Free Night at the Casino

[fieldtrip]

Who: OPEN to all / mingle log
Where: Queens (the casino!)
What: Wow July sure was a month! Time to take a breather and have a night out, courtesy of Toph and Mitsuru!
Warnings: N/A

FREE NIGHT AT THE CASINO

GAMBLING

Feeling down after that space infestation made you murder some friends? Getting tempted to bury yourself in the sand at the beach so no one can ever perceive you again?

Time for a tone shift! It's a free night at the casino. For tonight only, chips mean nothing -- which means everyone gets a rack of chips when they walk in and can let loose! Entertainment, food, and drink are also free within reason. (Abuse the privilege and find out who works security here the hard way!)

Welcome to Queens, the formerly shady but now revamped and reimagined casino in the entertainment district of Aldrip. Classy and minimalist but not gaudy, it's run, staffed, and heavily patronized by Chosen. Maybe you know someone who works there, maybe someone dragged you in to lighten up for once, maybe you're just stopping by for some fun.

Appropriately, the most popular game of the night is Queen's Blood, with tables set aside purely for teaching. There's also the standard casino games available in spades -- poker, slots, roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and so forth.

AT THE CLUB

It wouldn't be a casino without alcohol, music, and dancing. There's a low-key bar for those looking to have a conversation where they can hear one another over the pleasant live jazz, and a much livelier dance floor set off to the side in a different part of the casino with a DJ playing dance music.

FIGHTING TOURNAMENT

Beneath the casino is a massive underground cavern converted into a fighting arena.

It's a bit hard to find, intentionally -- either you were personally invited by someone or you stumbled across the covert speakeasy-style entrance in a corner of the main floor, possibly from the people jostling to go in and out. The stairs go down and down until they suddenly open out into the huge room, lined in walkways to view the fight.

There's three circuits to the fighting tournament: a bracket for fighting with powers, a bracket for fighting without powers (hand-to-hand and weapons only), and a shooting competition. Toph (fieldtrip) serves as referee for all of the above and is prepared to break up anything that goes too far. This is just for fun, folks!

Sign up in the comment below and maybe you'll even win something! Toph promises a super cool prize to the winner of each circuit!

FORTUNE TELLING

Get a free tarot reading!

It does seem like some of the glitching in Aldrip has made it maybe a little more accurate than usual lately... or maybe that's inaccurate? Feel free to have the cards have a real effect on them with a glitch!

DOG THERAPY

In one peaceful corner away from the din and bustle is a dog petting station. All manner of adorable and highly trained dogs are available for cuddles and play time.

Some of them are even up for adoption if you want to take one home!

Kakashi (battlefieldbrat) runs and operates this station with the kind supervision of Koromaru, our local good boy.

Code by 10billionghosts.

Comments

2

[bulleting]

[Between fighting Jinx, and getting poisoned, Caitlyn was not competing. At least, not in one of the physical fights. A shooting competition would be fine, nothing super extreme on her still achy body. She felt a lot better than she did, but that didn't mean the last few weeks hadn't had an impact.

Thankfully there was no lasting bad feelings between her and Vi. After the amount of time they had both been in Aldrip, it was just another day, getting mindfucked in one way or another.

Vi, however, did join the competition, so Caitlyn made her way into the audience to watch and cheer her companion on. It's as she was looking for somewhere to sit that she spotted Toph, and she made her way towards her. There was no point in announcing her presence, Toph would know she was coming before she even spoke up.]

Mind if I join you?

[fieldtrip]

[ She's right about that, and after teaching her on and off over the past few months, Toph is especially attuned to Caitlyn's footsteps. She can tell right away that she's approaching and that something's slightly off. Not that it's hard to guess why that might be after everything with the gnosia. ]

'Course. You doing okay? You're walking a little funny.

[ Does Toph need to beat up someone for her student? She is fully prepared. ]

[bulleting]

[Caitlyn sits, and pauses at Toph's question. She knows it does no good to lie. Toph could always see right through lies, so she knows it's really not worth the effort.]

Yes, I'm fine. I promise. I was...infected, last month. Claude helped Vi use a poison to disable me, to make it easier to heal me. I'm feeling better now, it's just taken some time.

[She appreciates that Toph is so worried. She's been a good teacher. It's thanks to her that she didn't die at the hands of Jinx, after all.]

[fieldtrip]

[ Infected is one way to put it. Truthfully, Toph wasn't trying to interrogate her, just expressing some natural concern, but she still appreciates the upfront honest response. ]

That sucks, [ she says succinctly. ] I managed to escape most of it, but it seems like everyone I know got hit with something. That's why I put this together -- [ she gestures around them ] I thought everyone could use a break.

[bulleting]

I'm glad you managed to avoid most of it. It was all...very unpleasant.

[Now that she was in her right mind again, she honestly worried about the state of all her friends. She didn't think she hurt anyone except maybe Jinx, Ekko, and Vi, and that bothered her enough. She could only imagine what happened to the rest of the town.]

It was a good idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants to get their minds off of it all.

[fieldtrip]

Come on, you can say it was total bullshit if you want. I know what a swear is.

[ She is an educated mature adult !!! Also she can't help poking at Caitlyn's proper diction a bit. ]

You gonna join the shooting competition? If you wanna cheat a little, I won't say anything.

[ student privilege ]

[bulleting]

I should really have words with whoever keeps teaching you all these swear words.

[She's used to Toph's bluntness by now, at least, but she's still a child!! Seriously, who keeps teaching her such things?]

I was considering it. Without cheating. Or trying not to, anyway.

[She's honestly not sure if she can turn it off, at this point. She's gotten so used to shooting and listening to the singing of the metal as she does. It's certainly made her a much better mark, and she was already pretty damn good.]

[fieldtrip]

Nobody's really teaching them to me, people just keep using them.

[ And she's obviously going to pick them up and use them herself when appropriate. ]

I know what you mean. Trying to use my bending just to see but not to do anything is gonna be so weird. [ Toph is also expecting this to be a struggle, but then, she likes challenges, so that's mostly why she'd signed up for the no powers circuit as well as the powers one. ]

[bulleting]

There really are quite a number of potty-mouths around here, aren't there?

[She's in a situationship with one of them, too. She honestly wouldn't put it past Vi to be part of the bad influence, here. Sigh.]

I can only imagine what it would be like for you. I've had my power for a fraction of the time you have, and it's starting to feel like second nature.

[fieldtrip]

[ As if reading her mind, Toph answers with a smirk, ] Yeah, and your "friend" is one of them.

[ Let's assume Toph has learned finger quotes by now and appropriately makes them in the air. ]

Hey, that's great, though. That means we can step up the training soon! [ She has plenty of plans for what that means and is truly eager to get to them. ]

[bulleting]

My-- do you mean Vi?

[She sees those quotation marks and knows exactly what she's suggesting. Is it really that obvious to everyone around them? Whoops.]

I'd like that. You'd be proud to hear this, but I actually stopped a barrage of bullets the other day. It was when I was infected, but I was able to deflect almost all of them entirely. [Given how fast bullets traveled, especially from a machine gun like Jinx had, she was proud of herself. She got grazed by a few, but that was a lot better than being completely riddled with bullets like she could've been.]

[fieldtrip]

Unless you have another "friend".

[ It's only that obvious to Toph because Vi fumbled over her words enough that it was unmistakable.

As Cait expects, Toph visibly brightens at hearing this. ] Sounds like you're ready to go from defense to offense! [ She rubs her hands together eagerly. Knowing her student's interests in firearms, she couches the next step in equivalent terms. ]

Let's see if we can get you to twist a gun into a pretzel from across the room.

[bulleting]

[Caitlyn is grateful Toph can't see the flush crossing her face, but she can probably sense the flutter of her heart, so it's just as bad. Sighs.]

N-- No. Just her. [She's basically admitting to it, but there's no point in really denying it, is there? Everyone seems to see through them, these days. They've been called out, more and more, lately.]

That sounds amazing. [She never doubted herself with her firearm skills, but with this magic, she's always been more hesitant. Magic is forbidden where she's from, so she knows she's still internalizing that and needs to let go. This was an amazing gift, and Toph was going to help her be even more amazing.]

I'll be looking forward to it.