I watched the owner retreat back to his private room with interest. Yeah, he is way stronger than he looks. He must be the Astral Emperor-candidate that owns this Territory. So I guess this confirms my earlier guess…

If he owned the Casino and it was his Territory in the Boundary as well, then he could exert some effects on the Material as well. It was matching up with what I had learned, and was one of the reasons I was trying to gather money myself. Hmm, I’m getting a bad feeling here… Reaching into my pocket I turned on the recording function of my phone.

Beside me the African-American girl was looking at the retreating man, her expression unreadable. She’s trying to hide it, but she’s looking like she’s very interested in him. I wonder why. I’m sure she isn’t a plant…

“Well, looks like we have twenty minutes. Want to grab some food?” Buck asked us, draping an arm around my shoulder. “You really are my lucky charm Akio my man. But there’ll be no friendship on the final table. I’m taking home the big money. You in too, doll?”

“Doll?” the woman snorted. “I’m no doll. I’ve got a name. You can call me Aliyah.”

“Sorry miss. I meant no offence. I’m Buck.” He replied. “This here is Akio, my new good luck charm.”

We made small-talk as the organisers were setting up the final table. A single, very glamourous female dealer wearing a red ballgown was opening up several packs of casino playing cards, while security had moved the bags of money to a podium nearby. I glanced at the other competitors, and seeing my gaze Buck started telling me who a couple of them were.

“Looks like we have some competition. You see that man sitting over there?” he pointed at a Hispanic man wearing a tidy tracksuit, drinking from a glass of iced water. “That’s Bernardino Fuentes, the Brave Bear of California. He’s pretty well known on the World Poker Tour. Seeing him here is a bit of a shock. He must have been in Vegas, as this was a word-of-mouth thing, not really advertised.”

So, a professional? He’d be unlikely to risk his career rigging a game…

“And the second fellow is… oh, I see he’s spotted us too.” Buck finished, as another player walked over. He was a fairly tall and lean man, with tanned skin and a tattoo of four playing cards around a snake on one of the well-muscled arms sticking out of the sleeves of his silk shirt. He approached us, running a hand through his dark-blonde hair and greeted Buck with a hearty handshake.

“Well as I live and breathe, I thought I saw you there, Buck Kelly, you old rascal. So you won through as well eh? And who are your friends?”

After we introduced ourselves, Buck returned the favour. “This here is another familiar face and quite the rival of mine. I’m surprised I didn’t see him earlier, must have been keeping a low profile. You may have heard of the DJ Brewery and Restaurant chain? This here is David Jacobson. Built them from the ground up. They’d be bigger if he didn’t lose all his money gambling though.” Buck grinned. “It isn’t like you to actually win, now is it? Normally you’d be a half a million dollars poorer and crying into your beer.”

“Aww, you wound me, Buck. My heart is in pain. I’m just as good as you. Your friends here must have some skills if they can make it to the final table too. Pleased to meet you ma’am.” He nodded to Aliyah, who returned it.

“I’d say I’m more lucky than good.” I laughed, as we exchanged a handshake.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it…” Buck said, regaling him with tales of Shaeula’s winnings earlier. As it was closing in on the time for the match I observed our competitors. Buck and David seemed tired but still mentally sharp, and Aliyah was showing no obvious ill effects from the aetheric drain. Bernardino seemed pale, but the other three, all men of varying ethnicities, who had already taken their seats at the table… Hmm, interesting…

I interrupted Buck to ask him if he knew them, and he shook his head. “Probably tourists like you and Aliyah here. If you’ve been winning big or showing off a lot of cash, people have been spreading word of this tournament.”

I see. I guess I can’t do anything yet until I get more info.

“Well, I guess it’s time y’all.” David said. “May the best man, or woman win.”

With that we took our places on the table. I was next to Aliyah, with Bernardino on my other side. Those who had been eliminated earlier were watching us from the surrounding tables, and were being given the opportunity to recoup some cash by betting on the winners. The casino owner returned from the back, accompanied by a pair of bunny girls. Stepping up to the podium he addressed the crowd.

“Welcome to the Casino El Diablo August Apocalypse Poker Tournament. Now you may be wondering just why this tournament was advertised by word of mouth. Well wonder no more! I wanted to do something a little different. Big tournaments are held in Las Vegas all the time, but isn’t it more exciting to enter a tournament you have to be lucky to hear about? That way we don’t see the same old faces. Though there are a few familiar ones I see…”

This guy sure likes to hear himself talk. And sure, I’ll be honest it is pretty cool to hold a hidden tournament, very manga-like. But I suspect it’s more to increase his chance of retaining all the money…

With that a spotlight was on Bernardino, and he was asked to introduce himself to the crowd. He received a big cheer, as did Buck and David on their turns, and surprisingly, so did Aliyah. Beautiful women are welcome everywhere… I and the other three competitors were unknown so weren’t popular, and our odds of winning in the betting pools weren’t high.

Money was changing hands at the back, the losing players handing over wads of bills, their eyes less than lucid. And of course, the casino was collecting a five percent cut again. Damn, this guy is printing money. It’s just pure greed the way this casino and all his games are set up to cheat everyone too…

“All right then, let the final begin! The little blind is twenty thousand, and the big blind is forty thousand!”

Quite the jump, but considering we have a lot more chips it makes sense. Oh well, time to see how this pans out. If some or all of the other unknown players are plants, I’d target Bernardino first, then Buck and David, as they are also known to the Vegas circuit…

I started out as the big blind, so was committed to dropping forty thousand, but with twenty-one stacks of ninety-five thousand apiece, this would be a long game. The gorgeous dealer dealt everyone two cards, and I couldn’t catch any obvious cheating during her deal. Marking my cards for later, I took a look. Eight and nine of diamonds. Not awful, but not amazing either.

I ended up folding as too many probing bets came in, but one thing I did notice was that the three unknowns were big on restlessly tapping their fingers, rubbing their hands or repeatedly looking at their cards. It was… suspicious. One of them, Emilio, also won the hand, though being as it was the first one, people weren’t betting too hard. The other two suspicious men were called Angelo and Simon. There didn’t seem to be any obvious connection between them at first glance, but…

Two more hands went by, and I folded both times, simply marking my cards. Angelo won the second hand, with Emilio and Simon folding quickly, and the third hand was very cagey, Bernardino taking a couple of stacks from David opposite me.

Hmm, Aliyah has bet almost nothing too. She’s got her attention on the casino owner more than the game, which is odd. She’s also looking around, seemingly at random, but… she seemed to be checking out the positions of the security and the exits.

“We will now change cards.” The dealer said, and she opened a fresh deck. Oh. Shit. That’s pretty bad for me…

Again, Emilio won big, taking money from Buck and Bernardino. Next hand I had my first decent bit of luck, a pair of aces. I tried a small raise to bait people in, and Angelo and Emilio folded. Simon came in, as did David and Bernardino, but when I then re-raised Simon dropped out.

On the flop a third ace dropped, along with a pair of kings. I now had a full house, aces over kings. Do I raise or not? Before I could David raised by a hundred thousand. Bernardino folded, and I then raised it by three hundred thousand. David then went all in. Unless he has a pair of kings I should be good…

Flipping the cards I revealed my pair of aces. While David had… a King and an Ace. As his face fell I drained my whiskey to cover my relief. Now the only card that could beat me is the last king. The odds of this are tiny. I’m guessing the fortunate winds are finally proving useful…

The turn was a seven, and the river a two, meaning I had cleaned out David entirely.

“And we have our first loser, well played but unlucky! That was some serious misfortune, but anyone else would have played the odds just the same!” the owner boomed, leading a round of applause from the watching crowd.

“Better luck next time, but it’s good to see you back to losing ways!” Buck crowed.

“I’ll see you at the bar after, win or lose.” He answered, waving tiredly to the crowd as he left the table.

So, that’s one recognisable player eliminated. I now have a ton of chips to play with, but it’s also good for the casino…

After another hand which sucked more money from Bernardino, who was swearing in Spanish, I believed I had finally figured out their basic signals. Angelo, Emilio and Simon were clearly working together. If you added the one that I had eliminated, that meant that at least half of the original tables had insiders. They were signalling to each other whether to bet small, big or fold, using that knowledge to drain cash from us other players.

Still, that doesn’t explain everything. If I didn’t know better I’d think they could see my cards somehow. That or… no … maybe…

The deck was changed again, and watching closely, wishing I had Shaeula’s eyes, I nodded despite myself. Holy shit she’s good. The other dealer I could see through, but even with my Perception this woman is nearly unbeatable…

The cards had an incredibly faint set of markings along one edge, an almost imperceptible series of indentations leaving an identifiable pattern along the sides, which she was feeling using a small groove cut into a fingernail on her dealing hand. She was then near-perfectly shuffling them into the order she wanted to deal them out. I wasn’t sure I could do that even with my abilities. She wasn’t able to control the entire order, but getting decent cards to one or two of the plants was possible. So how the hell do I counter this? She must have been practicing his trick for years. It’s really the perfect scheme, and no wonder my Fortune is failing me. After all, she’s stripped a ton of the randomness out of the game, so it’s no longer about chance. And combine it with the field of misfortune permeating the place, the fact that everyone is being drained of aether, mentally tiring them, and the three stooges there are co-operating… shit, our odds of winning are rock bottom. This bastard has planned it well indeed.

Aliyah managed a modest win, her first action in a while, and the game after Bernardino was all in, having been goaded in by Emilio and Angelo. Poor fool. You’ve fallen into their trap…

As the cards were flipped over, Bernardino let out a fist pump, as it seemed he had the advantage. But his face soon turned to horror as the river flipped to an ace, which was the only card that could see him lose. As he watched his chips were taken away and he was out.

“Oh that’s a shock!” the owner announced. “The famous Brave Bear of California is out! I suspect those of you betting on the side-lines have suffered on that one! Oh well, that’s the joy of gambling and why we are all here! Why not try and recoup your losses, we still have six competitors left!”

Yeah, and three of them are in your pocket. Chewing my lip nervously I considered my next move. I don’t HAVE to win here, I can swallow the losses, but damn me if I don’t really want to. But how can I beat the dealer and their team plays?