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

[jaganshi]

[ Hiei notices the change in body language easily enough, though he doesn't really know what's riled Toph for a little while longer. He hasn't talked with her enough to really realize she doesn't bother with faking eye contact and.. to be fair.. he's staring out at the ring instead of looking at her.

She asks if he is alive, though, and Hiei's brows raise, eyes finally coming away from the ring and back to Toph. He's never been asked about it like that before, though to be fair the only time he's been asked at all was when Yusuke was getting used to his new pulse.

Or lack thereof, he guesses. ]

Oh. [ He says it casually, as if the thought may have escaped him or it was just... normal. Of course for him his lack of human pulse is absolutely normal. ]

Demon hearts don't quite work the same as humans. They are much slower. You'd have to listen for quite a while to actually hear one.

[ Though, now that she's asked - ] You can actually hear like that? That is more along the lines of how I hear with the Jagan's enhancement.

[fieldtrip]

[ Hiei's absolute nonchalance is so typical of him so far -- dramatic about some things, flagrantly uncaring about everything else -- that Toph huffs. She keeps meeting people here with weird heartbeats, but usually because they're too fast, not too slow. Her face scrunches up like she's listening harder. Now that he's said that, she feels like she doesn't want to miss it, even though it won't accomplish anything for her besides getting a sense of his baseline. If it's that slow, probably not something she can actually do anything with. ]

You're saying I can clock demons from your spooky practically dead lack of heartbeat? [ Well, that's convenient, at least.

Hiei's been forthcoming so far in a straightforward way Toph likes, and nothing about her powers is a secret, so she explains immediately. ] I'm not hearing, exactly. I'm sensing vibrations through the floor, and heartbeats make little vibrations. I don't check all the time but sometimes I can tell if someone's lying by paying attention to it.

[ That's the second time he's mentioned the Jagan, and Toph wants to know what it is, but more than that... ]

I wanted to check how sincere you were about not wanting to face Kurama in a fight.

[jaganshi]

[ Hiei has no idea that she's listening for his heartbeat - he's too focused on the match he's watching at the moment. He's so used to it that he won't even think to prompt her with a time estimate of when she might hear - or feel - one. His focus comes back for a moment when she asks, but only long enough to huff something like a sound of amusement. ]

Yes, basically. Or at least the demons from our world. I can't speak for those who aren't human here besides us.

[ Hiei sighs as she asks him how sincere he is. Funny, no one's ever really asked him that when he says he would never want to fight Kurama. ]

I can say with full confidence that I would not ever wish to face down Kurama in a match that was life or death.

[fieldtrip]

[ She's absolutely not expecting him to answer her implied question. Maybe she's spent way too much time around Spock recently, but her experience with non-humans has led her to believe they are all cagey and difficult as hell.

Hiei's immediate forthrightness gets him huge points from her and makes her laugh, expression smoothing out into friendliness and good humor. ]

Okay, fair enough. I'm excited to learn from him, then. He seemed like a polite fuddy duddy, but that doesn't mean he can't kick ass.

[jaganshi]

[ fortunately for Toph, Hiei isn’t trying to avoid her questions or be difficult as hell. Yusuke or Kurama can surely tell her what a willful little asshole he can be when he really wants to. One day she may get to experience it too, if she is so unlucky.

He almost brings up an anecdote about kuwabara’s training once Toph expresses that she is excited to train with Kurama, but decides perhaps that is ill advised.

Lest he hear even more about why he talks about the teen so often. ]

You don’t know what you’re getting in to yet, but you will learn quickly once he begins.

If he elects to, anyway.