Game of Life

Posted on Sat Oct 28th, 2023 @ 3:19pm by Ensign Duncan McManus & Crewman Finn Jones & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore & Petty Officer, 1st Class Christian Tremblay & Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos

Mission: Contagion
Location: Messhall
Timeline: MD 365, evening
1947 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

"He's bringing what?"

Having spent the best part of the last five minutes helping her friend set up the game board, Madelyn stopped short and stared at the engineer. In the days that had stretched to weeks since they'd left Relea behind, gathering to spend time with other members of the crew had become a less daunting prospect than the young ensign had initially feared. As it turned out, there was a healthy handful of people who enjoyed the prospect of competitive socialising enough to commit to it regularly and, once they'd pooled resources, it had become obvious that there were enough options on board to keep the rotation of games interesting. The choice for the evening was Catan, with several other boxes off to the side for later. The day held special meaning, after all, Madi figured the distraction would be appreciated.

What she hadn't counted on was moonshine.

"I thought... I mean, that's mostly been for senior staff...hasn't it?" It probably hadn't, now that she came to think of it, she just didn't tend to ever keep the kind of company that knew how to procure the coveted concoction. McManus had caught wind of the little group's efforts, however, and practically invited himself.

“Nope. I had some last week and the Marines are all over it as they helped brew the original stuff with King.” Finn piped up finishing his evening meal as everyone gathered there. It was strange to be eating among a group but he was trying his best to be more social. It was a work in progress for sure but he was getting there one step at a time.

"We've made some improvements to the brewing process. I don't think senior staff could drink it all, even if they wanted to." Kiyara was all about optimisation and ever since they had been involved in the project the efficiency of the microbrewery had been greatly improved. It also helped that it had gone from a public secret to just public knowledge. It gave them a bit more resources to work with, all under the guise of providing a pressure valve for the crew that had been under enormous mental strain for exactly 365 days now.

Reaching around Finn in an attempt to place the last hexagon without disturbing his plate of food, Madelyn considered the casual attitude of her companions and realised this was probably just another thing that she'd not picked up on. No amount of effort on her part seemed to make a dent in the catching up she had to do after the first initial months of their ordeal. At this point, she wouldn't have put it past her friends to have rerouted any source of alcohol in her path, they'd bubble-wrapped just about every other aspect of her life.

"At least we'll have a decent amount of people to challenge you for once," she joked, smiling at Kiyara. "Oops, sorry." The ensign winced as one of the house pieces dropped into a half-empty glass of water.

"What is this game called again," Christian asked as he studied the game board while sitting next to Finn. He was pleased that his boyfriend had agreed to come with him to the night, though he'd insisted on eating right before. Christian knew Finn worked so much his meal breaks were few and far between, so he'd compromised and saved him a plate.

"This is Catan," Madi answered, whilst unsuccessfully trying to scoop the piece out with a fork. "A settlement building game. Kiyara usually wins." The brunette watched as the piece she'd been trying to rescue disappeared across the room as the utensil caught the edge of the glass on the way up. It would have been less of a problem had it not hit a moving object that unintentionally intercepted. Wide-eyed, Madelyn froze before scurrying off to retrieve the house-piece from the floor. "Sorry!"

Duncan had been just wandering in with 2 bottles when something hit his square in chest and bounced to the floor. “Damn it Madi. One day it’s going to be too big to bounce off me.” He laughed shaking his head. He could not help but wonder how she got this far with out serious injury was beyond him sometimes.

Already pink-cheeked, Madelyn winced as she banged her head on the underside of the table and slunk over to take the seat that would wind up between Kiyara and Duncan's. It put her directly opposite Finn, who earned himself the slight hint of a poked out tongue for his amusement.

Kiyara in the meantime had helped with setting up the board properly and making sure everyone had their playing pieces in front of them. "Anyone here doesn't know how this works?" They asked since there were a couple of new faces around the table. They were happy more people were joining the group, but on the other hand, she had appreciated the relative privacy they'd been able to operate in. It was comfortable.

Christian stared at the board as he furrowed his brow slightly. He'd never played the game but he usually could work it out by looking at the board. But, for some reason he couldn't figure this one out. Though, to be fair, Christian was a Dominos type of player. And when Christian played Dominos, he was usually drinking quite heavily.

Finn held up a hand as it was the first time he had properly come along other than to sit quietly and not engage with anyone. It was baby steps despite the year spent together. "Sorry." He added an apology as he was not quite as used to the group despite every single one of them inviting him along at one time or another.

Christian looked over and saw Finn raising his hand before he smiled and raised his own. "No need to apologize Finn, I can't make this game out either," he offered in reassurance to his boyfriend.

Emerging from her mortification, Madelyn fixed the two men with a look of incredulous amusement. "I promise, the premise is quite simple." She hesitated then, blinking as the empty glass in front of her was suddenly partially full of what could only be described as piquant liquor. Tentatively, she leaned forward to peer down into it. "Do I want to know what's in this?"

Finn shrugged at the woman and grinned at Christian not at all sure if the man was doing that to save him from embarrassment or he truly did not know. Duncan shook his head. “Not in the slightest.” He said taking a glass and taking a swig of it. It had a burn but it was 100% better than the first version he and King had made ten months ago.

The first tentative sip convinced Madelyn, going as far as to leave her wondering if she even wanted to experience what was in it. A sharp intake of breath proved a mistake, prompting a reflex cough that became several as her eyes started to water.

Finn took a glass and sniffed it once before he took a sip. He winced a little at the burn but he did not at all respond to the taste. It was an acquired taste for sure and not one he was used to but it was not horrible. "Not bad." He finally said making Duncan smile that someone said something.

Kiyara started to explain the more intricate rules of the game. Telling them about how they'd gather resources, how they could trade them, what they could buy using them. The way to earn victory points and the pros and cons of the different ways to chase them. They'd been accused of leaving out important information until a later time when it was convenient to them so they were making sure to cover all of the basics and quite a few of the more advanced bits of information that the people around the table might need to play. Pulling a couple of the development cards to show examples and putting their pieces on the board and taking them off to explain some of the points they were making.

"Have a drink Kiy and stop scaring everyone with the game," Duncan advised slowly passing them over a drink to his fellow Engineer. "Poor Finn looks ready to cry trying to remember it all." He teased nudging the man with a grin and winked at Christian.

"He's not the only one," Christian offered after taking a sip from his own drink and staring again at the board. Kiyara's explanation was thorough, but it was a lot of stuff to remember. He recalled back in his basic training on one of the few nights they'd had off of some of his classmates playing something similar. He knew that the game could get exciting though, as he remembered the various shouting instances from that night.

"I am not planning to cry I am just trying to understand it all. Maybe I will just watch you guys play the first round." Finn offered thinking it might be a good way to do introduce himself to the new game that he had always seen but never considered learning until now.

"The main gameplan though is to make sure Kiyara doesn't carve the longest road right through the best farmland and then hoard the entire supply of sheep." Over a second sip, which she managed not to splutter over, Madi grinned at her friend. The other woman was decidedly better at most games than Madelyn, who was no slouch but easily the most distracted of the pair.

The bane of Kiyara's existence, when it came to board games at least, was their reputation. There were this whole slew of mythical retelling on how they cornered everyone in most of the games. This usually resulted in more difficult situations and in a game like Catan they'd have to be self reliant more than the others, and the others would be more willing to help each other. An uphill battle, which if they won it was expected, if anyone else won it was almost like they'd slain the dragon. Perhaps they should float the idea of a more cooperative game sometime, though this group didn't seem quite ready yet for the suggestion of Dungeons & Dragons.

"I am guessing this is a theme for this? One question though... Why sheep?" Finn asked making Duncan chuckle just a little as the Crewman looked at the Petty Officer offering a smile to them.

"All the resources are important," Madelyn pointed out, standing for a minute to help distribute the coloured pieces that would need to be placed before the game could start. "So getting a monopoly on any of them where you've limited other people's supply whilst boosting your own is a pretty good tactic." She reached sideways with pieces of road and two houses in a shade of orange and very pointedly made Duncan hold out his hand so that she could place them directly into it. Far better than needing to fish them out of his drink.

"All the resources are important," Finn repeated back with a nod and another sip of the moonshine. Duncan smiled brightly and took the pieces from Madelyn and bowed slightly.

"Very important. Kiyara likes sheep but I like...." Duncan stopped and grinned. "You will find out." The Engineer offered.

A side-eye from Madelyn over a sip of her drink, which had numbed enough that she could just about breathe after each mouthful, looked almost nervous to ask. "Why don't we," she offered, still looking at him oddly, "just play and learn as we go?"