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

c!

[unprimed]

[Tendi is definitely not participating in the fight challenge. Even if she did, this bracket wouldn't be for her...but honestly, after the recent glitches put some of her lesser-known skills on display, she's a bit on-edge when it comes to fighting. It's not like she has a cover to blow, exactly, but...that's just not what she wants to be known for! At all!

Anyway, she's not participating, but she's definitely curious to watch. Especially the powers! Like, how often do you get to see so many different types of abilities? She just wants to know everything about all of it. And judging from Morph's gaze intent on the ring, she's not the only one.]

Sizing up the competition? [Said with a friendly little smile as she approaches them.]

[mightymorphin]

[They straighten up from the railing they're leaning against, looking mildly surprised to see green skin - but it's not completely unusual for mutants where they're from, so Morph is quick to smile back.]

You bet I am. There's a ton of people here with strange powers, and going in blind has really messed me up before.

[But that had happened while the whole city was going crazy and trying to murder each other, so Morph isn't eager to get too deeply into that. They were tempted to blame being unprepared on being infected, but that wasn't really fair, was it?]

What about you, are you signed up for any fights?

[unprimed]

[It's been nice, being looked at as just green instead of one of those pirates or whatever. Tendi's been enjoying it a lot more than she expected to, to be honest -- enough that she wonders a bit how it'll feel going back home. If...she does go back home. --But that's not something she's ready to think about right now. Morph is right, though, and Tendi is quick to agree, giving an effusive nod as she does.]

I know, right? Like-- okay, so there are some species where I come from who can fly and things like that, but it seems like so many people here have these wild abilities! And magic, too, I've never heard so many people talking about magic! Granted, I haven't been to a lot of pre-warp societies, so maybe-- [nope, not the point.] ...anyway, it's weird, but...cool-weird, if that makes sense? It's something really new, for me. --Wait! Does that mean you have a kind of power? Are you planning to compete in these rounds?

[That should be interesting! Tendi is nothing if not curious, and if this person is planning to fight, she'd love to know what their abilities are like. ...Oh, wait, they asked a question.] Me? No, I don't have powers or anything like that. I mean-- I could probably hold my own in a basic fight, but I'd rather just watch, y'know?

[mightymorphin]

[Morph could definitely sympathize with that one. Back at home they'd never be able to walk around in public in their natural form, but no one here cared much at all, and that was a huge bonus. It's one of the nicest things about being stuck in this weird city.]

You're from a place with different species? Is flying really the strangest thing any of them can do? [That sounds kind of disappointing, honestly. And what the heck is a 'pre-warp'??] I'm from a world where there's plenty of people with powers, but I gotta admit, the magic trips me up a lot. It's a real pain to deal with.

[Hearing that she wasn't competing might've made it safe to share, but...] Yep, I'm signed up for the Powers bracket. If I let you in on what I can do, you're not gonna go and tell anyone else, right? I don't want to lose my element of surprise before I get in the ring.

[unprimed]

Well-- I guess there are some non-humanoid species who can do some pretty crazy things. I think there was a ship that ran into like, a whole sentient planet. It probably tried to eat them or something, but-- oh, and just before I got here, I was on this planet studying some moss that was also sentient, and-- ...come to think of it, it tried to eat us, too.

[She. pauses to think about this for a second, but seemingly decides not to pursue that particular train of thought.] --but you're right, the magic thing is...it's really hard for me to get my head around. I mean, I'm used to things having a scientific reason, not...gods and spirits and things like that.

[Oh boy she sure does talk a lot, but oooh, she sure is very interested to hear more about what Morph might be able to do.] Don't worry! I don't have a single bar of latinum on any match in this fight. I promise. [A very exaggerated wink, here.]

... ... ... No, I'm-- I'm just kidding. For real, I promise I'm not gonna tell.

[mightymorphin]

Wow, there's life out there and it's all hungry, huh?

[Are... are they talking to an alien? Is it just a stereotype that aliens are green? Morph is already well aware that there's life on other planets - the rest of the X-Men have had run-ins with aliens called the Shi'ar - but they missed out on all those space jaunts and only got to hear the stories about it later.]

I don't know where anyone's getting their magic from, but it means the wizard or whoever can throw out a whole bunch of different... spells, I guess? Either way, it makes them really unpredictable! Thanks to that I got electrocuted twice in one week.

[And yes, they're still going to complain about it when they have an opportunity. It sucked, big time. Luckily Morph is also pretty chatty, so they don't mind the tangents or the questions much.]

No idea what a latinum is! But, [And now they lean in a little closer to keep their voice down,] I'm a shapeshifter, and I have a lot of forms that are great in a fight.

[unprimed]

[You know what, it's absolutely true that even outside the Trek universe, Tendi's appearance puts her squarely under the stereotypical alien umbrella. It's-- not something she really minds, to be honest; or at least, she's used to stuff like that. In any case, she snorts out a little laugh at the observation.]

I know, right? It's kind of amazing that life managed to get so far out into the universe with everything out there trying to eat them all. I guess it also means that most humanoids don't have a great instinct for self-preservation, but-- [... anyway.] Oh, wow, electrocuted?? But-- you're okay, right? I mean, if you're not, you probably shouldn't be fighting.

[Look, she may not be in sickbay anymore, but habits! ...not like she's not genuinely concerned. To be fair, Morph does look pretty much okay. Unhurt, at least. So she can't worry too much -- just the right amount.

The fact that they don't know what latinum is makes their next confession a little less shocking, but Tendi still gasps excitedly when she hears it. At least she manages to keep her voice low enough not to draw attention when she starts in with the questions.] What? No way! That is so cool! Can-- can you turn into anything? Or is there some kind of-- I don't know, a limit or something?

[mightymorphin]

Uh, guess I can't argue with the self-preservation thing. But sure I'm fine. It was over a week ago, so I slept it off.

[And that's true enough, but Morph also isn't keen on dealing with unfamiliar doctors. Unfortunately, all the doctors here were unfamiliar, and a couple of scientific types had already been a little weird over learning they were a shapeshifter. Morph didn't mind questions, but their creepiness threshold was pretty low in that regard. Tendi's more normal amount of excitement is going over with them much better.]

I can turn into people and animals, including whatever they're wearing. I don't know if there's an actual size limit, but as long as it's something I've seen, I can shift into it.