Strolling through the halls of the dormitory, checking out the fellow freshmen. Finger guns and cool-guy nods. Shy looks and fumbling. Excited plans being made, tho they would surely all amount to timid testing steps into the Adult World of Collegery. The gendered wings of the building remained mostly separate, tho there was a little overlap in the middle. Time to figure out who wanted to be an adventurer, or a champion, or a courtesan, or just an accountant or radiologist. This had ramifications for future romances and rivalries, so people were a little nervous as they flitted from group to group.
The adventurers were deep in the male end of the building for cultural reasons. Some were comparing weapons and scars, some were sizing up the others in more esoteric ways. Ilmardan could tell some of these guys were going to develop very interesting powers indeed. At last, there were Div and Humuk, with some other meatheads down in the first floor lounge. Wooo! Div waved Ilmardan over with a whoop.
“Ilmardan! You’ve met Humuk. These are Grundr, Tollison, Liu-gon, and Markud. Guys, Ilmardan.” Their expressions were reasonably cordial, but you got the distinct impression these boys would be more impressed by a guy who could bench press a luxury sedan. Not like you wanted to make out with a leopard-headed dude anyway – that was Markud. Div said, “I told ’em about the club. The more the merrier, right?”
–
Ilmardan decided it would be better to have these guys on side for the coming years, rather than making enemies right away. Why make life harder, after all? Perhaps they would never be friends – they seemed a rather stereotypical bunch, and willowy, somewhat androgynous elves were rarely welcome in these little coteries of toxic masculinity. Still, perhaps they might surprise him, and there could definitely be respect. He thought he knew just how that might be achieved.
“sure thing. First round of potions is still on me though, so maybe cap numbers at a couple of hundred, yeh?” Looking at them, he suspected they’d be more than happy to just chug back cheap Vitality Tinctures all night, or maybe even Troll Brew, and he wouldn’t have too many requests for expensive blended elixirs or even fae passion philtres. In truth hard drinking bored Ilmardan, but it was always a good plan for keeping people sweet.
He realised, deep down, that it was just trying to buy people’s affections, and that rankled because it was exactly what his parents – his entire mercantile clan, indeed – always did, and he resented them for that. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all? Oh well, nothing a phial of Amalthean Nepenthe and a few hours of dancing wouldn’t fix. Hypocrisy was most definitely one of those hard light of day problems that seemed to disappear at night.
It worked. Attention increased. There were happy slappings of arms and fist bumps and such, as they thanked him. Humuk and Div seemed the most genuine, a testament to the power of familiarity, no matter how brief.
“I wonder,” said Div, “If that short guy with the big sword will bring anybody else with him?”
“Or the lizard girl,” said Humuk. “I gotta admit, I never went to an adventurer hangout. I’m kinda funny about it.”
“We’re all young,” Markud said. “We will all be out of our depth, together.”
“You can get behind me,” said Grundr the dwarf. “I’ve been around.” He looked pretty young for a dwarf, so that might have been braggadocio. Dwarves were as immortal as elves, but spent most of that existence looking much older than Grundr.
“But there is no telling how old you are, is there, Ilmardan?” That was Liu-gon, the angelic man. His hair glowed white with a soft internal light, and his skin was as smooth as marble.
Tollison was the most commonplace of the company, as the only purely human one, and perhaps because of that he was less talkative. At Liu-gon’s comment, he cast a second glance at Ilmardan, maybe looking for a clue to his age in his ensemble or manner.
(srsly lol if anyone else needs help jumping in, holla at me. tho i will publicly RP with carto alone if i have to.)
Ah, so this was the famous human obsession with age that he’d heard so much about. He supposed that, when you had a century at most to look forward to, these things mattered rather a lot. It must be difficult for them to cope with the notion that you might have existed when their great grandfathers were alive, or that you would still be young and wayward long after they had passed on. So much of human culture revolved around a fear of death, around trying to fit so much into so little time. If he wasn’t careful he might provoke a deep resentment with an offhand remark or piece of crashing cultural insensitivity. And if that were so with the humans, how much more would it be for those among them who could expect to live even shorter natural lives? Hmm, deflect with sarcasm? Yes, always deflect with sarcasm. One day Ilmardan might develop another strategy for getting out of difficult conversations, but for now sarcasm was the extent of his repertoire.
“Well clearly my skincare routine is working wonders if you lot can’t tell that I’m really three thousand years old. Not as well as the one Liu-gon here uses, obviously, it’d take me more than moisturiser to get a glow like that. I mean, I must be incredibly thick if I haven’t graduated community college in three millennia, but then again I’m hanging round with you lot, aren’t I? So there’s clearly something lacking in that department. Or maybe I just can’t get enough of the student parties to be socialising with people less than one percent of my age? But the truth is rather less exciting – I’m actually in my early twenties, same as most of you.”
Ilmardan clearly exceeded his syllable allowance with these guys, his wit earning awkward chuckles and a few guys avoiding his gaze. Nonetheless, it might have been a useful gauge for their verbal skill. Markud and Div seemed the least put off.
Markud said, “We’ll find out how well you party tonight. When are we going?”
Div said, “I found out the club opens at eight. I wouldn’t go before nine, myself.”
“Fashionably late, no question” said Ilmardan. Besides, we certainly don’t want to be the first ones in. Is there some kind of dress code? Not sure this is going to be a shimmersilk and gold diadems kinda place…”
Tollison said, “We’re all from out of town or we wouldn’t be in student housing. Grundr, you said you know clubs?”
Grundr said, “They’re all meat markets. If you’re there, adventurers’ll assume you’re there to get laid. Unless ya wanna get roughed up, don’t show too much skin. But don’t dress like a monk or you’ll get nowhere.”
Div said, “Sounds like shimmersilk or gold diadems or nymph togas are all on the table. Or on the floor, haha… That settles it! We’ll all meet down here at nine and walk over there. I knew college was a good idea..”
Did Ilmardan get right to unpacking and preparation, or hang out, or do something else to kill time and throw himself together at the last minute?
Ilmardan decided that he had a little time to kill before he had to get ready for the big night out. Like most elves he was fastidious in grooming, but it wasn’t as if this was some elf noble house’s grand Wintertide ball and he had to spend days choosing gowns, make-up, jewellery and the like to fit a very particular set of symbolic criteria. He decided to have a quick look round, explore the building a bit more and see who else was about. He made a mental note not to wear his best clothes from back home, though. If he was going to take this illusionist thing seriously then the first thing you wanted was for everyone else to come to the wrong conclusion about you, and to appear as something you’re not. He realised that this was pretty much also the college freshman social experience, distilled down to its core.
(pencils down, next post soon to come…)