Trog's Tavern: Roman Numerals Are Dumb

[Rebonack]

A hero enters Trog's Tavern!

None other than Ghost, clad in her cybernetic body suit and armor, face obscured by mask and cowl. She's a bit on the short side, but then again that might not be too huge of a shock given that she's one of those teen heroes. Most notably she's bringing Arthfael into the tavern and he's looking pretty out of it. The rest of Arthfael's drawing minions are probably close behind.

"Well howdy! Welcome to Trog's Tavern! It looks like you two have run into some trouble," pipes up Zee from behind the counter.

Ghost glances between the boy she's supporting and the barmaid. "Yeah you could say that. My friend here just passed out I dunno what's wrong with him."

"Hmm..." hums the barmaid, who steps out from behind the counter to examine Arthfael. "He's definitely fuzzier than the last time I saw him."

Which was...

Quite a while ago, honestly.

[Fenric]

Trog's and the Black Dragon's Den and a Milk Bar all right by each other, huh?
Well, that would make it easier for them to compete.

Honeysuckle nods deeply. "Know exactly what ye' mean." Words coming out wrong, something watching you that can't be seen or felt. Better not to worry about it, right? Not a lot of answers will be forthcoming either way. Like how he's whispering to someone who isn't there at this very moment. Very curious. Nothing going to come of investigating it.

"A sage?" She's pretty sure sages aren't supposed to be drinking? But then, a sage would know better, wouldn't they?

"Pray tell, o wise sage of the liquor cabinet..."
"What's the meaning of life?"
"Is it possible to really change the past?"
"What's wrong with my eyes?"

Fenric tilts his head

The first old chestnut is self-referential, you know: Life is the meaning of Life.

Then he shakes his head

You have already experienced what you have experienced. Even in a universe where you might be able to go to "the past", it won't change what you have already seen and done. Your past is forever yours, even if events and situations outside could be modified.

Then Fenric looks off into the distance for a moment and mumbles to himself

"To control her powers"? What does that mean?

He looks back to Honeysuckle

I don't quite understand what is going on with your eyes, to be honest. That's a bit outside my experience.

[Recaiden]

"Not a satisfying answer, that first one."
"Pretty sagelike though."

Honeysuckle then stops being a fox, and starts being a human with a fox's ears and tails, so as to place some gold coins on the bartop and ask for another round of drinks. She is, as always, wearing a visor that covers her eyes, so that she doesn't accidentally look at anything.

"The rest, yeah."
"Someone else's past at best."

Kind of a shame to hear, but good to have a reason to stop wondering.

"No worries. Nobody else's seen anything like it neither."

"How about a good piece'a trivia instead?"

[Keeper]

"Me too. I'm not really a fan of most cereal-based foods, either. Bread and stuff, y'know? The stuff people leave out for birds can be foul." Jack really shouldn't eat that, because she's a person, but... Well, she has in the past. Also eaten roadkill.

"Yeah, you do have to be careful what you eat. I can handle bread just fine but I can't handle meat besides a little fish every once and a while. Comes with the extra stomach."
Mina is just happy that she was able to confirm she actually can have fish occasionally. But she misses chicken sometimes.

[Earl of Purple]

"Fat balls are nice, though. Uh... you probably can't eat those. Human food's nicer, since I've got mostly human tastebuds. I don't eat a lot of fish, though. I've had it in the past, on dates and stuff, and these wings are good for swimming, but... never actually eaten a lot of fish." Sometimes corvids get fish, though not too often, and Jack's feathers- except her added auk wings- don't have the oils needed to keep her dry and avoid getting waterlogged and unable to fly.

[Morty]

Rhaka waves her hand in a very dismissive manner. "In lives like ours, we make many a choice. We plunder tombs, topple empires, and leave trails of bodies in our wake. The more we question them, the madder we become. I stopped questioning my choices a long time ago.

"Topple empires?" Michalson snorts. "I've never aimed quite this high. I was just one of many with a grudge against one particular pack of oppressive dazzlers. Whether or not we succeeded, well, that's a big question."

[Keeper]

"Fat balls are nice, though. Uh... you probably can't eat those. Human food's nicer, since I've got mostly human tastebuds. I don't eat a lot of fish, though. I've had it in the past, on dates and stuff, and these wings are good for swimming, but... never actually eaten a lot of fish." Sometimes corvids get fish, though not too often, and Jack's feathers- except her added auk wings- don't have the oils needed to keep her dry and avoid getting waterlogged and unable to fly.

Mina shrugs, managing to suppress her shudder at the phrase "fat balls."
"It's hard to get fresh in Skyside anyway. I don't get it terribly often.
What do you do, anyway?" She seems like the scrapper sort.

[Earl of Purple]

"I'm an urban explorer. Sometimes a bit of a non-urban explorer, but I don't have a job as such. Sometimes I give people tours of Inside, if they're new and seem interesting, but... I found a literal pirate's buried treasure a while back so I'm not really in a position to want much of anything, y'know?" So long as she keeps her costs down- and she does, what with no permanent address and a willingness to scavenge food from bird tables- the money she's got won't run out. "How about you? What do you do when not sitting in an interesting manner in pubs?"

[Ironsmith]

A hero enters Trog's Tavern!

None other than Ghost, clad in her cybernetic body suit and armor, face obscured by mask and cowl. She's a bit on the short side, but then again that might not be too huge of a shock given that she's one of those teen heroes. Most notably she's bringing Arthfael into the tavern and he's looking pretty out of it. The rest of Arthfael's drawing minions are probably close behind.

"Well howdy! Welcome to Trog's Tavern! It looks like you two have run into some trouble," pipes up Zee from behind the counter.

Ghost glances between the boy she's supporting and the barmaid. "Yeah you could say that. My friend here just passed out I dunno what's wrong with him."

"Hmm..." hums the barmaid, who steps out from behind the counter to examine Arthfael. "He's definitely fuzzier than the last time I saw him."

Which was...

Quite a while ago, honestly.

Said minions have, for the most part, elected to stay outside. Technically, every last one of them is severely underage, and even if they weren't, crowding the bar doesn't seem like a good idea.

Which leaves just Ghost and this Arthfael guy who looks suspiciously like that Blank guy that's been seen around town in areas with suspiciously low crime rates, but clearly can't be the same guy because this one isn't wearing a mask, a-duh.

But Zee probably already knows all about that. And if she didn't before... whoops.

She's also right in that he's starting to develop some fuzz. Peach fuzz, specifically. The strigoi's finally far enough along into puberty to track.

Which would be much more worthy of celebration if he wasn't currently laying on the table in a psychic-induced daze. That seems more urgent.

[Keeper]

"I'm an urban explorer. Sometimes a bit of a non-urban explorer, but I don't have a job as such. Sometimes I give people tours of Inside, if they're new and seem interesting, but... I found a literal pirate's buried treasure a while back so I'm not really in a position to want much of anything, y'know?" So long as she keeps her costs down- and she does, what with no permanent address and a willingness to scavenge food from bird tables- the money she's got won't run out. "How about you? What do you do when not sitting in an interesting manner in pubs?"

"Oh, I'm in college. And I do kick demons on the side sometimes. A friend got into a, uh. Time related incident." A very hard to explain time based incident. "And he gave me the house he built while he was working his way back to now so that's covered my expenses."

[Earl of Purple]

"Oh, that's cool! Being in college and the kicking demons. I was home schooled, so my education wasn't the best." It was the best she could get, but... still not great, especially in regards to science and magic. She didn't have access to anyone knowledgeable enough about either subject to teach her very much.

[Ember]

"Topple empires?" Michalson snorts. "I've never aimed quite this high. I was just one of many with a grudge against one particular pack of oppressive dazzlers. Whether or not we succeeded, well, that's a big question."

"And I was hardly successful in my own ventures - or rather, I was, but then it all fell apart anyway. Such is life." Rhaka sets her empty glass on the table. "It hardly matters whether or not this or that was a success; the tapestry of time has its course that very few of us are privy to see. If you're unsatisfied with the direction of your lot, perhaps it's time for a... shakeup, of sorts."

[Rebonack]

Trog's is family friendly!

They have plenty of drinks suitable for all ages!

Like that young dwarf over there with a few beard hairs seated with his family drinking stuff stiff enough to strip the paint off a car! Normal dwarf beverages.

Anywho!

Zee taps her chin, examining the poor kiddo. "He's pretty out of it. Some kind of psychic thing?"

"Yeah I think so?" Ghost replies uncertainly. She didn't get a lot of info on what the centipede's deal was. "The thing that attacked him was some kind of nightmare that got drawn into being real."

And THAT gets a reaction out of Zee. There's a brief look of frustration and carefully contained fury there. She hates it when fae nonsense hurts people. "Okay I don't know if I can do much here but let me see if there's anything..."

That said?

She'll boop Arthfael on the nose with her index finger. She's searching for the sort of scrambled information in the brain that psychic attacks often result in. If there's physical damage or even mental damage she might be able to try smoothing out the wrinkles. But if this is some kind of spiritual thing they'll probably need to get him to Inari's

[Ironsmith]

"Scrambled" isn't really the right word here.

Arthfael's brain reads more like it's going through the organic equivalent of a DDOS attack; so busy processing the same information, over and over and over and over again, that it can't do anything else.

The information, in this case, being a sort of recreation of that time Magtok Prime attacked Trog's. Only much worse; instead of being summarily dogpiled and driven away, this Magtok Prime clears the tavern in record time. Not in the sense that he slaughters everyone (although Arthfael does seem to remember him gruesomely disassembling someone), but in the sense that when he hits the scene, everyone else is just... gone.

Which, as Zee might recall, isn't at all how it happened. That memory's been altered and made so much worse.

[Rebonack]

Oh!

Oh, okay! That's-

"Can you help him?" Ghost asks, concern clear in her admittedly distorted voice.

To which Zee nods. "Sure! This is no problem. Probably! Something that I definitely have lots of experience with. As a barmaid."

One can almost hear the skepticism through Ghost's expressionless mask.

"It's just a matter of-"
Zee places her hands on either side of Arthfael's head and
Information
Shape
Be Correct

Break the loop. Restore the memory to what it ought to be. Prime getting his stupid robot-ghost butt being kicked. The Light of Truth burns bright and in its glory lies melt like frost in the morning sun. The memory of being comforted by Zee after the horrible attack is pushed to the surface, slowly giving way to the outside world again.

[Hraithre]

Hoshiki is taken aback by Gaul's gesture. Both men stare at the living cartoon for a moment, wondering if he is for real. But Gaul did relieve the tension... for a moment.

"Magtok Prime? He's an evil spirit", Hoshiki answers.

"Of a sad old man with delusion of grandeur left unfulfilled in life, which he has now returned from the grave to accomplish", the armored man adds.

"We fought him some time ago. Well, I fought. He goofed around." Hoshiki glares at the other man.

The other man points a finger at Hoshiki. "Hey, you wouldn't have done much fighting if I hadn't given you a ride! And I did fight! Got dogpiled by brainwashed masses! Shot at, too!"

Hoshiki gestures at the other man's armor. "If you'd worn that, would they have even slowed you down?"

The other man snorts. "If I had worn this, they would still be counting bodies."

"Imagine all the bodies they will count because we didn't stop Prime when we had the chance", Hoshiki says plainly.

The other man laughs. "Ooh, is that the card you want to play? Faulting me for trying to not kill everyone on my way?"

Hoshiki shakes his head and crosses his arms. "Depends. Are you going to pretend you have morals now?"

Gaul glances at Hoshiki. "Hey, what's wrong with goofing around?" he muses.

He furrows his brow as if having seen something out of place. "I can't help but notice that fighting this Magtok guy seems quite un-nasty. Are you guys evil evil spirits, or does it mean something else?"

The two men stop their bickering and turn to stare at the living cartoon. The silence lasts just long enough to get awkward. "... we call evil spirits, those souls of the dead who don't move in time and become overtaken by their negative emotions", Hoshiki begins, choosing his words carefully, "typically related to things left undone in their lives, or circumstance of their deaths or... sometimes time itself is enough to cause the transformation..."

"... tell him something he doesn't know already", the armored man comments. "Let me answer your question with another. Let's suppose I... hmmm. Let's suppose I took a fork and nailed your hand to this table with it." He balls his hand to a fist and slams the table to illustrate. "Imagine for a moment that it hurts real bad." He's not quite sure if it would hurt Gaul at all. "So in that situation, what would be more important to you? That I feel the same pain that you do, or that I remove the fork from your hand?"

[Morty]

"And I was hardly successful in my own ventures - or rather, I was, but then it all fell apart anyway. Such is life." Rhaka sets her empty glass on the table. "It hardly matters whether or not this or that was a success; the tapestry of time has its course that very few of us are privy to see. If you're unsatisfied with the direction of your lot, perhaps it's time for a... shakeup, of sorts."

"I already had one. That's why I'm 'ere." Michalson waves his right hand around him. It clearly isn't moving correctly. "I decided to go legit. Became a detective. No more runnin' around on gigs or searchin' for trouble."

[Keeper]

"Oh, that's cool! Being in college and the kicking demons. I was home schooled, so my education wasn't the best." It was the best she could get, but... still not great, especially in regards to science and magic. She didn't have access to anyone knowledgeable enough about either subject to teach her very much.

”My schools weren’t ever anything to write home about before. I guess thanks to Sai I could have moved to a nicer college but it just didn’t feel right to leave everyone behind.”
Besides, she had the money to commute magically. Which is kind of still cool every single time?

[Ironsmith]

Oh!

Oh, okay! That's-

"Can you help him?" Ghost asks, concern clear in her admittedly distorted voice.

To which Zee nods. "Sure! This is no problem. Probably! Something that I definitely have lots of experience with. As a barmaid."

One can almost hear the skepticism through Ghost's expressionless mask.

"It's just a matter of-"
Zee places her hands on either side of Arthfael's head and
Information
Shape
Be Correct

Break the loop. Restore the memory to what it ought to be. Prime getting his stupid robot-ghost butt being kicked. The Light of Truth burns bright and in its glory lies melt like frost in the morning sun. The memory of being comforted by Zee after the horrible attack is pushed to the surface, slowly giving way to the outside world again.

There are, of course, some side effects. Part of the problem was that reliving the "memory" was itself a traumatic memory, one which wasn't at all false, as he really did see what he thought he saw, by dint of him thinking it. To break the loop and keep it from starting up again, she'd have to clean out the feedback this naturally caused.

Presumably not a problem for the totally-normal barmaid. But a slight problem for Arthfael, as he's going to find himself waking up with a substantial amount of missing time.

And also curled up with his thumb in his mouth, though that might be unrelated.

"...What happened?" The vampire asks, blinking blearily as he takes in his surroundings. "How did..." He suddenly bolts upright. "Khannie! Is she okay? I-"

Oh. There she is, in her Ghost costume. Arthfael can breathe easy again.

...Though he might have just outed her. In a very public place. Like an idiot.

"...You saw her, right?" He asks Ghost, in an attempt to cover up his mistake. "Did she get out of that field all right?"

[Rebonack]

Don't worry Zee is an expert!

How different could assembling memories and assembling sandwiches be, anyway? Not TOO different.

"I made sure your friend made it clear," Ghost says without missing a beat. "You two were lucky I found you. Normally the city gardens aren't dangerous so I don't patrol near them."

Oooh she's pretty good!

Zee doesn't comment on the secret identity stuff. She overhears all SORTS of things at Trog's and she's pretty good at being tight lipped.

[Ironsmith]

"And what about the monsters? Did you-"

"Wrecked." A certain paladin interjects, stepping into the bar with her red-and-blue counterpart right behind her. "Once you left, it was surprisingly anti-climactic. I think he was banking on us having our attention split. Running away was totally the right call."

"...So we're all good, then?"

"Pretty much. Just don't do something like that again."

"...Huh. Okay, then." Arthfael turns to Ghost. "I, um... guess that all worked out for the best."

No thanks to him.

[Rebonack]

"Good. That thing was a jerk," Ghost interjects before straightening up and rolling her shoulders. "I need to get back to my patrol. Be more careful wading around in the tall grass in the future, got it?"

She wants to stay here.

She wants to stick around and make sure Arthfael is doing alright.

But she came in her in costume and she can't just... blow her cover. She has to keep up the appearances for her super hero identity's sake.

So she leaves.

And so Arthfael is now 'alone' in the bar.

If you don't count Zee. Or all the tavern patrons. Or Arthfael's minions.

"So! Can I get you guys anything?" she asks of the vampire and the various soul-constructs.

[Ironsmith]

"Um... no th-"

"Root beer for me, please." The paladin interjects, slinging herself up on a barstool.

"Djinn and tonic, on the rocks." The corpulent knight adds, taking a seat next to her.

"Sneak on the beach."

"Level up liquer, and make it a double, please."

Arthfael shrinks against the bar as he watches Ghost leave and notices the bouncer staring at him disapprovingly. "...An invisibility potion would be nice." The strigoi mutters.

[Rebonack]

And lo a collection of drinks, alcoholic and otherwise, are passed out to Arthfael's team!

The ward of the bouncer, however, holds the majority of Zee's attention.

"Don't have any of those BUT! I think a Wizard Blizzard would probably do the trick. Of course, you're a little under age for mixed drinks."

Or any drinks for that matter.

"So, you run into some trouble? Want to talk about it? I've got a degree in listening to people talk about their problems while standing behind a bar counter."

It's a very prestigious profession.

[Ironsmith]

"Um... w-well, I..." Arthfael begins, looking over at his uncle... who, thankfully, has chosen now to step outside, dragging out a large green orcoid with him.

"It's, um... has to do with this girl..." He begins.

"He only recently managed to get her attention, she said she liked how brave he was, and then this happens and he freezes. So now he's worried said girl doesn't think he's so brave anymore, and therefore doesn't like him that much anymore."

"In summary, he blew it."

Arthfael sinks into his seat as his constructs fill Zee in on the situation. "...Something like that." He admits.

[Gold]

Gaul ponders the armoured man's question for a moment, briefly scratching his chin as he does so.

After several seconds, he speaks up. "Immediately? I'd want the fork out of my hand. I'd probably want to get you back for it soon after, though. You watch cartoons, right?"

[Rebonack]

"Ah, a girl. And blowing it, too! A terrible combination," Zee replies, nodding sagely. "That explains things. She must be the one you were asking about? When you snapped out of the mind-whammy?"

Arthfael definitely seemed concerned about her well being.

That's always important!

"Would you say she's the sort of girl who expects you to figure out how she's feeling by showing you? Or the sort of girl who's going to tell you how she's feeling? Because my next barmaid advice blerb is going to depend pretty hard on that."

Can't give advice with incomplete information, after all.

[Ironsmith]

"That's... that's her, yeah." Arthfael says, needing a second to confirm that he's talking about the right identity and not about to give Khannie away again. "And, um... I... I don't actually... know, exactly..." His cheeks turn a little red. "I mean, we've talked about things before. But we were just friends when we talked before. I mean... a boyfriend's supposed to just know, right? Isn't that how it works?"

"..."

"..."

"...."

"..."

"...Okay, maybe that's not the best way of phrasing it, but, like... I've got her eye on me now. For a long time I didn't, so I must have done something right but now I have to keep doing right or..." He trails off, resting his head in his hands.

[Ironsmith]

tunk

tunk

tunk!

tunk!

The bar's door is slowly pushed open by a semi-transparent green hand, a monstrous appendage marked by dark veins crisscrossing its surface, just underneath a far-too-thin and far-too-slimy membrane. The hand is attached to the arm of what appears to be a towering suit of black armor, sans the right gauntlet, which slowly shuffles into the room, each measured step reverberating through the tavern underneath what chatter is still occurring. The black knight flicks its gaze across the room, passing over each of the other patrons in a mercifully short glance as it makes its way up to the bar, stopping next to one of the stools and reaching for a leather pouch on its belt, giving a mumbled order to one of the servers, its voice coming out low and garbled.

What exactly is said will likely remain a mystery for the ages, but said server soon returns with a bowl full of maggots and a stein filled to its brim with a frothy beverage, so contextually, one could infer it was an order for food.

After retrieving the items and setting a trio of incandescent gold coins on the bar, the black knight moves to one of the nearby tables and takes a seat, stirring its meal with a spoon that looks comically small in its hand.

[Keeper]

At the table next to the knight is a very large bipedal reptile with dragon wings, shiny green scales, and a dangerously fluffy tail and long red mustache. It's chilly outside but he's wearing fairly light clothes that make it clear he's built like the kind of person who enters log-throwing competitions.
He has a golden bracelet on one wrist and a very simple sword laying on the seat beside him.
"I think you might have overpaid a bit there. Do you need change?" he offers, sounding sincere.