cheesed to meet you

[Laurels]

So the guy's name was Leslie, and he wasn't that interested in escaping. Shoshanna should have felt annoyed and disappointed, but she understood the fear. This guy had nearly already been crippled by a cheese wheel, so trying to get the collars off was probably a bit daunting for him. She had read enough arguments to get an idea why some people would turn away from escape attempts once actually in the game.

Shoshanna simply nodded. It sucked to hear, but "I don't think I can escape" is always a valid excuse, and she couldn't fault him for that.

"Well, that's fine," Shoshanna told Leslie. "You're free to do what you want to with your life here."

Shoshanna looked around. There was a door nearby that looked like it led to the inside of the clipper ship.

"I guess we can move inside," she told the other guys. "While we still have some light, let's see what we can find on the ship."

[AnimeNerd]

Well, that’s...disappointing. Both the fact he didn’t even want to give a full explanation, let alone attempt to escape. It wasn’t like Jasper could do anything about either, but it was a little frustrating nonetheless.

But what are you going to do? It at least seemed like Leslie was on the passive side, as far as contestants go. Not like that one guy from season sixty that tried to stop the escape just to make the season more interesting. He’d take depressive and passive over deceptive and aggressive any day.

“Yeah, you do you, really,” Jasper commented after Shoshanna’s statement, his lips in a neutral straight line and shrugging.

He gave a slight nod at the suggestion to start searching the ship, starting to walk towards the door. They may have had flashlights, but they only worked for so long, and he wasn’t interested in wasting the batteries in the thing.

“Let’s hope there’s something good here, yeah?” He said, small smile back on his face.

[Sh4dE]

Oh, wow. Shoshanna and Jasper were not concerned at all about the huge cheese wheel. Leslie was, though and he offered to share the cheese. That was pretty nice. They'd need to find something to cut it. If only he had been assigned something to cut it with.

Oh, well. They were intending to go inside. But could the cheese fit in the door?

"Hey, guys. Wait. What about the cheese?"

They couldn't just leave the cheese outside. It's food after all and frankly he was getting hungrier.

"I think I'll wait outside and watch out for it before it like drops of the ship or something. If you find something inside that can cut it, please bring it here."

He grinned with a big smile at his escape comrades.

[Jilly]

Leslie's mouth twitched into a smile for a fraction of a second at Gus and his obsession with the cheese wheel.

Leslie leaned back against the cannon and picked at his arm with the other hand. "Uhm... wait a second," he said to the girl and Jasper before they got too far away. "...Can I think about it? About, ya know... busting out of here? I'll hang up here with Gus for a hot minute."

He cleared his throat. "Also... can y'all tell me if ya see any gunpowder, paper, and a round shot or two down there? ...Just curious."

[Laurels]

"You can watch the cheese," Shoshanna told Gus. "Especially if we find some penne alfredo inside."

Shoshanna looked at Gus, then back to Jasper. It was weird that Gus was more focused on a giant wheel of cheese than anything useful to get them out of here. Granted, she had had time to look at the food she was issued, and even that big bastard was more appealing than a lot of the stuff they got. Well, hopefully. Apparently it's passed from hand to hand and rolled across a wooden deck, so she'd have to definitely avoid the eating the outer parts of it. Not that she could from the rind, and not that she was a germaphobe. It just seemed preferable.

Before Shoshanna and Jasper made their way inside, Leslie asked them for some specific items. Gunpowder, paper, and round shots. Shoshanna nodded.

"We can try. We do have some paper from the cruise ship, so we can toss you an extra pad of paper. We'll let you know what else we find."

With that, Shoshanna pushed the door open and stepped inside the clipper ship.

[AnimeNerd]

O...kay, so Gus seemed really out of it from hunger or something. Maybe this was normal for him? It was alright, Jasper figured, nodding along with Shoshanna's suggestion, but something he took note of.

Jasper smiled towards Leslie, charismatic as ever. "Of course you can. We'd be happy to have you if you change your mind." Neither a complete lie nor the whole truth. It was Leslie's choice whether or not he wanted to die here and soon or somewhere else years from now. No skin off Jasper's nose if he chose the former over risking for the latter, but it probably would be better to have more on their side. The more hands to help, the better.

And to the latter request, Jasper gave Leslie a single nod after Shoshanna's agreement.

"Yeah, I don't see why not. Worth a try, at least."

Because, too be fair, firing a cannon sounded dope as Hell.

And then him and Shoshanna walked through the door, and Jasper couldn't help but let out another impressed whistle. Yeah, they were definitely going to find something here, but there was still the question of what they would find, as well as an additional one.

"So, where should we start looking?"

[Sh4dE]

Alright, so the two of them went inside. Now it was only him, Leslie and the cheese. The three Krakens.

Gus was quick to break the silence and began small talking with his assigned team partner.

"Uh, so. You often on a boat? You're a fisher, right? So you probably have boat experience. Any cool fisherman stories you can think of?"

Frankly, Gus wished he wasn't on a boat right now. He wasn't sure if he was going to get sea sick in the long run, but not being on stable land made him feel weird.

[Jilly]

Leslie watched Jasper and the girl disappear into the depths of the clipper. He turned back to the cannon and grazed his hand along the wood casing and iron, pacing around to the back of the cannon with a slight limp on his foot that still hurt a bit.

Yeah... yeah. Maybe they really could get this thing up and going if the right stuff was on the ship. It'd be nice, but... no. They probably had the real fun shit down on lock. And there was the whole drawing attention angle and stuff... he had to be realistic.

(Though it would still be nice).

Leslie played with the metal pin on top of the barrel before Gus asked him a question. He hmm'd and haw'd to himself before responding.

"Uh... not really." He pushed the pin back down and gently slapped it. "I got my operator safety cert and stuff, but I ain’t got any real good stories, nothin' really fun.... Oh, my dad and I got to see a police raid a few years back while we were out on the water, though; iunno what it was about, but it was... something."

Leslie tugged on the rope along the cannon's housing a few times.

"...How 'bout you? You seafare much?"

[Laurels]

Shoshanna stepped into the depths of the clipper ship. Well, it didn't look like there was much around here. She could see a few hammocks hanging and a few scattered barrels, but it didn't look like much in the way of tools. She was hoping there'd be some plier or a hammer somewhere. Maybe even some chains to take.

"Well, it's not much," Shoshanna said to Jasper. "But I guess we ought to check it out."

Shoshanna began to walk through, stroking her hands over the nearest hammock.

"Hammocks are at least good for sleeping," she noted. "Plus it's extra fabric we can cut up."

She made her way to a nearby barrel. She moved the lid over and peered inside.

"Empty. Man, couldn't have even put some fun treasures inside these," she exclaimed. "Like, dang, why not put some easter eggs inside?"

[AnimeNerd]

"No reason not to," Jasper mumbled out, expression taking on a neutral tone as he followed.

He didn't respond immediately to the statement about the hammocks, instead grabbing the edge of one and rubbing it between his fingers. He could definitely see them sleeping in one if need be, though he wasn't sure how cutting it up would help. But if Shoshanna had an idea of how it could help, he wasn't about to argue.

He went towards one of the other barrels, a curious expression on his face as he lifted the lid and checked the inside. Just like Shoshanna's, though, it too was empty. He sighed.

It didn't seem like there would be much here to help, so it was about time to bring out some big guns.

Jasper was incredibly grateful when he realized Jewel was his mentor. Even more so when she announced her plan to be an actually useful mentor this season compared to the last two. And when she listed the ways she would try her damnedest to help them, with whatever plan they had? That was the closest thing he had to hope he had before waking up on that cruise ship.

And right now? A little more hope would be very much appreciated.

As he acted as though he looked further into the barrel, he whispered to his collar, only loud enough for its microphones to hear.

"Hey. Wanted to say that I do want to get out of here. Not win-escape. Like Emelie, Nolan, Zalika, or Ash...ley..."

Holy shit.

Holy. Shit.

Quickly turning around to face Shoshanna-too quickly, don't give a tell-leaning against the empty barrel and his hook leaning into the crook of his bent elbow, Jasper let out another, louder sigh, clearly trying to get Shoshanna's attention. He scratched at his neck, just barely nudging the collar with his fingers. Hopefully it would get the attention he wanted.

"So, Shoshanna," he said, putting on a board tone he had practiced many a time for poker. "Can you refresh me on something about one of the last people to escape? Ashley Sanderson? I know she started something that made her more famous afterwards, but I can't remember what. It's really bugging me."

Please let this work. Please, God, I promise to start going to church if this really works.

[Sh4dE]

"Oooh, wow! A police raid, huh."

Gus carefully flopped the cheese down, making sure to not have his foot crushed by the cheese. He knew Leslie hurt his foot this way but in Gus' case this could end bloody considering he was barefoot. With a small thump the cheese crashed down and no feet were hurt in the process and thus an irony taste on the cheese was avoided.

"Nah, I'm not a boat person. You know, just the usual stuff you do in Miami. I like to surf but I'm not like a yuppie who goes on yachts in his freetime or sail or anything like that."

Gus stared at Leslie's bandanna. They were on the same team. That meant that he had a person he could trust.

"Hey, you also have that pale girl as a mentor, right? You saw her on the screen when we woke up the first time, too, right?"

[Jilly]

Leslie took a step back from the cannon and lightly kicked the cannon's casing with his good foot as he listened to Gus.

"Yeah, I remember her."

Another few taps.

"She tried to get me talkin' a few hours ago, but I don't need a damn mentor. I can take care of myself."

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. Then he scratched his beard a bit as he looked right at Gus for a minute.

"...Where's your bag by the way, buddy?"

[Laurels]

Shoshanna continued to wander around the room. The barrels were mostly empty save for dust. The lids probably could make good paddles when they rowed out of the arena, but they were too cumbersome to carry around now, even as makeshift shield.

She looked around more. There was a pile of cannonballs near the back of the room. There looked to be some other goods nearby, but before Shoshanna could get any closer, she heard a noise from Jasper.

Jasper was scratching around his collar. He was asking about Ashley Sanderson, the lone escapee of Season 58.

"Oh, the web show?" Shoshanna asked. "Yeah, it's called Ashley Ex Machina. She started making videos analyzing the science and mechanics of machinery in movies and tv shows, but probably the main draw of the channel is her SOTF videos."

Shoshanna scratched the back of her neck. Yeah, the collars were definitely a bit more annoying than one would expect.

"She always tries to make quickie videos whenever a new season starts hypothesizing about how to disable the collars of that season. I mean, she proved she could disable and remove a collar during her season, so why couldn't she do it again? Granted, no one has escaped since her season, so these remain mostly theory videos without any evidence that she was actually on to anything. I doubt SOTF would actually confirm any of her theories, even after the fact. Plus, they're definitely more for the fans of the show than the kids in the game..."

Shoshanna's words drifted. Was this why Jasper asked her about it? To get more info about the series out? Shoshanna tried not to let it show, but she decided to continue to educate Jasper.

"But yeah, it's a fun show if you're into that sorta thing. Wish we could pull up YouTube while we're here to see if she uploaded her newest theory."

[AnimeNerd]

Well, it looked like one part of this was going to be easier than Jasper expected.

He nodded along with Shoshanna’s explanation. Honestly, he didn’t really watch the show. He just knew it for theories about the collars and robots from sci-fi movies. Watched about three episodes, realized it wasn’t really his thing, and passed it on.

If this worked out, he’d watch every episode from now on.

He gave a singular nod when she finished with her explanation. “That sure would be nice, yeah. But, alas, I doubt anyone even got assigned a cellphone as a weapon, let alone was allowed to keep their own. And that’s if the episode has even been uploaded yet.

“But hey,” he gave a small grin. “Once we get out of here, whether the collars work like she thought or not, she’ll probably love to have us on the show.”

No thinking here. If Jewel did what he hoped-if she got the message he was trying to send, and got the information they needed-then they would get out of here, escaping. No if’s, ands, or buts.

But now it was time to redirect. Time to get focus off Ashley and on to something else.

Looking towards the back of the room, he noticed the cannonballs, his grin growing wider. He walked to the pile, picking up a cannonball with his free hand.

“Hey, think we could find some gun powder? Get that canon to fire off a shot or two?”

It was part distraction, part genuine question. It was probably stupid, but seriously, how cool would it be to fire a cannon on SOTF-TV?

[Sh4dE]

Gus could respect Leslie's need for independence. Though Gus was really appreciative of having a mentor, because otherwise he'd have no clue of what to do in this game. Gus shrugged and explained himself.

"I got robbed. Eric Cunningham took it from me. Watch out for that guy."

Gus rubbed his cleft chin. He considered explaining more about that story but honestly he felt kind of ashamed of the situation so he spared him from details and just let out a sad sigh.

"I really hope I can get my bag back. I'm really hungry and haven't eaten since probably yesterday. Or, I don't know when we've been abducted."

Gus eyed the cheese with lust but then continued his eye contact with Leslie.