BOAT: THISTLE

[crittersheep]

[ You’re in a sleek, gilded reception room aboard a large and - aside from your team - empty ship. It’s full of fabulous kitchens (splattered with blood but still usable!) and ballrooms (full of instruments, all playable!) and glittering spires and stagnant-smelling but comfortable sleeping quarters. When nobody is using the intercoms to speak, a tune hums through.

Other than that, there’s thick mist surrounding everything, a path lit only by the ship’s signal light as it travels toward whatever it is you’re in search of and away from the home you can never return to. Waves crash gently against the hull, growing louder and fiercer as time goes on, and there’s faint wailing and howling in the distance…what is going on in this sea? Well, it’s not very important to you. What’s important is surviving.

You have a life to live. ]

Comments

[reportinastorm]

What are our other options? We could buy more food?

[survivaltricks]

I'm going to get us a cat to help stave off future infestations. For now, we should probably clean it up and buy more food.

[cracks knuckles]

I'm a pretty good fisherman.

[reportinastorm]

The cat will get rid of them...? Are fish better to eat than rats??

[She is still not super familiar with the normal earth food chain,]

[survivaltricks]

Cats instinctively hunt rats for food; that's what makes them so good at pest control.

And fish carry less diseases than rats, so they're safer to eat.

[reportinastorm]

I see...

I think I like vegetables better.

[survivaltricks]

[SAGE NOD]

Me too.

[reportinastorm]

...I imagine those don't travel well, though.

[survivaltricks]

Nope. They'd go bad pretty quickly.

But we'll need some on board if we don't want to get scurfy.

[a beat. and then, playfully]

What say you, first mate? Should we replenish our stores with lots of fruits and vegetables?

[reportinastorm]

First mate...?

[SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS]

...We should make sure we get rid of all the insects first, or they'll just get destroyed again.

[survivaltricks]

[HE IS TEASING, ANYWAY]

Odin and I are on that. We'll clean them out.

[reportinastorm]

How are you going to get rid of Innumerable insects? Tyr and I were thinking we might want to use our robot...

1/2

[survivaltricks]

Lots of stomping and sweeping.

[survivaltricks]

[ALL JOKING ASIDE. . .]

I'm not opposed, though I almost feel like we should save it for a more. . . mmm. Serious situation.

But if you guys think it's best, then I'm on board.

[reportinastorm]

[Unimpressed]

An ongoing infestation potentially destroying all our food stores for the rest of our trip is pretty serious...

[survivaltricks]

By "serious" I was thinking "someone is about to shoot us super dead." Or maybe we're about to be hanged? Or we're going to drown? or--

[HE SHOULD NOT KEEP GOING]

[reportinastorm]

Those ones are more direct threats, but they're also easier to deal with in other ways. If you have another solution that you're really confident will clear out all the insects...

[survivaltricks]

[. . . he can't help but grin a li'l, expression a bit wry, when she says the life-threatening situations are easier to deal with than the bugs]

Nah. Robot it is, then.

[reportinastorm]

[Look. Both "someone is about to shoot us super dead" and "there are a lot of bugs and no food" are situations she is not unfamiliar with. and while one of them is alarming the other one is a much more inescapable existential threat]

...Thank you. We'll have two more charges left, at least.

[survivaltricks]

[yes, he thinks it says a lot about her lived experiences!1 it is why he isn't arguing too much]

Mmm. Let's see what awaits us, then.