[Dave is training right now, as if they're still in the game and he'll need his ridiculous combat skills. Every night almost, he dreams about being back in the game and every morning, damn near, he wakes up drenched with sweat and takes a minute or two to realize that he's safe. That he won the game.

But none of it feels right, so he feels compelled to prepare for the end of the world, for everything to get all fucked up again. So he trains and invests. His ability to manipulate time means that money has become an abstract concept, the challenge more in keeping himself low on the radar than in earning it anymore.

He's invested heavily in certain technologies. Better sylladexes. Weapons. Things that are useful in and of themselves, but still a product of a nagging fear that this victory isn't real.

It's only when Rose comes around that he chills out a little. They've grown close lately. With John and Jade derping around the world on crazy adventures and the trolls an increasingly insular bunch, that's left them. And sometimes he dreams of her instead of horrorterrors and Lord English and dying.

He has the dim feeling he should be horrified about having very, very sexual dreams about his sister, but he'd rather wake up oddly horny any day over yet another morning of cold sweat and naked terror. Naked Rose was much more appealing ...

Not that he could ever tell her that.]

Eyes on the prize, Strider.

[And so he continues training for awhile, stripped to the waist, practicing moving both in regular timeflow and flashsteps.]