Heavy industrial music enveloped me as soon as I opened the door. Lights flashed and strobes bounced through the smoky air. Like, actual smoke. People were smoking in the club. I didn’t think that was a thing. I let the door close behind me and looked around. The club was busy but not crowded. People of every race were on the dance floor, most of them in black. I saw lots of leather and latex. A couple of people had on gas masks, and I wondered if it was for the aesthetic or the smoke. The bar was on the other side of the open room and I could see stairs leading up to a second floor. A few tables crowded against one wall, and most were already claimed.
I started making my way across the club and saw a DJ up on the stage, surrounded by equipment. She was human and bounced her purple pigtails along to the music, one ear out of a pair of headphones. A glow-in-the-dark banner that read “Morphia” hung across the front of the booth. Dodging a pair of over-enthusiastic dancers, I made it to the bar and found an empty stool. The usual array of booze lined the wall behind the bar, surrounding a blacklight board with “Friday Specials” written on it in neon green. At least I knew what day it was now. I tried to remember if it’d been Thursday when I went to sleep but couldn’t.
A gobbek bartender came over, three rings in her nose and long dreads flashing with charms tied behind her head. She was a slightly lighter green than the other gobbeks I’d seen. The bartender grinned at me, and the gold caps on her tusks glinted.
“What can I get you?”
“How about a vodka soda?” I said.
She nodded and went to grab my drink. I continued to look around while I waited. From the bar, I could see the second story was an extended balcony with more tables. The guy next to me, either a brown-skinned jann or bald human, blew out a cloud of smoke and I waved it away. The smoke smelled sweet and the cigarette was black. He winked at me when he saw me waving the smoke away.
The bartender came back and clunked down a glass in front of me. She held out a small, square device with a plastic panel in the center.
“Five credits.”
I pressed my thumb to the plastic and it turned green. Turning to watch the crowd, I picked up my drink and had a sip.
Quest Complete!
Shots! Shots! Shots!
You receive: Ring of Inner Peace, 200 Credits
I started to pull up my inventory to check out the new ring but paused. Could other people see the interface? Did it matter if they could? I wasn’t sure. After debating for another minute, and having another sip of my drink, I decided to find out. I opened my inventory. There was the ring and I now had 650 credits. I looked at the guy next to me, but if he saw the window, he didn’t react. Shrugging, I equipped the ring and it appeared on my right ring finger. I examined it.
Ring of Inner Peace
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
+5% Mental Resistance
The ring bumped my Mental Resistance up to 13%. I still didn’t know if that was good or not, but it couldn’t hurt. Idly, I scanned my mini-map and saw most of the dots in the bar were green. Most, but not all. I zoomed in a bit and found two dots that were purple. I went back and forth from the mini-map to the club, trying to orient myself. One of the purple dots was the DJ and the other one seemed to be a guy sitting at a table. He was human, had olive skin, short black hair, and was wearing a black suit that looked remarkably similar to the FlexWeave I had on. He sat at the table with three other people, two gobbek men and a shiftling of indeterminate gender. It looked like they were playing cards.
“You want another drink, hun?”
The bartender startled me slightly and, looking down, I realized I’d finished my drink. I was about to reply when she looked over my shoulder and started to absently tug at her dreads.
“Aw, fuck,” she said
I turned and saw a group of five fane, four women and a man, by the door to the club. They looked incredibly out of place. All of them wore garish burgundy suits of similar cut. I couldn’t be sure at this distance, but I thought the suits might be velvet. The man said something to the women, and they spread out through the club, a pair heading upstairs, obviously looking for someone.
One of the women wound her way through the dance floor and approached the stage. She pointed at the DJ, pointed at the speakers, and made a slashing motion across her throat. The DJ gave her the finger, not even looking up from her mixer. The guy next to me at the bar ground out his cigarette and got up. He was much, much taller than I’d thought, though not overly muscled. He plowed his way through the dance floor toward the woman harassing the DJ. I guessed he was security just by his confident stride.
The other two fane on the main floor had apparently spotted who they were looking for and were striding forward, the man slightly in the lead, all business. They approached the card players and the fane leaned forward to talk to the human in the black suit. The human looked up at him, shrugged, made a shooing gesture with one hand, and turned back to his cards. The male fane’s face twisted in anger, and he reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife. He pointed the knife in the human’s face and the guy casually leaned forward and bit the knife in half, spitting the blade out on the floor.
My attention was drawn away from that particular spectacle when the security guy flew through the air away from the woman near the stage, landing in the midst of the dancers, who immediately scattered. The fane woman had on a pair of knuckle dusters that glowed and crackled with blue energy. She turned her back on the downed security guy and pulled herself onto the stage, walking directly toward the DJ, fists clenched. A message appeared in front of me:
Stolen story; please report.
New Quest: You Meet in a Tavern!
Two of your fellow Agents are in danger.
Save [Aria Brate] 0/1
Save [Marko Kontos] 0/1
Reward: Tureaud’s Golden Chain, 500 Credits
That explained what the purple dots meant. These were people like me. I slid off the stool and took in the scene, deciding who to help first. As I watched, the DJ, Aria, raised both middle fingers at the fane stalking toward her and vines erupted from the stage, wrapping around the fane’s legs and creeping up her body, rooting her in place. OK then. I moved toward Marko. Without standing up, he flipped the table in front of him. The other card players made a hasty retreat and the fane instinctively raised their arms to shield themselves from the cards and drinks flying their way.
Marko stood up and his body swelled. He didn’t get taller, just broader, with muscles straining against his suit jacket. Gray fur rippled out of his collar, up across his face and over his head, his hair vanishing completely. His eyes turned black and Marko growled as his face extended, forming into a pointed muzzle complete with gnashing teeth and a spray of whiskers. He raised fur-covered hands and flexed a set of nasty claws. I stared in both fascination and horror. He looked like a large rat standing on two legs, kind of like Splinter from TMNT. He kicked the overturned table and sent it skidding toward the fane. The woman managed to get out of the way, but the man went down on his face as the table took out his legs.
At this point, the crowd started screaming and running for the exits. It didn’t take long for the dance floor to clear. I saw the fane woman facing Marko reach into her suit and pull out a compact pistol. I frowned. That didn’t seem very fair. Activating Sanguis Vita I ran across the empty dance floor, covering the distance in seconds. She’d just started to aim at Marko when I grabbed her gun arm with my right hand, yanking it down, while slamming my left fist into her kidney.
Once again, I was surprised by the result. A kidney shot is brutal and hurts like a bitch. It can leave you pissing blood for a day or two. While it can be fatal, it’s usually a disabling attack. This punch did, um, more than just disable her. A nameplate appeared over her head. Fane Thug (50%). She bent over and vomited out a stream of blood, collapsing in place, fighting to get enough air to scream. I think my fist might have left a dent in her side. As I watched, her Health ticked down to 49% and kept dropping.
Marko turned his muzzle toward me, looked down at the fane I’d punched, and gave me a nod. He walked over to the male fane, who was just starting to get back up, grabbed him by the front of his suit, turned in a half circle and threw him into the wall. Literally, into the wall. Plaster dust exploded all around the fane and he slid back down to the floor, leaving a crater in the wall above him. He slumped, not moving. I could tell he wasn’t dead because the nameplate over his head read Tolun Nova (25%).
I looked back to the stage to see how Aria was doing and saw her beating the absolute shit out of the rooted fane with what looked like a baton or wooden mace. Her opponent was at 33% Health and the next whack took it down to 28%. A gunshot rang out and Aria’s shoulder exploded. She screamed, staggering. Her Health bar appeared and immediately dropped to 80%. Another shot hit the stage to her left, throwing splinters, and she dove behind the DJ booth. A second later, the blood she’d left on the stage started bubbling, turned to a red mist, then formed into a pair of women.
They were similar in appearance to Aria, but wore togas and were stained red from head to toe. They shrieked loud enough to be heard over the music, pointed up toward the balcony, then leapt off the stage and sprinted for the stairs. I heard another gunshot and a hole appeared in the floor just behind the sprinting women, sending bits of tile flying. That was immediately followed by another, louder gunshot and a scream from above me. I turned my head just in time to see the bartender drop back into cover behind the bar, racking a shotgun.
I checked on the fane at my feet and saw her Health had zeroed out. I considered taking her gun but thought better of it. I didn’t have a good angle to the shooters on the balcony. Marko moved over in front of me and stooped down, making a stirrup with his entwined hands. He nodded up toward the balcony.
“Throw,” he said, mangling the word with a mouth not meant for speech.
“You’re shitting me.”
More gunshots echoed through the room.
“Throw!” Marko said.
“Fine. Fine! Fuck.”
I stepped forward onto his hands, reached out to push off his shoulders, and Marko launched me. Even after seeing what he’d done to the fane, I was surprised at how high I flew. I easily cleared the balcony and had to grab onto the railing to keep from overshooting. I had so much momentum that I turned a half somersault, my hands squeaking on the railing, and managed to flip backward to land on my feet. The two fane women crouched near the railing, pistols in hand, looked as astonished by my sudden appearance as I felt.
One of them had taken a partial hit from the bartender’s shotgun, and was dripping blood from her left arm, her Health down to 75%. Their shock at my arrival only lasted a second. In unison, they pointed their guns at me, but before they could shoot, each of them was tackled from behind by a shrieking, red-stained woman. The combatants started rolling across the floor, the fane trying to get away as the red-stained women bit and clawed. The wounded fane managed to get her gun in position and fired a round into the woman clawing for her eyes. The red-stained woman’s nameplate appeared for a second, Maenad (0%), before she exploded into a red spray that smelled like alcohol.
I reached out and summoned my tanto. I didn’t like the idea of killing people, but you don’t reason with someone who’s already pointed a gun at you. The wounded fane was rubbing at her eyes, her face covered in red liquid. Was it wine, maybe? It didn’t really matter. I stabbed my tanto down into her chest before she could recover and she stopped moving. I looked around for the remaining fane and found she was already dead, the maenad’s teeth buried in her throat. I shuddered and a moment later the maenad poofed into red mist. The mist settled over the dead fane, making her look like she was covered in blood.
I peered over the railing toward the stage, to see if Aria was all right. She appeared to be fine and was, in fact, back to beating the shit out of the rooted fane, with no sign she’d ever been shot. I watched her mace connect one last time and the fane’s Health dropped to zero. She stepped back, panting, and let her mace drop, which promptly disappeared. Aria looked around the club and, seeing me at the railing, gave me a broad, savage smile.
Quest Complete!
You Meet in a Tavern!
Save [Aria Brate] 1/1
Save [Marko Kontos] 1/1
You receive: Tureaud’s Golden Chain, 500 Credits
