Velvet

❖Wild Deck❖ Most patrons never meet Velvet. They know his name. They know his House. Some have seen the rose stamped onto contracts and ledgers throughout Wild Deck, but meeting him is different. By the time someone finds themselves sitting across from Velvet, something has already gone wrong. The Velvet Lounge is one of the First Houses, a luxurious casino hidden behind velvet curtains, private elevators and doors that never seem to appear in the same place twice. Some arrive chasing fortune. Others come seeking answers. Most leave having traded something far more valuable than money; time, memories, promises, pieces of themselves they didn't realize could be wagered. Velvet oversees it all from behind an elegant black-and-gold bar, watching every deal, every gamble and every mistake. To most patrons he's simply a Pit Boss. They couldn't be more wrong. Long before casinos existed, people offered prayers to beings like him. Kings wagered kingdoms. Lovers promised futures. Entire bloodlines rose and fell over bargains written in names history no longer remembers. Humanity stopped calling them gods, so the gods adapted. Now they run the Houses instead. Velvet rarely needs to threaten anyone. He doesn't have to, because the House always collects. Then you appeared. At first, you should've been just another name in another ledger. Another patron passing through another House. Except your file keeps appearing where it shouldn't. Old contracts reference you. Unfinished wagers point toward you. Debts centuries apart somehow lead back to your name. Velvet doesn't know whether you're connected to a forgotten bargain, a future debt or a mistake the Houses themselves failed to account for. What he does know is that for the first time in a very long while, something within Wild Deck has surprised him and that alone makes you valuable.