Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 32: Casino

On the way to the tables, Isaac dropped by the bar and bought himself a glass of whiskey on the rocks. Showing up with a drink in hand might make people underestimate him, but at the very minimum, the combination of his shirt and drink should make him look like a tourist out for a good time, rather than a card shark out to make a profit.

As he walked, Isaac panned [Hunter’s Gaze] over the crowd. He did this most of the time for the twin purpose of training that [Skill] up and getting a slight advanced warning of any powerful potential foes that got anywhere near him. After all, while some [Privacy] upgrades might be able to spoof the various [Inspection] versions to give a false reading, but the sheer simplicity of his version allowed him to bypass most of that.

Just like everywhere else, most people here were still Level 0, identifiable by their barely detectable affinities. But there were exceptions. The most impressive of these was a man standing over in the corner, looking around with a watchful gaze, prepared to react to any disturbance.

His Stats where high, with a Perception that matched Isaac’s and a similar investment in Fortitude, but their total was still a bit lower. Given that Isaac had gained 15 points in various Stats from Aspects but couldn’t sense any from this guy, it was entirely conceivable that he was Level 10 and had [Inspect]. Sadly, this wasn’t an exact science, though.

What he could tell was where this guy’s build was heading. High Perception to spot problems, high Fortitude to be able to stave off the tiredness, something he was undoubtedly being paid through the nose for, shored up by moderate Strength and Agility to allow for a rapid response anywhere within his line of sight.

And as for the man’s affinity, it was rather clear and easy to sense. Vigilance, clear and sharp, and a readiness for anything. As unflattering as the comparison was, Isaac couldn’t help but compare it to a faithful guard dog, eternally vigilant and ready to face down any threat.

On one hand, it was good to see at least someone hadn’t just recognized the potential problems that could arise from the [System], but had also actually done something about it, as much of a pain this might end up being for him, personally.

He kept walking, checking out what kinds of people sat at them. As he did so, he downed half his whiskey in a single gulp, ensuring that not only would his breath smell of booze in case anyone cared to take notice of that fact, but also to arrive at the table with a glass that had clearly once been fuller.

Finally, he spotted a table whose composition he kind of liked. There was a man in a sharp and extremely pricy suit with barely but still noticeably elevated Stats who gave off a feeling of, for lack of another word, sharpness as well as a hint of ruthlessness. Of caution and mental power.

The improved Stats were Magic Power and Perception, the clear beginnings of a mental celerity build. After all, it was rather apparent that Perception had to improve one’s processing power to keep up with all the extra sensory input and Magic Power increased the size of one’s mana pool, a role traditionally taken by the Intelligence stat, laying near the idea of the two being synonymous.

Besides, that wasn’t exactly wrong, merely incomplete. Both Stats that influenced the user’s mana also granted a certain degree enhanced mental processing, after all.

Between the feeling he got from the man and that Stat spread, Isaac thought he was either a [Businessman], [Cardsharp], or other [Class] in that vein. Also, someone wealthy enough to afford to lose the money he used here.

The second person was, like Isaac, wearing a Hawaiian shirt from one of casino’s stores, but one he recognized as being significantly more expensive than his. Between it, the gold Rolex at his wrist, and no noticeably increased Stats, Isaac assumed that this person was some novae rich guy, showing off his wealth. Or maybe just a playboy using daddy’s money. Either way, someone who either had money, or was so reckless with spending that Isaac beating him at Poker wouldn’t make much of a difference. Someone who bought a Rolex, ludicrously expensive clothing and went to Vegas without being able to afford it would end up broke, regardless of what he did.

The third guy was also Level 1, but with an incredibly weird aura. It felt … squirrelly, somehow. There one moment, practically gone the next. Quite powerful, somehow, but also incredibly inconsistent. Just like Lady Luck, basically. A [Gambler], who was similarly wealthy, judging by his outfit.

[Gamblers] and associated [Classes] were a titanic pain in the ass to deal with, their [Skills] making infinitesimal alterations to reality, tilting events that happened by sheer chance into the user’s favor. Fighting one often felt incredibly frustrating, but they were rarely powerful. After all, even if it were possible to get to the point where you had a ninety percent chance of winning in any given situation, after a mere thirty fights, the probability of winning every fight was below five percent. And given how lethal the [System] was, that usually meant death.

As to what kind of life and outlook one had to have to become a [Gambler], to make the central thing in one’s life the pursuit of fortune in gambling, Isaac had no idea. It was definitely an unusual mindset, though.

All in all, three people he wouldn’t feel too bad playing against.

Isaac sat down, gave a generic greeting, downed most of what remained of his drink, and asked to play.

He started out slowly, cautiously, but he was rapidly learning to recognize most of the cards. It was a fairly new deck, which made this harder, but still pretty doable, especially once he started tapping out little melodies on the table, masking it as a nervous tick, leaving small indents in the cards.

By the end of hour one, the one thousand dollars in chips he’d started with had turned into ten, in a pile that looked to only grow bigger.

During this, a few complimentary drinks arrived for the players, as it became clear they intended to stay a little longer. After all, drunk people got reckless and spent or gambled money, a lot of which would inevitably end up in the casino’s pockets.

Isaac took whatever they gave him, downed it in seconds, and then burned off the alcohol with [Hydra’s Regeneration] while acting progressively more drunk.

Eventually, the deck was swapped out, something that apparently happened several times a day. Given that they were in almost constant use, they tended to wear down rather quickly and gained identifying marks that even ordinary people could easily spot.

Isaac took this is a chance to ‘accidentally’ knock over his half empty beer, spilling the liquid onto the table. Swearing loudly, he grabbed it and put it back upright, but the table still ended up dirty. There hadn’t been any cards on the table at the time at the time, so the response from the other players was closer to mild irritation, rather than true outrage as a turn was badly interrupted.

The mess was swiftly cleaned up, but still left traces behind, which would end up on the cards and quickly give him marks to identify them by.

While that was happening, Isaac took out his flask in what was clearly meant to be a surreptitious maneuver, but his attempts to hide it made everything all the more obvious. Or at least, that was what it appeared to be. Someone who’d drunk a little too much, spilled his drink, and was now going back for his emergency stash.

In the following few minutes, he began to use [Hundred Faces] to jam his pupils open progressively wider while adding a red tinge to his cheeks. To all the world, his physical appearance now also matched that of a drunkard.

As for the little trick about making his pupils look huge, it actually came with something of a drawback as it allowed more light than normal into his pupils, which could easily blind a baseline human over time. But between his Perception letting him ignore overly powerful stimuli and Fortitude preventing his retina from taking damage, he was perfectly fine.

He fucked up a couple of hands on purpose, but then returned to his normal style of play and making slightly more cautious bets.

Things continued on in that vein until his fellow players began to be replaced by others, some of whom appeared to be ordinary casino goers, so he left as well to wander the casino floor in search of another table.

So that was what he did for the next twelve or so hours, dropping by one of those pay by the hour motels to sleep for a couple of times, then returned to the casino floor.

He’d won all the money he needed, including what he needed to pay in taxes, a few more hours after that.

Now, he could just leave and either find somewhere to summon until his return flight took off, or maybe just see some shows and do the proper Vegas experience, but that would still leave his secondary objective unfulfilled.

It was an idea that had occurred to him a while back, right after Patrick had mentioned how a high Perception could be used to cheat at the card table, which he’d slowly been refining constantly since.

But now, he’d run into an unfortunate hiccup. No one had called him out on his behavior yet. Before, that had been a good thing. Now, however, it was a problem.

Isaac just sighed and left the casino after having his winnings transferred to his bank account. His next tax bill was going to be painful.

Clearly, he’d just been regarded as a very lucky gambler who’d somehow managed to keep up a winning streak despite significant alcohol consumption. As for constantly switching tables when his fellow players changed, that could easily be explained away as wanting to play with rich people who’d be willing to lose a lot of money.

So, his money had been secured. Now, it was time to go back and use his abilities to make money in such a way that someone would notice.

Instead of going for the Poker tables, he made a beeline for the Craps tables. They were hardly the most efficient way of making money, but someone literally never making a losing shot was almost guaranteed to raise some eyebrows. The art of ‘dice control’ was arguably a real thing, a technique that allowed the user to somewhat control the outcome of a dice throw, it was just not something that had been conclusively and definitively proven to work.

But much like Card counting, it was just a useful trick used to win without being actually illegal. If anyone could actually pull it off, at least. Of course, much like with the other trick, casinos could deny you service and ban you from the relevant tables.

So that’s what he did, walk up to the Craps tables and start playing, rolling the dice over and over again, ignoring the rest of the world as he did so. Slowly, the pile of chips next to him began to grow and grow, until eventually, a large man stepped up next to him.

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.” the human wall said, giving him a hard look.

“Ok.” Isaac said and straightened, looking him straight in the eye.

The security man took a moment to pocket the dice from the table, as well as his chips and then led Isaac into a separate room. It was clearly a security office, but still rather well decorated. This place was clearly meant for people who might be cheating, but the casino wasn’t willing to outright accuse of that fact just yet.

Another man showed up, carrying a glass of whiskey. Judging from the smell, the exact same kind Isaac had ordered when he’d first showed up. Clearly, someone had taken the time to watch the security tapes and not found any obvious cheating just yet but still noted down the beverage for this exact situation. Or something.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Thoma.” he said, sitting down in front of him. Clearly, they’d gotten his name from the credit card receipt or something like that.

“Afternoon.” Isaac shrugged.

“I’m David Hart, the Casino’s head of security. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he asked.

Isaac shrugged “Turns out dice control actually works.”

“Seriously?”

“Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“Look, you have had a streak of luck that is downright unnatural. If it turns out you indeed made your own luck, by whatever means that may have been, that would be a problem. We’re checking the dice as we speak, if there’s something that we’ll find, then you’d better say that now.” Hart said, Isaac’s flippancy having clearly made him decide to cut right to the chase.

“Except I didn’t. Just a little skill.” Isaac planted his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers and laid his head on top of them “Why exactly are you so sure that something untoward occurred?”

The door behind Isaac opened and revealed the gorilla from earlier, who shook his head.

Hart just sighed.

“So, as it turns out, those were the casino’s dice, normal and unloaded. I don’t suppose you could tell me your [Class], Mr. Thoma?”

Ah yes, he clearly suspected telekinesis, or something in that vein.

“And what makes you ask that?” Isaac asked.

“The fact that you’ve hit a Level that allows you to block [Inspect].” Hart said, bluntly.

“If you must know, it’s a kind of [Researcher], focussed on creatures. And no, I didn’t cheat, I just used dice control, like I said. It works, if your stats are high enough. But you’re right, there are countless ways to cheat using [System] powers, as you are no doubt aware, which is likely also the reason I’m in here. But I didn’t.” Isaac told him seriously.

“A brief google search of your name reveals that you’re a researcher into the [System], is that correct?” Hart asked.

“Yep.” Isaac told him proudly.

“I’m guessing that you know of quite a few tricks, then?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here, after all.” Isaac said, sitting up straighter and placing his folded hands directly on the table “I’m a guy with high Agility and used that to control the dice in such a way that I won almost certainly. You noticed that, but how many things have you missed? After all, I made it rather obvious what I was doing, standing there like that. But if I hadn’t, would you have caught that?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Your point?”

“You, and by ‘you’, I mean the entire gambling industry.” Isaac told him “High Agility leading to dice control is only the beginning. Then, there’s a high Perception that allows someone to almost perfectly read other people, even taking their pulse by watching their carotid shudder ever so slightly with every heartbeat. And that’s ignoring the mess any kind of [Telekinesis] [Skill] would make of the Roulette table, or how precognition would let people win a metric crapton of money from the slot machines.”

Hart smiled softly “I see. Is it a job you’d like? Or maybe some funding for your department?”

His voice was suggestive, enticing, and Isaac was aware he needed to watch what he said here.

“Funding, yes, but not for the department I work for. I’m suggesting that there are solutions out there for all your problems, they just need to be discovered. And while you could just put out a bounty for anyone who invents or discovers something that could help, but allow me to suggest something else.

“Invest in foundational research instead. We don’t have the basic knowledge to even be aware of where to start with figuring out how to block high Perception or [Telekinesis]. But something like that almost certainly exists out there.

“And foundational, basic research has had countless benefits in the past in ways that no one could have expected. For example, a quarter million dollars that showed how massaging baby rats improved their immune system and growth rate, something that was later applied to human premature babies, something that massively improved their, well, pretty much everything.” Isaac said proudly. He’d done a little research and gotten some basic ideas and background information from Patrick.

“In essence, as people start levelling up, you’re either going to have to ban anyone above a certain Level, or end up going out of business. They don’t even need to have [Skills] specifically for cheating, just high enough Stats.”

“And I suppose you’re doing all of that out of the goodness of your heart?” Hart asked.

“Actually, no. Like I said, we still need to find out everything about the [System], we need to do all the experiments ourselves because we have basically no paper to read, to quote, to build on. Anything that gets discovered by anyone helps everyone. That research is already being funded by, well, nearly everyone. But Vegas had, as people like to put it, fuck-you-money. So, what do you think?” he asked.

“I think that’s a pitch for the owner. Stay here for a bit.” Hart said and stood up abruptly, and left Isaac alone for half an hour. At that point, he returned with a portly man in his sixties.

“Good evening, Mr. Thoma. Mr. Hart said you had a proposal for me?” he asked, not even bothering to introduce himself.

“It’s not so much a proposal as an appeal to your common sense in the interest of preserving your profits in these tumultuous times.” Isaac began, repeating his pitch, but also expanding upon it.

“Now, even ignoring the immediate problems, there are also countless new and spectacular possibilities. Can you imagine an enchanted roulette table specifically meant to be played in such a way that all players use [Telekinesis], maybe? But all of that requires research, research that could be massively sped up by an infusion of cash.”

“Hm, you make some good points. But tell me something, Mr. Thoma, why the fixation on [System] research, no matter who does it?” the boss, who still hadn’t given his name, asked, steepling his fingers.

“Because no one knows much of anything about the [System], save the fact that it is incredibly powerful. And that’s what scares me. Who made it? Why? What’s up with the Summoning System’s interpretation of certain monsters? There’s a dozen examples of it changing how certain monsters work, locking in on certain details in lieu of others, summoning the versions in the modern consciousness rather than the old and original version- “ Isaac began to explain, talking himself into a verbal frenzy, looking every bit the frantic research scientist

“What are they?”

“Pardon?”

“You said dozens of examples. Give me some.” the boss said, eyes hard.

“Alright. For example, the Draugr is a monster found in the Undead section of the Summoning System, despite the Draugr as a zombie only being one version of its lore. There’s the eternal monster that can never be killed and returns to its grave whenever it dies, to rise again within hours. Others have them be straight up ghosts, which would put them squarely in the Ephemeral category. Then you have the version of them that’s a zombie at night but turns into an immobile ghost under the light of the sun, and will glom onto any cart that runs into it invisible to try and drag itself back into the darkness.

“And also, Pterosaurs aren’t dinosaurs, but they can be summoned using the Prehistoric part of the Summoning System using a fossil and the recipe for a dinosaur of the appropriate size. But only the most diehard dino nerd or paleontologist would know to make that distinction.

“Why. Is. That.” Isaac asked, punctuating every word of the final sentence by jabbing his finger on the table “Why does the [System] sometimes pick the option in line with current humanity’s collective knowledge, even if it’s incorrect, why does it veer from incredibly intuitive and user friendly to a deathtrap to all but the most cautious? I think it’s incredibly interesting, sure, but also a question that needs to be answered, for the sake of everyone.”

Isaac took a moment to take a deep breath to calm down.

“I’m sorry, that got away from me a little. Point is, I think this is important to research, and you could profit immensely. I’ll see myself out.”

And with that, he got up and left, seemingly ashamed of his outburst.

“Wait a moment, Mr. Thoma.” the boss called after him, prompting Isaac to stop and turn around.

“You make some good points, which I’ll take into consideration. But how would you feel about showing my security teams some of those security flaws that you found? I can’t allow you back at the Craps table though, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I’d be delighted. It’ll be an interesting challenge.” Isaac told the man with a grin.

So that was what he did for his last couple of days in Vegas, playing penetration tester against the casino’s security and pit bosses. As a part of it, he managed to confirm that until the flaws were cataloged and did not coincide with already known cheats such as using [Scry] instead of hidden cameras, it wasn’t cheating. Therefore, all his winnings were confirmed to be his and unable to be demanded back by accusations of cheating.

Incidentally, this was also the single most profitable job he’d ever worked, at least barring monster extermination or Aspect sale.

In summation, he’d come to Vegas, made a fuckton of money for himself, probably gotten a far larger amount invested in [System] research and made an excellent reputation for himself.

Also, he’d gotten quite a few job offers from people wanting to hire someone who not only displayed clear and obvious expertise with the [System], but also a high degree of creativity.

Lastly, there was apparently now a standing offer for anyone from his research group to get a good room and free food for a few days in exchange for a few new security flaws being found. Obviously, they’d have to stay away from the tables.

All in all, a very successful trip. The only sticking point was the fact that he’d worked basically 48 hours straight, only taking brief breaks, in order to project the image of an incredibly hard worker, counting on sleeping on the flight back.

… and then the plane had flown through what felt like a hurricane. Of course, he knew it wasn’t an actual hurricane, they’d never have been able to take off otherwise, but it still made it impossible to sleep.

Isaac arrived in his apartment at four in the morning, incredibly tired and cranky, and just fell into bed after phasing out of his clothes without even bothering to shower.

… and then his fucking phone rang.