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When this was all over and done with Dictys would be watching that prize ceremony like a hawk. Ey needed to associate faces with the names of these awful desecrators of Alternia's noble history. The spacecrafts, lost to time immemorial...the little dropped goodies...and the other stuff that belonged to dumb landdwellers who'd built ships that sunk for some reason. Ey pulled eir braid over eir shoulder as ey moved to the shore again.

Then perhaps ey'd have a case to take to Regina, especially now that ey'd received eir invitation to the Seadwellers' Society. The past was a font of valuable information - Dictys refused to possibly give it up. Now that ey had the time for it, of course, Dictys searched for a place with the most intact-looking treasures. They needed to be saved and salvaged, for the future of Alternia.

These things were...alive? Like not plant alive. ANIMAL alive. Whoaaaa. Reemus couldn't help but touch one. Then again. And again. It was so solid and bumpy! He loved it. Mum might not be happy about the little guy messing with a giant sea creature, but for the yellowblood it was AWWWESOME. ...Oh. Right. He was hunting for metal loot. Back to work!

Reemus went out of his way to check out all the sea stars he could, flitting back and forth between colonies. It seemed they were so big that they didn't mind old debris landing on them, or worse, digging into their hides. Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind when the little guy did his darn best to yank the metal bits out of them. Not only would it be a successful night in the muttardblood's book, but he'd helped the local wildlife out, too!

Aerona flitted back and forth between the lottery and the booths. When she'd seen that there was a way to cheat, she took it of course. But unfortunately, doing this decrypting stuff wasn't her strong suit. She sat down at a Bloodfest bench, pulling up her sketchbook and hiding the hidden puzzles inside of it. She felt like a spy. It was so cool.

It was also helping her get her mind off her injury. Her arm was puffy and well wrapped in gauze, but it hurt to even move it. No more throwing darts or balls, no more capturing the flag. No more activity for who knows how long. She felt trapped, and she could only blame herself. No... She could blame that seadweller at the booth. Her rage sizzled as she crossed letters off of the puzzle, but drew little pictures of herself stabbing a particular purpleblood in the margins. It was helping.

"What do you think, Sophitia?" Aerona asked quietly. She had hardly spoken with her lusus since yesterday. Sophitia was burning mad. She clicked and pointed to a number that Aerona had missed. "Thanks..."

Aerona stuck her tongue out in thought as she filled in the rest. She allowed herself a smile, then a giggle, and stood straight up with her efforts apparent. "Eureka!" She had it. There was no way she could lose! Hopefully she could somehow deter the other trolls from putting in these cheated numbers too. Well, maybe not. That might be too dangerous. Aerona shuffled up to the ticket-seller.

"I'd like to get a ticket, please!"

(Lottery ~~~)

Psykgi

When Psykgi was bored at her booth, she had something to occupy her aside from her inkblots – the cryptograms. Initially, she had no intention of entering the lottery. Psy was not a competitor: she was a bystander, a sidekick, a support. It was just a thing to pass the time, and she would solve them and disregard them, every day. It was an amusing diversion, and she was fairly sure the drone knew what he was doing. The messages were not as unintentional as some believed, and they gave Psykgi a nice little chuckle.

But then, around day 6 of Bloodfest, Psykgi started to wonder: what if she figured it out? She didn't need the beetles or the points and had no particular color loyalty, nor did she care about whether Red team won the Bloodfest competition or not. But she couldn't just leave the fruits of her intellectual labors sitting there, unused, could she? She had solved them, shouldn't she use them?

So, she dug her solved cryptograms out of the piles of paper for her inkblot copier, and started keeping track. One by one, the numbers on the ticket revealed themselves to her, and she dutifully recorded them, using carefully numbered cockroaches to keep track in a suitably covert manner. Finally, day 7 and the final clue arrived, and she made the final mark on a cockroach.

”There.” she said to Ma'am, pleased at her own intelligence, memorizing the number as the cockroaches dutifully set themselves out in front of her, ”It looks like I'll be buying a lottery ticket! Goodness! How fun!”

Ma'am chittered back, and the numbered roaches returned to the swarm. She didn't approve of gambling, but this was not gambling. Let the other trolls see how smart her baby was.

And so, Psykgi bought herself a ticket and returned to her booth. She was somewhat late to open it, but Ma'am had been fielding any comers in that time, and so... well... there was no rush.

Keionx was a hero, and she wasn't all brawn. She knew the importance of puzzles to heroes, and Beastdad had drilled her in how to solve the more common heroic puzzles. She probably could have solved the cryptograms.

But she hadn't even noticed them. Alas, Keionx was not the observant twin, and so she completely neglected any attempts at the tickets... In her defense, however, she was busy. Between emotions and sports and diving and people – so many people – she was completely worn thin.

After the chaos of yesternight's capture the flag, Keionx found herself looking forward to a peaceful romp beneath the waves in her submersible device. Well, not precisely hers, but it was the same one she had rented before, and she was growing attached to it.

She gathered her treasures, one by one, carefully picking a few metal rods out of a crevice here, a few doohickys there, and more than a few bizzare devices from the sands. She kept moving in the hopes that she would encounter none of the fell saboteurs, and – to her great satisfaction – did not seem to.

She was far from alone in the deep purple sea, but she was, in her 'mersible, isolated. It gave her a moment to think, to sort through the cluster of feelings in her soul. Most confusing of all... well... that was Etsali. She... she didn't know what she felt about Etsali, except that it was powerful, all consuming and whens he had looked into her eyes, there on the battlefield...

Keionx blushed, feeling strangely tingly at the memory. No, it was nothing. Right?

The blinking light of the rental timer drew her back to the surface, and Keionx returned, feeling a little better than before... but no less confused.

Sorry... that should be 29 tickets unless I miscounted.