Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in Genesis Lounge

Posted by Captain Calvin Marius (Captain) in Genesis Lounge

Posted by Ensign Kesh (Engineer) in Genesis Lounge
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Marius was not a particularly social man, but almost in a reverse of norms. He decided that as a Captain he needed to be more accessible not less. A typical person socialized with his peers, got drunk, talked about relationships, Marius did none of that as a junior officer, less as a department head and XO and now… well… every number was larger than zero.

He sat at a conspicuously large table, a bottle of whiskey at his left hand and a rocks glass with a single ice cube and three fingers of whiskey at his right. Before him he shuffled cards that didn’t resemble the normal deck. They were covered in pictures of strange animals and covered with numbers and words.

Marius

Vanessa strolled into the lounge and did a mental lap of the room. It looked like most of the other lounges on every starship she had been on. The one difference was the CO sitting at a table with a bottle of whiskey and some cards. She wondered if this was a typical thing with the CO and if all the empty chairs would soon be filled with pips so bright she would have to wear shades. The problem was this bar was not like home where everyone knew your name but she had no other place to go. Sliding into the stool at the bar, Vanessa ordered her first synthahol Sam Adams. Screwing up her nose, she swallowed the sip. The Ferengi were the Starmart of the galaxy: manufacturing goods at a low price but producing a cheap, low quality product.

Kesh had once been a particularly social Caitian. She had even earned the nickname ‘The Fruitbasket Lady’ during her time as chief Botany Officer aboard the USS Athene many years ago. Then came her promotion to Science Chief that had made her workload too heavy to continue the trend of giving every new officer a customized fruit basket, and then came the incident and her demotion that had made it difficult to trust so easily, and then came the Dominion War that made it even harder, and then everything that followed that led to her resigning.

Much had changed since then, not the least of which was her return to Starfleet, driven by a genuine desire to seek that state of being where she had been ‘The Fruitbasket Lady’ so long ago. Sure, being an Engineer made it a little more difficult to shower crewmates with edible gifts, but the department was quite a bit more social than Sciences had been, thanks to so many hours spent lodged in small spaces with few crewmates, fixing what-have-you.

Sure, she wasn’t yet quite confident enough to actively stand out, but she did, at least, feel compelled to be a little bold.

“Is that Kwel’jak’tegaf?” The felinoid was in her usual uniform, taking a break from her duties in the lounge, and after getting her mug of hot drink, figured it was worth a shot to wander over by the seated captain to strike up at least some kind of conversation. She could tell right away that the cards Captain Marius had were not part of that odd Grizelian card game, but she’d learned that sometimes being deliberately wrong was a good conversation starter.

-> Kesh, Engineering

Marius chuckled slightly. “I can’t say that it is, literally. I have no idea how to say what you said.” Marius didn’t wait for a request nor did he offer an invitation. He stopped shuffling and poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and pushed it before the seat in from of where Kesh stood.

“Its a game called Magic… this version is the gathering. I’m not that great at it, but theres a lot of luck connected to what cards you get randomly. Or in some cases people trade or purchase particularly good ones creating an, in my mind, an unfair advantage.”

Marius

For whatever the reason, Kesh’s tongue has never quite found the right ring to speak the human common tongue just right, hence the various soft slurs and rolling utterances that emerge in her speech. However, the Vulcan, Grizzelian, and Tellerian languages were almost natural for her. So, that coarse, growling vocal tone of the Grizzelians rolled out quite smoothly, despite how much it sounds like an attempt at clearing her throat.

The captain’s response to her evokes a firm blink that lasts for a couple of seconds, while her head bobbles side to side slightly and just vigorously enough to make the tufts of fur on her cheeks and forehead to fray slightly, standing out in the rays of light coming down from the lounge’s overhead illumination. Her tufted ear flex forward as her eyes shift down to the glass when it is pushed out toward her. Oof. Well, it is not the captain’s duty to fully understand the biological reactions of various species to various chemicals, and it was not as if alcohol was actually harmful, she just hoped that only the one would be offered as she certainly was not going to turn it down.

Still, the groggy and achy state she was soon to experience, without any of the pleasant buzz that humans had, made her tail twitch stiffly as she sat down, accepted the glass, and tossed it into her mouth without any other visible hesitation. Hopefully, her then setting the glass back down upside down at the edge of the table was the correct way to say ‘that’s enough for me’, while hopefully the rolling trill emerging from her throat was understood as a statement of thanks.

Marius’ eyes opened widely for a moment, “Umm, you generally sip whiskey.” He noted the glass being upside down, which he watched for a moment, “Not need to be official with me. Are you sure you don’t want another?” Calvin suspected, wrongly in this case, that crew members would be reluctant to drink in front of him.

Felid maw opens slightly, dangles for a moment while those golden eyes stare blank for a second or two, before all shuts with a small bodily twitch and audible swish-thunk of her tail against the base of the chair, “Oh! Mmp. It looked like… ah…” and that’s when the coughing starts, which takes a few seconds more to subside, with the help of a couple of soft thumps of one hand to her chest. “Yes.” Was that meant to be her stating she understands now, or a reply to the question? Possibly both. Either way, she clears her throat and then leans forward to stare at the cards, trying to let that mild embarrassment slip past.

“Ah! Oh course. Rrrnth. Ehhrrr. Which edition?” Kesh was well aware of MTG, thanks to her personal love of Dungeons and Dragons, since the two influenced each other quite a lot in the 20th and 21st centuries, but she could not recall if it was MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Halo: Battlecards that had been translated and adapted by other species such as to have numerous editions outside of the original version. Then again, maybe it is only D&D that has numerous editions. Human entertainment history is a lifetime study of its own.

“Umm,” He turned the deck over… “There are editions?” looking for a label or some other identifier. He then looked down at a box under the table. “It says Core Set.” He looked back up. “I just ordered the game from the relipicator. Frankly I remember one of the kids playing it one my colony world… God’s it must be over 35 years ago. He said it was tons of fun, so I decided to give it a try.” He pushed the deck towards Kesh. “Maybe you understand it better than me.”

Those bright golden cat eyes meet the captain’s gaze with a look of what seems genuine curiosity.

->Kesh Engineering

Marius

And then the cards were pushed her way. Oh dear.

“Ah. Uh… ah. Hmm.”

The brief moment of panic wasn’t missed, and in many ways gratified Calvin. He had been staring at the game for a good twenty minutes and had made almost no progress.

Kesh goes about picking up several of the cards, turning them over to consider their text and names and pictures and… symbols.

”.. hm. Ah! Uh…” She leans forward as if suddenly confident, only to then not be, leaning right back upright.

After another moment that swish and thump is heard via tail motion unseen, upon which she delicately folds the cards back down atop the deck.

“I know of a holodeck program for this! Rrrnth. ‘Gygax’s Guides.’ I spent most of the time I should have been studying at the academy learning every detail of all of the Dungeons and Dragons editions through them. MMmmnnrr.” One ear twists out then forward again before she blinks firmly in that friendly, Catiain way at the captain. “Mayhap we could attend one for this game sometime, ah.. if that interests you, sir.” Sudden swing into formality.

-> Kesh, Engineering

“I’ve played D and D years ago, but I don’t think I have the time for that kind of game. The card games are more situational and can be played sporadically. Not quite the recreational selling point I was going for, but you can only do what you can do.” He nodded at the Caitian.

Marius

OOC: Fixing Split

“Ehrrr, yes. Mmm, yes. That is true.” Kesh bobbed her head once after that bit of additional stammering, her focus then turned to her drink, which she spends an extended moment to gather her focus while also picking up a couple of the cards and giving each a more thorough study.

“Mm! Ah yes. This is the one.. ah.. Enter Gee, or something like that. You have a deck of these cards and, ah… you draw a hand of seven or eight, I think. Then you take turns, and ah… yes, there are resource cards that you have to play first, then flip them over when you want to use them, and each one has a type, which is what these symbols at the top signify. You can then attack or defend with them. Mm.” Kesh plucks up a couple more cards up to look at them, too.”

“Hm. Yes, ah… I would need to look at one of those guides to know the exact rules.”

Marius snorted, picked up a pamphlet out of the box that rested on the floor. “Good Luck to that.” He slid the manual over. He had read it a couple of times. He kind of made the determination you had to play it a couple of times to know what the rules you didn’t understand.

Kesh sets the cards back down, folds that arm on the table, and carefully sips her drink while focusing on the captain’s face, eyes blinking firmly in a friendly, Caitian gesture.

“It could be in Klingon for all I understand it.”

“I play Dungeons and Dragons solo quite often.”

-> Kesh, Engineering

“Or we could go down to the holodeck, dress up in some LARPing wear, and call it team building,” Vanessa said spinning around on her barstool. “Please excuse me for interrupting and I mean that in the absolutely most sincere and excited way about playing D and D. For the record I have no idea how to play but I have been on this ship a week and the only entertainment I have found is being a barfly drinking non-alcoholic alcohol. You know this is the first time in my life I don’t have a roommate. I am going out of my mind. If someone suggested we all go into the hangar and play dodgeball I would be the first person in line and I sucked at dodgeball. I think I have an old Tinkerbell costume from Halloween. I could rip off the wings, skip the pixie dust and probably make a half-decent wizardly magy person.” Vanessa hoped she didn’t offend either of them. This was the second time she had run into Kesh in a social setting and each time, Vanessa found something new and amazing about the engineer. The skipper was still a mystery to her. The best way to get to know people was in social situations so maybe learning this game of theirs would help Vanessa get to know the crew. That was if they let her join.

Vanessa Slade

“Well first of all,” Marius looked at her. “You want to be in this conversation, you need to join us at the table… and drink this.” He poured a two finger whiskey drink for her and placed it in front of an empty seat.

“And this is the real stuff, so remember if you want to run with the big dogs you have to learn how to piss in the tall grass. I don’t want to hear about a hang over tomorrow..” During his marine years Calvin’s tolerance was the stuff of legends. It wasn’t as if he didn’t get drunk but drunk Calvin was pretty much the same as sober Calvin.

Marius