts on a big smile. "How interesting. You said you were...*Rito* champion? No, no, that won't do at all. Not if you're going to *compete* on the Bloodsands." Teledji whacks Revali on the...leg...it's like a shoulder-whack but he's too short for that. "And you're going to *compete*. I can tell. You're going to be a champion both to your *Rito* and to Ul'dah."

     He hops up on a table and wraps an arm around Revali's shoulder as the dealer behind him shuffles. "Imagine it, my friend. Imagine the roaring crowds as you walk out into the stadium. A Morbol emerges, fearsome plant-beast twitching and groaning. The people cheer. Re-va-li! Re-va-li! You give a wave and a bow. But oh no! The beast lunges forward, loosed from its chains too early! Dramatically you whirl and plant an arrow in its eye as you dance away!"

     "Oh yes, my friend. No Rito Champion, you - /Sandstorm Revali/, that's what we'll call you." Teledji's lips part in a broad grin as he hops back off the table and the dealer starts flipping out blackjack cards. "When do you want to start?"

     Tony walks over to shake Teledji's hand. Apparently Teledji's not a complete stranger to this custom. He reaches out and takes Tony's in his own, and there's definitely a firm, businessman grip behind it. His grin never leaves his face. It's like dealing with a snake-oil salesman, a respectable businessman, and a movie producer all in one. Somehow. "Mister Tony Stark! I *have* heard a *lot* about you."

     He rubs his hands together. "So tell me when we can go into business together, hm? I hear you're not making weapons anymore - a reliable little bird told me so - but that's fine, that's fine. Eorzea doesn't need weapons. More than enough of those to go around, and the Garleans will see to it that anything we don't have, they'll *graciously* donate." His grin widens. "So. Tell me - what do *you* need, and how can I make it happen?" He gives a polite bow and a smile to Jalter as she goes off to the table, where the folk at the table start shuffling out food like cards, making a little bit of a show to go with her meal. It's flashy, and they're well-trained.
Seifer Almasy      Staren gets a beam and an enthusiastic two-hand handshake. "Delighted, my good man! Always pleased to meet another alchemist. Can't know too many geniuses, I always say. You know, I'm personal friends with the head of the Alchemist's Guild. As much as you can be friends with a man like that. Head in the clouds, wears his labcoat everywhere, always too busy for relaxing when he could be chasing another brilliant invention." There's the subtle implication that of course Staren would like that guy, on top of the casual name-drop of Teledji's influence in the city. He's not being subtle. He doesn't *have* to be subtle.

     Lilian and Tamamo get arms wide from Teledji as they draw other glances from other people. The dealers are well-trained, though. "Ladies, ladies! You look splendid this evening, absolutely splendid! I'm sure you look splendid every evening, but what kind of host would I be if I didn't point out the obvious once in a while, hm?"

     At 'the city to be in' Teledji makes a face. "I bet you heard that from one of those...*Warriors of Light.*"

     He says it like he's got a bad taste in his mouth. "Don't pay them any mind, my dears. They're renegades and reprobates who think that having a little mystic oomph, a connection with the great Louisoix Leveilleur, and some friends equally rakish and rogueish, gives them the right to act *outside* the laws we *civilized* people have built."

     Lilian says she wants to go, and Teledji beams. "Be my guest! Be my guest. I'll be here, don't you know. I'm here for all of you, after all."

     He glances at Tamamo's outfit out of the corner of his eye as they walk. She can almost tell - it's not looking at *her*. It's wondering where he could buy that and how much he can sell it for. He doesn't need to look at her to know she's beautiful - he needs to look at the *clothes* so he can tell how to *make profit*.

     That's what he's about. Making profit. Making connections.
Damocles When they insist on searching Damocles, he gives a bit of a smile that's completely hidden by the shadow cast from his hood.  "Hey, don't worry guys, I'm not bringing in any outside snacks, I swear!"  He allows them to search him without incident, though he does caution him that the staff he carries probably shouldn't be touched.  "It's a...It's kind of weird.  Let me hold out for you to check out instead." 

Once they let him through, he finds his game, and sits down.  The slight hesitation from the person managing the game does not go unnoticed, and Damocles raises a hand up to casually sweep his hood down.  Whatever one was expecting the man to look like underneath, it very likely isn't what they get:  Damocles looks exactly like you'd expect a college history professor to look like.  Dark hair cut short and neat, smooth features, light blue eyes and a pair of round, wire-frame glasses.

When the guy starts explaining the game, Damocles pulls a book from his hip, and starts jotting down notes, occasionally repeating back information to confirm he understands the process correctly.   Once everything is explained, he reads it all back, rapidly summarizing the whole game.  Only then is he confident he understands the rules well enough to play. 

"Alright, lets give it a whirl.  Deal me in."

'Ooooh, can I play?" the whisper scratches at the back of his neck, but he ignores it.  No Tzeentch, ancient Chaos Gods aren't allowed in casinos. 
Revali Revali watches some of the gambling activity from the sidelines, idly shuffling his small stack of chips around. There's...

... there's a lot here he doesn't like. A lot of games of pure chance, sure, but the rest are... games of bluffing. Games of lying. Games in which you have to be dishonest - bluffing, lying not just to make yourself look better... but to make yourself look *worse*. You'd have a killer hand of cards, and the winning play was to... to act like you didn't! When in reality you should be shouting it to the heavens... I, Revali, have four of a kind!!!

It's all just... absurd.

The roulette game is the only one that holds any interest for the marksman, and that's only barely. It's pure chance, with no skill behind it, and (as Revali determines, looking over the odds table as if he was reading a tactical report) the odds are firmly in the house's favor. The 'game' is just a challenge to see when you'll lose.

The only real winning move is not to play... and Revali is about to do just that. Cash in the 100 gratis chips for cash, and probably come out of this better on average than the others. He turns to flag down one of the cashiers-

- and gets entrapped by Hurricane Teledji. The lalafell can *see* the scenes he's describing flash behind the archer's eyes.

"... Right away," he says, trying to recover from the sudden onslaught. "I imagine your current crop of fighters is - ahem - sorely lacking... delaying the arrival of Sandstorm Revali would truly be a cruelty to them, wouldn't it?"
Strawberry Princess      Somehow, Strawberry manages to channel the impossible yin and yang simultaneously: projecting gentle adult disapproval at the same time as reciprocating the elaborate coolkid handshake. "Arthuuur," she says, in that softly reproachfully way. It's the kind of tone you strike to hook a kid's attention without making them think you're stuffy or scolding. "They serve alcohol here. I saw someone in a bunnygirl outfit. You can't just be alone. Besides, what would I do without you?"
Arthur Lowell     ALRIGHT! Time for ROULETTE. Arthur sweeps in like a fucking storm. He's not going to cheat. Instead, he's going to make this place more of a party. Arthur isn't entirely lacking in social savvy; he knows that casinos want to encourage people with a grandiose nature and habit to be there, and to encourage others. He plans to stay there for the night by being so fucking ostentatious with his swaggering demeanor that they want him back next week. "Let's get up in that ROULETTE." He's expecting twists to the rules, unique aspects to the local matter. But even if it's just pure roulette, he wants to spend near about half his initial windfall on this. And he does it with /gusto/.

    Soft shockwaves of gravity slightly rattle things as he picks, seemingly arbitrary, a couple Straight Bets, and an utterly distasteful volume of Street Bets; as he does, he explains the payoff of corners and streets, of splits and straights. "You gotta reach in your SOUL for this! Don't focus on HOUSE ADVANTAGES, it's ALL THE SAME. This one's a TEST OF SPIRIT! Your GRIT! Your WILLINGNESS TO RIDE THE TIDE! To FEEL THE SPIN! Feel that WHIRL IN YOUR HEART!!"

    By the time the ball's spinning, he's frowning at Strawberry Princess. "Hey! I can drink alcohol! I'm HELLA LEGAL for it. You can STICK WITH ME! I'mma give you those TUTORIALS, but I don't need an ADULT!" He seems particularly insistant about it. Baffled, even!
Staren     Teledji can see the interest in Staren's eyes when he mentions the alchemist's guild. Staren /knows/ this guy researched him first and picked the most sciencey thing to mention, but it's /still/ interesting. "Can't know too many sciences either. I'd love to meet him and see what this world's alchemy is like."

    Once he's got his food, he watches the people playing games from the bar or wherever. The food is good because of course it is; the only sandwiches he's had that come close to this one were at Concord formal events and the like. It is far, far above the sandwiches he makes himself or prints.

    He gets about 3/4 of the way through the sandwich before he remembers to look up How To Politely Eat A Sandwich and then is obviously doing just that; he can't make it look natural.

    Once he's finished his food he excuses himself to the washroom, then returns and surveys what games of skill -- at least partly skill anyway -- are available. He has no interest in games of pure chance, and isn't aware that it's polite to try them anyway when other games are on offer.

    Arthur's antics make him shake his head, though he's glad to have Arthur here all the same. "It's pure chance. The entire point is that nothing you can do will affect the outcome."
Seifer Almasy      "Things just haven't been the same since Raubahn climbed from blood smear to Syndicate leader," Teledji says sadly to Revali, "Him and Ilberd. And nobody knows what happened to Ilberd. Disappeared one day. Heard he was knifed in the back by an Ala Mhigan refugee angry at him for turning his back on his people. Real shame. He was a true patriot, you know."

     "Ala Mhigo is a conquered nation," Teledji adds for the outworlders, "Garleans took it over. Now its chief export is refugees and its chief import is 'whatever the Garleans can seize.' We try and give them what we can here." He shakes his head sadly, and it actually looks like he might be telling the truth? It's hard to tell with the man. But supernatural senses definitely get the sense that he's not *lying* about that being a shame.

     That doesn't mean he means that *that's* the shame, but...

     "But in any case!" Teledji whacks Revali on the leg again in a friendly manner, "You're right, you're right! I'll have somebody draw up the contract by the end of the night, Sandstorm. By tomorrow evening you'll be a household name. Your name seventy-two ilms high, posters with your face on it! With me as your sponsor and you as your talent you'll be the most famous Rito in Ul'dah in a manner of *days!*"

     Damocles grabs the rules instantly. The dealer looks a little more nervous when the outworlder just sort of *goes in*, playing a hand like it's nothing and putting together a modest palace out of some modest suites. It's the grasp of the rules that makes the man nervous - while the House wins, the House wins *narrowly*, and that's something that he's...clearly not used to, outside professional gamblers having professional tournaments here. He, uh, didn't *expect* to get that close.

     He certainly didn't expect Damocles to sweep the second game with a Syndicate's Reach on a whole bunch of little suites (you could call that symbolic of something for sure).

     He's smiling, though, because he's trained to smile even when he starts losing, and he waves over Strawberry. "If you're not interested in the roulette wheels, why don't you come have a sit and play some Sultan's Crown with the gentleman?"

     Teledji himself wanders over to the table and hops up on a stool, looking down as Damocles sweeps another hand with a Brass Blade Barracks. He whistles. "My but you are a good player, aren't you. Tell me, what was your name again? I like to keep an eye on promising gamblers. Maybe invite you back for a tournament. Maybe *sponsor* you in a tournament."

     Meanwhile, Arthur...

     ...loses a whole lot of money very very fast.

     Because these roulettes are HELLA rigged. They are rigged so hard that outright cheating isn't enough to out-cheat them - that even with his gravity shit the ball just *somehow* finds its way into the wrong place, *somehow* finds its way into the wrong peg, *somehow*. It's, uh, kind of impressive how *hard* the roulettes cheat; in fact, it's stunning. There's pretty literally no way to win, and if you didn't know it - if you weren't cheating yourself - there'd be no way to tell.
Tony Stark Anthony Stark is a man who knows many faces of the business world. The schemers and dreamers, the spreadsheet redeemers, and everything in between. This place oozes 'Someone's Money' but it does not ooze 'Money'. It becomes royalty, but it does not seem to service it.

And there's available pictures of the Gold Saucer on the public broadband thanks to Teledji's apparently-despised 'Warrior of Light' which he can compare at a glance.

Turning to stand abreast with Teledji (and ignoring his flank escorts as he does so), Tony gestures for a bunnygirl to provide him with an Adult Beverage, placing all 100 of his tokens on the hand-tray in passing. "The lot on red please. It's one of my favorite colors. If I win, send it and something... Mmm. Something with citrus and mint to the pretty woman with the goddess on her arm." He schmoozes, placing himself clearly above such things as Complimentary Chips. He's here for business. "You'd like to know what you can sell me? Well, I'm always in need of a good suit or ten. But I'm in the market for a spread of things - are you empowered to make deals, Mister Adeledji? More importantly, are you empowered to get me meetings with others who are empowered to make deals?"

Tony's tone is warm and businesslike, like a bolt of the finest velvet over a sharp knife. "You say you're an alchemist, though, that's good. Perhaps you'll tell me what I have here."

Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, he produces a single slip of a metal of tungsten-toned metal speckled with lambent flecks of blue in a little baggie. "This, my good sir, is what I have to sell - in limited quantities. Careful --" He observes, as he lowers the baggie into Teledji's hands. "-- that's the rarest metal in my world. So rare, in fact, you are speaking to the only man capable of synthetic reproduction. Chemically pure, of course, and production grade. If you're wondering 'what can I do with it', the answer is 'what can you NOT do with it'."

It's bait, of course. The sample always is.
Tamamo     Tamamo smiles to Teledji, but doesn't elaborate. She could just be an incredibly exotic piece of arm candy, for all that she's willing to explain, a presumption that would serve her well enough. The fact that she doesn't bow would only be particularly meaningful if you knew her own cultural standards. Instead, she's continuing to listen.

    In fact, those tall ears of hers do hear far better than the usual standards, without mentioning anything about spirits or arcane senses. There's no one thing in particular for which she's listening--she wants to know the people here, what they speak of when they have the slightest sense of privacy, off at their own tables, the whispers and muttering, the mouthed words and changes of expression at wins and losses, the not-quite-secrets that are still a step away from the kind of 'face' their host shows.

    She's listening, and she is looking, but it's for objects, not people. Of course the people here are 'important,' or they wouldn't be here. But if there's something set in the rooms that's aged enough to have its own developed sense of spirit, apart from those sentimental items and weapons carried in by their owners, steeped in their own histories, she looks out for that.
Revali "Hah! Yes! This sounds..."

Revali pauses.

"Wait, I'm already the most famous rito in Ul'dah."

"... Nevermind. Nevermind that. This all sounds good..."

He squats down, getting at eye-level with Teledji. "... Too good. How do I know that you aren't trying to pull a fast one on me, eh? I'm too smart for that..." says Revali.

Plainly, he is not in fact too smart for that.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur swings a finger directly to Staren, leaving the index finger very uncomfortably close to the face. "WRONG!" He declares. "It's pure SPIRIT! It's pure SOUL! It's GRITTING YOUR TEETH and /GOING/!!"

    He loses all his shit.

    "FUCK."

    As a true gamer would, he fucks off and ragequits. For a moment, he was planning on using his influence over GRAVITY to affect the ball mid-spin, but that would be A: In poor taste considering his philosophy, and B: Also really easily detected and he'd get thrown out.

    He apparently has some particular spot to go to, a nice card table or another, one where he intends to stay on-hand with Strawberry Princess. Which table was it she wanted to stop by? Despite his losing streak, he seems to thrum with enthusiasm -- or maybe that's just the raw magic under the surface of the skin, waiting to be tapped into?
Damocles Damocles doesn't notice who sits next to him at first, as he's very focused on his cards.  He keeps making further notes in his book, which he doesn't bother to obscure, and if anybody bothers to look at them, they're all little shorthand notes on strategies, sometimes with quickly sketched diagrams. 

"Thanks," He responds offhandedly, dismissing the compliment.  "I'm still outlining strategies.  There are too many possible board-states to have any set go-to so I'm--"  He stops once it occurs to him who he's talking to.  The surprise at the sudden recognition is clear on his face, and in his voice when he says, "Oh, you're the casino's owner, aren't you?  Adeledji, right?  Pleased to meet you." 

Damocles lays down two more cards, nods to the dealer, and then stands up enough to offer a stiff Eorzean bow.  It's rough and unpracticed, but the fact that he knows the proper cultural greeting shows he at least did some homework. 

He also gives a glance over to Strawberry when the dealer invites her over. He doesn't recognize her, but he doesn't really recognize anyone.  She looks like she's dressed for work though, not for a party, and not the kind of 'work' that's done here.  Either she's very out of her element, or is a very high-roller who stopped caring about the pretense a long time ago.  Either way, he moves over a bit in case she wants to join.
Lilian Rook     Lilian makes no effort to hide a smirk even slightly at Teledji's immediate recognition of the source of that particular piece of information, equal parts amused, impressed, and distantly scornful. "Oh? Are they known in that quantity around here? That is, talking a lot and spreading rumours and hearsay? They did strike me as excessively talkative, but isn't that normal for the folk hero type of person? The attitude for boasting of conquests in their mead halls or whatever they use."

    "So you disagree with them? I suppose that wouldn't be surprising, but you *will* have to tell me all about their apparent flouting with the law. Of course I'm here to relax for now, but it would coincidentally help me with someone else I'm already up to, and if you'd make my life much easier, I'd certainly appreciate it~"

    Having immediately recognized the roulette tables were rigged a few moments ago, instead she smoothly heads over to the apparently popular card game, being the Sultan's Crown table. On the way, she glances over to !blackjack, then whispers to Tamamo "Let's try something foreign first, hm? I could win blackjack with my eyes closed a hundred times in a row, so we'll consider that boring pocket money. There are less people at the tables and . . . my intuition tells me the ones we'd like to speak to are at this one."

    "So, if I may ask, do what you do best~ Getting some information from these people should be trivial, right? And a different kind than I'll get."

    Yet it generally befits her to act very different from Tony. The wit and confidence is there, but all sense of a purposeful and razor sharp edge is carefully concealed, or rather, not at all put on display. For now, they're a pair of pretty ladies who decided on a girls' night out to a fantastical casino paradise. Cutting straight to the chase and nailing down deals with handshakes and machismo is better suited to the sharply dressed man in the party.

    Though she does stop for a minute to sigh and page Strawberry Princess over her radio with, "Does Lowell need chips? Did you let him do the thing I warned you against?"

    Finally, she seats herself across at Sultan's Crown, leaving the obvious space for Tamamo; somewhere especially focal, by some combination of lighting and traffic feng shui. "Oh, I'm not familiar with this game." she says for people to hear now, evincing curiosity that is mostly genuine. "We don't have this one back home. I'm interested! How does it work?" She's already looking around the table to measure up the locals, picking up bits and pieces of cues and info from the Line she sees clearly ahead of her still.
Strawberry Princess      The scruffy zoomer, of course, knows what's up with the roulette wheel- mostly from Lilian's warning on the radio, but if she squints, she can maybe almost see the signs of it being rigged. Maybe. Even so, she acts like a good sport about it, getting in on Arthur's hype and mourning appropriately when he loses. "Aww, man. You did your best. Alright! Let's see. I could try..."

     She seems almost as if she's about to give the roulette a go, herself, when the man at Damocles' card table calls her over. "'Sultan's Crown'?" Strawberry plops down at the table and gives an affectedly nervous, meek look up to the dealer and the man in power armor- and to Lilian, when she joins in. "I've- never really played cards before, to be honest, but I can give it a go! Maybe a little bit of Go Fish, but..." She reaches over and squeezes Arthur's hand for moral support.

     ... And a thousand invisible shards of awareness spread across the casino, letting her see through innumerable eyes; hear the whispers of conversation from every vantage point. Her awareness expands and permeates through the venue like an ethereal amoeba. It seems as though every card and every chip and every murmur in a shadowed corner is at her fingertips.

     Strawberry starts to play, seeming almost embarrassed and absentminded- really just a cover for her less direct investigations. At first she makes amateurish mistakes, not quite grasping the rules. But with her having perfect information on the deck and every hand, it's liable to very, very rapidly turn into a bloodbath.
Staren     Cards.

    Staren watches the first game curiously, trying to observe the rules and strategies. He's a fast learner, but not supernaturally so, at least not with this sort of thing. He sits down for the second round and keeps his opening bet small, around 5 platinum give or take how good his cards look. He refuses to go much above 30 for his first game, folding and watching again if needed -- the memory of Arthur's poker game and going bust when what he thought was a bluff turned out not to be feels fresh in his mind.

    Also, Arthur goes bust at roulette right away. Staren feels kind of bad for him. "I'll spot you 10,000 credits if you'll use them on a game that isn't entirely chance. ...How many platinum is that, anyway?" He suspects it's not a lot for a place like this. Staren might have Adventurer Money but this place doesn't feel like it usually caters to adventurers.
Seifer Almasy      Teledji gives Damocles a grin. "A pleasure. That's quite a suit you've got there. Let's talk, later, when you're not busy cleaning out the rest of my patrons, hm?" He hops down to hurry back over to Tony, having only checked in to see what Damocles is up to. Apparently, he felt it was on the level - or amusing enough to let go on.

     The bunny girl (this is the actual Viera) gives Tony a smile as he puts the money down on red. A broad bet is enough to make...not much, but enough for a drink, because it's impossible to fix so hard that "winning like one chip" can be disabled. So the Viera gives him another smile and sends a pair of drinks along to Tamamo and Lilian - stiff, and very tasty, drinks, probably made of...desert cacti, a little bit of venom from an unidentifiable creature, and some local fruits. The moment Tamamo receives the glass she gets a sensation from the wine-rim - it's been sipped on by a Very Powerful Man, somebody with Real Clout and Real Power, not this...this guy chasing connections. And recently. That man is also a small little...Lalafell?...the word sounds right in her head, lalafell...but unlike Teledji his presence looms large, and it's *real* presence, not this...this facade.

     Tony gets a name from Teledji that clicks in Tamamo's head and solidifies the image as she hears him say, "Mister Stark, I can absolutely get you a meeting with Lord Lolorito. I can get you in the same room with any member of the Syndicate you like but he's the one who's going to listen to you clearest. Raubahn, he's a dreamer, a Monarchist in all but name, and Manderville, well, he's an insane old man who runs a theme park for children and calls it a casino. Barely wears pants half the time. Never wears a shirt if he can help it. Disgusting. But Lolorito...you'll like him."

     Teledji shakes his head. "No, no. I'm no alchemist. I'm just friends with one."

     The metal is carefully slipped into his hand. Tony can tell. Teledji may not know *what* he's looking at, but he can smell a sale, and he can smell someone trying to sell him something. He examines the bag carefully, and then smiles up at Tony. "I think I can find a use for this, yes. Would you care if I had it sent to the Armorer's Guild? Or the Alchemists, of course. They'd probably know better than I the wonders of this metal."

     And what it's worth. He's not *that* easily glitzed. A salesman never is.

     He holds up a finger to Tony and then puts an arm around Revali's shoulder. "My good man, you're a champion, right? So if you're a champion in one place you'll be a champion somewhere else in no time, right? And it's just *gladiatorial* pits. It's nothing fancy."

     He pokes Revali in the stomach playfully. "Not like you. You can put on a show, I bet. A real, proper show. A show that'll get peoples' blood *boiling* and *pumping*. Roaring out of their chests in the shape of your name."

     "You're a star already. What's too good to be true? Me telling you so?"

     He looks up at Lilian and makes a sour face. "Oh, yes. But the problem is that once you kill a Primal people start to *listen* to you. Pretty soon you hear things like 'the Monetarists are oppressing the people!' and 'the Syndicate is corrupt!' and 'Teledji Adeledji's casino is garbage compared to Godbert Manderville's cactus-themed theme park for children!'"

     He scoffs. "I'd be all too happy to tell you about them, my dear lady. *All* too happy to tell you about them."
Seifer Almasy      Arthur loses his credit. The roulette guy gives him a convincingly apologetic smile. "Sorry, sir. It was a good attempt, at least." The condolence sounds sincere. Strawberry, as she extends her consciousness, can hear him muttering 'always one idiot in the pack' as Arthur walks away, though.

     The dealer re-explains the rules to Lilian, Strawberry, Staren, and the others sitting at the table - you have a hand of five face cards with number values, you go around the table and lay one card face-down in your 'palace' (pretend I always said palace), and you try to form collections of cards to multiply points. It goes around the table four times before you flip all your suites and show your point total for the round. Suites keep going until the end of the game, so part of the strategy is what you want to show the other players as you build further combos hidden away.

     Strawberry can hear the whole room, though. The bunny girl is talking to her friend about how impressive Tony was, just dumping all that money like that. Two of the dealers are going out for a smoke in the back and talking about the latest gossip - somebody called Lord Lolorito just denied refugees from some place called DOMA after Teledji advocated for them as a humanitarian display, and Teledji's kind of pissed about it and has been looking for ways to fuck over Lolorito a little.

     Ten thousand credits is maybe ten platinum chips. Enough to set ten armies loose in the Mojave. It's not a lot of money, compared to what Teledji just sort of handed out to everybody - but he knew you weren't all going to cash out instantly anyway, didn't he?
Revali "... Hah. Alright, yeah."

Revali stands up and claps his wing-hands together once. "Yeah. Yeah, alright, this sounds great. A real show. Get peoples' blood pumping - and well it should be pumping!"

It seems Teledji has him sold on this again.
Damocles "Alright, fold," Damocles says as he stacks all his cards up and pushes them back towards the dealer.  He jots down something else in his book, then looks up again to notice several people have joined.  There's the girl in the hoodie, and...other people.  The kid doesn't look old enough to be in here, but this is a foreign nation with a medieval vibe so for all he knows the age limit is 'old enough to steal daddy's coin purse'. 

He listens to the explanation again, chiming in one to elaborate on a point he didn't feel was explained quite enough, before catching himself, apologizing for interrupting and listening in.  It's clear on his face that there are one or two points where he would like to expand on, but doesn't anymore.

When the explaining is done, he gives a slight, wry smile, and tosses his ante in.  "I guess we'll start the pot small.  Don't want to scare away the new fish."  He gives a bit of a nod, and adds, "Oh, Damocles by the way.  Sorcerer and, magic and science and space and, all that.  So who's in?"
Staren     "Staren Wiremu. Action researcher." He extends a hand to shake Damocles's.

    Staren keeps his opening bet small, around 5 platinum give or take how good his cards look. He refuses to go much above 30 for his first game, folding and watching again if needed -- the memory of Arthur's poker game and going bust when what he thought was a bluff turned out not to be feels fresh in his mind.
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Strawberry Princess      "Strawberry Princess! I'm- just here to help, you know," she says, in lieu of a 'boss subtitle'. "And this is Arthur Lowell, rocket-powered hooligan!" She smiles amiably, but doesn't shake hands, evidently preferring to keep one hand on her cards and the other on Arthur.

     She kicks things off with an ambitious bet of 20 chips, but her eerie omniscience slowly makes itself manifest through the course of play. She seems to always know exactly where she stands in relation to everyone else, betting based on her true relative position rather than a statistical guess. What's more, she poaches cards that other people could use to complete their sets and refuses to discard ones that could put others ahead of her.

     It's not impossible to come out ahead of Strawberry without cheating: she can't control what cards others choose to discard, giving a margin of error if one's lucky enough. But she's infallibly skittish when anyone else shows a chance of winning, and perfectly bold when they're doomed.
Tamamo     Tamamo sits down for cards, listening with rapt attention to the explanation of the rules. She hasn't played before, but that's no trouble. She holds up a finger to ask the server who brings her the drink to wait a moment, accepting the drink but placing down an actual, solid gold brick-ingot on her tray to replace it. It is far too large and heavy not to have had some affect on her ability to walk in that dress, and for that matter, there was nowhere for her to hide it. She instructs the Viera to go and bring her some more platinum chips with that, since surely she'll be playing for some time. She radiates an almost literal (and actually magical) warmth in her smile.

    She does not care to specify how many chips she expects back. Haggling, like declaring specific tips, is for those not extravagantly wealthy. It's a given that everyone involved in a currency exchange will expect a cut, the transporters included.

    She plays. Most likely, she loses some of her money to clear beginner's mistakes, having not taken notes while the rules were explained, and being an actual beginner. Please pay no attention to her telepathic link with a certain nigh-unstoppable cheater or her ability to *reach* out into the future, grasp the threads of Fate, and twist until money funnels from The House to herself, granting herself that oldest of mortal prayers, 'grant me good fortune.' She's exercising her Divinity, in this small manner of raising her own financial luck.

    The dice may be fair. The cards may be fair. The shuffles may be fair. But that is only over the long run. There will always be highs and lows, across any random occurrence. And for any given moment, they favor those with luck.
Tony Stark Tony is genuinely amused and welcoming to Revali, letting the Hyrulian Hero get his pitch off and nodding along. "Revali is a fellow Paladin, an orgaization of generally like-minded characters and do-wells that are interested in a stable and safe society. A suit of armor around the world. You understand, Teledji." Stark explains.

"As for business: I'd suggest your alchemists over your blacksmiths. They'll probably get a bigger kick out of a little piece. And of course - maybe some demo products. It really is a miracle metal, and I'm the only man selling it."

Tony had been warm, firm, and relatively impassive, but for 'Lord Lolorito' he finally lets on a hint of hunger - of desire. It's calculated, of course, but it's the sort of visual cue a salesman would jump on.

"The mining magnate? Why, I'd rather enjoy a meeting with him. In the meanwhile, you enjoy that taste of what Stark Enterprises can offer, and please put me in contact with your Weaver's guild..."

Stark produces a whole talent of platinum from his jacket, offering it like a handshake to Teledji. "... I'm feeling like a batch order. You understand, of course, Teledji?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian gets a free drink courtesy of Tony, served to her by a viera in a bunnygirl outfit. Even if she doesn't say jack, Lilian *immediately* knows who has the cheek to do that, identifies him across the room, wiggles her fingers and sticks out the tip of her tongue. She then has the bunnygirl stay for an impolite length of extra time. Enough to get halfway through her drink. Really, the service isn't supposed to *actually* socialize with customers, but when Lilian wants to ask about when the place opened, how long she's been working here, how Teledji pays, who are the most memorable or famous people she's seen here, what events it hosts or organizations and charities it bankrolls --mostly harmless questions that someone very openly interested in the bartender would ask-- it's specifically hard to excuse oneself.

    Hard to even want to, actually. More than just scintillating conversation and personal magnetism, there is that inexplicable fairy queen charm that makes it feel like a special event just to be in her general vicinity. Every choice of phrase is fascinating, every hint of interest in too-green eyes is a little bit exhilarating, every compliment and thank-you is a small blessing.

    Yeah, Lilian knows that the Help has ears, the Help knows more than anyone thinks, and that the Help rarely understands the full gravitas of secrets that can be put together by talking about what they view as the small events in their everyday lives. The Help is always the weakest link, for places that aren't built on hundreds of years of secret society cold war.

    Plus it kinda makes her look flirty and available so whatever.

    So then she turns to the table. She does not turn off the charm. It radiates across the cards as if she were at the center of the Last Supper. It is a genuine night and day, between Lilian being veiled, professional, judging, and Lilian just wearing it on her sleeve, enjoying the time and knowing she's at the top of the room even if nobody else does yet, not just in the subtle changes in behaviour, but in the raw, fascinating magnetism about her; the kind that makes an average person sigh with nervous envy over their drink and wonder if maybe they should say something because they *really* want to at least learn that person's name. Letting it 'all hang out', letting herself laugh and smile and drink completely without pretense, is part and parcel with being a beacon of spellbinding attention.
Lilian Rook     She also turns that line of questioning on the table. She bets a conservative fifteen chips to start, and plays half-paying attention. She strikes up conversation with the locals about Doma, as if she'd heard bits and pieces on her own, on the way in, bluffing that she knows more than she does. She loses fifteen, but declares that she's figuring it out now, and bets twenty. She starts up some gossip on Lolorito, the local royalty, and the owner of the Golden Saucer, again as if she has political opinions which mysteriously never manifest directly. She loses twenty. She swears she's got it down now, and bets fifty, apparently deep into a few drinks and enjoying herself too much to be disappointing by reeling back her bet. Midway into her third game . . .

                -----[stop]-----
    "Mmm, that's enough of losing. If I went a third round, they might think I'm actually *bad* at something." Lilian says to herself. Reaching over the table for the deck, she slices the top half and casually tosses the fistful of cards into the air. They scatter into a wide, disorganized fan, then hang motionless in place as if held up with perfectly still and invisible string. Lilian's fingertip hovers around as she searches for the cards she wants, picking them out by eye from the hovering bunch, and then begins rearranging them according to which player she wants to have each card at each new hand. She does Strawberry Princess the small gratuity of not screwing her out of at least breaking even (though, she'll probably come out positive due to currently unbeknownst spying) and makes certain Tamamo looks good, but otherwise . . ..

    "Alright, I think I've indulged the children for long enough." says Lilian, tapping the fully organized deck straight and level, and carefully putting it back into the vacant table pocket from which it came. There is, after all, no need to read cards or read minds, if all the cards are arranged to make her win big the way they naturally fall.

                -----[start]-----
Seifer Almasy      Teledji's lips peel backwards into a broad grin. It's less slimy than one might otherwise expect. "Why, yes, Mister Stark. I do."

     He sits down on a stool, having to clamber up to do so, near Tony, in order to watch the game and talk at the same time. "Do you know what I say, Mister Stark? I say that war may be good for business, but *stability* is where you *really* make money. Oh, yes, yes, people spend to support the troops, nations buy each other's goods - but, you know, the Garleans don't *buy* anything. The Alliance, bless them, already relies on us for funds, funds that don't come back to us because we're bankrolling *them* to buy goods from *us*."

     "A suit of armor around the world is the exact sort of thing I want, Mister Stark." Teledji's little feet wobble back and forth. "I want the world to be safe so that people will feel free to spend their hard-earned, hard-won, hard-fought coins on delights the world over. So that people will dump their coins into goods and goals, not donating to a war effort that drags ever onwards with a country that won't even buy the time of day."

     "Yes, Mister Stark. I do, in fact, understand."

     The look in his eyes is actually kind of honest. Again, there's a sense that he's *not* lying - but, again, that's such a vague statement. 'Nobody makes money when we're the ones providing the money'. No shit. He's at least good at making that sound dramatic, though. Man's definitely a showman through and through.

     Teledji rubs his hands together. "Demo products sound *wonderful*, Mister Stark. Show them to me later. I'll pass them to the Alchemists and I'll see what they have to say about it. And then...well, I suspect we'll be talking again, now won't we? Besides Lolorito."

     Teledji nods. "The mining magnate, yes. Although he may not be...*entirely* your sort, Mister Stark. He's not a man who agrees with peace being good for business, you know."

     "He works Ala Mhigan refugees to the *bone*. Wouldn't even let the Doman refugees into the city. He's a man who *only* cares about profit." Teledji wrings his hands slightly. "I'll get you an introduction for sure - he still owes me a favor and he wouldn't cash in to help the poor Domans at all, stood firm, said 'no'. You'll like him, I suspect. He knows metals. And he knows money. And he's the sort who's no-nonsense."

     "You seem like a no-nonsense man."

     Yeah that's straight up a lie but it's a flattering one.

     Teledji takes the talent and smiles. "Of course I do. I'll see to it that Redolent Rose gets in contact with you immediately. Nothing but the Guildmaster's Best for a man like you, eh?"

     Meanwhile, Lilian pushes the Viera - whose name is Ygra - fairly thoroughly. She's been here for some time, the place opened maybe a decade ago - before the Bahamut Calamity for sure. Teledji pays really well for her to just look real pretty. It hosts a lot of events but no charities except charity games - and most of those events are high-end Sultan's Crown tournaments where lots of money is on the line.

     The most *famous* people, though.

     Well, she thinks that'd be the Syndicate - the actual direct rulers - who come here pretty often. Not just the Monetarists, but General Raubahn, Godbert Manderville, Dewlala Dewla (an important priestess), and Fyrgeiss Loetkilbsyn, a Mineral Concern Chairman. Lolorito's apparently primarily head of the East Aldenard Trading Company, but lately he seized control of a major mining concern, and Fyrgeiss is *really* pissed about it, she vaguely remembers from the last major Syndicate Crown's Night.
Damocles Damocles bows out of this round almost immediately, before investing nearly any of his own chips into things.  It's not entirely clear why, since his position on the board wasn't a bad one, especially that early on, but there must have been something about it that he wasn't keen on. 

Actually, the game state changed dramatically from when there were just 2 people, and Damocles wanted to take a round to observe how the dynamic changes with the current table.  He didn't even bother looking at his cards.   In particular, there are a few different playstyles here, and he wants to see how they interact so he can develop an overall strategy. 

In the meantime, he shakes Staren's hand, though the 10 foot tall, armored sorcerer makes for a bit of an awkward handshake.  "Action researcher?  As in 'you study causality', 'you study the interaction of energy and matter' or 'you study things while stuff explodes around you'?" 
Staren     "I dabble in studying a lot of things, but it usually comes down to the last one." Staren answers Damocles.

    Staren folds midway through the game, before Lilian gets /serious/ about cheating, and spends the rest of the game watching and learning. It seems like he just had bad luck, but he's up for trying again in game #3.
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry's confidence slowly builds with each round, though she never entirely loses that halting and hoarse quality. Sometimes she wins a little, sometimes she wins a lot, but those deft little prescient moves ensure that she does come out ahead on each hand- if sometimes only by keeping everyone else down. Her awareness, once expanded over the whole casino, has now focused down to almost just this table; everything else is a blur. It isn't the mission, but it is fun in a way she rarely gets to indulge.

     Then there's a little 'hitch'. She's looking at the cards in each hand; at the cards in the deck; at each person's eyeballs and breathing and facial twitches. When the deck is reshuffled from one instant to the next, the shifted arrangement is as plain as if it had happened in front of her eyes. There's a little tell as time resumes- an involuntary catch in her throat; her back straightening up for a moment. Over the coming seconds, she pieces out what the changes to the draw order mean- a significantly less juicy lead for herself. How can you disrupt a draw order? Demanding a reshuffle would be artificial. What else?

     Strawberry slaps her hand on the table. "Ah! Now that I have enough chips to share... Arthur, here! Take fifty." She pushes a sizeable chunk of them over to the erstwhile spectator godkid, and then smiles sweetly at the dealer. "Do you think you could deal him in? The round's barely started."

     And that will scramble who draws which cards, even as the deck stays the same.