Winning votes:
[w] Speak with the captain
-[w] So what exactly were we hired for? What are we looking at, in terms of threats?
-[w] Ask about the crew as well
[w] Try to find Liam or Mira (can't choose which)
-[w] You've been curious about the gaming room. Ask them if they could accompany you as you explore it in detail.
Looking at Tobias for a second you decide you'd rather not talk to him with a person who tried to kill you a little while ago next to you. Instead, you head over to the back of the ship to speak to Captain Dawes.
"Ah, th' naive one. Hangin' 'round with yer future killer 'eh?" Jocelyn visibly withers at that comment. "Ah right, should be nice," she continues, "so what can Ah do fer ya?"
You decide to ignore her barb toward Jocelyn and just get some answers to some things on your mind, you won't be able to get her to stop with the barbs in a single conversation, and if you tried you'd be here all day after all.
"Well, I was wondering what kinds of threats we were hired for."
"T' be honest, almost none. Ah said it in tha letter, Ah don't expect any threats, but it never hurts ta be careful. If we do get attacked, it's likely regular bandits 'n' pirates. If ya can handle monsters ya can handle 'em, and any adventurer can handle a monster. There's also another thing tha might come up, but tha's something I don't wanna talk 'bout, and it probly won't come up."
"Oooookaaaayyy," you say, somewhat hesitant at her mysterious words.
Jocelyn speaks up before you can ask your second query, "So, uh, speaking of threats, couldn't they just shoot the balloon and kill us all?"
"Thinkin' 'bout yerself Ah see," Jocelyn opens her mouth to object to the comment, but she gets cut off by the captain pulling a gun from behind her back and pointing it straight at the balloon. The crewmember steering looks completely unfazed.
"W-wait," you only just manage to eke out before a gunshot rings out. You flinch and crouch to the ground to protect yourself as you fall, only to...not fall? You open your eyes and look up, the balloon doesn't seem damaged at all and the captain stands over you with a smug look on her face. She begins to laugh uproariously.
"Ah love doin' tha, get's 'em ev'ry time."
You notice Tobias coming over to see what the commotion is, only for his face to sour as he notices Jocelyn. Instead of coming over to angrily yell though, he just walks over to the stairs and below deck while grumbling. The captain ignores this and keeps talking.
"Tha' balloon's reinforce, 'n more way 'n one. It'd be easier to smash tha ship than tha balloon," she informs you with a smile.
"Cap'n," the steering crewman says, "please don't scare our guards every time they ask that question."
"Ev'ry time Ah do 't ya ask tha, 'n' ev'ry time ya ask Ah say no."
You manage to get you bearings enough to stand up after thinking you were about to die. "I al-" you pause to gather yourself, "I also wanted to know about your crew,"
"Tha crew? They're all lazy good-fer-nuthins. With some exceptions 'a course." she adds at the last second with a pointed look at the steerer, who looks unimpressed, the captain keeps going regardless, "Most 'a them they can barely even sign inta their posts before they head off ta laze about or play games. Ah'd fire tha lot 'a them, but it's hard ta find tha many people willin' ta take dangerous cargo trips. Ya got lucky this 's 'n easy trip."
"Uh, right, that's everything I wanted to ask about for now," you say, mostly wanting to get away from the scary woman.
"Tha's it?" she quirks up an eyebrow, "Well, see ya round."
She waves you off as you head back down below decks at a pace that's probably slightly too fast to be conspicuous, but you don't really care about that right now.
As you head back down the stairs you bump into Tobias, who was apparently just waiting to the left of the staircase. He opens his mouth to speak as soon as you get down there, but just as quickly he closes it and just walks off down the hallway. You decide that you probably shouldn't bother him, he still doesn't really look happy.
Instead, you head down the other way, back to that room with all the crew members playing games instead of doing their jobs, you kinda want to test one of those new spells you were given on this. You're, uh, not exactly sure where the room was, you weren't exactly making a map of where you were going. On reflection keeping track of where you were going would probably have been a good idea.
Still! The ship isn't too big, you should be able to get there eventually if you just wander around. So you head off in the direction opposite to where Tobias left. Most of the rooms you come across are either locked or empty unfortunately. Though you do manage to stumble across some kind of eating area. And Liam is sitting at one of the tables sipping a glass of water. He notices you and raises a hand, pausing for half a second and most upon seeing Jocelyn before waving you both over.
"Hello to you both," he greets as you approach, "What are you two doing here?"
"Exploring the ship," Jocelyn answers.
"Actually, we stumbled across a room where some of the crew was playing some games, but I kinda forgot how to get back there. Do you know how to get back to our rooms? I can remember where to go from there," you expand on the answer.
"A games room, interesting." He gets up from his seat. "Follow me, I shall lead us back."
You follow him down winding corridors. Despite your earlier note that you really should take note of where you're going, instead your thoughts turn to how Liam is acting. Literally everyone else has been hostile to Jocelyn so far, but right now he's being really nice. That short pause though, is he just pretending to be nice to her? It makes the most sense after all, and Liam tries to be a nice person more than your other friends. You're pretty happy you managed to work that o-
Jocelyn's voice pulls you out of your train of thought, "We're here."
Liam turns around and gives her a confused look. "This isn't where the rooms are."
"Yes, but the games room is right there." She points to a door.
"Wait, you memorised where we were going?" you ask.
"Yes?" she answers confusedly.
"But, you didn't say anything about it when I said we didn't know how to get back here."
"You never asked," she replies with what you swear is a wisp of a smirk.
You hear Liam chuckle at the conversation before interrupting, "Well, shall we head in?"
You wordlessly open the door to reveal the tables of crewmember with dice and cups.
"Eshani…" Liam whispers, "this looks like a gambler's den."
"Hey now!" one of the crewmembers at a nearby table yells, "You don't have to gamble if you don't want to. We're just here to pass the time, if you want to spice it up you're free to."
It looks like they managed to see you this time, or maybe they saw you before and just didn't react.
"Anyway," a different crew member continues, "today's game is pretty easy, you get a cup with five dice, roll 'em, keep 'em hidden from the other players, then y' say how many of a certain number on the dice are showing under everyone's cups, your guess needs to be higher in either the number on the dice or the number of the dice, anyone can challenge your guess. If that happens everyone shows their dice, if your guess is matched or exceeded you win, otherwise you lose."
"If ya wanna play," yet another crew member continues, "there's the gamblin' section on the left, the non-gamblin' section on the right, and in the middle's the tourney. Tourney means you play a bunch of games until there's only one winner, winner gets a prize."
"What's the prize?" Jocelyn asks.
"Secret," a fourth crew member grunts.
"Girls, I do not particularly advise you to play, I know something else we could do instead," Liam says. He wants to tell you not to play, but he's too nice to just say no. It's kind of cute.
"Can we still do that thing after a few games?" Jocelyn asks.
"W-well, yes, I suppose we still could…" Poor Liam, you can basically tell that he's given up on being convincing. "I am forbidding the actual gambling though." Well, he put his foot down on that at least.
Jocelyn saunders forward and takes a seat at the table in the middle of the room with a predatory smile on her face, it worries you a little. Then you quickly remember about your magic, with just a brief moment of concentration on a game you manage to work out what the dice under each cup. It seems you could cheat if you wanted. You doubt the spell is going to be perfect, but you'll definitely get an edge.
What will you do?
[] Play despite Liam's protests
-[] Non-gambling
--[] Don't cheat
--[] Cheat with magic
-[] Tourney
--[] Don't cheat
--[] Cheat with magic
-[] Gambling
[] Agree with Liam and don't play
