Entoptica

Overview

Entoptica is a resort located on the planet of Halcyon. The resort sprawls both above and below the surface of an entire artificial island, usually situated close by the city of New Cydonia and the Line teleport network. It can also rove anywhere, as it is not attached to the sea floor, so it can function almost like a very large cruise ship as well.

The island is divided into four sectors, themed loosely after the four classical elements. Despite being artificially created, the designers took some care in making plausibly naturalistic biomes for the island itself to represent the elements. One side of the island is dominated by a large volcano, and the Fire sector buildings wrap in and around it. On the other side is a jungle teeming with trees and green plants, growing on and wrapped around the Earth sector buildings as if long-forgotten ruins. Occupying another third of the island, on a high plateau of innumerable rocky crags and spires, old and new volcanic vents puff out gases and the wind blows swiftly through--this of course is the Air sector, with buildings set up on spires and crossing over open air on great bridges. Meanwhile, nestled down in the glowcoral-studded underside of the floating island is the Water sector, situated entirely under the waves, of course.

Sectors

Fire

Buildings crafted out of black volcanic stone and glass (obsidian), or sometimes built inside the false volcano, where artificial lava flows and cycles through various lava-falls. Fire is for passion, sex with clients, hands-on experience sessions.

Earth

Buildings are largely wood and stone, dusty tan colors outside with trees growing on and within them. Lots of plants inside. Earth is centered around hippie-style hedonism, drugs and sheer pleasure. It also houses the staff and toys, as well as containing some manufacturing facilities.

Air

Buildings in Air are strung across spires and rock towers, with lots of flowing lines and structural components that evoke a sense of weightlessness. Plenty of open platforms to the sky, as flying (via wings or easily obtained suits) is a popular way to get around. There’s a natural continuous flow of air through the spires from the temperature difference of forest and volcano, and some wicked upward thermals closer to the volcano. Air is for education and performance. Many of the facilities are training for new toys, or for those who might like to try out being one. Performance-wise, there’s a lot of large theaters and smaller exhibitions for seeing toys having sex with each other, or staging larger orgies or kinkfests for bigger audiences. Also, sex in the air is popular here.

Water

The buildings here point downward like skyscrapers inverted, made of colorful craggy material to match the glowcoral that grows here. Plenty of windows look out into the ocean itself, and the ecosystem below attracts much wildlife all across the food chain. Water sector is largely for maintenance. A lot of the infrastructure that makes the resort run is situated here, as well as administrative offices. Toys also need emotional maintenance sometimes, and here is where counseling and other therapeutic services can be found. Of course, there’s a few facilities for aquatic sex and kink too, well loved by the local Neptunian community.

Stacks

Stacks are the primary technology for toys and guests alike to experience whatever they wish to. On intake to the resort a guest gets backed up to a stack--which can be done with a non-invasive scan, or more directly if they have the integrated hardware already. Their mind is then backed-up for the duration of their stay, but the stacks can also be used for any number of interesting things. Notably, a stack can be loaded into another body, for the experience of being another species. A stack can have mods loaded atop it, as well--this might alter the mind within in interesting ways, possibly making them a different person, or just encouraging certain commands to be followed. The best application of stacks, though, is in loading them into something that has a full sensory network but is not, in fact, a person. Furniture is common, as are disposable objects. A stack can be convinced that an experience is permanent even when it’s not. And of course, once an experience is done, the stack can be read back into the original host, giving them the full experience and memory of whatever happened.

The main difference with a Toy who works at the resort is: Toys are only a stack. They have a preferred body, and are still backed up regularly, but there's no organic mind for them to load into. It's also common that they never had one to begin with, as Toys are often synthetic from the start.

Location Descriptions (MUCK style)

The Aetherium Hub

The Aetherium is a hub port, both of water and air, where incoming ships and fliers come to drop off or retrieve passengers. The building itself is a huge sphere set both above the ground and down into the water beneath the island, surrounded by landing pads and underwater moon pool docks. Its location in the exact center of the island affords incoming guests access to any of the islands sectors easily. Anyone coming to the island of Entoptica would pass through here first. The interior is hollow, one great curved wall along which rooms and walkways are affixed. The center of the sphere is taken up with a bright hologram representation of Halcyon, with lights noting various above- and below-wave cities, and a bright mote showing the current location of Entoptica itself. Incoming guests stream in a gentle spiral to the bottom of the sphere, boarding the local tram system passing along the underside of the island to its various sectors, while outgoing guests follow a another ramp spiraling upwards, helically entwined with the first. The upper portion of building is clear, and offers a beautiful view of the sky and the surrounding environment. If you’re following the flow of people, you’ll see them go through four main gates to the transit stations. They’re marked by the names of the sectors, themselves named after classical elemental structure. Under a gate stylized like melted rock, you have transit to <Fire> Sector. Next to that, ringed in holographic smoke, you have the gate to <Air> sector. A flash of green turns out to be trees entwined with flowering vines guarding the <Earth> Sector. These three gates form a triangle around the circular space, while the gate to <Water> Sector is at the zenith of the sphere, represented as a pool of cool blue-glowing water—a hologram concealing a ramp down to the true station. Set into the curved wall next to the Air gate is a modest person-sized door that glows with light, a token access point to and from the Superfluid teleport hub.

Earth Sector

This sector of the resort models itself after ancient stone cities overgrown with jungle greenery. The buildings are elaborately decorated stone structures, set among a seemingly haphazard overgrowth in a riotous flowering of colors. Sometimes the trees appear to even be growing out the top of a building, with roots trailing down in all directions as if melted. Despite the appearance, it’s actually quite carefully gardened and maintained by its own full-time staff of diminutive deer Toys, which you might occasionally catch a glimpse of along the trails. The trails between buildings are equally maintained, and subtly labeled by signs that look grown surrounding trees. In this sector are the living quarters for the resident Toys and staff, who have their own campus mostly separate from the guests. Also in this sector, back up near to the Fire sector, there’s a lot of forges and factories for manufacture of all the props, drugs, restraints, equipment, and anything else that gets used on the regular in the island—including Toy bodies and stacks. For guests there’s many recreational facilities, largely temple-like structures fostering hedonism, entheogenic excursions, and a very chill, laid-back sort of approach to relaxation. There’s also no clothing requirement for the entire island, but it’s here where that is especially indulged, as the lush environment is especially amenable to going nude. If you’re looking to explore, you might check out the Xanadu, a complex of domed pleasure environments with regular orgies as well as smaller, more personal encounters, where off-duty Toys often mingle with guests on equal standing, of their own volition. If you’re a Toy already, of course, you might just be heading home instead to the Pods, an island word for the housing complex, borrowed from the Neptunian term ‘podhome’. For those who are interested in how things work—or who might be considering a switch to being a Toy themselves—there are regular tours offered of the Factory and related structures. Don’t worry, the conveyor belts are sealed so you can’t accidentally fall on them—but speak to the Fore if you’d like to arrange that sort of experience. Of course, you can always transit to <Fire>, <Air>, or <Water>, or head back to the <Hub>.

Air Sector

This area’s landscape is marked with tall rock spires set into a dry and dusty desert environment. The spires are tall and thin, some clustered close together while others are widely separated. If you arrived via transit network, you’d find yourself atop one of these spires, with the ground far below. Walkways of rope and wood, seemingly fragile, span between the closer spires, which you notice are carved into building shapes with windows, doorways, and balconies. Of course, one doesn’t have to use the bridges at all, because the sky itself is filled with critters of various species flying around, either with their own wings or with easily-borrowed wing-packs. There’s a natural thermal updraft from Fire Sector’s volcano, a cooler air over the jungle of Earth, and that difference produces a fairly constant wind that courses through the canyons and around the spires, making flying the ideal method to get anywhere. Along with being known for flight, this sector is also made for both education and performance. Notable among the spires is one much wider flatter mesa, into which is built the Ikelos theater complex, named after the ancient Greek deity of animal dreams. The theater and its many associated smaller venues are used for public performance of all sorts, from Toys performing with each other or guests on stage, to larger kinky audience-participation exhibitions, as well as many different sorts of concerts and films. The broad top of the theater’s mesa is a different space called the Gallery, which displays less active art such as paintings and statuary—which of course both guests and Toys are welcome to visit, contribute to, or become part of. In another area is a tightly-connected cluster of spire-buildings called the Academy, where Toys and guests alike go to learn new skills and trades. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about how to become a Toy yourself, you’d go there first. You can also hop on transit over to <Water>, <Fire>, or <Earth>, or back to the <Hub>.

Water Sector

You might notice that this island resort isn’t a true island at all, because it’s not tethered to the sea floor like a mountaintop above the waves. Instead, the freely-floating underside of this island grows downward into colorfully glowing coral crags, among which are studded windows and doors of the sector’s facilities hidden among the environment. The island’s transit tubes weave through the coral as well, so Water is what you see first even when heading to the other sectors. This sector is beautiful, of course, even if much of it is dedicated to the island’s maintenance and infrastructure. Cargo tubes distribute from the Earth factories out to other sectors, as well as carrying Toys to and fro in their own private transit capsules, which is much more extensive than the one for guests. Aside from the requisite underwater recreation, this sector also manages the emotional health of Toys and guests alike. Toys need emotional maintenance just like anyone else, and it’s here that they go for counseling. For guests, most of the therapy sessions are one-on-one with Toys trained specially for the purpose. Notable locations are, of course, the center for therapy and counseling dubbed the Audium, a larger knot of coral-building that glows in calming blues and purples. Elsewhere in the sector, there’s the facility called the Pacific, which features suites laced with moon pools opening to private and semi-public coral-walled swimming grottos. Breathing apparati are freely available in each room. Of course, what would a water-themed sector be without the above-surface activities? Curving between the Air and Earth sectors is the island’s only Beach, a vast stretch of sand and crashing waves for all manner of play. From this sector you might also head over to <Earth>, <Air>, <Fire>, or head back to the <Hub>.

Fire Sector

This sector is entirely built in and around a volcano. Granted, since the island is artificial, so is the volcano, but the lava itself is still real actual molten stone. The buildings poke out of the sides of the mountain in rectangular slabs of obsidian and glass, and there's even a facility in the peak itself, overlooking the perpetually churning caldera. In between and sometimes through the buildings are sluggish flows of lava and rushing lavafalls. Most of the rest of the mountain is rocky and bare, except for the fields of shiny melted and reshaped stone. The buildings themselves, and the walkways and corridors that connect them, are of course protected from the pyroclastic flow and intense heat by force fields, making the interior of most buildings warm but not roasting. What's housed here is are both sections for guests to engage in their passions, as well as administrative offices that keep the entire resort running. The latter is a large building built directly under the biggest lavafall, mainly for show. Everything is in right angles and stair-step patterns, contrasting the more organic ripples in the surrounding stone. The recreational areas are more welcoming, incorporating flame-like designs, natural cave areas, and even a popular facility for soaking in hot springs or enjoying a sauna. A guest might not ever need to visit the Admin building, but it's there if you need it, in all its imposing glory. Meanwhile, the sprawling facility for sex and recreation used to have a fancier name, but all the locals started calling it Heat and the name stuck. Adjacent to that is another somewhat impressive structure, a large obsidian cube dubbed the Castle, which is for all sorts of heavy kink play, but especially of the D/s variety--because of course, castles are also known to have dungeons. You might instead check out <Earth>, <Water>, or <Air> sectors, or head back to the <Hub>.