Darren stifled a gasp, then gasped extra loudly, as Viktor made his move. It was genius, a move that had obviously been carefully strategized over countless years of study and practice. No mere novice, no casual could possibly hope to come up with this kind of approach. He moved right ahead, meeting Darren's recently moved piece head on, preventing it from advancing any further. He looked on in shock, gasping another three times, before fighting to collect himself.<br/><br/>It was only then that he realized his balancing out of the board by matching Viktor's previous move was the only thing keeping the board, the table, hell, the entire world right-side up. As Viktor nudged that next piece forward, he felt the balance shift, and he watched as the room at large began to tilt to one side. Chairs slid across the floor, the screeching of the legs against the boards resembling mutant killer owls, and the bottle nearly slipped right off the table. Not on his watch, though.<br/><br/>Darren gritted his teeth, snarling, and, in a spectacular show of concentration he seized the bottle and moved another piece forward, meeting Viktor's head on in precisely the same movement his opponent had just made on the other side of the board. Immediately balance was restored, and the furniture ceased its wailing. He relaxed in his seat, breathing a slow sigh of relief.<br/><br/>Viktor's voice, coming to him from the other side of a canyon, opened his mind to the truth. The music was indeed horrible, and growing worse by the second - it was like listening to a mountain straddling a dying piano wreathed in hellfire. Or something worse, probably. He cringed, screwing up his eyes as the horrid noise continued to blast them; he felt the sound waves collecting over them, spiraling and swopping, pushing them down and down with irresistible force that made all struggles pointless and obsolete. It pressed down, forcing them beneath the ground itself, plunging them deep into an abyss from which only their screams, too weakly faint to be heard over the infernal polka racket, could ever emerge.<br/><br/>He stared at Viktor, watching as the walls around them began melting, merging into the air itself in drab, murky swirls that floated up and around them; the checker game and the table both seemed to be fine, but the world around them was clearly being destroyed by the music. But then he saw his opponent down his drink, and he saw the salvation of the mushrooms within, which was their only lifeline, the only thing that could drown out the audible torment currently making them its bitches.<br/><br/>He downed his own drink, like Viktor did, but when the man tried to warn him (too late) against drinking too fast, he poured out two more drinks and slammed them both down in front of the Stalker. "No, man. The mushrooms are the truth. And the world is a lie. And drinking… drinking is a weakness, so to show our strength, we have… to drink more. It's the only way," he said, leaning forward, staring with wide eyes into those of his opponent. "It's the only way, for fucks sake!"<br/><br/>He then grabbed the bottle and took a massive gulp from it, slamming it back down and watching as the glass slowly started melting onto the wood of the table underneath.