"Psion, working on memory. I call blue. Wendy, you be red, of course. Let's roll dice for player order."

"Why of course?" wonders Sadde.

    "White," calls Dominic.

    "Orange, I guess."

"Uh, green, why not."

Wendy telekinetically distributes player pieces. "We're friends so he knows my favorite color, which happens to match my hair. You're doing biokinesis, seems complicated, can I ask why?"

"I wanna do healing and deaging, eventually generalized biological immortality and, if I find a likeminded psion, resurrection. Possibly with a detour through 'bootstrapped calories' land."

"Huh. I just thought about what would be useful around where I came from. Healing would be, too, but..." Glance around. Shrug.

"Generalized biological immortality would be pretty great. I was thinking about trying to improve virtuality, somehow, but now I'm wondering about what it'd take to help do a resurrection..."

"Post-cognition, telepathy, probably some form of information projection. The mage grows the body, the psion imprints the mind."

    "That's all fine and dandy but let's start the game," Dominic sighs in a somewhat bored tone.

They roll for first player - Sadde.

Terry goes over the rules with everyone. It's not super complicated. Build things in strategic places to get more resources to build more things, try to win victory points in a variety of ways, trade with each other. Conversation turns to game banter, with Wendy mostly quietly smiling and Terry anxiously peering between the board and his cards making 'hmm' noises a lot.

"All I need is one brick. One brick, anyone? I have wood, I have sheep, I have iron. One brick."

Sadde learns to play pretty quickly and is doing moderately well by then. Dominic seems to mostly be enjoying the chat and banter and not paying much attention to the game itself, while Andrew makes thoughtful moves and doesn't express much beyond a furrow of concentration on his brow.

"Telling everyone how much you need the one brick is certainly a way to drive up the price," she says. "One of each."

"It'd be nice to have, certainly. That's barely better than trading with the bank though. Four of anything for one of anything. It's only a good deal for me if you can beat the special trade routes, I'm going to get a three-for-one port in a minute and do that on my own. One of two of the three things."

"But are you going to get to the three-for-one port without the brick?"

"You'll just have to wait and see. No trade then, fine. Dominic's turn."

Dominic builds a road that advances apparently no strategic objectives whatsoever, and shrugs at Sadde's raised eyebrow.

Sadde's turn, she rolls, bites her lips while she waits, and whoops quietly when the result comes out. She grabs a couple of resources, trades a few with the bank...

She eyes Dominic. "I'll trade you two ores for one lumber."

    "I don't know, that's a bit cheap of you."

"I'll blow you in the locker room later if you do."

    "Deal."

She builds two roads, and grins at a suddenly rather annoyed Andrew. "Looks like I have the longest road now," she singsongs while she takes the "longest road" card from him. It also happens that these two roads are going in the direction of Terry's port.

"...I'm not entirely sure that qualifies as sportsmanlike behavior. Just sayin'."

Wendy rolls a seven and gets to move the Thief. She teekays it next to Sadde's settlement with a sort of reproachful look. (But also a bit of a smirk/wink sort of expression.)

"Can I take a card?"

"I would've been able to convince him to trade me even without the blowjob offer. Wouldn't I, Dominic?"

    "...I'd normally say no but I only met you a week ago and I already know you would've found a way," he says, mostly agreeably.

"And I suppose you can take a card, since that's how this game works," Sadde tells Wendy with an exaggerated sigh.

"Thank you~," she singsongs, and snatches up - a wheat, turns out. She buys a development card! It gives her one victory point. "This is good fun."

Terry mutters something under his breath while waiting for Andrew to roll the die for resources.

Andrew rolls and doesn't get anything. The concentrated furrow of his eyebrows deepens, but he just passes his turn.

"Can I go off for a sec and be right back..."

"Oh? Yes, go." Something unspoken between them.

Terry rolls, muttering, "Come oooon, nine." (Six.) "Dam- Darn. I guess I'll upgrade this settlement." Sigh.

She looks curiously at Wendy but then smirks at Terry. "Still confident you can get to the port?"

"I am evaluating strategic priorities and comparing potential risks and expenditures."

Wendy slips away, still holding herself small.

"I'm sure you are. Should we wait for Wendy to come back before Dominic does his thing?"

He rolls anyway.