A Game of Dice on a Calm, Clear Day

[green_rave 13]

[quote name='Rules of Pirate Dice']
[LIST]
[*]Players start with five dice. (Go [URL="http://random.org/dice"]here[/URL] and select 5 from the drop down. Take a screen shot to make sure you don't lose your dice.)
[*]All players roll their dice and keep them hidden.
[*][B]Any ones rolled are wild. A player may not wager ones.[/B]
[*]The first player makes a wager including a die value and a quantity of dice.
[*]The second player may raise the die value, the quantity of dice, or both.
[*][B]No number in a wager may ever decrease.[/B]
[*]The wager goes back and forth between players until one player challenges a
[*]When a wager is challenged, all dice are revealed. (Post the screenshot you took of your dice) If the quantity of dice of the last value called is equal to or greater than the last quantity called, the player challenging the wager loses a die. If the quantity is less than the quantity called in the last wager, the player defending their wager loses a die.
[*]Play goes on until one player has lost all five dice.
[/LIST]
[/QUOTE]

Maggie emerged onto the deck of [I]The Lady[/I] with her father's dice and a pair of cups. Xavier was up in his Crow's Nest. Baxter and Seneca were probably sleeping. It was a calm, clear day, and Maggie had told them to relax until she told them to do otherwise.

They had dropped their sails and were just drifting in the open sea. They weren't so far out that Maggie couldn't see the way back to port. They didn't have anywhere to be going yet, but she had been dying to take the ship out. She figured they would go back to port that night and look around for some piratey things to do, but for the moment she was content to just float.

"Xavier," she called up, "get down from there. Let's play a game of dice!"

She put five dice in a cup for Xavier and five in her own cup, taking a seat at the small card-table mounted to the ship at the back, port side, just near the stairs to the lower decks.

"You know the rules, I assume," Maggie said, giving her a cup a shake and up-ending it on the table. She lifted the cup, using it and her hands to shield her dice from Xavier.

"As your captain," she proclaimed, "I get to wager first."

Maggie pondered her dice for a moment, then called out, "Three twos," a safe starting bet.

While waiting for her lookout to follow up with his wager she asked, "So, Xavier, what's your story?" Edited December 10, 2012 by green_rave

[Xavier 16]

Xavier had been napping lazily in the crows nest, having balled his coat up as a pillow behind his head and propped his feet up on the edge of the basket. It was a quiet, clear day and they were out sailing. There was little he was concerned with out here on the open water. Any inbound sheep could be seen for miles even down on the deck.

Maggie's call caused one eye to drift open, sunlight streaming down on the hybrid and causing his fur to gleam with its brightness. His head poked over the side a moment later, looking down at her. All she got in reply was a grumble before he rolled free of the nest. His coat he kept in one hand as he caught the rigging with his other and made his way steadily down to the deck. Once there he gave a somewhat groggy look around and tossed his coat back over his shoulders.

He sat down across from her, eying the cup of dice dubiously. "I know the rules..." he said, simply flipping his cup over and letting the dice sit as they were. He only raised the cup for a slight moment to get a look at what he had rolled before sitting the cup back over-top of them. "Three threes." he replied, taking a glance up at the sun to check the time of day. Seemed as if it were still fairly early in the morning.

"Mmm." Came his reply, a thoughtful noise. His webbed paws rubbed gently at his muzzle, his eyes half-lidded and looking her way ponderously. "I suppose I should fill you in, seeing as how I'm taking refuge on your ship... it's only fair." He smiled lazily."If you win I'll tell you whatever you'd like to know about me beyond what I'm going to reveal now.. might as well make game of it." He sat back in his seat a little, watching her expression as he spoke. "As you know I am now known as a Sage, but I've held many titles. Captain being among the most memorable. I was once known as the Howling Inferno in the southern islands from which I came.. a name I will warn you not to often mention in public places. I wouldn't be surprised if there were still men out there looking for me."

He thought a moment, finger touching chin slightly before continuing. "I did not have... humanity... when I was created. All I knew were raw emotions. Mostly rage and pain, and fragments of memories not my own. I did a lot of damage, mostly in self-defense, but damage none the less. Humans do not enjoy what is different from them." he shrugged slightly, seemingly above being bothered by the fact. "People died, I was labeled a monster... they hunted me, and then I killed the hunters. Slowly, though, I gained wisdom... and my anger abated. I stopped killing them and merely avoided them."

He smiled a little and nodded. "Your turn."

[green_rave 13]

"I would say that if you win you can ask me anything, too, but I'm not particularly secretive, so I can't think of anything you would want to know. So your choice; if you win, you get one question, or I buy the first round of drinks, whenever you want."

Maggie listened to his tale in its entirety before making her guess. The third wager was always the hardest for her, but she couldn't say why. Maybe it was entirely psychological.

She wasn't surprised to hear that he had gone through a bit of hardship at the beginning of his existence. She had suspected that he wasn't born naturally, so it seemed fair to conclude that his early life had involved violence.

"Do you know who made you? And why? Or is that something you'll only answer if I win?" Maggie remembered it was still her turn. "Oh, four fours."

[Xavier 16]

Xavier lifted his cup for a short moment, then smiled slightly. "I'll have to call you on that one, the fours that is." He replied. He lifted the cup off of his dice, but his attention soon turned inward again, to his memories. The dice game was obviously second on his mind right now, just something to keep him occupied while they chatted.

"I have managed to obtain very little information regarding that subject. I know I came from an area rumored to be the living place of a very talented doctor. Some say he practiced alchemy as well as chemistry... and that after I showed up nobody has seen him since. I think he was involved somehow, but that's all I know." He cleared his throat and watched her expression, though she still seemed interested so he continued.

"So yes, it took awhile, but eventually I learned how to manage within human society... mainly I would trap these would-be bounty hunters and only release them if they gave me information. Stories, if you will, about their lives. I am, and always have been, quite fond of stories." He said with a warm smile. "So eventually, I find my way into a city. I find these adventurers who do not treat me so unkindly as most others, being used to the unusual as they are, and I decide to follow them around. It didn't take long before I fell in love with the excitement, and the companionship."

[Dice: 5, 6, 6, 3, 3 I'll post the screen-shot if you don't trust me, but it's being difficult right now] Edited December 11, 2012 by Xavier

[green_rave 13]

Maggie could sympathize with Xavier. The life of an adventurer was much more appealing to her than her previous life had been, too. She grew up as the daughter of a merchant, and was expected to look pretty and do nothing else. Of course her father let her help around the docks, and many of his workers treated her no differently than they treated each other, but whenever her father had businessmen over for dinner to strike a deal, Maggie was required to put on her cream gown and sit in the corner doing needlepoint.

She missed her father terribly, but at least in her current company no one expected her to be acting like a lady.

She turned her eyes toward Xavier's uncovered dice and groaned. "Not a single four?" Maggie said in disbelief. She sighed and lifted her own cup away. "I guess now might be a good time to tell you that I'm actually awful at this game," Maggie said with a chuckle.

[CENTER][IMG]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9485/picture7nr.png[/IMG][/CENTER]

"You win that round, fine," Maggie said, plucking a die out of her pile and placing it in the center of the table, three-side-up. It was just a habit of hers; three was her lucky number. "And since I lost," she continued, shaking the remaining four dice around in the cup, "I make the first bet again."

She flipped the cup over onto the table again and checked her roll. "One two," she said, dropping the cup to cover the dice again and leaning back in her chair, as if daring Xavier to challenge her.

"There is something I've been wondering, though. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but why did you decide to take me up on my offer and join my crew? I halfway expected, being a woman as I am, that I'd only get laughed at. What made you take me seriously?"

[Xavier 16]

Xavier smiled slightly and scooped his dice back up, dumping them unceremoniously back into the cup and giving it a few shakes before flipping it back onto the table. he took a glance at the dice underneath and shrugged slightly, though whether it was at his roll or at her statement was difficult to tell. His face was blank, however, nothing revealing there.

"Two Threes." he stated, leaning back in his seat and inspecting the girl thoroughly. He didn't speak, nor smile as was customary for him, simply watched her. After a time he finally shifted, a paw moving to support his muzzle as he leaned forward. "Truth be told I was here to make sure nobody got killed." he replied. "I wish it was because I hold some faith in you, because I think that may be what you wanted to hear. It is quite the opposite." His tone was not cold, despite the bite his words might have had. The otter-wolf was actually looking somewhat apologetic. "Pirates are inclined to do whatever they please, and that includes killing innocent people at times. On the other side, the people on this ship deserve the same courtesy."

"Believe me, I am hoping you prove me wrong. As it stands I am here to protect you from your crew, and your crew from you... as well as anyone else that happens to come along." The sage smiled gently.

[green_rave 13]

Maggie wasn't disappointed. Rather, she would be, had it been someone else saying these things to her, but she liked Xavier, and somehow the way he said what he did wasn't unpleasant at all. It was just a statement of facts; facts Maggie herself had asked for. She had no right to be upset. She asked for the truth and that's what she got.

"Three threes," she said, about to let the subject drop.

Still, not often one to take what's given to her and leave it at that, Maggie had to push it.

"So you're only here to make sure I don't kill anyone. You think it's possible that I do, but you want me to prove you wrong. Tell me, how and when would I prove you wrong? Of course it would be easy to prove you right. I just storm down into Baxter's chambers now and slit his throat. But how do I prove you [I]wrong[/I]? Simply by [I]not[/I] doing that? If that's the case, I have already proven you wrong, but your word choice implies to me that I haven't yet. So then, will I never prove you wrong? I mean, how would I [I]really[/I] prove to you that no one is going to die because of me? I could outright tell you that I have no intention of killing anyone, but would that actually prove anything to you? What if the whole ship gets attacked, and it's not my fault? Like what if a krakken shows up and just eats us all? I guess then it won't really matter."

Maggie had only been joking when she started speaking, but as soon as the words started coming out, she couldn't contain the waver that started sneaking into her voice. Though she tried to act as though she was only using these scenarios for the sake of an example, the truth was that she really was afraid that any one of the situations she described could come to pass.

As she went on speaking, her tone of voice became intimately encountered with the hysterical, if they weren't the same thing outright.

"So then, how about if there's a mutiny, and I have to defend myself against Baxter and Seneca? You're here to protect everyone on this ship; you said it yourself. So what if we turn on each other? Who'll you protect? Will you only be on my side as long as my side is winning?"

Maggie put her hands down on the table and leaned back in her chair, taking a deep breath of the salty air. She had gone too far. There was no way for her to save face now, but damn it all if she wasn't going to try.

"I'm twenty-one years old and I've lived in my father's manor all my life. I know how to sail, and I know how to keep track of accounts. I don't know how to be a pirate. When my father died, I was stuck in that manor managing his accounts while Joseph, his apprentice, undertook all the hands on work that my father used to do.

"That letter I sent out... well I didn't honestly think anyone would show up. But you did, and so did Baxter and Seneca, and all of the sudden I had a crew, and I could sail again, and that's all I wanted to do for the past year. But I wonder if I made the right decision. I'm being selfish. I don't know how to run a ship. I'm using you three as my playthings, but you aren't toys, you're pirates. I have no idea what I'm doing."

Maggie willed herself to look Xavier in the eyes again. "What do I do?" she said, pleading.

[Xavier 16]

Xavier sat still on the other side of them table, his eyes widening slightly and his ears pulling up and back a little in surprise as the woman became nearly hysterical. That was not something he entirely expected from her. At first he thought she might get angry with him, and that he could understand, but fear was an emotion that was both alien and intimately entwined into the hybrid's being. He knew why she was afraid, and he could understand, he simply never expected her to show it to him so openly.

Suddenly he was no longer sitting across from a relative stranger playing a pointless game. He was sitting across from a friend who was in distress. It took him but a moment to regain his composure, already smoothing over his expression before she had finished talking. It was with a calm and mildly concerned expression that he met her eyes.

[I]What do I do?[/I]

The gentle touch of his inhuman hand atop her own followed her question, the man's webbed fingers just resting comfortingly over-top of her own. The gesture was accompanied with a smile, showing off his razor sharp teeth, but in a way that was anything but threatening.

"You simply do what you think is right." He responded.

"I know it may be a cliche piece of wisdom, but it is indeed wisdom. There is no need to fear anything from myself, and I suspect you will find much the same can be said about Baxter and Seneca. I have seen hundreds if not thousands of killers, thieves, and marauders. These men you gathered, luckily for all of us, are perhaps outside of the law but not outside of morality." He nodded slowly to himself as if to confirm his own words.

"As for me, I will protect you the same as I protect everyone else. People may well die, that is simply life, but so long as I feel like you are doing your best to work against that inevitability.... I suppose you'll be proving me wrong."

[green_rave 13]

Maggie wanted to thank Xavier for his reassurance, but she didn't know how. They hardly knew each other. She liked him, sure, and maybe in time she could feel comfortable confiding in him her darkest secrets, but now was not the moment. Aside from her anxiety, Maggie's biggest flaw was her tendency to be too trusting. She [I]did[/I] trust Xavier, but she wasn't sure if she [I]should[/I]. She'd have to let him earn that trust.

She nodded, bringing her other hand over to when Xavier's was resting on her own. She held his paw in both her hands for a moment, then let him go. She removed her hat and ran her fingers through her hair before setting it on her head again.

"Thanks," she muttered finally.

Then, unsure of how else to move on from the awkward moment, she said, "It's still your turn."

[Xavier 16]

The hybrid winked when she seemed to calm down and pull her hands away from his own. "Right then..." He replied, lifting his cup of dice slightly to get a look again. He watched her carefully for a moment, though it was clear he was now more trying to judge her roll of dice than make sure she was alright. The young woman was scared, yes, but she wasn't a child. He knew she would be alright, at least for the moment.

"Four threes." He chimed eventually, smiling and leaning back in his seat.

"And you don't need to thank me for anything."

[green_rave 13]

"Say what you want, but I have plenty to thank you for. I'm thanking you for caring. I'm so used to just being ignored. It's been a long time since someone has actually cared about how I feel. So thanks for that.

"And I'm going to prove you wrong, you can take my word for it. I took that as a challenge, and I tend to accept any challenge posed to me. I guess I get that from growing up around the shipyard. At first no one took me seriously. Whenever I tried to help it was always, "Well even what help she can offer is still help," or "I don't expect you to be able to carry two sacks at once," and everything. Whatever they told me I couldn't do, I did."

Maggie shrugged, glancing back down at her dice.

"This game sucks," she said, lifting her cup away. "I'm calling that bet, only because I know if I raise it to anything else you'll call me, and then I'll be a wimp [I]and[/I] a loser."

[IMG]http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9711/picture6gr.png[/IMG]

[Xavier 16]

The sage just smiled lightly. "I cannot imagine such a life. I was never spoken too as if I was inadequate or helpless. Inferior, perhaps, that was fairly common, but not powerless." He flicked his cup over, revealing his dice.

[ 1, 3 ,4, 5, 6]

"I'm afraid, while I don't think you're a wimp.. you may in this case be a loser." He said with a cheerful grin, his tail visibly flicking from side to side behind him in amusement. "I wouldn't feel bad about losing to me in a game of numbers. My wit is perhaps the most powerful tool I possess. Many times have I bested much stronger men, sorcerers, and monsters simply because they could not outsmart me." He clicked his tongue slightly and pushed the dice back of the edge of the table and into the waiting cup.

"A human like yourself may do well to remember that power is only as useful as how you apply it. It is a tool, and like any other tool, without the wisdom to hold it steady and use it to its fullest potential it is wasted. Like a sword without a competent swordsman, or a mason's hammer with no chisel." He smiled slightly. "I'm sorry, I probably sound like an old man trying to impart lessons on you like it was my job. You'll have to forgive me, I've spent too long alone with my thoughts and I've forgotten how to talk to anyone but myself."

[green_rave 13]

Maggie was about to tell Xavier that he sounded like an old man, when he said it himself.

"No," Maggie said, trying not to laugh, "you don't sound like an old man. Just someone who's spent a lot of time thinking."

Maggie rolled her dice again. "I'm beginning to think there's an advantage to betting second," Maggie said, almost pouting. "This game is designed to throw the first unlucky player off a cliff."

She glanced back up at Xavier, her expression attempting to look as if she was hiding something.

"One three," she cooed.