#decked out 2 au

[silverskye13]

"In the deep dark woods

In the hermit lands

There lies an ancient fortress

Where the wary dare not go-ee-oh

Where the wary dare not go.

There the trees are tall

And the ice, it bites

See it's buried in the snow

Where the wary dare not go-ee-oh

Where the wary dare not go."

Scar adjusted his grip on the reigns as his sled continued on through the snow. For the last day of his trip, the ground started doing its best impression of a mountain glacier -- more ice than anything -- and while it made for better footing for the horse, his ride had gotten noticeably more uncomfortable over bumps and rocks. The ground just sounded harder here, and the myriad of jostles made him wince. Still, it was far safer than sledding down the river, which marked itself as a tempting makeshift road, winding through the valley. He could see runner tracks on it, something he was sure the locals found reassuring, maybe even integral to survival in the cold, dark winter. Scar wasn’t from here though, and the rivers he knew were temperamental and treacherous. One fall into frigid water was more than enough to end a life, and had ended several in the town he came from. So he watched the river warily and let his horse pick her way across the snow-laden banks. 

"Abandoned by

It's craftsman's hands 

And cursed by all that see it

Where the wary dare not go-ee-oh

Where the wary dare not go

The dungeon keeper

Sleeps deep inside

With the spirits he's devoured

Where the wary dare not go-ee-oh

Where the wary dare not go."

Scar’s sleigh hit a root, or some animal's bolthole or something, forcing a sudden, heavy lurch through the sleigh. He winced at the loud rattle of his supplies as they threatened to tumble out. Across his legs, Jellie let out a low, complaining rumble. The massive white and gray snow cat, currently doing the very important job of keeping his legs and feet warm, cracked an accusing green eye at him, as though it were his fault the ground was so bumpy.

Scar ruffled a hand through her fur placatingly. "Oh hush, you big 'ol lazy thing. You’ve done nothing but sleep all day, anyway.”

Jellie let out a loud harrumph, the white bloom of her breath freezing against her whiskers. Her eye closed again, and she didn’t make another sound.

"Lazy cat," Scar hummed affectionately, and ran his gloved hand across her fur again. He was tempted to take the glove off so he could feel the softness of her coat, but he resisted the urge. Scar has never known a cold like the cold in this part of the world. He knew winter, sure, everyone did, but there was something malicious and present in the way the cold worked here. It was the kind of cold that seeped into bones and rotted there, blueing and blackening the skin, almost sentient in its ferocity. Even lacking any wind save for the breeze of the running sleigh, the air here gnaws and tears like an animal, like peeling skin. Even the trees, blasted and twisted and tenacious, mark the winter wind's passing with the lean of their trunks. Evergreen needles bristled in undulating waves, sparsely broken by the dead, leafless limbs of deciduous trees. Here and there, trunks ruptured and scarred by the aftermath of freezing sap shattering them open stood like gravestones amidst their crowding kin. 

It’s the dark remains of leafed trees that Scar finds the most interesting. While seasons do happen here, he had always been told it was too cold in this part of the world for a proper summer. There was only a season where it rained and iced more than it snowed. The fact that leafed trees had even tried to claim these forests was a marvel, here where even the evergreens started dying off the further he went. It was a bitter reminder to him that some of the death from this winter wasn't all from brutal, natural cold. 

"In the deep dark woods

In the hermit lands

There lies an ancient fortress…" 

Scar hummed to himself quietly, craning his head back to watch the looming, dark shape rising against the sky. The Frozen Citadel glared down at him with toothy, icicle sneers that laced every dark window and balcony. Its great black towers splintered the sky like obsidian blades, and icy ribcages clutched the spine of the road to its entrance. Despite the terror and foreboding the Citadel instilled, Scar felt a thrill of excitement as it grew nearer. It was like standing in the shadow of the corpse of some ancient monster, unfathomably old, unapologetic in its claim to existence. Villages die. Frost melts. Bones turn to dust. The Frozen Citadel remains.

"And we're going to get inside it," Scar grinned, and the frigid air on his teeth made his jaw ache. 

Scar’s sleigh found the old cobbled road and glided across it, a flea scaling the trunk of a mastodon. The horse slowed its gait the farther up the road they went, casting nervous glances to the dead and dying vegetation around the Citadel. So close to the great structure, the trees looked more like ice sculptures than any living thing, and had probably died centuries ago, though the layers of ice built around them kept their silhouettes ever still. The world here was deafeningly quiet. All the small crawling, flying things of the forest didn’t dare stir, if they lived here at all. Even the wolves, haunting companions that had stalked Scar across the wilderness, had stopped their howling several hours ago. There was only the creaking of branches, the crackling of brittle snow, and the sleigh. Fanciful things came to him in the silence: the impression of a shout or an echo, the jibber of whispered voices, the refrains of old campfire songs. It was thrilling and strange to know the only thing making a sound around here was him. Haunting, oh, that was a good word. To admit it was haunting though, would be to admit he found it scary, and he couldn’t do that. Scar hadn’t admitted he was scared since he first read about the Citadel in his bedroom as a kid, hadn’t admitted he was scared when Jellie was still vicious and tried to bite his hands when he trained her, hadn’t admitted he was scared when he bought his sleigh and his horse and first struck out nearly three weeks ago. He would not admit he was scared now. 

The horse knickered nervously, ears pressing back, and finally hauled them up to the Citadel entrance -- or as close to the entrance as the horse would allow. The gaping, toothy, maw-like doorway yawned open in front of them, showing the glimmer of blue fire within. He tried to coax the horse forward, reasoning to it about warmth and shelter and food, but something about the mouth-like portal made it rear and whinny, and finally give the sleigh a heavy kick with its back hooves.

“Alright alright! You don’t have to be so angry about it, stupid thing!” Scar chastised it, though he wasn’t able to keep the grin from his face. He could make camp outside, that was fine. Or maybe he would just picket the horse out here and make his camp inside. Yes, he liked that idea a lot, actually. Then he and Jellie would be safe and warm as close to the treasure as he could get, and tomorrow, oh tomorrow, he would delve in. Scar rubbed his stiff hands together greedily, and cleared his throat.

“Alright Jellie, time to work!”

At the command, Jellie harrumphed one more time and got to her feet, shaking out her fur. The moment her weight was off of Scar’s legs, a cold chill darted its way up his spine. He wiggled his toes -- All still mobile and full of feeling! -- and pulled his legs over the side of the sleigh.

“Help me down, Jellie,” Scar hummed pleasantly, and the large cat hunkered down beside him, the soft handles of her cloth harness within his reach. In a practiced motion (that had really taken way too long to train in hindsight) Jellie pulled her owner out of the sleigh, supporting most of his weight on her back as she went. When he was secure on the ground, she trotted to the spot at the back of the cart where the smaller toboggan was hooked in place. She pulled it to him, patiently waited as he got situated inside, and waited even longer as he clasped her harness to its tethers with his clumsy mittens.

“Alright!” Scar crowed triumphantly when everything was in place and securely fastened. “Take us in Jellie!”

The great snow cat shook out her fur and started forward, only bristling a little as she stepped towards the shadow of the Citadel’s interior.

“Absolutely not!” a voice boomed suddenly, startling both cat and handler to a stop. “Are you stupid or what? Get-- get away from that door!"

Scar turned as best he could in his toboggan to look over his shoulder -- at the three horses and riders who seemed to have popped out of the snow. Two of them he noticed, with the startled clarity of someone who wasn’t used to being on the business end of a weapon, had bows and arrows trained in his direction.

Scar, for lack of anything else to do, smiled and raised his hands -- partly in greeting, but mostly to keep from being poked full of arrows. “Well hello there!”

[observerkaine]

I definitely didn't try and search for the Decked Out Au for a bit and found nothing..so can you tell us about the Decked Out 2 AU?

You’re fine bud, I haven’t actually posted anything bout it mostly cause I didn’t know if anyone would’ve been interested lol.

(I just realized while halfway typing my explanation that it’s getting really long so I’m putting it under the read more + including some art)

The au revolves around the Deepfrost Citadel itself, at least a few months after everyone has left the server. The lingering magic that keeps the dungeon itself is pretty lonely without the hermits there, especially the Dungeon Master itself.

So it sends out an error message the best it could to reach out to him, leading to him hopping back to the old server. By the time he realizes that not only the dungeon is still alive but also blocking his communicator from letting him teleport off the server, it’s too late and he’s quickly taken over.

A few days after his disappearance, a few hermits get a message from Tango himself inviting them to the old server for one last special run for old time’s sake. Almost immediately, one by one those selected hermits leave and do not return. (In order of disappearances: Cub, Scar, Gem, Hypno, Joe, and Pearl)

The only one who didn’t go immediately was Etho, who’d been too busy repairing the mail system to realize he’d even been sent a message, which leads to him finding out the fates of his missing friends….

Now three random facts:

-Each missing hermit roams one of the four levels of the dungeon, save for Tango who roams freely around for obvious reasons.

-The Citadel itself acts as a dead zone to the communicator signals to anyone who steps inside. The only way to leave the world or send out a message is outside it’s walls both in the citadel and the dungeon.

-Every one who had shown up did not make it through the dungeon. Because of this, they’re now corrupted with whatever was their demise (aka I used the spreadsheet that had been made during DO2’s main run and used whose each Hermit’s nemesis was. Example: Scar’s Nemesis was Beast 29 and Cub’s Nemesis was Lava.) They do not recognize Etho. He is an intruder.

[wasyago]

old art for a random au

big text here

[shepscapades]

do you have any dbhc tango to spare….. me n my friends are passing around your art of him like it’s our prized possession

HEHE SURE! I don’t have very much to share that isn’t part of bigger projects or loredrops (floshed) but have some unfinished sketches and doodles from Decked Out! :D

[hybbart]

He did so good it was so funny how the wardens completely ignored him

[tenoart]

Quick doodle of @hybbart 's au jimmy design, prob didn't get A lot of the details right, just needed to get something down on the page sjshs

[snaky1ello]

Tango and Scott designs :3

[joifee]

Decked Out Hey @hybbart uhm i reeeeally like your decked out jimmy design i just had to draw it! additional tango as well of course hope you like :D

[calciumyum]

"One day, the young boy went out

to scavenge spare parts in the junkyard.

While searching around,

he happened upon a broken-down robot."

-The Scrap Boy, Steampianist

Etho and Rusty's relationship makes me so soft I really love them

[foxxology]

commission for @observerkaine of Cub from their Decked Out 2 AU!

[kingtheghast]

Snow

[ Artfight revenge for @calciumyum <3 ]

[silverskye13]

I physically cannot start a new long-form project I have so many that have fallen by the wayside because of how busy I've been the past couple months but

A DO2 AU where they're living in a post apocalyptic world, searching for power to stop something. Maybe legendary weapons and objects to stop pillagers, or to negate disasters being set on the world in the wake of the post apocalypse. One of the hermits goes in first, bravery and desperation driving the act. They claim something from the still-mostly-sleeping dungeon and re-emerge, prompting more people to follow next time.

With each delve, new perils awaken.

I think the idols would be memory stones? First just interesting because they coincidentally look like some of the hermit characters, until a POV character touches one and is reminded of the construction of the dungeon. They figure out they're part of a loop replaying over and over, but they can't remember why. Only that the dungeon was made for a reason, and now that the end of the world has happened, time is getting shorter and shorter to figure out why.

[frozenjokes]

I told you to prepare yourself

OH MY FUCKING GOD??!!?!!?? MAD LAD!!??!??!!!!! LOOK AT HIM FUCKING GO!!!!!!?!!!!! your tango…. The little jimmys…… my heart. Your TANGO. I LOVE HIM. I may have to snatch this design. It’s so fun. Look at him. Look at him go… pathetic… god I can’t resist a pathetic man he’s perfect. The ‘with no effort at all’ panel is also killing me oh my God. it’s free real estate! With no effort at all! His fucking COAT. his THIGH HIGH BOOTS. IM GONNA. WATGEURGEJGDJRHDJD. I need him. I need him. I am literaly obsessed with this, with tango. sorry this is his canon design now. please. I want to squeeze him. they’re best friends also. look at him he’s such a rat.

[themightywolftiger]

"Decked Out was quiet, almost too quiet. The only thing that I could hear was my own breathing. I don’t like this. I don’t like being here, alone."

"....Was I even alone?"

-Frozen Over Chapter 1, Part 3: Blizzard's Blunder

---------------------

Ah, finally, the drawing of Decked Out itself. Despite the snow originating from here, the blizzard itself is surprisingly... calm.

This drawing took a long time to do. But still, I'm glad that I finished it.

Now I can start drawing the hermits themselves and other things. Perhaps even focus on other ideas and oc stuff.

[gammagoop]

some unrelated drawings im posting all together

(featured, in order: bdubs decked out meme, limited life meme, a couple mcyt design notes, knight bdubs from my last life au, hivemind meme)

[hybbart]

He's not biased at all