leave your work... I just left school

[one_drafted_man]

* Doul is in a relatively good mood after spending his day off outside and working off steam.
* Grif walks in, fully armored and armed, through a swirling green portal that opens near the bar doors.
"Evening." They've spoken via anonytext, but I don't think Doul and Grif have actually met in person.
They haven't yet, no. He waves absent-mindedly as he almost immediately turns around, with a shifty demeanor, and sticks his head back through the portal for a moment. Satisfied, he pulls back, the portal closes, and he takes his helmet off. Oh, hey, new person. "Hi!"
"Care for anything while I'm here?" Here, being standing behind the bar and trying to find something that looks like reasonable, normal beer.
"Oh, hey, sure." He points out where in the bar's stock one of his usual preferred beers can be found.
* Doul snags one for Grif, reads the label, and then another for himself. Eh, why not? "Uther Doul. Once of Armada."
"Grif. Uh, once of Honolulu, currently of Blood Gulch, I suppose."
"I don't know either, but in this place that's to be expected." Unless both or those are on Earth, where everyone seems to be from.
"Mm. Armada doesn't ring any bells, either... well, there might be a colony world back home named that, I'd have to check, but I doubt you're from there... but yeah. Honolulu's a city on Earth, which I don't know if you've heard of, and Blood Gulch is out on the ass-end of the galaxy."
"I've heard of Earth." It sounds strange, unpleasant, and generally unlike anywhere he wants to stay. "Armada is a city made of thousands of ships that travels the seas of Bas-Lag."
* Grif looks contemplate for a few moments, as though picturing what that would look like. "huh. Cool. They all just move in formation, or do they get all hooked together?"
"Many of larger ones are joined and hem in the smaller, and there are boundaries between ridings." He talks with a hint of fondness in his voice; not the intense pride of the Brucolac. "It is a very slow moving city."
"I expect it would be." He chuckles. "When I was younger, I did a couple of stints on a fishing boat. Being at sea was kind of nice, but they were a lot smaller than that and we never went further out than we could get back to port by the end of the day."
"Many of our people never set foot on natural land." Especially if they had been press ganged into service. Ahem. "I've heard it takes getting used to."
"What, being on land after growing up at sea? Probably as much as the other way 'round, I guess. I know *I* yarked up my lunch, the first time we were out and the ocean got stormy."
* Doul chuckles, "I was raised on land, but I've spend the last decade out at sea, and I still would get queasy when the weather took a turn for the worst."
"So not originally from Armada, then?"
"No, but I spent long enough there that it's worth mentioning as where I'm from."
* Grif nods. "Makes sense, especially if it's better known. Not something I'd do, but that's just 'cause I prefer not to think of Blood Gulch as 'home,' no matter how many years I've been stuck there."
"And I've the opposite." He would rather have Armada as his home. "If I said that I was born in High Cromlech, does that mean anything?"
* Grif thinks a moment. "Nope. It's an interesting-sounding name, at least. Not something you'd hear everyday, rolls off the tongue."
"If you ever do come across it, keep going." It's not a pleasant place, not by any definition of the word.
"I'll keep that in mind." He even makes a note in his armor's computer, just in case.
"It's got its own beauty, but it's not to everyone's taste." Captain Understatement rides again.
* Grif chuckles, his face mildly pained. "I may have to live in Blood Gulch, but I do the occasional bit of traveling, and... yeah. Bizarre design style is just one of Upsilon Otaku V's many sins."
"Oh, the city itself is beautiful. The parts above ground are tall with clean lines and the catacombs have their own merits, but the people are what make it ugly." Oh, look, they can have matching wry grins. "How bizarre?"
"Well, basically, on Earth, there's a country called Japan. To people from the other side of the world, its ways and style can seem strange, but also kind of cool. Upsilon Otaku V was founded primarily by a group of people with more money and fascination with the Japanese than actual understanding."
"It sounds like a mystery cult. I've come across a few of those, emulating cultures that have gone before." And, they invariably get it wrong.
"Well, except that the actual Japanese are still around, and people on real Japanese colonies like Neo-Jade and New Kansai get *really pissed* about the Otakunese."
"I wouldn't blame them." He's come across people claiming to be properly enacting the rites of the lich kings of High Cromlech and put a stop to that.
"Fortunately, the business I had to do there won't need a repeat for at least a few more years, 'cause I swear, if I never get called 'Goo-lee-foo' again, it'll still be too soon."
* Doul raises an eyebrow. "I suspect that I am glad that I don't know what that means."
* Grif shrugs. "It means, 'this is how we think the Japanese would say "Grif," or at least how they would've said it a few centuries ago, which is when we took all our research from,' is what it means."
"And I thought being called 'Arthur' was troubling enough." He snorts and takes a drink of his beer.
"What work brings you to that place?"
"Wow. I mean, they both have the 'th-r' going on at the end, but you'd think people would notice the beginning, too." He rolls his eyes.
"Anyway, uh, no, this is really where I go to get away from work. I actually kind of snuck away, I don't know if you noticed." He thumbs back over to where he'd come in. "I do the occasional bit of helping out when people need it, but that's more a hobby than a job."
"This place seems to allow for very odd jobs. I've been a mercenary and a fighter, often in the glad pits, for as long as I was at sea and now I find myself back in a library."
"Back home, depending on who you talk to, I'm either a middle-man in the toy industry, or a super-soldier in the army." An eyebrow goes up in curiosity. "The library here in the Nexus?"
(It's a bit of work to restrain the full expression that threatens to break out, if he gives proper consideration to the mental picture of this guy and Jon Crane having to deal with one another.)
"No. One that's on a world connected to the Nexus but not the one in it. I had originally applied to teach soldiers on this world, but Martel, the man that employs me, he said it was more difficult to find someone who could read well."
* Grif looks a bit surprised, but enlightened. "Oh! Okay. Yeah, I know Martel. Damn, my Nexus time really has been short lately, if I haven't been around to hear about that. How long you been working for him?"
"A little over a month. It's good, steady work." Which he supplements by sport fighting on the weekends.
* Grif nods. "It would be, yeah. He and I have a sort of cross-training arrangement, so I'm over at the castle every so often. From what I've seen, he's got a pretty good grasp of treating one's employees well so they do good work."
"It has taken me some time to adjust to the Nexus and having a place to do good work has helped." He looks at his empty beer bottle and debated peeling off the label. "Bas-Lag is a very different sort of world."
* Grif nods. "I know the feeling. I did what I could to hire good people, but running a business by remote means you don't get to talk to them very often, so for the most part, I had several years of dealing mostly with the utterly insane military of the time. Finding less-crazy people in the Nexus was awesome."
"It's not the people, it's the level of technology that's taking time to adjust to." That and the fact that there are too many humans. It's -odd-.
"Ahhhh. I suppose I can see that. That's been less of an issue for me, 'cause I'm from pretty far in what, to most Earth-based Nexus folks, would be The Future. I *did* have to adjust a little to actual magic, I guess, but that kind of went along with all the vampires, aliens, gods, so on and so forth. That, and that's less intrusive than everyone and their uncle having a PINpoint."
"We knew of electric power, could summon fulmen and their like, and some chymical engines, but steam was the most common." It wasn't his specialty, but it made sense. "I'm finding far less 'magic', or thaumaturgy, than I'm used to, and far fewer vampir or gods. For us, on Bas-Lag, thaumaturgy is a branch of study or science, not faith or ritual."
* Grif blinks. "Damn. That is pretty old-school. I'm pretty sure that's even one or two centuries behind most Earth-based Nexus folks' tech level."
"Yes, I've gathered as much from reading books and learning to 'google' and 'wiki'." It's part of the reason he really does prefer working on Martel's world than being in the Nexus-proper.
"heh. We've got similar sorts of things back home, but when I'm in the Nexus, I have to restrain the urge to google my own name."
"I had been warned against that." Doul looks up at the clock and scowls. "I think I'm about done for the day."
* Grif looks... at nothing in particular, but intently so, for a moment. "Mm. Now that you mention it, I'm not sure how much longer I can afford to hide out here, myself."
"Goodnight, and it's been a rare pleasure to talk to someone who doesn't feel the burning desire to wear too tight 'plastic' pants." Doul is so very B| about the Nexus.
"Ha. Yeah, no. Nice meeting you, too. See you around, possibly at Martel's place, who knows."
* Doul nods and heads out to, uh, wherever he goes.