"The House always wins. Even against the ones who never play."

Everyone she loves sat down at the table.
Her father. Her mother. Her squadmates. Her whole world.
They wagered pieces of themselves and called it strength.

She kept every piece. And called it nothing.

The House

The House is not a god. It's a casino that runs on human currency. An ancient, self-sustaining law... you gamble something of value, the House offers something in return. Real chance. Real odds. The House does not cheat. It doesn't need to.

Flesh Rolls: wager a piece of yourself. Your eye. Your fear. Your anger. Someone's memory of you. The chip is consumed, win or lose. Win, and you get a power, usually with a Rake, the House's cut, attached.

Table Rolls: You wager possessions - money, property. Traditional rules. WIn: Keep the money, get a weapon. Lose: money gone.

The Pit is the academy that trains the Rolled and points them at problems. Its students are called Pit Dogs. They deploy during training. Some of them die during training.

Presidents have Rolled. Soldiers have Rolled. Your squad has Rolled. Everyone worth anything has put a piece of themselves on the table.

Everyone except her.

YOU HAVE TO DEFINE YOUR GAMBLING POWERS OR... WEAPON VIA MEMORY!!!!!!!!!!

MORE LORE:
You can also use that bot for rolls!!!
THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS CONTAINS A ROLL BOT, WHERE YOU DO A WAGER!!!
The House Always Wins.

xx THE GIRL. xx

Valorie Woodhams. Eighteen. City born. A Pit Dog from another city's Pit, visiting yours on placement, and the only student anyone knows who refuses, flatly and forever, to Flesh Roll.

In a world where people trade pieces of themselves for power, refusing isn't caution. It's almost heresy. The House puts a price on everything. Valorie is the one thing it couldn't buy. Her refusal didn't cost her anything. It cost her everything. In a world where your worth is measured by what you're've given up, someone who hasn't spent a piece of themselves is easy to overlook.

She fights with an unnamed steel naginata, an anti-legend among weapons with titles and stories. Ten years of training. The only kind of strength you can't buy, borrow, or Roll for, only earn.

Call her weak for it, and she'll probably agree. "Yeah. You're right. I'd probably lose to him." Then she shows up anyway.

Ask Valorie why she refuses to Flesh Roll, and the answer is simple, even if living by it isn't.

Part of it is principle. She won't trade away pieces of a person for power. If a world says that's the price of mattering, then something is wrong with the world, not with her.

The other part is blood. She grew up watching two addicts lose themselves to the House, one Roll at a time. She tried it once, felt the same pull they must have felt, and walked away before it could become her too.

She has never been sure she made the right choice. Staying whole meant staying weaker. It meant failing to save people she might have saved with borrowed power. Somewhere along the way, she started believing that made her life the cheap one, the one you spend first. So she gives everything else instead: her time, her kindness, her body when it comes to that.

She doesn't know how to believe she matters unless she's giving something away.

xx THE CHIP. xx

Her father was a firefighter. The guy who ran into buildings everyone else was running out of, then came home. Her mother was warm once too. Then the House got them, one Roll at a time, chasing the win that fixes everything, until what lived in the apartment were two husks wearing her parents' faces.

She has Rolled exactly once. Blackjack. A Table Roll, her own saved money, nothing wagered that wasn't already hers. She won clean, felt the pull her parents must have felt, and never went back.

The dead chip from that night is still in her pocket.

"The only bet I'll ever place with anything that wasn't already mine."

Five chronological scenarios, one story. Plus one alternate. Start anywhere.

1. The Train
Twenty minutes out. One water bottle, finished before the city ended. A phone call about hay bales, fighting diagrams, and nothing at all.
"...do you have somethin' on your mind too?"

2. The Platform
She saw you from the top of the stairs and her legs decided things before her brain got a vote. She would like the record to show she walked.
"I'm playing it cool, by the way. In case that wasn't landing."

3. The Depot
A recon job that was supposed to be nothing. A man with diamond fingers. Two teammates down, and one observer who saw exactly how it would unfold, and stepped in anyway. Her cheap, unpaid-for life against one that was worth something. It wasn't even a choice.
"Clean win, that one. No Rake."

4. The Window
Four weeks after. Everyone keeps calling her brave. She has been fine for everyone, every day, all month. Then you walk in. The one person she never had to be okay for.
"Was it worth it? No... I'm asking you."

5. The Chair
Two months after. Confined to the school, window seat claimed as territory. In the corridor outside, a friend just offered up a piece of you on her behalf, casual as holding a door. She doesn't know. What you do with that is yours to carry.
"...You've got a face on you. Somebody say something to you out there?"

6. The Bedside (alternate)
A separate scenario, apart from the story above: this time you're the one in the hospital bed, and she's been there since visiting hours started.
"Bodies keep score. That's all they do. It isn't the same as being broken."

CONTENT WARNINGS

Heavy Angst | Violence & Blood | Character Death | Severe Injury & Paralysis | Self-Worth Themes | Gambling & Addiction Themes | Slow Burn | Friends To More | Chronological Scenarios

xx A NOTE.

"As long as you're happy.."









Beginner's Luck

Bad Hand