JELLY SHROOM CAVE BASE EXPLORATION | ACTION

[imsorey]

[In the early morning, just after breakfast is cleaned up, Sorey sends a telepathic broadcast to whoever is still currently hanging around the base:

Hey everyone! We found a strange cave way down deep in the tunnels a couple of weeks ago, and the fish down there told us there were humans living down there somehow! We’re going to check it out today. You’re welcome to come with, but bring some kind of shielding, all right? There’s a whole bunch of Tiger Plants on the route, and those spikes they shoot are no joke!

Mikleo chimes in: If you have swimming troubles, I should be able to take you around, though a couple of you might want to bring Seaglides as well. We mapped out a partial safe route, but keep in mind there’s some very large predators, and the water pressure’s going to be pretty intense if you move too far from us down there. Come prepared for that.

Should you as an intrepid explorer decide to venture down into the tunnels with them, there’s plenty to see. Glowing Jelly Shrooms are scattered across the caves, the only bit of light offered so far down in the dark. Sorey and Mikleo will lead the group in a careful circuit through them, not going too close. It’s easy to see why when a couple of Crabsnakes poke their heads out curiously.

The abandoned base the group will come across is small but has some useful items if you care to take a look. There’s also a dully glowing three-person Seamoth to be discovered not too far away, out of power, if any technologically-inclined people want to figure out how to get that back to base for use.

((OOC: Open mission post for Jelly Shroom Base Exploration! Sorey and Mikleo will tag whoever tags in, but feel free to jump other people as well and branch your explorations out separately if you’d like. There’s a lot to find!))

Comments

[splinten]

Cal didn't talk back unless I made him so I stopped talking early on. Eventually I built things that could talk to me, but by then I'd gotten out of the habit. As long as I kept my fingers controlled, only me and my auto-responder would have to know every shitty, stupid thing that went through my head.

[He walks over to Dave. Crouching down beside him, he cants his head in an almost bird-like movement.]

Your beats are ill as fuck. My anime sensei alter ego doesn't know anything about the health of flow.

[parodeity]

That ain't a reason. Bro never had convos with me, really, but it didn't stop me talkin' up a storm to fill the silence.

[ it's two different ways of dealing with a lack of conversation and dave doesn't get why he defaulted to the more embarrassing one but it isn't like he can stop now. ...and it isn't like he ever managed to control his fingers re: texting, either. ]

And of course they are but in an 80s training montage you gotta have someone there goin' you must get stronger Goku, and then you do the whole light up h...

[ pausing his searching and tilting his head back at dirk in a mirrored movement with a little less amusement and a little more exasperation, because: ]

You do the whole light up hair thing when you soul yoink, are we sure our universe ain't an anime?

[splinten]

Inherent natures? The version of you that grew up in my universe wasn't exactly tight-lipped either. [TEARS OF BLOOD FROM HIS PUBLICITY PEOPLE.

He isn't sure what Dave wants here. He isn't sure, but he feels like something is wrong. He can just go along with it for now but he does want to understand what's happening so he can fix it.]

I'm not convinced, but I'm reasonably confident. We borrow from anime but don't exist in it.

Do you wanna stop looking for underwear and take a swim? You can try to make friends with a Crabsnake. [Don't try to make friends with a Crabsnake. Leave Dirk one animal to wrestle.]

[parodeity]

[ dave does an eyebrow thing that expresses something like amusement and curiosity, but doesn't pursue the comment about his alt self. he'll ask someday, or just dream up a better version of himself in the meantime, little orphan annie in the big apple searching for apple juice. ]

And leave the great underwear mystery unsolved?

[ dave you've only cared about the great underwear mystery for five minutes, tops.

accordingly he shrugs and stands. ]

Yeah, sure. Why'd you automatically pick the biggest thing in this area for me to try to make friends with, though?

[splinten]

Because anyone could make friends with a Boxing Snail. [Jake. He knows he saw Jake with that thing.] You're about halfway between Jake and Rose when it comes to befriending inappropriate wildlife. You wouldn't date Cthulhu, but you'd go worse than a small boxing crab-thing.

[But Dirk delivers this explanation while heading into the water. Gotta herd the baby bro.]

[parodeity]

[ that gets a laugh from dave, anyway, although as soon as they're in the water he has to swap to telepathy.

it's a good thing that they have a way to talk when they can't talk or dave would go crazy on all the underwater missions. ]

Rose definitely WOULD date Cthulhu, holy fuck. We'd have to invite Cthulhu to family dinners and Karkat would piss it off and then we'd all be fucked.

[ as soon as they're in the water and away from the base Full Of Weapons Everywhere, dave's restlessness starts to dissipate, though he doesn't immediately head out, instead sort of following dirk and figuring his brother will pick the direction. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk's direction is... actually towards a jelly shroom, yes, Dirk isn't worried, either Dave will hug one or Dirk will kill it, either way they'll be fine. What he notices is more than anything is the way the restlessness starts to fade away.

He swims over to Dave's side, wraps an arm around him in a clearly telegraphed move so that Dave has ample time to realize what is happening, and then lightly knocks his knuckles against Dave's forehead.]

Dave. You're supposed to tell me when you get uncomfortable.

[parodeity]

[ dave's face screws up in an offended and voiceless hey regardless of the fact he had time to see the knuckle-rap coming. uncool?

although his expression settles into confusion a second later, because - ]

You weren't makin' me uncomfortable?

[ he was Fine? nothing dirk had said or done had been remotely troublesome in the past few hours (days?) and dave's wracking his brain trying to come up with how he would have given off that impression.

he hadn't really categorized the abandoned base reminding him of home in the worst way as being "uncomfortable", apparently. good job, dave. ]

[splinten]

Something was.

[He Knows, okay? He has reading Dave Strider's comfort level down to a finely tuned art, down to a science. The boundaries of disciplines have all fallen before the studious attention he has given to this difficult-to-master yet highly important field. Dave was increasingly comfortable, and now that he's out of there, he isn't.]

Was it the weaponry?

[parodeity]

No, it wasn't - huh.

[ his immediate denial turns into huh.

of the huh, ok, so bro was gay variety.

he's so good at this. ]

I guess?

[ which means: he knows, now that he's pausing to consider it. his reaction to discomfort on the base had just been to move around restlessly to work off contained energy, but there were probably other options he could have explored had he noticed himself doing it at all. ]

[splinten]

[He watches the light dawn. This time, he actually knows what it's about.]

I can go ahead of you and check for other weapons lying around before we go back.

[To Dirk, this also explains the manner and intensity of the babbling. He also suspects it's the reason Dirk's silence suddenly became the object of interrogation, particularly with the direct parallel Dave drew to Bro afterwards.

Dirk spends a lot of time analysing these things to help him deal with them for next time.]

[parodeity]

No, it's fine.

[ dirk isn't liable to accept "i'll deal with it" as an option, so dave...actually explores one of those other possibilities. wow. ]

When you go back I'll just split and do some wildlife recon. I don't think any of us has remotely enough space for all that weaponry even when we're not nerfed to miniscule space restrictions.

[ ...that's said like it's a sentence but it feels like a question because dave automatically sort of glances over at dirk like is this actually okay because the option to simply remove himself from a situation has rarely occurred to him in situations where it's an acceptable choice. ]

Tbh I care more about the wildlife than random abandoned bases anyway. Unless they stock cooler shit.

[splinten]

[Dirk catches Dave's eye contact. And because he's a control freak who thinks he knows best who is learning to trust others, he gives his brother the slightest nod and accepts the change of plans.]

You really will befriend a Crabsnake.

[Why Dave.]

[parodeity]

[ dave's tendency to go with the flow and defer to whoever talks loudest planwise probably does not help with recovering control freak tendencies. oops. ]

I'm reasonably certain doin' so would keep Rose entertained for months.

[ they're phallic, right

they're just like giant... ]

I will call him Trousersnake.

[splinten]

That's fuckin' perfect.

[The mobius reacharound of comedic tastes strikes again.]

[parodeity]

[ ok but

now dave actually is going to do his best to befriend a crabsnake when you leave him alone, dirk? ]

I'm the best at namin' shit, it is me.

[ why does dirk encourage him ]

[splinten]

You are simply the best there is.

[He encourages it because honestly, Dave can handle himself and also he thinks this is fine. What's important is that Dave be happily, stupidly befriending dangerous animals, and not be lowkey distressed in a weird abandoned base.

The priorities make sense to Dirk.]

[parodeity]

Oh, but you gotta solve the underwear mystery for me and report back.

[ because

he has to know ]

[splinten]

[...]

I'll do my best.

[He will, he really will solve this mystery. They must know.]

[parodeity]

And I'll let you know how Operation Trousersnake goes.

[ dave stop trying to be bros with everything under the sea? ]

BTW I need you to give me a crash course in English.

[ of the jake variety.

like.

what the fuck he is actually saying to dave, using what is supposedly english. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk pauses. It takes him a second but he understands it soon enough.]

There is no such thing. You just need to program a dictionary to automatically define his word use for you.

[parodeity]

Ok, you know I know nothing about programming, right.

[ but, like. ]

I am reasonably sure we had a meaningful conversation, or at least that it had some sort of meaning to him, but I have absolutely no fuckin' clue what we actually discovered in said conversation?

[ dave you could have like

asked ]

[splinten]

You can ask for clarification. Eventually, he'll find a synonym that made it past the 1950s.

[Dirk has distinct memories of lists of explanations that were just more and more confusing?

He's glad Jake had some kind of meaningful conversation with Dave but this is the priority just now.]

[parodeity]

Ok but it is like a week too late to ask for clarification? Like hey man I actually have no idea what the fuck you were talking about for most of that one nice chat we had, even though I pretended like I did for reasons.

[ HOW DID HE HELP JAKE, WHAT ENGLIGHTENMENT DID JAKE FIND, DAVE HAS NO IDEA. ]

But I will keep that in mind for the next time he starts throwin' down jargon that definitely never made it into the Strider lexicon.

[splinten]

You realize Jake wouldn't mind explaining.

[Dirk is pretty sure even a week later, Jake doesn't mind throwing out the thesaurus.]

Don't worry about it too much. You'll build up a frame of reference with time.