[Lepid]

.

[chanhee.]

Prompt Three (3)
'What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?'
(281)

"hit. hit... hit. stand. gonna try to beat that?" vero looked at his cards lined out in front of him, adding up to twenty. his eyes trail up to rook, who from the side is nervously glancing at spider. vero's gaze joins him on the man glaring at the deck as he reaches for a card.

"you know you're not going to get a three- odds aren't in your favor," vero shrugs and goes to continue, but is cut off by spider's card slamming into the table.

"bust... best of three." the dealer's cool is lost at the prospect of losing a dumb game, and vero doesn't risk it more, agreeing to a best of three with a grin.

"why don't we let rook deal for us? just you and me, no need for him to really get involved," vero suggests, handing the cards back to spider, who nods as he shuffles the deck and passes it off to rook. he deals two cards each and already vero feels his success at his hand. "you first."

"hit. stand." spider turns to vero with a smirk on his lips. "nineteen. try to do better. remember- odds aren't in your favor," he mocks, looking at vero's ten. that makes vero flare up, and he turns to rook and taps the table.

rook's eyes go wide as the ace lands in front of vero, and the cocky boy turns to spider with a victorious glint in his eye. "i'll keep quiet about kicking your butt if you give me the key."

spider doesn't argue, his cheeks flushed as he hands the key off, cursing the boy under his breath as he cleans up the table.

[Grian]

Detroit- sign up post - prompt #3 - + oliver
Detroit sat there and thought about what to do, she was terrible with games of luck and any game that required cards so traditional bets and games were off the table before her eyes light up. "Ah I think I'll be able to win this fairly easily if I'm able to pick what we do." she smirked slightly quite confident in her skills for what she plans to do. "i'll challenge them to a sorting race. first one to organize 10 folders in the proper order first wins, It sounds easy and simple however you must go through and insert the proper documents into the folders and make sure everything is where it needs to be first." she turned to Oliver smiling, as if it were a secret joke between the two and then they began walking towards the casino, making a small detour for the supplies for the game, Detroit with seemingly even more confidence then ever before
She made a beeline for the casino employee, waiting for them to finish their game before tapping on their shoulder "hello! my names Detroit, and I was wondering may I challenge you to a game? you see you have a little something that I want, a key to the engine room to be specific" she watched as the casino employee tilted their head, smirked and stood up, before agreeing to play her in a game "ah I actually have a very specific game in mind, one of my very own, I'll have you play against Oliver first, just so that you can get the handles on it, and of course see that there is no hidden tricks or little marks."
she explained the rules, and set up a stop watch, watching them play against each other. It was entertaining to she her best friend get beat in a game, and watching him pout for a second or two due to losing.
Setting up the game again, and spreading everything out she had Oliver manage the stop watch, waiting for him to start the game. Anticipation was killing her. Although she was nervous, she was confident that she would win, after all after years of having to quickly sort documents after documents and folder after folder for the entirety of the underworld she had gotten exceptionally speedy at it, from sorting the documents to putting the folders into the correct spot in alphabetical order.
She began moving, as fast as she could, when Oliver started the stopwatch, moving multiple things at a time with relative ease before arranging the folders into their correct order and yelling "done!" she took a step back and looked over to the Casino employee who had a shocked expression on their face before grumbling and handing over the key to the engine room.
Detroit gathered her things and strolled along the beach, taking a more scenic route to get back to Carcharodon.
[485 words]

[Cosmi]

What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?

"HAHA!" Pip shouted as they stared at a dance floor in the ballroom of the broken ship.

"Guess what! Time to bust out my FUNKY moves!" Pip said excitedly.

All the Kalons around him either buried their head or blushed in embarrassment...

Pip decided a dance party would be a great game and competition. Besides, their judges were very... receptive! Tiny red crabs were great at judging! They would totally claw at any horrible dancers. That was Pip's plan, at least.

After a few seconds of "lovely" dancing by Pip, he finally had a competitor. A lovely pink kalon. This was getting exciting!

Gosh... this Kalon is good. I can't keep up with them! Pip thought.

Then another Kalon joined. And another. And another.

Pip's legs were shaking after a few minutes. Pip had exhausted all their resources aka the best dance moves known to Kalon-kind.

That's when Pip looked over at the judge's booth. The crabs were gone!

That's when Pip collapsed with tears in their eyes. They spent so long handing out flyers and setting up the ballroom only to be the biggest loser on the floor.

But Pip's thoughts were interrupted by "ouch!" and then screaming.

The crabs had made their appearance. The three little judges sat and clawed at the Kalons on the dance floor. But Pip was left alone.

Their plan worked! THEY WON! Technically only because of the crabs... BUT STILL!

[Catskitten]

Prompt 3
Featuring Eli from Team Octopus
What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?

This seemed wrong in a way but Eli was desperate for information. A key was a door to information and all it took was a game. As Spider and Rook explained they would give said key upon game winning Eli automatically knew a game to play.
Eli was gonna win this by the weirdness of the two kalons he lived with.
"Ok so i got a fun game its called 100 fish list we both get ten minutes to list 100 fish.
You team with Rook and ill team with myself. Ill be nice and give an advantage.
I lose nothing really and it'll be a fun gamble."
Oh how the faces of those two kalons light
up but Eli just took a sip of kalsun while staring off into the distance melancholy.
Oh boy did these two not know whats coming to them. Theres no going back now.
"Sure sounds fun i got a timer." Spider said a Rook nodded and grinned widely
It was on and it was ten minutes of full fish war. Everyone writing fish name panically.
In the end Eli flipped the list over to win the game with a deadpan face expression.
"How are you so fast?!" Rook exclaimed
"I live with a marine biologist i hear nothing but fish all day. I just want to talk about ships with someone for once please tell me something other than fish please."
Eli sucked down the last of the kalsun and Spider silently handed Eli the key
"Theres nothing but fish here. Sorry."

[deerbroken]

What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?
No items, fox only, final destination.

[Cheeb]

Prompt Three
Helena - Team Squid - 654 words

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Aɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʀᴜɪsᴇ's ᴄʀᴇᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴋᴇʏ?
What game does your kalon suggest, and how do they win?


xxxxx"I, um..." Sweat rolled down her back. Helena hadn't predicted that she'd be able to choose which game she would play against Spider and Rook. She thought that she'd just show up and do whatever they asked of her. Now, given the freedom of choice, what to choose...?
xxxxxIn her floppy sunhat and coverup, she knew she was nothing more than a gullible tourist; daring to play a conventional game with the casino employees would earn her nothing more than a major loss. If she lost... well, rationally, Lena knew that nothing awful would necessarily happen. Yet, for some reason, she couldn't shake the image of Carcharodon losing his patience with her and all the other tourists, finally snapping. No, Helena couldn't risk it. She knew she needed to come up with something just stupid enough to work. Luckily, stupid was her forte.
xxxxx"Well, um, I'm sure that you're sick of the regular casino games by now," said Helena, pulling a deck of brightly-colored cards from her backpack, "so how about some Uno?"
xxxxxSpider laughed out loud. "You're joking."
xxxxxHelena was not, in fact, joking.
xxxxxShe roped both Spider and his brother into sitting down at an empty table with her and playing the classic, easy-for-kids-to-pick-up card game. The deck of Uno cards from her backpack were left in there from the last time Helena had used it; she hadn't bothered taking them out, and it seemed that they finally came in handy.
xxxxxAs they played, Spider and Rook both taking the game surprisingly seriously (perhaps working at a casino instilled competitive nature into you?), Lena's thoughts drifted away from the present. There was no surefire way that she would win the game, even if it was a silly one. Logically, she only had a one out of three chance. The cards were randomly drawn, after all. Cheating was out of the picture, as well: the pair of brothers had likely seen attempts at every cheating method out there. Should she just have asked to play against one of the Kalons in a regular game? Should she not have bothered to challenge Rook and Spider to a game in the first place?
xxxxx"Draw six," Spider's voice called out, snapping Helena back into the moment.
xxxxx"Draw... six?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "The highest number on a draw card is a four. That can't be right."
xxxxxHe gestured to the pile of cards. "Rook put down a draw four, I put down a draw two. It goes to you." This move would have devastated Lena, as she only had two cards left and was fairly close to winning... alas, if it were legal in the official Uno rules. Helena dug into her pocket and ripped her phone out, instantly typing away. "Hey, what are y--"
xxxxx"The official Uno Twitter page says that you can't stack!" Helena held up her phone screen for the brothers to see. It was true. What Spider had just done, even thought it was common in impromptu Uno games, was very much cheating. Lena couldn't help but grin. "Are you really trying to cheat? Shame on you, sir!"
xxxxxBoth Rook and Spider were quite amused by this. "Didn't know that," said the red Kalon, trying not to laugh at how intense the tourist was in enforcing the 'official Uno rules'. "Guess I draw four and you draw two, then. The color's red now, by the way."
xxxxxThe game didn't last much longer. Despite having to draw two more cards, Helena was lucky enough to be able to put a card down on every turn. With just one card left, it became her turn again, and she slammed it down on the stack, gleefully exclaiming, "I win!"
xxxxx"Wait. You didn't say Uno," said Rook, "so didn't you cheat?"
xxxxx"You don't haveto say Uno." Helena smiled, holding her hand out with her palm facing up. "You only get penalized when someone else catches you before you win. So, can I have the key to the engine room?"
xxxxxWith a snicker, Spider dropped the key into her hand. "Alright, Uno Master, here you go. Thanks for entertaining us."

[2246]

🦑 ──────────────── 🦑
◁ Nikolina ║ Mac ║ Prompt 3 ║ team: squid ▷
────────────────────────────────
Mac, using both of his hands, pushed the doors of the Casino open, standing there,
biting a toothpick, he eyes down the employees. One is sleeping, and the other is building a house of cards.

“This will be easy.” He thinks, remembering the past few days, the bird we won’t speak of, and the pain he’s been through.
“It’s not fair.” He thinks.. still..standing there, blocking the doorway.
Someone gently tapped his back, Mac looked behind, still not moving.
A small, young kalon stared at him with huge blue eyes.

Mac awkwardly coughs, moving away from the doorway. Quickly getting in, he sits on the nearest chair,
and looks at the employees again.

Mac was awful at all games, but one.
Although, he hasn’t played the game since the day.
The day that marked the history (well.. it sure did mark Mac’s history at least) as...
The cursed, awful, terrible, shameful defeat of May, 12th, 2015 (CATS Defeat, for short)...
Another thing we won’t fully speak of-

“I promised to myself I won’t play again, not ever.” He thought to himself, biting the toothpick,
he yelped as he bit his tongue- he spits the toothpick out.

“But this is not for me, no, this is for the kalonkind. I must save our species. I have to play.”
Full of sudden, newfound hope, he stands up- but not so quickly wait his button got stuck to the chair, okay there he goes-
he stands up, and walks up to the house of cards kalon.
He slams the table, expecting the cards to fall down dramatically, but they didn’t.
It only made the building kalon glare at Mac, their eyebrows furrowed.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to-” Mac quickly apologizes, he won’t play against them that’s for sure.

He quietly walks over to the sleeping kalon instead and gently rocks them.
Thankfully they woke up, yawned and welcomed Mac.
“I need the key.. But I heard I-”
-”Yeah yeah, you gotta win.”
Mac gulps, both of these kalons have such strong spirit.
The flashbacks of the C.A.T.S defeat come back rushing, overpowering Mac’s mind. He sits opposite of the kalon.
“Uh.. Can I choose any game?” Mac asks, the kalon nods, and grabs a carton of milk, drinking straight out of it,
gulping it down until it’s empty, then they crush it with both hands.
They mean business, and Mac knew it.

“So, what are we playing?” They ask, throwing the carton's corpse straight into the garbage can.
-”Tic-tac-tic-tac-toe-toe.” Mac said, staring straight at the eyes of his soon to be opponent.
“You want to play what now?” They looked at Mac like he said something weird. He didn’t.

The other kalon laughed, their back facing Mac and Mac’s soon-to-be-opponet. The laugh sounded menacing.
“Ah, ultimate tic-tac-toe, huh?” They suddenly spun around, and jumped down from the chair.
They continued talking, “I was a champion back in the old days. Man, those days were the days.”
Oh no, Mac thought.
The kalon took a chair, and put them to Mac and Mac’s not-to-be-opponet’s table.
They sat down, and started drawing the board.

Mac felt fear, the kind he didn’t feel, ever since the.. C.A.T.S defeat.

The board was done. The kalon gave Mac a pen.
“You are our guest, you go first.” They smiled, an evil smile.
Mac noticed the other kalon fell asleep again. Oh how Mac wished that was him.
With a shaking hand he put the tiny x down on the paper, marking the start of the end.
There was no going back now.

Seconds, became minutes, and minutes became more minutes, as they exchanged the piece of paper, marking the board with many Xs and Os, it ended abruptly, when the kalon realized they made a draw.
“Well, color me surprised, this didn’t happen since-”
-”May, 12th, 2015.”
They suddenly looked at each other.
“Mac?” The kalon’s expression completely changed, they smiled happily, their eyes shining.
-”Uh....me? You?” Mac replied in shock.
“I didn’t recognize you at all!” They eyed down Mac. Mac did look unrecognizable after all, spending days outside, eating only candies, hunting the bird we won’t name, it really left its trace on him.
-”Yeah..” Mac replied, not really remembering the kalon sitting across him, he tried to remember.
“You played with me in the finale, remember? We made a draw three times, and then you played against xxxx!
(We had to remove the name, because it was the name of the kalon that we won’t name)-” They said, a smile still glued on their face.
Awkwardly, Mac still didn’t remember them.
The only thing from that day he remembered, was loss.

“Hey, you know what, here’s the key.” They got the key out of their pocket,
a shiny, gold-colored key, with a tiny crab key-chain.
Mac smiled, a sad smile.
“We won’t play, because if we did, we’d stay here for hours.
Only making a draw after a draw, on and on-” They said, circling their index finger in the air.
Mac gently took the key, staring at it.

“But, we’ll play some other time, okay?” They smiled and gave Mac a pat on the back.
Mac finally smiled back. “Thanks, I-” He stopped for a second before continuing
“I haven’t played since.. I lost.” as soon as he said that, he averted his gaze, full of shame and guilt.
-”It’s okay to lose sometimes. If you won all the time, would you really appreciate it all the same?”
They took a big breath, and stood up “Sometimes you gotta lose to appreciate the winning.”, with a shrug, they went back to building their card house, surprisingly, it was still standing. All this time.

Mac sat there for a bit, looking at the kalon building the house out of cards,
thinking about what they’ve said.
Then he got up, holding the key tightly, and proudly, he only said one last thing,
“I have a ship to save.”

[sentimental]

"I'm pretty flexible - I'll twist you for the key, winner takes all."

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sign - up || team octopodes ♡

[magpie!]

username: magpie!
prompt 2: 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?
sign up: here
team: squid


Sakura isn't too great at games, so she offers Spider and Rook tarot card readings in exchange for the key!