Avaritia Arrival Log

[cancrymods]

AVARITIA

It's Vegas, baby! Oh wait, I already made that joke on the location page... With Esme's iron-fisted reign brought to an end and the Executors given time to take a very well-earned break, it finally comes down to descend to the next layer of Purgatory. Thankfully, with this being the group as a whole's second descent, things are a little less nerve-wracking this time around... maybe. Hopefully. ... Probably. Welcome to Avaritia. Feel free to use this arrival log to chronicle your initial misadventures in the Greed Layer of Purgatory. As noted in the location page, several locations will require further investigation if you'd like to get some information on them, so get investigating! Drop a comment down to the Investigation Request subheader if you'd like to explore. Get out there and have fun!

Comments

[heir_to_ruin]

He's not going to hide that he's new to this. They've been around enough, most likely, to know that he's a new face. At first it's just casual banter trying to get a feel for who the newer players are and who are the veterans. The longer someone's been around the more likely they are not to fall for any of his games.

Sussing out who leans hard into pride shouldn't be too difficult and hopefully those will be the people he can goad into making foolish decisions.

Once he gets a little more comfortable with some of the high rollers though he will do his best to make small talk after the games, making it clear it's not a ploy to get in anyone's head. Just a lot of "man that was a great game... I thought you had me for a minute there" sort of thing. Talking about memorable hands from the game might be a good way to get them talking about memorable hands from other games. After how things went with the bartender though he's going to try to coast for a few games before he brings up anything like that.

Gotta take more time, do things gradually.

[cancrymods]

It takes a while – Ruin isn't the first newbie to try and ingratiate himself to the high rollers and he certainly won't be the last. But his persistence, good cheer and exceptional imitation of sincerity eventually wins a few of them over and he manages to get an older man and a Specter around his own age to regularly engage in conversation with him. Well, kind of. The older man mostly just grunts and nods or shakes his head, but he seems otherwise pretty engaged in the conversation.

The Specter around his age is much more talkative – they seem to be another newbie like Ruin and once they strike up a rapport they quickly take to him as a friend and are pretty quick to start chattering about whatever he prompts them to open up about.

What sort of deets is he after?

[heir_to_ruin]

While he is very careful never to be cocky when he wins he is clearly excitable and always a little startled when he wins. Especially if his new "friend" ends up congratulating him on a good game. He's... not really acting that part either. He simultaneously is confident in his skills but also used to things blowing up in his face so when it works out well he is a bashful puppy.

Conversations... honestly he'll let them lead at first, try to gauge what they like and how open they are, things to redirect to if they get uncomfortable. Honestly he's going to try the same tactic he used with the bartender, daydreaming and talking about "what if" scenarios. Imagine what you could do with that kind of money. Consider the things you could buy with a big win. People tend to lean into what they know with that. "Live like a movie star" or "Own more cars than Elon Musk" sort of things...

He's fishing for a name drop on Greta so he can follow that up with more dumb dreamy fanboy type questions. "Holy shit have you met her?" "Is she cute?" "Do you think she might come to a game?" "What's she like?" etc.

[cancrymods]

Ruin's new friend doesn't really have much in the way of a filter, so once he gets them talking, he gets more or less everything he needs out of them. It's easy enough to turn the topic to gambling wins and with that on the table, Greta's name coming up is inevitable. She stopped coming to the high roller tables before Ruin's friend started playing, so they haven't seen her in person, but they've heard all the wild stories about her insane win. They'd love to play against her someday, though – even if they'd end up losing, wouldn't the experience of getting to play against someone who made off with such an incredible win be worth it?

[heir_to_ruin]

Oh definitely. Just the experience of playing against a legend would be so cool. Ruin will make a point of making sure that little day dream is mentioned to (or at least around) the old timer that's come to tolerate these young starry-eyed gambling nerds. But he is still careful not to push for information or ask about such things immediately after receiving the information, letting things come up as organically as possible. Hopefully he might have a little more info from someone who's been around longer.

Time consuming, sure, but better than getting his ass kicked in a back alley.

Meanwhile, as the big games carry on he is also doing his best to memorize patterns and tells that some of the others that are regulars have. The more easily he is able to read everyone else at the table the more he'll be able to focus on Greta herself.... eventually. Inevitably.