Summer 7 - Game Night

[norrhamn_residents]

[ It's a rainy afternoon on Norrhamn, with a distant thunderstorm rumbling over the gray sea. Typical Swedish summer, if we're honest, but that only means that the residents on this island know exactly how to combat it: with a game night.

The main dining hall has been cosied up for the occasion. There's plenty of blankets to go around and the tables have been laid out with flickering tealights and a variety of board- and card games of varying difficulty. There's Scrabble of course, and games like Settlers of Catan, Clue, Ludo and many others, along with regular decks of playing cards. There may be a few Witchcraft: The Collection around here too...

Alongside the usual offerings of hot food that's served throughout the day, the kitchen staff has set up a table with tea, coffee and hot chocolate, as well as treats like cinnamon buns and cookies, salty snacks and candy. Perfect to nibble on while in a particularly thrilling game of Backgammon, or just a good setup for a rainy day fika. ]

Comments

[forever_jack]

"Good to meet you, Zelgadis," he smiles, and then chuckles. "I suppose I should have checked first if you're actually speaking and therefore going to be playing in English, or if I'm just hearing you translated into English." He looks thoughtful. "Actually, I have no idea how Scrabble works if the island is magically translating from one language to another!"

It's a rather fascinating idea.

[bluerocks]

"English?" Zel raises an eyebrow at this. "I assume that's your native language. It does seem strange that everyone here seems intelligible to everyone else, even though we're clearly from different worlds."

To him, the letters on the tiles look exactly like the writing he expects to see; similarly, all the brochures he's read, and even the character input on the phones they were given were perfectly legible to him.

"This all just looks like our typical human writing. Whatever magic could bring us all to this world seems to be unifying our languages, somehow."

He spells out the word 'S-A-N-D', starting from one of the triple word score squares in a corner.

[forever_jack]

Well, that answers that, then. Apparently, Norrhamn's magic is somehow translating the game and its appropriate letter scores into two languages simultaneously - which is kind of miraculous and mind-boggling and Jack can't help but laugh. "Yep, English is the most commonly used language on my world - and quite a few others, in my universe. You must be from a completely different reality if you've never even heard of it!"

And now he's wondering, if the island can instantly translate any language, why they all still hear Ingvar's folk and drinking songs in Swedish - but maybe that's deliberate, to try and preserve the cultural charm!

He gets distracted from that line of thought by seeing Zelgadis try to start off the game from the corner. "Hey, sorry, I should have explained the rules. You have to start from the middle square. You still get to double your word score if you're the one who starts, though!" He re-positions the letters in the middle of the board, and writes down the score, then lays down 'NOON' from the 'N', which doesn't get him much, even with double points on one of the 'O's because he has pretty awful letters. He's not overly bothered, though. Talking is just as interesting.

[bluerocks]

"A different reality indeed. I wonder who's responsible for the magic that brings this all together?"

None of the locals he's encountered have seen like particularly powerful sorcerers; even Aina, crossing multiple dimensional planes to pick up guests, seemed like a fairly mundane ferry operator. How intriguing.

He lets out a slightly embarrassed huff as his letters are scooted across the board to the correct starting position, but resumes studying his letters and the options on the board. Before long, he adds 'S-A' to spell out 'NOONSA'.

"This is the name of a fishman I used to travel with," he explains with a perfectly straight face.

[forever_jack]

"A question quite a few of us seem to be asking!" Jack says wryly. "No-one really seems to be able to say who's actually behind this whole venture - which is a little worrying, when you think about it, because they have to be incredibly powerful! And all the island folks I've met so far seem incredibly normal. Nice, but normal!"

He gives Zelgadis a rather amused glance at the assertion of the legality of his word, mainly because it's the sort of thing he might do himself, complete with very blank face and no indication whatsoever as to whether he's trying it on. Whatever, this game is just a way to pass the time and meet people and he's not at all bothered about winning, so he lets it go, writes down the score and glances down at his own letters, asking while he ponders, "So, fishman, eh? As in, part-man, part-fish?"

[bluerocks]

"I'm inclined to agree. Have you seen anything like this sort of magic before?"

Though Zel's first impression of Jack wasn't particularly complimentary, he's starting to warm up to the guy; if he's sharing doubts and skepticism about this whole strange experience, he can't be too bad. Add one more name to his mental roster of people who are wondering about the apparent normalcy of everything here.

"Why else would he be called a fishman? In my world, we have all sorts of beastmen." He pauses for a quick calculation of the score he sees Jack write down. "Ah, I guess bonus squares don't count once they've already been used once."

This might just be a friendly match, but that doesn't mean he can't work on optimizing his score!

[forever_jack]

"Actually, yes. A few years ago I was plucked from my timeline and held in what turned out to be a virtual prison, along with all sorts of people from other times and realities. So I knew it was possible." He shrugs. "At least this time it's optional, and offered as a gift!"

Glancing down again at his letters, he makes a realisation and puts down "DOCTOR" with a grin, even though Zel won't know he's grinning for more reason than that it's a relatively decent score.

"And sure, I've seen part-man, part-beast beings from various other planets. None actually from my Earth, though."

[bluerocks]

Zelgadis raises an eyebrow at Jack's description of his previous misadventure. "That sounds like a nightmarish version of what we have here. Do you have any reason to believe that this gift here isn't just a trick to bring unwitting people into another inter-dimensional prison of sorts?"

As idyllic as the island has been, Zel never fully stopped being suspicious of a good thing. At least he's picked up some better letters; he tacks on 'DRAGON' to Jack's 'DOCTOR'.

[forever_jack]

"Actually, in some ways it turned out to be one of the best things that had ever happened to me!" he shrugs. "They brought my boyfriend in from a point before he died, and we escaped together, so that was pretty amazing."

Glancing at his letters in light of this comment, his eyes light up and he grins widely, adding 'IANTO' downwards across the end of Zel's 'DRAGON', not only bringing said boyfriend into the game but also earning himself a triple word score on it as well! (Okay, it doesn't actually earn him that much, but it's the principle of the thing!)

"That's my boyfriend," he explains, and then sobers as he considers Zel's question. "And that is a good point. But I'm pretty sure there are several people who arrived at the same time I did who are no longer here, and I assume they did so of their own accord..."

[bluerocks]

"Sounds...romantic," Zelgadis says dryly, as someone who is tragically incapable of entertaining a single romantic thought and also wholly uninterested in anyone's love lives.

"The ferry does purport to return people to their home worlds on request; if this island is a trap, it must be a very selective one. Then again, if someone tried to leave and failed to return home, we may never hear about it anyway."

He's working the cynical pondering pretty hard here, almost as a stubborn counter to Jack spinning getting kidnapped to a multiverse prison as 'one of the best things that had ever happened'. But he's also staring at the board, and finally fits in the word 'GAME' across 'IANTO', but also spelling 'GO' down into the end of the 'DRAGON'.

[forever_jack]

One amused eyebrow lifts a fraction at that deadpan reaction to his miraculous love story, but it doesn't bother him and he's more interested anyway in the rest of the conversation.

"That's a good point, actually." He can't help remembering MarinaNova, where for a long time they'd thought the people who disappeared had gone home, only to discover later that no-one ever actually left, their bodies still in stasis pods the whole time, still prisoners.

He shivers a bit, and grimaces. "I really hope that's not the case. Had enough of that sort of thing to last me a lifetime!"

[bluerocks]

"Are you interested in testing the idea? Maybe one of us can try to leave on an outgoing ferry, then return as soon as possible to report back."

Zelgadis isn't immediately volunteering himself for this experiment but he'd like to fish around for someone enthusiastic (or foolhardy) enough to do it themselves.