Chance is the only game I play with, baby

[foxsays]

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura, Korrin Ataash, Anders, Fenris, Schrödinger's Teren
WHAT: The wooing of Capitán Gloriana Valdez by the Inquisition
WHEN: While everyone's adrift
WHERE: Llomerryn
NOTES: ooc post + full plot details

Gathering everyone together is the first bit of the easiest step of the plan. Settling them all at a table marginally more difficult considering who the company are (a Warden, two mages, a warrior, a rogue, not everyone best suited to liking one another but needs must) with less friendly, more curious eyes than Kirkwall on them as Araceli makes sure to keep herself between Korrin and Anders at the table when she comes back with drinks.

"Each captain is master - or aims to be - of their own destiny and of their ship but like everything it's about who you influence; is it your ship, is it a few ships, a small fleet, or is your word law?" Araceli leans close over her rum (watered, insultingly watered because she's a stranger and she hasn't earned the rights to the good stuff no matter how like them she looks without the hand or what she knows of a ship) with a smile as if she's telling a great story. That's what friends do in taverns. The people at the next table go back to their cards and Llomerryn Red. "I know the woman: Capitán Gloriana Valdez. A woman of reputation, three ships to her name, ties to the Felicissima Armada.

"Now," she pauses to take a drink, "what I'm proposing is that we go to her local - the Maker's Mark, what a name for a tavern, here of all places, "we need to woo her. So drink up, if you don't know the way we can all go, we look suitably roguish or fearsome or interesting to get in the door, some of us have faces befitting of reputation, no?" As plans go, it's a nice simple plan. Locate captain, woo captain, rewards. But she expects questions because you know, fearsome pirate captain, how does one woo a pirate captain, has anyone else heard tale of this dreaded woman and so on but it's a start at least.

(If anyone says what can go wrong she might try to sell you for kraken bait.)

Comments

Teren is both alive and dead, you heard it here first

[doneisdone]

Teren hadn't told them she was meeting them here, either because she's Teren and doesn't care, or because none of them knew. Either way, she looks not at all surprised to see them from her corner of the room, which seems to manifest a dark shadowy quality just by virtue of her being there. She doesn't find the shady corners: they follow her.
She's watching the company of pirates while sipping a glass of wine, an innocuously unattractive and unfriendly middle-aged woman in a tavern of similar faces. If things go south, she'll arrive out of nowhere with knives through throats. In the meantime, wine.

Schrodinger's Teren

[justice_is_blond]

He's losing. Horribly. It's no surprise to him, and it's likely no surprise to Fenris either. Anders just doesn't have a good game face and he lacks luck. Within just a couple of hands he's out of what he'd been fine with losing and he stands, shaking his head and making room for someone else to sit down.

Casually he winds up near Fenris, keeping in mind the partner comment from earlier. They're watching each others' backs here and the mission is far more important than history.

"Do you know what a pirate's favorite letter is?" he asks the listeners at large, a small smile on his face.

"...R?" asks one after a beat. "We've heard that before. We're not really running around saying arrrr all the time."

"The C, actually," Anders replies, glancing over to see if Araceli will comment about bad jokes again. Or was it dad jokes? He's pretty sure she said bad, and he enjoys his bad jokes.

[foxsays]

ooc; drinking contest is continued here
cards and puns is continued here
thief stoppage is here