Ox Steam
Tenebrae - Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 11:47 PM
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<* A05: Ox-Strength Tavern *>--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
The Ox-Strength Ale Tavern is known for being one of the most dangerous dives in the city. Frequented by the worst sailors, mercenaries, thugs and looters, the place is hardly the prettiest nor the tidiest of taverns, though--of late, that has been changing. Locals claim the once foul-tasting food "No longer burns the stomach--as much, anyways." Plates show signs of repair instead of cracks, though the still infamous odor of old beer and stale sweat insists on hanging about the place, and the smell of brine is near-constant.
What used to be bricked-up windows have been somewhat opened. Heavy bars let in a reluctant breeze and prevent the clanging of heads against glass (which seems nearly afraid to exist). Bloodstains adorn both the nearby walls and the bricks themselves from thrown patrons and fists.
The lights are dim, a few oil lamps hung from hooks in the splintered ceiling beams. A smattering of tables, scratched and carved into by many a blade, dot the expanse of the floor. Most of the tables are arranged in a wide circle to give plenty of room in the center of the bar for hasty escapes or the routine bar-brawl or fight. A worn-out steam piped stove sometimes provides warmth to the tavern. Occasionally an aging dog of some mangy breed or another can be seen sleeping near the stove or by the bar itself. Overhead the fireplace is a tribute to Rada, the patron of fishermen and rivermen everywhere.
Towards one side, there is also a bedraggled dart board. Type +view here/darts to begin a game.
Mikilos putters around with the steam stove, a few pieces scattered around. A toolkit sits beside the elf, and his hands flash with the occasional burst of arcane power. "What the heck did the Oxley think they were doing when they- ...ya know what? I don't want to know. Some things are just too stupid to be repeated."
Aaaand in the next instant, the door to the Ox damn near slams itself open. But not really by itself-- since behind it stands an armored Aesir with... an altogether too large sword propped over his armored shoulder (which ends up requiring him to duck a bit to get through the door without the piece of metal hitting anything). "...We're not still baking things here, are we?"
Mikilos blinks, eyeing the most recent arrival a moment before shrugging. "Not out here... something about a rabbit... you really don't want to know. Anyway, there might be some pies in the back."
The Ox is back to regular business, with a group of dockworkers drunkenly playing darts on one side (and occasionally hitting one another with the darts) and a couple of dwarves utterly covered in soot sitting at the bar getting utterly shitfaced and argueing in khazad. Myrana is making her way through this dangerous crowded public room with practiced carelessness, utterly confident that anyone foolish enough to knock into her in her bar will be helping her pick up the remnants of whatever crockery they break. Most of the patrons outweigh her by a good deal, but this doesn't seem to bother her as she braces one edge of the tray she carries on her shoulder and spreads her fingers under the center of it, skirts swishing about her legs and foam wavering atop the mugs of beer and cider carried above her head.
Mikilos looks to the owner, waiting until she's not too distracted before asking. "Myrana, you said something about pies earlier? There any around?"
"GOOD!" Declares Jokul immediately once he's through the door proper (at least he closes it behind himself) and goes stomping his way towards the bar counter (very carefully so, so as not to accidentally hit anyone with the sword he's lugging around). "Does that mean no swear-jar, either?"
"Huh?" Myrana stops between two tables near the stove. "Pie? Wait, I didn't make any-- Oh gods, Mikilos you didn't EAT anything, did you? I haven't been in the kitchen today. It was just the Oxle-oop!" She steps instinctively out of the way of the Jotun's big sword as he comes in past her, though of course she didn't really need to thanks to his careful path. Its just the sort of thing you pick up in this sort of job. "Welcome back, mister Jokul," she says, smiling. "Have you got my five coppers?" FIVE COPPERS SUCKER! Five swears from last time!
Mikilos ahs, and shakes his head. "No, I didn't eat anything. I just remembered you said something, but not what. Do they need... ah... 'special' disposal?"
Jokul stops. Jokul turns slowly to stare down at Myrana. Slow blink. "What five coppers?" He asks, in completely utter deadpan.
"If I see one running out on little rat feet, you're the man to kill it," Myra tells Mikilos, hugely relieved. Nobody should eat the Oxley's cooking. NOBODY. To Jokul she grins, and turning a little puts down a few of the mugs on a nearby table. "For all the profuse swearing you did around the impressionable children! Oh those poor children. So impressionable."
You say, "....if I see a running pie, I'll check they aren't green little kitty feet, just to be sure. Anyway, what's this about swearing children?"
"I have *no* idea what you are talking about," Jokul declares immediately with a cough rumbling through his throat at the tail end of his words. "Besiiiiides. Swearin's just the way of life down here, yah? Just a buncha words, yah?" Beat. Eyes swish from one side to the other. "...But I still have no idea what you are talking about."
"I never swear," says Myrana, sniffing! Sniff! "It's totally alien to me, you understand. How is the stove, mister Mikilos? Have you found what was clogging it?"
Mikilos chuckles softly, looking to Jokul. "Just pay the copper. You'll be better off in the long run." Glanicng to Myrana, he sighs. "Sort of. I've pulled out more than I care to think about already, and there's still blockage further up. I don't know what the Oxley were thinking... I don't want to know either... but I'm making progress."
"Pfffft," Jokul scoffs. "*Everyone* swears sometimes. And I am VERY sure that I heard you swear the other night too." A grin flashes out with that. "And it was gloooooorious."
"Couldn't we just get up on the roof and blow it out from the other end of the pipe with some lightning or something?" Asks Myra, who clearly has never fixed a duct system. At Jokul's insistence that she DID cuss she clears her throat delicately, cheeks colouring slightly. "Well! Well uh, well maybe. It'd be hard to run this place without picking up some of that. Having the Oxleys work for me is a real nightmare. We're trying to figure out what they did to jam up the stove here." She pats the side of it while Mikilos is mucking around in it.
Mikilos blinks innocently. "Myrana doesn't swear. She's makes one word promises." Sighing, he reaches deep into the stove, yanking out what may have once been a badly charred shirt. "No, the main clog is after the pipe bend, forcing it would just make it worse. And lightning would help anyway. A fireball maybe, but still, just jam it tighter."
Sandy has arrived.
Jokul tosses a baffled look to Mikilos' way. "...Well. That would make for some innteresting implications," he points out -- but thankfully he doesn't say anything else. He does flash a brief grin, sure, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he asks, "Who are the Oxleys?"
And no, the five coppers still haven't come forward.
Svarshan has arrived.
Sandy appears out of nowhere in a puff of sparkles. She sneezes and wves her hand to try to send the sparkles away. "GOd damn sparkels," she says, ad then she promptly falls on Myrana.
She may be drunk.
"The Oxleys? Oh god. They're my employees-- you'll see them sooner or later. I'm sorry in advance." Myrana looks a little dissapointed that her heating problems can't be solved with lightning. "Do we need like a trained rat or something? Oh! What about a druid with a wire to unclog iGHG!!" Suddenly, Sandy is there, and Myrana is half bent over under the weight of her wife, who has abruptly landed on her.
Mikilos blinks as Sandy arrives, perhaps less surprised than he might be. "The Oxley are terrible people." He comments almost reflexively. "So, just asking, but what happens when the swear jar gets full? Because I think it may fill up swiftly."
"Hi, Myrana!" Sandy says, flopped on her. "I'm ALWAYS drinking someplace," she adds to Jokul. She's just spraled.
"...mmm," comes a voice in the corner, at Jokul's suggestion. Svarshan looks up from whatever he'd been reading--reading! and looks across at the wife-pile. He gives a slow blink, and the look he returns to the Aesir is: only a crazy man would get in the middle of this.
...and goes back to his...piece of old, tanned hide, apparently.
"Sandy," Myrana wheezes, knees shaking under her skirts and the platter of drinks she'd been holding now reaqquainting itself with the ground. There's beer and pottery spinning to a halt under the table. "Sandy you're...crushing... my body." Very slowly she starts keeling forward at the stove and Mikilos, who may sense a tree-like creaking of his impending doom, which Myrana is utterly incapable of preventing.
GAME: Mikilos casts Feather Fall. Caster Level: 10 DC: 19
Mikilos tsks mildly, well aware that when Sandy is about, impending doom is a given. Standing, the tall elf grabs the Lady Sandiel and hauls back, pulling her off Myrana... and towards himself. Though a swiftly incantation helps shift the falling weight to something even his wizardly self can manage.
Sandy mumbles something drunkenly to Myrana and has a drink from her hip flask. Yes, she's STILL drinking. But then she's hauled off Mikilos. "Hey, hands off!" She grumbles.
And in the middle of all this, Jokul just... stares at everything unfolding before him. STaring mostly at Mikilos and Sandy now, actually, though he does spare a glance to Myrana and a mutter of, "...This always happen?" to the elf.
The more Myrana talks, the closer Svarshan's muzzle seems to get to the herdskin he's reading. It could be a trick of the light, of course. When Sandy speaks up on top of that, it appears he might also be gauging the distance from there to here. In fact, the three-hundred pound weight of him seems to be advertising: I'm a little tea pot, short and stout...
Myrana catches herself on the stove when Mikilos saves her from becoming a Sandified pancake. Straightening, she tugs down the front of her apron, red as an apple and sputtering. Scandalized! "Wh-what if I had been serving a little old lady?!" She pushes the hair out of her face that Sandy mussed up. "I would have quashed her!" As if a little old lady would drink here! Myra gasps, wrapped up in her horrible fantasy! "And then I'd get MORE COMMUNITY SERVICE!!"
"You mean I could point and laugh some more?" says Sandy to Myrana. Are these two really married?
Mikilos smiles mildly at the drunk. "No hands? Now now, I don't think we're limber enough to try without. Besides, you're a married woman."
"...I don't think old ladies would usually come here," Jokul points out helpfully. By his standards 'helpfully', anyway. "...So I'll take that to mean the answer is 'yes'."
Svarshan looks up at the mention of 'community service.' His eyes light up. "It iss...funny you sshould mention. Community sservice," he begins, in what could be something terrible if he is allowed to continue speaking.
"Why not?! I run a nice bar damnit!" Myrana exclaims to Jokul. "A very nice b-Oh god Svar how long have you been here?!" Myrana is horrified.
"I think he came in before I did." Mikilos offers helpfully.
"Hands off," says Sandy to Mikilos, annoyed. She brushes herself off in time to hear Myrana declare she runs a nice bar and bursts out laughing.
"A nice bar catering to people like me," Jokul points out, with a raise of his brows. "In a place filled with people like me," he points out further. "Where only people like me come."
"Peasse to your n <long pause> nesst," the sith-makar replies warmly. He lays the old herdskin down on the table, and sets chin on fist. "I thought to catch up on. My reading. But it iss good you mentioned community sservice, you ssee." This will be horrible. Don't let him do it! "I ran into Sergeant Wetherss..." No. Nonononono... "It iss a nisse bar," the sith agrees with Jokul. Oh, good.
Mikilos snorts. "Not quite. This is my favorate bar. No place else is stup- ...er... -brave- enough to keep Gunpowder Whiskey in stock."
Finneous Oxley says, from behind the bar, "Thanks, elf guy!" He gives him a big thumbs up.
You say, "....not that it doesn't have it's downsides..."
"The thing about slapping him is total libel," Myrana says very very quickly. She looks at Jokul and puffs up mightily, up to her full height! "Well you must be an upstanding citizen."
Jokul gives Myrana a long, blank stare. Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare. "...Sure!" He eventually lets out. "We'll go with that. So-- about that gunpowder whiskey?"
"...I will have to assk him. About that," the sith-makar says, changing tracks. Apparently he didn't know about that! Er, oops. He stops for a moment to ruminate on that.
"...He didn't tell you about the slap?" Myrana asks, suddenly nervous.
"Oh! Myrana slapped Brother Patrick or whatever his name was. It was HILARIOUS," say Sandy, selling Myra out immediately.
Myrana says, "Sandy, you are supposed to corroborate my story!"
"...I wass going to assk if you could tutor hiss. Nephew...Ssunguard Greta hass determined hiss nephew iss a lonely," stuck-up, irritable, foul-mouthed "young male and wisshes to introdusse him around the. Ssity. ...by Ssity sshe means. Her niesse," the sith-makar says.
Long pause.
"The full-right uppercut?" he asks. He knows who her wife is. He sits there contentedly though, and looks to Jokul, "You sshould try. The whissky. It--" And then Sandy helps. He comes to a halt, again. "I can ssee the lessonss on humility are. Not taking," sadly.
"Potato potahto," says Sandy in response to Myra's complaint.
You say, "Gunpowder whisky is a dangerous to anyone in the general area of it. Packs a kick like a liquid fireball.""
Myrana pauses. "Did he ask you to ask me before or after I hit him?" This is an important question.
"Greta vo...iss new word. Mrmm...word iss, remembering to do thiss tassk, and Ssunguard Greta memory. Perhapss less good about lasst two weeks," the sith says. He looks from Myrana, to Sandy. Then to Mikilos, "Iss delicious."
"Well!" Jokul reaches over with his free hand and claps it briefly against Myrana's shoulder. "You just keep at it." Keep at what? Smacking paladins? Either way, he wanders the rest of the way over to the bar and leans against it. "Liquid fireball sounds like just my thing, doesn't it?"
Ralickwort has arrived.
"Hopefully after," is what Sandy says, snickering as she has another drink from her flask.
A gnome walks into the tavern... No, not the start of a joke, but something that /really happens/, right now. The bartenders shake their head and growl a little, but the little man shrugs this off with gruff laughter. He wears horribly dirty grey robes that may once have been white, but are now covered in stains of all colours and textures. Too, his beard, unusually for a gnome, is very long and twisted. Why is anybody's guess. He's also followed by a little black fox; the reason for this is also open to discussion. "Hullo," he gruffs at Sandy, who he seems to know from somewhere.
Svarshan looks from Mikilos, over to Myrana. Then, stands. "Alsso, I have more of the...mrm. Thingss for your brew," he says. He had been sitting at a table, with a herdskin rolled out beside him. Also, Sandy is drunk, and Myrana is admitting to terrible things. Mikilos is the voice of reason.
Mikilos peers at Sandy, somewhere between amused and disapointed. "You do know you're at the Ox, right? Why the heck do you keep drinking your own booze?"
"Because I'm in the Ox?" says Sandy as if this should be obvious to Mikilos.
You say, "Yeah, but you know where Myrana hides the good stuff."
The sith bares his teeth at the response. Just a trace, a gesture of laughter as he stands. "I will drop the demon. Earss off in the. Kitchen," he tells Myrana. ..and then makes his way that way, with a flick of the tail in hello to the gnome, as he passes.
Svarshan has left.
The gnome Ralickwort pulls a flask of potion from his cloak. "Yurr, she's drunk as a skunk. Hurr hurr hurr, /very/ funny." He belly-laughs, which is a horrible sound. "Yoo know wot's even funnier? I say, give her this potion, it'll probably make it better. Probably." He laughs again. Yuk.
"WAIT." Jokul straightens up now. He stares at Mikilos, first, and then he turns to STARE at Myrana. "You're... hiding *better* drinks somewhere? You're serving us *worse* stuff?" Oh dear.
Mikilos casually motions towards the Oxley. "Would -you- trust them with quality booze? They water down the cheap stuff."
Myrana finally breaks her mortified silence "I caught Finneous taking a bath in the sink once," she says. Scarred for life. "I can't let them know where I keep my personal stash. They're horrible."
Myrana has disconnected.
"This," Ralickwort says, conspiratorially. "This is better booze, for shure." He waves the potion in Sandy's face, proffering it for the good lady.
"...I don't trust gnomes and never accept booze from them. EVER," says Sandy,firmly.
"Your loss," mutters Ralickwort. He unstoppers the vile vial, and pretends to take a sip. "Oh, yurr, that's the good stuff, for shure." You're not entirely sure what the next noise is, but it could be ... a giggle?
Mikilos eyes the gnome with mild disapproval, and goes back to the steam stove, in it's assorted pieces, and resumes trying to get out all the things the Oxley stuffed inside fro unknown reasons.
"if it's so good, YOU drink it," snorts Sandy.
"I'm haffing a bit," the gnome retorts. "I, urgh, haff to do jury duty in't morning." He pretends to sip again. "Yum yum yum."
You say, "....I've seen golems with better acting skills. And they didn't have moving faces."
"...jury duty. RIGHT." Sandy laughsout loud and has another drink.
Ralickwort shrugs and leaves the flask on the bar. He takes a seat on a high stool, which requires quite a bit of dexterity. The fox takes a seat next to him, swishing its tail. "I'll haff what she's haffing."
You say, "...she's drinking what she brought herself." He motions to the flask. "So... drink up.""