Disclaimer: All who owned things were credited with owning things, and all who owned nothing credited it to those owned things. And the owning of things was great, and the crediting of things to the owners of things was great; and there was much rejoicing in the land.

This particular tidbit is set just some random time post-HaDM. Just pick a day.

The Bet

Tunnel had served aboard various ships his whole life. He was now into his fifties and could count a dozen or so different vessels that he had served aboard, some in the merchant marine, some in the royal navy, and some of lesser repute, like his current berth, the Black Pearl. And if there was one common thread amongst all ships, he had learned long ago, it was that bored sailors will do practically anything to amuse themselves on uneventful days on the vast, empty seas.

Even so, however, as he was passing through a corridor on the gun deck one day, he ran across a group of men in such curious postures leaning against the corridor wall that he doubled back to investigate exactly what it was that they were doing. On closer inspection, Tunnel realized that the half a dozen men were bunched around the door which led into one of the artillery rooms, and all of them were pressing their ears against the door or the wall.

"What's going on?" Tunnel finally asked.

"Shh," came the immediate response from Ben.

"What?" Tunnel repeated, though he did lower his voice in compliance. "Who's in there?"

"Gwen and Cap'n," Ben replied in a hushed tone. "We've got a pool on. Want in?"

Tunnel glanced around at the other men, then at the door, and then he seemed to settle. "What are the stakes and wagers?"

"Losers take winners' chores, wagered on what they're doing in there."

Tunnel sniffed reflexively, rubbed his chin, and with a curt nod, sidled up to an open piece of wall and assumed the eavesdropping posture.

The captain's voice was the first thing he heard.

"Easy with the balls, luv."

"I'm not going to hurt them," was Gwen's dry reply. "What next?"

Tunnel drew back for a moment. In a whisper, he asked the other men, "Who's got cannon lessons?" Two men raised their hands. "An' who's got… somethin' else?" The other four men all raised their hands. Tunnel hesitated a moment. "All right then, I'll put in my deck-swabbing tomorrow morning on artill'ry-learnin'."

Then he leaned up to the wall again.

"Don't you ever clean down here?" Gwen was saying.

"Not unless I'm bored. Just get on with it, savvy?"

"All right, all right. What do I do with this, then?"

"Here, I'll show ye."

There was a series of strange scuffling sounds that none of the eavesdropping men could quite make sense of. Then there was the sound of a dull thud, and the peculiar sound unique to the occasion of a cannonball rolling across the wooden floor, followed by the rather embarrassing sounds of enthusiastic snogging.

Tunnel frowned and exchanged confused looks with the others. "So… who wins?"

Suddenly the door swung open, and the crewmates scrambled to flee the scene, though it would have been impossible to deny what they had been doing outside the door like that.

As the last man rounded a corner, Jack turned to Gwen. "Pay up. There were only seven of them out here; ye lost."

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