thecapitol | [OPEN ] ► Central Commons - Bar

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[OPEN ] ► Central Commons - Bar | Just Chilling

WHO| Lindsey and OPEN
WHAT| Lindsey spends some time people watching and drinking
WHEN| Three days post Arena 4
WHERE| Central Commons in the Training Center
WARNINGS/NOTES| None for now

Three days now and Lindsey was still sore over losing the silly competition. True that he hadn't paid it much mind when he was first told about it, also true that he never thought that he was going to make it so far to the end, but to lose it after being made to kill his own brother and be one of the last few remaining seemed a poor way to end it.

With a gin and tonic in hand, Lindsey paid the serving avox no mind as he watched people come and go from the open cocktail bar. Maybe tomorrow he'll venture out into the city.

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Now there was someone Lindsey didn't mind seeing. Somehow their different schedules meant he hadn't seen his district-mate since their drop out in the arena, so it was the first time since then. He grinned when he saw the demon's jaunty little walk.

"Hey there, girl. You look well." He made a show of looking her over, from horns all the way to the tip of her previously mitt covered tail, and flashed her a grin. "Been out to town?"

She grinned, back, and flicked her tail at him, looking vaguely embarrassed by the once-over, but not necessarily in a bad way. Nobody did that! Not even jerks here did that, since she was a Tribute, or something like that. "Oh, yeah. There's a lot of 'town' to be out to, you know, and it's taken me forever to even explore the parts of it I've been to."

She climbed up onto a seat beside his, and confided, "It's much nicer with money, though. Now I have a legitimate reason to be looking at stuff, so nobody can chase me out!"

Unless he was a fellow tribute, which Lindsey was, which was why he dared to do so. And, for all her horns and tail, she actually felt normal to him, moreso than the rest of this strange city. He was adjusting fairly quickly though.

"That's more than I've done," he answered back, grinning as he waved for the Avox over so Neeshka could place her order. Other than that, the Avox was once again ignored. "And did you find anything you really wanted?"

"A cooooouple things." She flashed the Avox a cheerful grin while ordering one of those dakerie things. Ever since learning about the whole no-tongue-thing, she'd at least tried to be nice to them. It must be awful to not have a tongue. You wouldn't be able to taste anything!

Back to Lindsey, she leaned on the countertop a little and said, "Though that money from the arena really doesn't go very far, does it? I'm not looking forward to having to figure out how to pay back if I buy more than that." Well, obviously she'd steal things, but she didn't have a good fence yet, so all she could steal was credits, and she wasn't sure quite yet how that all worked, if those were track-able or anything.

As if reading her very mind, Lindsey flashed her a grin and leaned back in their conspiratorial closeness. "That depends if you're actually spending the money." Lifting up his drink, he clanked it lightly against her glass when the Avox placed it on the counter.

"No, not at all. Except, you know, the whole 'everything is taken care of for you here' bit. Then you get a little spending cash for good performance for tricks well done." Shrugging he drank from his glass like it didn't bother him. "It's a good encouragement technique. Makes you wonder what happens when it doesn't work."

That grin earned him a wink, in return, since nope, she wasn't really spending a lot of that money. "Oh, that's probably when they shoot people in front of victory banquets," she said with a deliberately careless shrug, swigging back a mouthful of her fruity little drink, careful not to lose the little umbrella in the process. "I mean, you remember that, right? I'd say that's a pretty good deterrent, wouldn't you?"

Not that Neeshka needed any encouragement. Money for killing people? Who then came back to life, so there were no consequences whatsoever? Seriously, this was pretty awesome, in her book.

"Do you really think so?" Lindsey asked as he recalled the same incident she talked about. He was there, but he also recalled there being a counterstrike by a secret hacker group nearly immediately in retaliation.

"I suppose the lives of tributes don't matter to them. I heard that in the past, they made their own district citizens participate in the game, and technology wasn't so well advanced as to get repeat competitors. They might go back to that," he murmured into his drink contemplatively, then suddenly grinned broadly. "Good thing people got used to favoring reoccurring champions now."

"I'm pretty sure you have to be preeeeetty unpopular for them to not bring you back, this time," Neeshka said, flicking her tail again and trying not to look vaguely uncomfortable by the thought. Really, she hadn't paid much attention to the past version of this little show-- it simply hadn't been relevant. And it would've required, you know. Reading things and asking questions that weren't about directions or what she could steal.

"So I guess we'd better stay popular, huh?" she rallied, looking brighter with an idea of what to ask him next. "How's it going with you having somebody who looks just like you? That helping with the fans?"

As any lawyer would know, research and precedence are very important, and Lindsey figured the history of this place to what caused the games would be too. He found out quite a few things, and while it didn't apply to them, it was still very interesting.

"That's the spirit of the game," Lindsey answered with a chuckle. "Aside from, you know, killing people." Relaxing with his drink, he warmed to the other topic. "Oh. I think so. He has a gathering of fans, it seems, and it's rubbing off on me. Can't complain about free support." And he was completely unrepentant of stealing his brother's supporters.

"Lucky," Neeshka told him, somewhere between jealous and pleased for him. "Though I guess the tail and horns are actually good for something here, for once. I stand out, so people remember me more. Back home, that'd be a problem." Not so much here. She was just waiting for horns to come into fashion, or something, the way people kept buying turtles when Donatello started getting popular.

"When you're trying to be unique, those are exactly what you need." He grinned and gave her horns and nice long look. "In my case, I guess my uniqueness is having family here. That's not such a common thing for tributes, so yeah, I'm in luck, but that's nothing compared to your extra appendages."

Neeshka wrinkled her nose at him. "You know how weird it is having these be something good?" she said, half-laughing. "I kind of love it. Maybe that's another reason I don't mind this place so much. Nobody wants to burn me at the stake. Well, you know, except in the arena, and even then, they don't really go so much for burning, you know?"

Just other crazy stuff.

"That's always a plus. I remembered the stories the clean up crew used to come up with whenever there's an exposure incident." People wanted to believe what was in their comfort zone and seeing creatures with horn and tails weren't too comforting. "It's hilarious what people will accept rather than think they saw something that isn't human."

"People aren't used to having non-humans around where you're from?" Neeshka asked curiously, leaning her elbows on the bartop and propping her chin up no her hands. "They're kind of used to it, in Neverwinter. There's plenty of elves and dwarves and such about. There's even a kobold merchant, and people are just kind of used to it."

"Different worlds," Lindsey pointed out. "Or different dimensions more likely. A lot of our demons come from openings of Hellmouths, although there's always the special brand of crazy that witches and warlocks like to open up."

"Hellmouths. Huh. Well, we've got different planes on Faerun, but not hellmouths into them," Neeshka commented. "It takes magic to move things or people between planes, but you can do it anywhere, I think... but your world is mostly humans, then, huh? Like here?" Sounded like a pretty rotten world, then. She'd be out of luck there, unlike how she was here, if people didn't like weird stuff. "At least you guys know about demons, though. Or some of you."

"We've got those too, planes. And magic, oh, lots of that too." Nodding, Lindsey pointed to the window that showed the Capitol beyond the training tower. "Supposedly, this is the future of my world. Or something like that... there's suspiciously little history around." He shrugged, and added a moment later, "Oh, and magic doesn't work here either."

"Yeah, I figured that part out," Neeshka grumbled, making a face. "There's one whole spell I can do, and it doesn't work here. So I guess whatever future this is of your world, they took the magic out of it somehow. I heard that sort of thing could be possible, if gods or something got involved. Or really powerful wizards." There'd been a question about it in a library that her boss had, had to answer. Stupid puzzles; should've just been a nice lock to pick.

"It can," Lindsey agreed, "But I never read up much on it. It didn't pertain to me, at least, not back then when I had the resources." He didn't think there would be a day when magic would vanish. It would take a lot, except possibly, it had, just that. Or he was in an alternate universe to the one he came from, it was really too hard to tell. "I guess it's just too bad now."

"Seriously too bad. Life without magic just isn't as interesting." She paused, considered, then added, "Easier, though. I'd rather fight somebody with an axe than somebody with a sleep spell handy." Because more than once she'd been laid out flat for a whole battle from some stupid sleep spell. She hated that.

"Yeah, for us. Though... comin back from the dead and being put together when you've gone the way of Humpty Dumpty... that's magic." No matter what they said, technology couldn't regenerate people like that. "So, it might be more of a lockdown than a actual removal." Then he made an obvious shrug with his shoulders. "Or I can be completely wrong."

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[OPEN ] ► Central Commons - Bar | Just Chilling

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