[Gladis]

Prompt 3:The casino employees seem to have a key to the engine room in their possession, but they're bored, and say they'll only give it to you if you play them for it. What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?
Team Squid || Calluna

Calluna leaned against the pool table, thoughtfully flipping a golden poker chip. "A game? I like the sound of that..." A mischievous smirk spread on Luna's porcelain face. "Are you sure I'm allowed to choose it? That's a little too generous."

"Yeah yeah, just don't go too overboard with it, okay?" An employee grunts. Luna slowly paces around the room, slowly dragging her finger on the soft red velvet walls. She just wanted the key, she originally thought about snatching the key & making a run for it, but the idea of a game excited her. Oh, how it reminds me of the good ol' days as a teenager. I thought this playful side of me was gone forever. Now, where is it? Luna continued to feel around the walls like an agile cat.

"Hey, let me tell you something about myself. Ever since I was a kid, I was very agile & skilled with knives. The officials took me & trained me to be an assassin. I learned a few cool tricks too. The bad guys never knew what hit them," Calluna purred. Though she was sweet & small, she could be intimidating at times. Especially with a background like that. "Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked," Luna sighed. She couldn't find the object at all & frustration started to nag at her. "The game. Let's play hide & seek, but with a twist! You guys can hide first, but if I find you, you can run." Ah, found it, Luna's fingers brushed against the cold metal. She leaned against the wall with one hand covering the light switch & the other still playfully flipping the token.

"But if I catch you, it's game over," She enjoyed the sudden spike of nervousness that filled the room. Perhaps the employees were regretting their decision, but hey, at least they aren't bored anymore.
"Good luck! & remember, always be sure to look up." Luna giggled as her fingers pressed down on the metal switch. Click. One by one, the lights went out, leaving the three of them in the dark. The token dropped & clattered against the cold pavement, causing an eerie echo to travel down the halls.

"Now hide."

[Takk]

Prompt #3
Username: Takk Kalon: Hylo

A key? Why is it always a key? Couldn't Spider and Rook have something easier to steal like a key combo on the staff room wall? Talking to patients in the office was one thing, but fully entertaining someone sounded like real murder! At the very least a pain in his rear, but... He wanted to get home eventually to see his beloved. His heart ached thinking of her sitting near the window waiting for him. Ugh! For Anna and no one else would he make a fool of himself! He marched through the casino doors with two hands on his hips and two arms crossed.
The two were a little intimidating, but he needed to stop being such a baby. He had to play it smart too, nothing an experienced gambling man could trick his way through with card counting or tips of the table. No, he had to be cunning and clever for the first time in some time. But how?
"Evening, I hear you've got a key my friend needs. I was hoping to win your favors for it." He says, much less smoothly than it sounded in his head. Spider almost looks like he's gonna burst holding back laughter while Rook just wears a sly smile. Hylo knew he'd already made one mistake; too late now! The silence between them couldn't be drown out by the singing and rings of the casino machines. Sweat began to drip from his brow, clearing his throat in anticipation.
"And how do you plan to do that?" Rook asks, raising her paw to her chin. A playful glint sparkled in her eye, covering up that bored look she had before. Think fast..!
"Erm... A game! Of course... Uh... With cards and..." That was it, outsmart someone with a hint of luck. He could card count too, especially if he actually had to count. "Cribbage. Two against one. You guys play right?"
______________________________________________________________________
Math was easy, understandable and from several angles could be used to look at problems in a different way. Cribbage wasn't about what cards you had or what luck you stumbled upon; it was about planning and math. Most importantly though, it was killer boring without the right players! It didn't take long for Spider and Rook to become competitive with each other, leaving Hylo quiet and plotting most of the game. When it got down too it, the two almost always gave away their cards by snapping at each other or gloating.
Even so, a game lasted a little too long between three players and halfway through the board they lost their spark. Hylo made his move, leaning into his hands. "Well, I've never gambled before. If I can get that key for Shark, you can drag me around to whatever machine or table ya want. Wager something more interesting or just make a fool of me." Walk away with a draw, go have a good game he couldn't win. Nothing made him happier than schooling a newbie, or sharing a common interest with someone who didn't know they were even interested.
Nabbing the key for their freedom in return, he hands it over to Shark before being drug off into the noise; never to be seen again.

[roelian]

||prompt three||
what game does your kal suggest and how do they win?

|| casimir ||
team octopi

how about the game where you hand over the key and you don't get punched?

Casimir glared, but he really couldn't blame them for not cooperating. They were bored. Of course they'd be bored. Anybody would if they had to help run a casino. Slot machines and the soft clattering of a ball on a roulette wheel. Even thinking about it, Cas was overwhelmed by the sounds and the lights. He was more of a "how many bottles of whatever-this-substance-is can I drink alone in the dark" kind of gambler.

They wanted to play a game? There weren't a lot of choices now that they were essentially stranded, but Cas did have a deck of cards on him. A deck he carried around everywhere. Cards be knew by heart, every small scratch, every slight dent. The weathering of edges, the yellowing of white borders. It was a deck Casimir had for ages, and that's exactly what gave him advantage when he offered to play a game of cards with them.

It was that advantage that let him know every single card in his hand and theirs as well. A tiny, almost completely unnoticeable scratch on the corner? they had an ace. But so did Cas. Cas always had aces, even when he wasn't wearing a sleeved shirt. He was just that good, that tricky. A grin graced his features as he laid them all out, wicked. If the casino people noticed his dirty dealings, they didn't say anything about it as they begrudgingly handed over the key.

[257 words]

[carpe]

pangurbanka • iris • male • team squid

What's game does your kalon suggest?
— "I heard ya like card games, Spid?"

[FluffyBirdie]

FluffyBirdie | Team Squid | Sign up | Kalon/s present: Alania, Spider | 303 words
Prompt 3: What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?

Alania wasn't sure how to respond, having never played a proper 'game' with someone before, at least in adulthood. She didn't know much about the casino as well, although they appeared to enjoy betting and impossible stakes. What talents did she have that lies in this area? Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a group gathered around a pair arm wrestling, and a slow smile grew on her face. A test of arm strength? Perhaps she was overconfident, maybe even eager for a game, but with that image of the pair fighting in mind, she walked into the casino, waving for Spider to come over. "I heard you want to play a game? How about arm wrestling?" Alania suggested softly, giving Spider a polite smile and relying on her regal appearance to appear too weak to even try lifting a bag. "We can even bet on it. If I win I'll get the key, else I'll give you a hundred mermaid scales. I'll try not to embarrass myself." Hunting and living in the forest came with great perks, especially when she uses a longbow almost daily to get her food. Though she had never arm-wrestled before, she felt sure that she could win. Maybe it was the determined gaze in her eyes or the people around them calling for Spider to accept, but accept he did, and they sat on chairs opposing each other, elbows on the table.
"I hope you don't regret this." Spider laughed, echoed by her voice.
"You too."

This cruise was not good for her. Alania could almost feel her shyer self slipping away in the face of this excitement and relaxation as she spun the keys around her finger, grinning and blushing at the praises thrown towards her. This really was such a strange vacation...

[76heart]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
76heart ● arianne ● octopus ● day three ● 466 words
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
❝ What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win? ❞
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It wasn't exactly a game per say in the typical sense of one, or well, technically it could be considered a game, or a test of skill rather, but either way it was what she was best at, and what she had the best of winning in, in an honest way. She knew how to cheat, how to steal, the circus and it's twisted members taught her that well enough, especially with using her ribbons, but that wasn't how she wanted to win or accomplish anything, at least here in this world.

Instead of being tricky, she would do what she knew, and what she did best; ribbon dancing, and challenge Spider and Rook to a dance off for the keys. She preferred to ribbon dance upon a trapeze, but it was unlikely they would be able to rig one up here that would be safe, and she was not about to risk another's, or her own health and safety for a measly set of keys. No amount of intrigue, or curiosity, or promise for some kind of adventure was worth putting someone in danger, especially if they also weren't trained in the art. She may be a lot of things, but someone who tempted fate with another was not one.

Hopefully, a suggestion of ribbon dancing would be one they'd agree to, even if it probably wasn't what one would expect with the proposal of a game, or playing someone for something. A game was a form of play or sport, especially if it was competitive in it's nature, which this certainly was, and with rules to be played according to, and decided by some form of wits, strength, skill or luck. Dancing with ribbons, to her at least, seemed very much to fall until skill, and skill with that was something she had. Of course, they could still very easily have Lady Luck on their side and win with her tipping the scales in their favor, but she had faith that her skills, and years of experience and training for as long as she could remember, were enough to earn her a victory, and the prize.

Besides, if her skills failed her and she did happen to lose, if they had the keys on their person, she could just take them with a skilled snap of her ribbon, as she so often did while performing. It was so quick they wouldn't even notice.

"What?" She gave a smile, a grin with a glint in her eye.

"You didn't expect me to mean that, did you?" Arianne placed her head upon her front paws, a faux pout befalling her lips.

"I just confessed to having stolen, I have no shame, nothing to hide. You said they were bored, it could give them a little fun."

[khvoxtic]

planiteri | Dmitri | sign up | Team Octo | 900 Words
╒══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
The casino employees seem to have a key to the engine room in their possession,
but they're bored, and say they'll only give it to you if you play them for it.

What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win
╘══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╛

Dmitri looked to the old mechanic as he considered the task at hand. A game? To win back a key, from the casino employees. He wasn't one for games normally, however, he did have an idea... it wasn't a hard game, simply played with paper and pen. A game of thinking ahead and knowing when to sacrifice certain elements to gain more. It was a game he played with family.

Dots and Boxes. As much as it was a simple game, there was a lot of thought that went into it and if it was the casino employees first time playing, they wouldn't know the many intricate little strategies that went with the game. It was like... making a spiders web. Create the lines, connect them, make traps. Dmitri looked to Caro and nodded, contently walking off to where the gamblers crew would be relaxing. They were likely enjoying this impromptu break, of course, some people had still entertained themselves by visiting the casino, but likely not as many as there would have been during a cruise, stuck out in the middle of the sea, with little to no other entertainment. Being stuck on the island, however, had seen everyone dispersed and enjoying the local activities.

Brushing his hair out of his face, Dmitri reached into his pocket for a hair tie. Twisting the elastic around his hair to keep it out of his face as best as possible as he walked up through the boat, stepping carefully through the hallways as he made his way to where the casino lay in wait.

Pushing open the doors of the casino, the warm air and ringing machines bombarded Dmitri's senses from every direction. It was a rather drastic change from the island outside.

"You doing the mechanic man's bidding?" Called Spider, letting the key in question hang from between his fingers, a knowing smirk on his lips as he waited patiently. Shrugging, Dmitri made his way over to where the man was waiting. A spread of games displayed in front of him, from chess to cards to guess who and twister. It seemed more than one person had already given it a go at trying to entertain the man and secure the key.

"More or less. It gives me something to do rather than wait."
"Alright then! What are we playing?"

Sitting down across from him, he glanced to the key for a second before carefully pushing everything off to the side. Collecting a loose leaf of paper from a nearby writing pad, Dmitri set off drawing dots in a grid-like format. Taking his time with it. Spider could wait. There was no rush after all.

"Are we doing best two out of three or one round only?"
"I still don't know what we're playing yet! Or how to play it for that matter. You gotta tell me how it works or it's unfair."

Dmitri smirked, good, if he didn't know what they were playing, it meant he held the advantage he wanted.

"It's called Dots and Boxes."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬


Sitting there, Dmitri carefully explained the rules, watching as Spider tried to comprehend them and make sense of the whole game. Nodding confidently as if he had known all along how to play the game. The terms of best two out of three were set, both so that Spider could get a hang of the game and to allow them a longer time to play in the events that the first one went by quickly. With such a simple-seeming game, it was a logical conclusion, especially if his first reaction was to turn every set of three lines into a box and not take into consideration the bigger picture.

"You can start." Dmitri hummed, watching him place down a line with a small smile. Slowly, back and forth, the lines were connected and as expected, at every chance he got, Spider made a box. Marking it with an 'S' in the centre.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" He snickered, making yet another line on the paper. Dmitri made another, not bothering to answer him as he waited patiently. Letting him fall into the trap as he created a set of three lines.

"Here, a pity box."

Smirking, Dmitri drew the line in the box, and then the next, and the one after that, stopping just before the end to leave a rectangle, marking all of his boxes with a 'D', glancing up to Spider as the smirk left his face.

"That's fine. I get these two anyway. And then...-" Finally looking at the rest of the paper, Spider seemed to notice his mistake. Drawing another line to make a set of three, once again, Dmitri collected his boxes, leaving the rectangle at the end. Spider, ignoring the boxes made the line elsewhere instead. Leaving, unfortunately for him, another set of three. Turning the rectangle into two squares, and then collecting the next string of boxes, Dmitri glanced up, eyebrows cocked and a smirk sitting contently on his lips as it continued for the rest of the game.

"Shall we go again?"

Spider narrowed his eyes. Looking over his crushing defeat, snatching another piece of paper and drawing up his own grid.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬


Dmitri wandered back to where Caro would likely be, working, contently dropping the key into his hands before walking off. Twirling a pen between his fingers as he walked.

[dolly]

Well, Iola's first suggestion is an arm wrestling contest. It's promptly shut down and that's probably for the best. After all, Iola has been skipping out on the gym for a good few months. Iola doesn't know many games in actuality. There's card games almost everyone knows like uno or gin rummy, but she's horrible at those.
Strategy isn't her strong suit. Lucky for her, however, she's absurdly lucky. Coincidentally, that luck was gotten from luck after winning a game of trash against some magical creature. Or maybe that was a dream. It's hard to tell.
Trash being her lucky game is her game of choice. "So," she says, a playful grin growing, "What'dya say?"
Spider agrees and they begin their game. Like it always goes, Spider manages to get 9/10 while Iola is at 5/10, but Iola has the power of sheer dumb luck on her side and she wins the round her next turn. Round two goes much the same. Spider manages 8/10 while Iola is at 3/9, but suddenly, Iola has one the round once again.
Spider probably thinks she's cheating. No matter how tempting the idea of that is, she is not. As said before, she is just extremely lucky when it comes to these things. They play a total of 12 more rounds before they're both at 1 card left. On Iola's first turn, she grabs an ace winning the game and the key.

[Snowflakette]

• Snowflakette • Clemencio • 🐙 • 351 •



Whether he was allowed in the casino or not, Clemencio hadn't a clue. Technically it wasn't being used as a casino at this time, so he should be alright, on the other hand, he was also a child. But he did have a rather important task to complete, given to him by Mr. Shark himself. He was on a quest for a key. And for said key he needed to play a game with the casino workers.

"Tic tac toe?" Spider questioned, watching the younger one hoist himself up into the bar stools. Soft smile at the excited nodding Clemencio had answered him with. Carefully drawing the lines to make the space to play on one of the napkins. It tore in a few places, but that didn't bother him one bit as he looked to Spider expectantly. Tic Tac Toe. He was sure he could win this easy!

"Alright kid, but I gotta let you know I'm pretty good at tic tac toe."
"I'll keep playing till I win then!"
"Determination. I like it! You go first kiddo."

Beaming, Clem made a circle in the bottom right corner. Spider doodling an 'x' right in the centre and to finish off the line, he placed yet another circle in the top left. Spider paused, looking to the grid as he calculated his next move. Tentatively placing an 'x' in the top right corner. A soft giggle escaped from Clemencio's lips. A circle taking the bottom left corner.

o o x
o x o
o o o

"You've won already. No matter where I go, you can tic tac toe." Spider muttered, glaring at the paper. Putting down another 'x', only for Clem to finish his line and draw a line directly through it. Tapping gently on the counter, Spider glanced over the napkin before the kid sitting in front of him as he waited patiently.

o o x
x x o
o o o

"Do you wanna play again?" Clem asked curiously, head tipping off to the side.
"Don't you gotta get the key back to Caro?"
"Mmmhm. But it's not like we're in a rush, so, we can keep playing if you wanna."
"Sure kid... let's play again."

[fangsnfluff]

What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?(500/200)

Cherry Blossom is not a man of action. This isn't to say he won't act, but he'd rather think things out first. So, when he found himself eye to eye (to eye, to eye, to eye) with Spider, so close to the key but still so far, Cherry knew that a game of luck like the brothers were used to was too big of a risk to take. Something about this all just felt... Wrong. Why would these two, of all kalons, be put in charge of a key to the engine room? Does the captain know they have it? How do I even know they'll give it to me? Cherry shook his head, blinking away his confusion. He was probably just overthinking things, but there would be time for questions later. Right now, he had to get that key.
"What do you say, kid?" Spider raised and eyebrow and tossed the key to Rook, who chimed in, "You feel up to a little game?"
Cherry looked back and forth between the two for a moment, weighing his options. He couldn't just leave, but there was no way he could beat these two. Somehow, he felt that no one walked away from the casino a winner unless the brothers wanted them to. He'd need something witty. Something to just maybe cheat the rules enough the brothers wouldn't catch on. Nodding, Cherry held out a hand. "I accept. What do you say to a quick play on the slot machines? Just one, that's all I want." Spider and Rook looked at once another, visibly confused.
Spider began, "You... you wanna base your whole shot at winnin' this key..." "..on a slot machine?" Rook finished, and then added, "Well shoot, why not!" He grabbed Cherry's hand and shook it excitedly.
"Simple enough, then," Cherry smiled. "I just have to get three items of any kind, and I win the key?" The brothers nodded excitedly as Cherry pulled the slot machine lever. All three watched intently as the slots spun around and around, finally coming to rest on... a scallop, a crab, and a piece of driftwood.
Rook chuckled, "Aww, sorry pal, better look next time."
"No," Cherry said simply, holding out a hand. "I'd like my key now."
Spider pushed in between the two. "Now wait just a minute. You lost. The deal was three of a kind."
"Actually," Cherry corrected him, smiling, "the deal was three of any kind. And that's what I got. One of one kind, one of another, and one of another. Three slots, three different kinds." The brothers stared at each other in shock for a moment before Rook whispered, "Well, it seems we just got played at our own game." He dropped the key into Cherry's still outstretched palm before walking back behind the prize counter and hanging his head in his hands.
"I respect it," Spider called over his shoulder as he followed Rook. "I don't like it. But I respect it."