Camping: Part II!

[kingtyrantranger]

Jason didn't exactly sell the new world well. Stepping through the Threshold Gate, the Legionnaires find themselves on a landing platform overseeing their new vacation hotspot. The first thing they'll notice is that everything feels slightly heavier. Nothing dramatic, but if they were carrying a hundred pounds of stuff, now they've got twenty more pounds weighing them down. The planet, Futuro's Folly, is as advertised, hollowed out with the entire ecosystem on the inside. Outside, if they'd bothered to look, there was only a barren, crater-pocked surface of a dwarf planet about half the size of Pluto. Inside, however...

While they're standing in the midst of what was surely once a base of some kind, the criminal resort according to Jason, it doesn't stretch out very far. Just about three quarters of a mile out, the 'settled' area ends, taken over by a vibrant jungle of dense violet and orange foliage, with gigantic red and blue mushrooms filling just as much area as the trees. More, in some cases, as some of them seem to be miles high off in the distance, just when the earth seems to start curving in on itself. An orange sphere that seems to be the size of a silver dollar hangs in space above their heads, with something rotating in the core of it. If anyone were to watch it, the orb flickers rapidly as rings blur around the sphere itself. After about 8 in the evening, the fields that the rings generated would turn slightly opaque, bringing darkness to the entire planet at once.

The former crime resort itself isn't exactly in the best of shape. By 31st century standards, the technology is centuries out of date and finding people who are capable of repairing it without ruining the 'historical significance' is increasingly difficult. There are six main buildings other than the small spaceport they're standing in:

• The main building. The top three floors were once dedicated to administration, communications, and security. The bottom two floors are dedicated recreational areas, with infonet hookups (reception's not a problem when you can turn your entire planet into a signal amplifier), a variety of holographic games, and a bar/lounge area with some futuristic gambling machines tucked into a corner. Jason has turned on the parental controls, however.



• Behind the main building is the storage center. There's a vast array of vehicles, furniture, and machinery that can be asked for, and it's all stored underground. Simply type in a command and the robots underground will shove the requested item into the gravity tubes, shooting them up to the customer's level.



• The food court has the option to make your own food as well as an outdated and slightly buggy robo-chef that can make a variety of meals. Meat is on the menu, but if anyone asks for meals that require it, they'll have a long wait. The larder hasn't been stocked in centuries. However, it does have coffee. STRONG coffee. And just about any vegan meal you could ask for. It's open air, but can be covered with a dome at the push of a button. The dome has controllable transparency and can be programmed to display any number of things as a ceiling.



• Standing roughly three hundred yards apart are two convertible athletic fields, each about a half-mile in distance. In the old days, they'd hold races or gladiatorial bouts in them. They'll form just about any field needed, however, from obstacle courses and splatterball to golf to the now-illegal slaughterball rings or laser tag arenas. However, most of the gear needed to play is in the storage center.



• Finally, there's a single public bath house. Rather than the sonic showers of Legion World, these use real water. The bath house holds rooms for spas, saunas, massages, public bathing, and showers. Jason has assured everyone, however, that there are private bathing arrangements. He neglects to mention the cameras that subtly fill the rooms, though they are now sporting brand new Legion of Super-Hero stickers over the lenses to keep everyone's privacy intact.



• About a quarter a mile off in the distance, there's about fifty luxhabs. Small cabins built for two people at most, with private bath rooms, small kitchenettes with freshly stocked food, personal computers, and a communications system to contact other luxhabs or make orders from the main house and kitchen. Food can be delivered by small drones if it's called for. The beds are made of a oxygenated memory gel, capable of taking nearly any consistency and shape requested, from a pudding to rows of gel-blades. Climate controls, down to programming the inhabitant's favored atmosphere or filling the luxhab with water, are in full effect. The outsides are programmable ferroliquids, so the guest can customize their vacation home's exterior, even going as far as to add porches.

When the Legionnaires approach the border, heading to the wilderness, there's a small, almost decorative-looking wall. Even those with normal hearing will pick up on a ringing tone as they get closer to it, like a bad case of tinnitus. Walking through the gates is almost like walking through an actual barrier, but once they've done that, the noise fades the further they get from it. The sonic barrier covers the resort in a dome, meaning that they'd run into the same thing if they flew straight up.

Immediately outside the wall, the jungle starts abruptly. And, compared to the relative silence of the resort, the noise of life is practically deafening. Bugs clicking, birds calling, animals screaming at one another, it all slowly fades in the deeper they get. There are trails through the jungle, but they're slowly becoming overgrown as the resort's popularity slowly fades.

As they go deeper, it's not hard to find the first actual animals. Totally unused to humanoid life, they show more curiosity than fear. Small, chicken-sized dinosaurs roam in packs, sloth-like creatures hang from the ceilings, and there are trees that have been knocked over, and recently, in some huge brawl between titans. Every now and then, a small batch of overgrown buildings can be found, mechanical parts pushed out of them by growing vines, or torn out by wild animals. Slow, crackling noises that sound like drawn out thunder echo in the distance as something snaps trees, some of them several dozen feet in diameter, like twigs in the pursuit of prey.

The only thing that Jason's marked on the maps, beyond the default markers that the resort gives out, is a lake about five miles outside of the resort. Set in a clearing, it's over a mile long and several hundred feet deep, with a cave system connected to it underneath. The data regarding the caves is corrupt, the maps refuse to include them. A river feeds into the lake by a waterfall, and a number of small creeks seem to spring up near it. It's not uninhabited, there are several fish in there. And, possibly, something living in the caverns underneath. It's rare, but someone might see animals drinking from time to time, from the small dinosaur packs to titanic mammoths... with weapon mounts that alarmingly track anything that move too close, too fast.

There's a lot to work with, and Jason's rented the place for several days. Hopefully, everyone will find what they need to relax and recover from their recent traumatic events. Or just socialize and meet new people.

[[Okay, so there's some generic activity headers up right now. Feel free to pick one up and run with activities running in any of those areas. For those of you who wanted action, I'll have a separate top-level for that. However, I won't be running any of that chaos, so feel free to take it in the direction you'd like.

If you want to do anything, anything at all, and it doesn't fit into one of my toplevels, feel free to make a new thread entirely! Go wild with it, y'know?]]

Comments

[goddamngrenades]

"This isn't my coffee." His skills of observation are unparalleled, honestly. Not that he minds the cocoa at all, hell he even takes another sip before rolling upright to blink at the victim of his beverage theft.

Silent (though he'd been pretty deep in his own head, even D hadn't registered her so woah), skilled, sweet tooth- cute. Oh fuck. He pastes on his most winning grin, a little tight and crooked on the left due to the scarring on his cheek, and offers her back her mug. "Uh- sorry about that. Didn't know I had company."

[leverageintceo]

"It happens," Parker says, taking her mug before placing his back down on the table. "I'm really good what I do, and that means that sometimes people don't notice me even when I'm not making an effort." She cocks her head to the side. "Your scar is cool."

She's not entirely sure if that's a socially appropriate thing to say, but it is a pretty cool scar. And it looks old enough that he might not be too traumatized to tell her about it.

[goddamngrenades]

"Hobbyist, professional, or military?" Stealth like that comes from a background of some kind and, well. Color him curious. Back to the coffee to wake himself up a little bit he snorts softly at the remark on the scar.

He's had time, now, to get used to it, and while it still bugs him a little? Chicks dig scars. "Frag grenades are a bitch."

So are overly competitive teammates.

After a sip he offers his hand. "I'm York. And you are...?"

[leverageintceo]

"Professional," Parker says. "But we've worked with the military once or twice." She frowns thoughtfully, squinting off into middle distance. "Sort of. Unofficially. Depending on whether or not you count the time we stole the Department of Defense."

She nods at his statement. "I would imagine they are, yes. But you have a cool scar instead of being dead, so it beats the alternative. And chicks dig scars. Guys might also dig scars, but I have less data on that."

Handshakes are something she's well-versed in at this point in her life. Hers is firm, professional, and fairly brief. "Parker. Or Payback. Hi."

[goddamngrenades]

"The whole department?" Damn. His brows go up appreciatively as he whistles long and low. "That shit's not easy."

Everything he's pulled he never really tried digging into UNSC systems because A) don't bite the hand that feeds you and B) when he was officially AWOL it was best to not attract attention, but damn. "Chicks and guys dig scars for different reasons. I mean there's the same 'ooh you're a badass' kinda vibe depending with hints of 'oh no he's vulnerable' and a dash of 'broken bird let me fix' depending on who's look'n at you."

His own hand is calloused, the shake equally firm. "Nice to meet you Parker. I guess my other name's Locksmith? Felt appropriate."

[leverageintceo]

"Nope," Parker agrees. "It was really hard. But it was exciting! I jumped onto a moving train and helped disarm an EMP bomb with a taser. And we faked two deaths and a lot of things got set on fire or exploded, and I had an emotional growth moment."

She considers this new information and comparing it to what she's already gathered. "I suppose that makes sense. Vulnerability and not-vulnerability. Though the bird thing is weird."

The codename definitely gets a grin. "Yeah? Is your power unlocking things then?"

[goddamngrenades]

"Isn't that always the way? Things burning and chaos and shit that needs doing and you have this epiphany of some kind like 'oh, that's a thing now'. Ah, fun times." It keeps life interesting, those moments. Almost makes him miss some of the more bizarre stuff he'd done in the project-

But not all that much.

"You know that'd make more sense? But no , I can do the lock cracking on my own. I make grenades and am very, very lucky. Or unlucky- it depends on how the chips fall in any given day." Which can help with unlocking or, well. Shoot him in the foot.

[leverageintceo]

"Exactly!" Parker says, pleased that someone else has had the same experience. "Then you have to do a lot of talking and navigating a whole new form of social interaction and things are weird but sort of more okay until someone gets buried alive and then there's crying and hugging and so many more feelings than you'd expect."

She cocks her head to the side thoughtfully, considering his description of his powers. "Can we influence your good or bad luck? Because I can pour cold water on you to wake you up in the mornings if that means you'll be luckier. Or scatter chips on your floor or something."

[goddamngrenades]

"And then you can't just ignore it and you have to talk about it like people with normal lives and emotions and while feeling things is normal and healthy- we don't really live lives that are productive to those same kinda weird hangups and insecurities, yeah?" FINALLY someone that understands him and doesn't live in his head with him.

Awesome.

"I haven't really tried anything like that. It's sort of like stacking the deck in my favor. I haven't had any real big missions just yet to test it and there's no real way to swing it in training."

[leverageintceo]

Parker raises a hand, palm down, and tilts it back and forth in a so-so sort of gesture. "I definitely couldn't ignore it anymore, and there was so much talking and people with more normal lives explaining things to me and me explaining things to them, but I got rid of some some insecurity. Not all at once, but it's sort of like horses. Sometimes it's worth doing the thing that feels like jumping off of a building, except scary instead of fun because it's with your feelings." She scratches her chin. "But I still don't have the weird hangups and insecurities that people with normal lives have. Like, people are really weird about being naked, have you noticed that? And lying, and theft, and disarming bombs with pudding."

She wrinkles her nose at him. "Why would you need a big mission to test it? We could do it right now, I could poke you to make sure you don't use all your good luck juice, then throw my coffee on you, then get a new coffee and wait, oh, twenty minutes to be safe, and try again to see if you don't get hit the second time. Definitely seems less risky than waiting for an actual mission."

[goddamngrenades]

"...you're gonna have to explain to me how you did that last one because even for me that's a stretch." Pudding. How do you disarm a bomb with pudding? that seems pretty damn impossible. Not entirely because-

Well shit, he's seen strange things. Not stranger, not yet, but give it time.

"I dunno, it seemed like higher stakes meant higher payout? I could just flip a coin till it was heads 100 times in a row but that's a small nudge, those usually work. Something like making an impossible shot while falling from a window would be big." Or, you know. He could miss and die. Probability and gravity are on occasion vicious bitches. "Though the poking and coffee thing sounds doable. Go for it."

[leverageintceo]

"Our first grifter got a motion sensitive bomb in a vase of flowers, but she didn't see the bomb until she'd picked it up, so then she couldn't put it down," Parker explains. "Everyone was trying to figure out how to diffuse the bomb, but I figured that the best option was making it so the bomb would be in pudding instead of water, since that would give her more wiggle room. But everyone looked at me really weirdly when I asked if she had instant pudding." She wrinkles her nose. "So technically no bomb disarming happened, but that was the topic at hand. It wasn't like I suddenly had a craving."

She frowns thoughtfully, turning his words over in her brain. "Something big would be hard to prepare for, yes," she agreed. "But a lot of people seem to think that luck is a thing that can be manipulated, like 'a kiss for luck', so it'd be worth knowing if it can be."