Posted by Ensign Kesh (Engineer) in (Open) Gaming Night at the Starboard Lounge

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (CIO) in (Open) Gaming Night at the Starboard Lounge

Posted by Ensign Kesh (Engineer) in (Open) Gaming Night at the Starboard Lounge
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The quite simply named ‘Starboard Lounge’ was not as sought-after a place as the one gazing out the front of the ship, nor, perhaps, the ones deeper within the Genesis’s bowels where things can get rowdier at times. This made it just about ideal for the socially awkward type such as one of the ship’s newest additions, Ensign Kesh. The dim lighting around the holoprojection-equipped tables along the walls toward the back of the room is just the place to be to recover from a dizzying first ship on the bridge.

The pale light casting over the table shimmers occasionally in a very subtle representation of distant lightning that isn’t troubling to the eyes of the others in the lounge, with the occasionally faint sound of wind audible over the quiet hum of the ship and murmur of other conversations in the room. All other sound effects of the game the caitian was playing had enough tinniness to only be heard when in close proximity. The wooden texture of the floor, tiny barrels, and hay bales seemed to be that of a fantasy-style barn, while a few figures standing with constant idle animation moved about in response to Kesh’s occasional interaction. Rather than pick up and move her own game piece, she rather just sort of nudged it, while shrinking circles and glowing highlights around various objects and characters convey what she can do in her current turn, up until her nudging turns to tap at the controls on the edge of the table.

Anyone familiar with it would know Dungeons and Dragons Seventeenth Edition Solo-Adventuring by the interface and character design, other than her piece (https://bit.ly/3vUOER8) which looked entirely custom-made, as to be expected for most any avid player of the genre.

Why doesn’t Kesh just do this in her quarters? No doubt she could have a holo-projection table set up, and her roommates probably already have one, anyway. Then again, how does one become acclimated to a new crew by hiding away during off-hours? If nothing else, those that come this way will get a glimpse of this old cat’s hobbies.

->Kesh, Engineering

Reia decided she needed a cup of tea and time to think. Perhaps she would run into some of the bridge crew but it wasn’t a work thing so that would be fine. Anybody else she ran into would just be icing on the proverbial cake.

Stepping in, she ordered her usual mug and saw Kesh playing something rather interesting yet, vaguely familiar.

Taking her mug, she walked over and watched for a bit.

“Hey there. If you prefer a solo destress, just let me know but, that looks kind of interesting.”

• Reia

A visible turn of the nearest ear on the felinoid’s forehead conveyed that Reia’s proximity and attention on Kesh’s game was noticed, though it could be too subtle for those not familiar with Caitian body language. Those big, fuzzy ears can seem to be moving about randomly at times, even though they almost never are. Otherwise, no acknowledgement came as a few more moves took place, with the also cat-like avatar, dressed in what seemed like armor made of giant leaves, fired off volleys from a bow flickering with several elemental effects at what appeared to be some kind of undead creature, evaded efforts for them to lumber toward and flail boney limbs, while taking what looked like magic attacks made of ice to the face. Tiny meows of distress are heard each time the avatar is hit, though Kesh continued to jocky her character about and avoid getting boxed into a corner.

This all pauses, with two of the three shamblers collapsed into identical piles of bones, with one more making exagerated idle animations waiting its turn to shamble, Kesh’s character hunched in a manner conveying being hurt, likely below a certain hit-point threshold, and the undead caster, holding up a swirling ice-ball, ready to fire again, when Reia speaks up. Large, bright golden eyes center on the woman, blink quickly, then widen as Kesh jostles slightly, as one does when about to reflexively stand up at attention. However, that is suppressed a split second later, as the held mug makes it clear she, too, is off-duty.

“Lieut-tot..-tah… Reia. Hi.” Yes, definitely Reia. She was the one with that familiar name. Right? Right. A swishing sound and soft thump tells an unseen story of the Caitian’s tail jostling about then whapping into the legs of her chair as doubt swirls then is halted. “Oh, I actually very much enjoy having a party, rrrnth.. ah.. a party of.. other adventurers, I mean. Though I have been keeping up this solo adventure for.. oh… ah… thirty?.. years? Or so?”

Kesh’s maned head ducks a little bit, ears sagging outward as her nose tips down slightly, feeling self-conscious about admiting her dedication to this non-social hobby.

-> Kesh, Engineering

When Reia had first seen Kesh’s ear move, she stood quietly. Other people might have missed that subtle Caitian body language but not everybody was a CIO, trained in the arts of non verbal communication. She had also heard the tail thumping and hoped she hadn’t caught her out in a private hobby. But Kesh’s explanation had caught her a bit off guard. Caitians often wore their age well.

“My goodness. That is definitely dedication. I think I saw a bit of this when I was at the academy but I was kind of busy trying to figure my life out so I didn’t have a lot of time for socializing. Like I said, it looks interesting.” she said taking the stool opposite Kesh.

• Reia

Caitians had the advantage of having their skin fully covered in dense fur, fairly well bypassing the usual signs of aging experienced by species with exposed skin. They also tended to not experience a loss of fur until very late in life. However, coarser textures, discoloration due to loss of pigment production, and changes in skin tautness all caused their own version of visible aging, though your average middle-aged Caitian figured out how to deal with these things enough to avoid looking ‘old’.

Kesh was not exactly an exception to this, as there were some roughness around the joints of her neck and wrists, and her throat pelt was not as taut as it used to be, but to put her next to another nearly-sixty-year-old Caitian would be rather unfair, thanks to her genetic augmentation. The average lifespan of Caitians had only risen above sixty a couple hundred years ago after joining the Federation thanks to modern medicine, but even then they did not live nearly as long as humans, and the ‘wear and tear’ tended to accelerate rather quickly after seventy. She looked like she could be in her twenties. Not that she wanted it that way, liked it that way, or did anything to make sure it stayed that way. If anything, the coarseness on her neck was worn with pride, as it meant this augmentation curse was not eternal.

Still, she noticed Reia’s startle at the hint of her longevity and sank a little further, eyes falling to the game in progress briefly before returning, as some degree of hopefulness arose. Reia’s lack of awareness meant she knew little about her and, thus, hadn’t any prejudice. Or, at least, was being more open and kind than some.

White-furred jaw shifts to one side a bit as one agile ear twanged, calling a truce between the conflicting feelings of bitterness and hope so she could move on. The felinoid’s posture straightens up as the half-Orion sat down, further punctuating that potential interest in her words. Okay. Well. Let’s not mess this up.

“Well, ah, it is one of the versions of an Earth game called Dungeons and Dragons, though most versions since the fifteenth have been multi-cultural, ever since Wizards of the Coast moved their headquarters to Titan. Rrrrrnth. I beleive the twenty.... second?… version is in production, though they are still mostly holo-novel style.” A gesture is made to the table and it’s nearly-quiet and softly-illuminated gameboard, “I like seventeen as it is holo-table primarily and has more of the feel of the pen-and-paper versions that came before it.”

Those large, expressive ears suddenly then lay back as Kesh’s head sinks once more. Danggit. Stop sounding likes a salesperson.

“Mmnnnnnrrr… what.. ah.. what do you know about it?” She starts to continue rambling to clarify, but stops herself so Reia has a chance to respond first.

At that moment, the leaf-adorned felinoid on the table’s idle animation breaks the fourth-wall by turning around and glaring straight at Kesh’s face as its tiny tail lashed in impatience.

->Kesh, Engineering

Reia smiled.

“I thought I had heard something about the twenty first or twenty second version or something like that on my last posting but, it was only in passing. Honestly, I don’t know what I want to know.” she paused and laughed at the leaf armored figure on the table, “But I think she wants to know what her next move is.”

• Reia

‘I don’t know what I want to know’

That was a nearly verbatim quote by one Ensign Sullivan of the USS Pegasus, who Kesh had met following the incident on Riviera that gained her that first bit of notoriety so many decades ago. The Pegasus had been the first to respond to the distress call of the planetary government after an outbreak of unknown illness which Kesh’s rising knowledge of botany and chemstry had allowed her to identify as a highly unusual interaction of plant spores and the chemical composition of Riviera’s atmosphere, causing a sort of poisoning to anyone that breathed it in. She was hardly the only savior that day, but she was labeled the one responsible for finding the means of reversing the effect shortly before the Pegasus’ arrival. Ensign Sullivan had been part of the away team and had struck up a conversation with Kesh regarding the pursuit of science. She’d asked why he had joined Starfleet, and that was his reply, more or less.

Kesh’s request for a recommendation to Starfleet academy from Captain Pressman had then been immediately approved and she passed the entrance exam a few months later. Such a shame that ship had become half-lodged inside an asteroid due to highly unethical pursuit of science later that same year.

Those rather large, bright golden cat eyes widened after Riea’s utterance of that familiar phrase, with the highs and lows of the memories that went with is playing out like a silent film projected across her whiskers, at least until the behavior of her holo-character is pointed out.

“Oh! Sorry, Mish.” The gentle care Kesh took in reaching out to fondle over the tiny projection’s forehead showed well how she viewed the character not as a game piece, but rather a sort of companion, like a mouse-sized roomate. The way it flailed as if annoyed at first, then shoved into the fingers was equally as expressive, all lasting less than two seconds before gestures send the bow-wielding felinoid off to dart away from the ghoul and into range to perform a fiery arrow show the makes the spell-caster literally explode, showering the adjacent tiles with bone fragments in a fashion that’s too cartoonish to be gruesome.

“Well, ah, if you ever have two hours or more to spare, I would be happy to run you through a pre-baked dungeon designed to show you the basics, rrrrnth. It is one of those things where it can be as engaging or simple as you want it to be.” Clearly Kesh leans very heavily in the former.

->Kesh, Engineering

Reia had watched Kesh with interest. The expressive golden eyes had concerned her a bit. She wondered if she had said something to upset her but the look passed and Reia decided to leave it alone.

“Um… What character class is that?” she asked pointing to Kesh’s character.

• Reia

“Multi-class Ranger Druid.” Kesh replied while giving another gesture to get the leafy feline to stop making a quite animated gloating gesture at the pile of bones. There was still one more target left, and it was well within shamble-distance. Two arrows fly toward it, but one misses and the other doesn’t seem to slow it down. To this Kesh’s ears dip and whiskers tremor in a note of disappointment as the ghoul then staggered forward and made her holo-piece stagger from taking damage, its tiny meow of distress just barely audible. A few more gestures later, two rather simple-looking curved swords took care of the problem, though not before another meow of damage. A hiss of breath and shake of Kesh’s head shows further disappointment. “It is always the ones you think will be easy that are not.”

The ghoul collapses, the Ranger/Druid slumps to express its highly damaged state, and a sort of encounter summary screen coalesces, displaying its information toward Kesh and Reia. Number of enemies, type of enemies, environmental data, abilities used, damage taken, miss percentage, and little animations depicting each of the note-worthy moments, like defeating the caster and what appears to be some sort of bounding leap right over the top of one of the ghouls that must have happened before Reia arrived. Kesh barely gave the information more than a glance as she reached through it to gently stroke the crouching and hunched-over avatar, which it seemed to appreciate.

“Mostly Ranger, though.” Kesh’s now calm gaze returned to Reia with a long blink, “I have just enough Druid skills to empower the.. ah.. leafy armor, and to have some cleansing and conjuration spells. Mnnrr. It lets me go on pretty much any solo campaign.”

->Kesh, Engineering

Reia watched Kesh interact with the character. Was it tenderness she was seeing? Reia had felt that way once towards a small kitten she had as a pet for many years. It was funny, every time she boarded a new ship, the thought of getting a cat entered her mind just before she realized she had a Caitian crewmate and, somehow, those two thoughts just didn’t coalesce properly to her.

“Do you prefer solo adventures in life as well as in games?” she asked.

• Reia