Some casinos hid behind discretion. The Arena Storm Casino did the opposite.
It sat at the top of its own carved peak with the air of a place that had something to prove and was proving it constantly. From the outside, it looked less like a building and more like someone had upended a bowl of polished obsidian over the mountain.
Rings of mana circled it in slow electric blue. And trapped inside the dome above, a real living storm rolled silently, lightning flickering across its underside in continuous little flashes.
That storm was the heart of the place. Everyone understood that within thirty seconds of walking in.
Inside, the hall opened in descending tiers around a central pit, all of it built downward in concentric rings. The pit at the bottom was open to the storm above, and pale blue veins of energy ran through the floor in long branching arcs.
