algagrass | In my defense I have no defense.

Entry tags:

In my defense I have no defense.

CHARACTERS: Dirk Strider (

splinterself) and various and sundry other people who can speak for themselves.
DATE: The 20th, thus allowing for people to tag into both. Huzzah.
RATING: PG13
SUMMARY: I joked about a bunch of horrified level 1-2 people staring at the level for the dungeon before going off and getting e-beers. I was encouraged. Also, I'm starting with prose just because that's how I roll with intro posts, but brackets are strongly encouraged if that's what makes your soul happy.

...and after some stuff which doesn't particularly matter Dirk was staring at the level info for Δ Choosing Superior Offerings. Level 11 temple dungeon? He'd get his ass kicked.

In time he would go back and deal with this issue, go find people to team up with, whatever. But for now? Now? Goddamn.

So he turned to the nearest person who looks plausibly lost, alarmed, bemused, or other such reactions and said, "Hey. I don't know about you but I'm tired of dungeons right now. Know where a guy can get a drink?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, a troll. You may want to get used to those, Dirk; I heard they come in waves. Anyway, yeah, the humans had surprised him too... it was weird, to have a game that was so natural like this be filled with nothing but gelatinous pale fleshbags. But you know what, Sollux Captor got used to it, you can too.

"Tholluckth," he said. Notice that lisp, Dirk? That's not going to get any better further into the night. "That plan thounds alright. Problem ith, though, that I'm only level negative frethmeat thquared, tho I don't think I can walk muth farther before I trip over my own thtupidly long robe and die." He shrugged. "But what can you do."

"Yeah, I know that feeling, bro," he replied. The subtle sounds of the sallow sorcerer sonorously slipping up on S sounds was - again - subtle, but Dirk picked up on it. Just a little. "I've been here for a god damn month and I only managed to climb up to level two." He inclined his head towards the exit, implying that momentum was salvation: they could walk and talk and then chill at their leisure. He then, in the interest of providing a good example, started strolling in that direction. Exit, stage right.

"Theriouthly?" Sollux peered at the human, unsure of whether he was serious about his less-than-admirable stats. How do you only go up one level a month? Is he the King of Slackers or something? "I can thee why you're tho hell-bent on getting a drink. That'h jutht thad." Still, it isn't like he is in any better position, so he followed Dirk. It wouldn't be that hard to find a place that serves drinks, he decided. Unless this place had different laws than Alternia, in which case they would just have to work around it.

"Seriously. I've been grinding the entire time and all I got was one level. Just one. The echeladders back home were kinder than this place has been."

The streets of Mac Anu were...pretty much the way they always had been and probably always would be: veiled in the afternoon, filled with NPCs, a little city with every day like the one before. Except for the rumors here and there.

He turned towards a quieter part of town. He thought he remembered seeing something, and wasn't in the mood to deal with more talk of that unattainable chest. "I've met only one person anywhere significantly above 1."

It's a little town, it's a quiet village; no one dead or being slowly culled. Little town full of little people, waking up to say--

"Fuck you!" Sollux announced, elbowing some sad, staggering sap out of his way. Apparently they were going in the right direction. Mac Anu didn't change much, he noticed over the past several days; everything was so... idyllic. Clean. There were no shady underbellies of anything here. Everything was just as cozy and sun-lit as it appeared to be. It was terrifying, to be honest. Having grown up mostly by himself in the sleaziest viper pit on Alternia, such a happy little place just... existing has put him on edge.

"Mutht be a new game," he mused, grateful at least for the relative silence. Everyone was walking past now, looking at the ground in front of them. Good. "I gueth thethe people jutht have a really bad idea of how to get beta tethterth."

Seriously. There goes the NPC with his rumors like always, the same old tales and hints to tell. Every day had been same, since the morning that he came to this poor, provincial game. At least up until recently. The elbow had gotten a slightly raised eyebrow but no other reaction.

"Can't be too new; according to that one person I mentioned it's existed for a few months." There was an emphasis on the plural. "She made it to level 12." He left a pause to be properly horrified in. "I know."

The place they were headed was a small out of the way joint, one which radiated little charm. It was the sort of building which was built because the NPCs had somehow, just somehow, realized that they could potentially make more money selling drinks in a venue which wasn't just a stall. It wasn't a rat trap, per se - it's not like there were proper rat traps anywhere in Mac Anu. But it was a very half assed sort of place.

Sollux could just feel the people looking at him; even though his hood was up and everything, his horns still stuck up like little candy corns from hell, and his faintly glowing red and blue eyes didn't do him any favors either. 'Look, there he goes-- that thing is strange, no question. He's not quite human, can't you tell?' Of course, he responded with still more sour looks at anyone who even glanced at him wrong.

"Thith the plathe?" he asked, looking up at it. He quite liked this part of the city more than the main drag, actually; maybe it was beneficial that he got dragged along with this guy, because otherwise he'd have continued to bat himself around in Sunshine Land. Of course, even though he was a bit more at ease, he didn't show it. It seemed that the scowl was so common on his face that it had just gone and set up camp there.

Edited 2012-06-25 01:41 (UTC)

"Yeah, this is it. I'm not exactly sure what they have: I've only been here once." And here Dirk contemplated mentioning how he felt more comfortable when there wasn't so many people around and discarded the thought in the same instant. Unnecessary. Instead, he paused as he opened the door, looked back, and added, "I'm not sure how good it is, but we'll find out."

It was palatable, at least. He went inside.

The inside was much the same as the outside. It was the sort of place where people might pause at, but not exactly linger unless they were fond of half-assed surroundings. Not, again, a deathtrap since fuck if those sorts of things existed, but not a super kawaii sugoi charming place desu filled with a steampunk motif and style. Which made it alright in Dirk's eyes.

"Gueth it'h better than nothing," he shrugged, following Dirk inside. The place... well, it was sleazy as all hell, but it seemed that Dirk and Sollux had the same taste in decoration, because he was perfectly fine with this. Figuring they would have to seat themselves, Sollux turned to Dirk. "Think we thould try the bar?" he asked, pointing toward it with a gloved thumb. It was barren, in accordance with the hour, but somehow he doubted that they could just... swagger in. Humans had drinking ages, right? Did they follow those here?

His gaze followed where Sollux pointed, making a speculative noise under his breath, fingers tapping against the hilt of his sword if but momentarily. "Yeah. Why not? Worst comes to worst they'll kick us out and we can go somewhere else." He promptly tried the bar.

The NPCs hardly seemed to be in a fawning mood. They weren't rolling out the red carpet and inviting the two of them to be their guest. There weren't any invitations to put their service to the test. However, it seemed that, if but for a while, they'd tolerate the two teenagers at the bar. Which was perfectly alright to him, Dirk just wanted a place to chill for a while.

"Yeah, true." It's not like they were going to be out for the flesh of a few players who, for all they knew, were of-age individuals who just happened to have a thing for characters who were thirteen-to-fifteen-year-old boys. They won't come stalking at night, lighting their torches and riding noble steeds. And they definitely won't screw their courage to anything. No, they're just... okay with it. Huh. That was easy. Maybe humans didn't care so much after all.

Sollux reached into one of his many, many pockets. He scowled. "Thould have gone on that thtupid quetht anyway," he muttered, displeased with the contents -- or lack thereof.

This is why he doesn't drink.

He glanced over and hazarded a guess as to the troll's hesitation. It was a tale as old as time: someone going out discovering that they were a few boondollars short of what they had expected. No big deal. "What do you want? I can cover you." Pause. He added, "I mean, the experience sucked but the monsters outside were at least decent when it came to dropping money."

"You thure?" he asked. "Thith thit geth pretty thteep." But he didn't make any further comment on that matter. When prompted on what he wanted to drink he responded with 'Whatever', asked for some good old fashioned bar food as well, and turned his attention back on Dirk. "Tho, I don't think I got your name. It'h probably gonna burn my tongue with how thtupid it ith, but gotta be polite." Bullshit, of course. But you at least got to try not being mean and coarse and unrefined with the guy who's buting you beer.

"Yeah, why the fuck not. I've got all of this cash, it might as well be good for something." Plus, he fully intended on pestering the guy with questions later and getting his money's worth that way. Good times. He too attended to the formalities of getting food, essentially picking his drink from random in his quest to try everything, almost absently adding, "And it's Dirk Strider."

He stared at Dirk for a few seconds, apparently trying to size up the genuineness of the offer. Eventually, however, it seemed to pass the test; he shrugged and said, "Huh. Thankth." As such, he didn't bat an eyelash at the reckless abandon with which his companion was adding more food to the bill. He reached for his glass, settled the grimoire precariously on his lap, and prepared for a very long night.

"Thtrider. Right," he said, almost absently trying to figure out a way he could turn that into Sollux shorthand. DK? It certainly said Dirk, but Sollux liked to know both names. You never know -- there are some weird names where last names stick way better than first ones. (Looking at you, pony boy.) Strider wasn't really one of those names, so he decided to stick with DK. This is one kid who takes his nicknames very seriously. "Where you from, then? I'm guething Earth already, tho don't try it, thmartath."

His wallet would be empty after this night, but...why save it, really.

"Got it in one. I'm from an post-apocalyptic Earth after it was taken over by a sea troll empress we call the Batterwitch." The peanuts weren't too bad. Acceptable. Salty, and not in a bad way. "Her Imperious Condescension. Her rise to power was a dark era in humanity's history."

He leans his head on his hand, listening to Dirk's little story. Eventually, he sighed when her full name was mentioned. "We have her, yeah. It wath only a matter of time before the thet her thighths on Earth." They were all a little surprised that she hadn't, once they realized its creation themselves; of course, by that point, the Condesce was dead, so there was no need to zip their lips about the existence of a civilized planet that the Alternian Empire had not yet eaten for breakfast.

"Maybe it's the same seawitch." This was said with a bit of a laugh (only a bit, slight, more like the shadow of a smile than any real mirth): on one hand, the odds were so improbable that the very thought seemed absurd. On the other hand, his entire existence hinged upon a series of improbabilities.

"But I doubt it. From what information could be gathered, there was an apocalypse upon her home planet and her civilization was destroyed with her the sole survivor."

"Unless there are two planets at different points in time that just so happened to be called Earth, be populated by things called humans, and had Sburb slam down on them on four kids each, one from each planet having the last name of Strider... then yeah, it's not likely." Sollux smiles mirthlessly, mention of the Batterwitch turning on a lot of thought channels that really shouldn't be turned on at the same time. Meanwhile, Gira casually drops the lithp from written conversation because it was getting awkward.

"So it's probably the same sea troll."

After all, life, coincidences. Things like that. And coincidentally beer tasted nasty and so (after making a grimace) Dirk decided to stick with water. He needed something to wash the salt down with.

"Which brings up the next question of what the hell happened to your guys' planet."

He shrugged at that question, continuing to drink the beer like a MAN. Or just a troll who's more than used to disgusting things going down his gullet. "Obviously, Sburb ransacked it at a point in time. That's kind of inevitable. So she must have done it at some point before that, and also at some point before Earth detonated. But the Earth I saw didn't look anywhere near post-apocalyptic, so what, did she just... run away?" The thought was almost inconceivable. The Condesce, on a normal day, did not run away from anything.

"Well. Assuming that it's the same crazy genocidal sea hag we're talking about," and that was still an if: recent events had more than proven that there were at least one alternate universe him, after all. "Assuming that's true, I heard rumors that she had some kind of superior. Some demon, crueler than she was: the only thing she feared."

There was a pause, punctuated by a bit of water. "Who knows if that's true." He had reason to believe it was (if not, why would Jake's grandmother get killed?) but it was far from a confirmation.

The Condesce had a superior? Really? Sollux found that hard to believe, but that was mostly because he had grown up on Alternia, where she was touted as the absolute superpower of the universe. It was entirely possible, since when one got down to it, there was almost nobody of his age who knew much about the Condesce at all. (And if there was, a yellowblood like him would not be it.) "...It's possible," he admitted finally. "She has a knack for keeping things under wraps if she wants them to be."

Seriously, you'd be amazed how much you learned by having the Empress-to-be as a feelings jam partner.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In my defense I have no defense.

So many S sounds in this post /).(\

This post is brought to you by the letter S.

Splendid.

Shit yes.

no subject

no subject

These two are going to be BFFs. I can feel it.

Sup trainwreck.

Best/worst friendship ever tbh

I feel sorry for Karkat already.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

BOWS FOREVER. how did I miss this.

Enjoy the tumor returning.

It's these yellowbloods man, they attract tags like fucking magnets.

So it seems.

no subject

no subject

no subject