M&M&M

Tenebrae - Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 6:54 PM

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-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<* A05: Ox-Strength Tavern *>--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

The worst sailors, mercenaries, thugs and dock-workers frequent this place, making it one of the most dangerous bars in the city. Its wooden floors and sturdy furniture are scarred from brawls, and the plaster on the walls is broken away in places from the brick underneath. Tucked against the large, steel diamond-pained windows are a few narrow booths providing a view of the street and all its traffic while letting smoky sunlight stream in and preventing patrons being thrown out through them. Little lamps hang from the cieling beams to provide light when the sun goes down.

At the back is a long bar of pitted, much-polished oak sitting beneath a bay of cuboards. Its here that the owner of the bar can usually be found operating the taps and fiddling with the large copper samovar on one end against the wall when she isn't out serving drinks and basically running the whole bar. There's even a few potted violets behind the bar in the open case where bottles are stored. There's a sign in chalk listing the house specialities, along with whatever will be being served for dinner that night.

The food and drink here is good, despite the clientele's rough and frankly undesirable nature and the smell of pipe tobacco and beer that never seems to come out of the wood; the most popular thing being the curries redolent with spices and the hard ciders, both of which she makes herself in the kitchen. Part of the bar itself, it should be noted, bears the marks of electric damage, with spidery black burn marks radiating out from a charred spot right near the inner edge, where the 'tender stool is located.

Over against one wall is a pot-bellied wood stove, with two much-abused leather chairs facing it. Near to that is a locked door that appears to lead to the owner's apartment above the Ox, while a pair of swinging doors at the end of the bar leads to the kitchen.

A great day coming to a glorious end, and dinner time is in full swing at the Ox-Strength Tavern. Two brawls are already done and out of the way, so dinner is a peaceful, if noisy, affair. Settled in one of the small, narrow booths is Murder. With her greatsword leaning against the table, she's looking relaxed as she steadily works her way through a bowl of mutton stew. Several ale glasses are set in the middle of the table, with one missing about half the drink. A second bowl of stew awaits its turn, set across from her. Waiting. Patiently. The Goblin woman tilts her head, and glances at the door, her nose working at the air. "Heh."

Cue Mayhem, who pushes the door in with a small hand at the end of a very straight arm. BANG! She hits it like a truck coasting straight into a cement wall. Luckily the door gives and swings in, allowing her to march inside, dragging a hammer that's about as long as she is tall behind her. The heavy smashy part grinds and bounces across the floor, making loud rumble in her wake as she turns for the booth she spots Murder in. "Merdah!" She'll call, in a scratchy voice but a sweet tone.

Mikilos stalks in through the kitchen door, his long hair ruffeling in an arcane breeze, and his form backlit by a shaft of silver moonlight, despite being indoors. It's not quite like sparking or flaming with arcane power, not everyone gets cool magical side effects. Stomping to the bar, the wizard draws a finger across the bartop, sroching a blacken circle into the wood, and dumps a large frog into the center of it. "Stay." The elf ducks behind the counter, rumaging around with the clink of bottles. The frog stays put.

The crash was expected, it seems, by Murder, and she grins ear to ear. "Moihem!", she calls out, in the same scratchy voice and accent. "I saved ya a seat, and some stew!" The Murderous one stands up on the bench and gestures grandly to the bench opposite her. "Took ya long enough! Come have a sit!"

Mayhem walks with the heaviest feet possible for such a small individual. It's probably all the metal plates though. CLONK. CLONK. CLONK. They go, adding some hard contrasting bass booms to the hammer drag rumble and thump. It all stops when she reaches the booth and throws herself into the bench opposite with a sigh. The gobber life ain't easy. "This big dolt looked at me funny, so I smashed his toes to mush. It was really gross." And by gross, she seems to mean hilarious, because she's not wincing, she's grinning. As she rights herself, she checks out the rest of the room, eyeing Mikilos and his frog, and the bar in general. "I'm thirsty now."

Mikilos re-emerges with a bottle and shot glass, pouring himself a glass of.... motor oil? It looks like motor oil. Tossing back the shot, the tall elf winces, shudders, and glares at the frog for a moment. Pouring and tossing back a second shot, the elf shudders again, and squints at the frog.... then sighs, and relaxes. "...alright. You ready to behave?" The frog doesn't respond, but Mikilos seems satisfied with the result. Pointing, he spits an arcane phrase, and with a flash, the frog morphs into Finnious Oxley, one of the more vile of the Oxley clan. "Now scat, before I tell Myrana you nicked her stash." Finnious, properly chastized and threatened, scrambles for the door, and Mikilos peers absently around the room. "....oy, Murder! Is that your sister you mentioned?"

Murder sticks her head out into the aisle, glancing to the retreating back of the former-Frog, and she stares at Mikilos. "Ain't she gonna have a fit if she catches you magicing people in her tavern?", the Gobber wonders. She nods though, and grins, gesturing from Mayhem to Mikilos. "Mikilos, Mayhem. Sis, meet Mikilos. Can call him Miki. He's a clothie." She wiggles her fingers as if casting a spell. "Well hey, what's mine is yours, sis of mine!" She gestures to the full bowl of stew, just waiting to be eaten, and slides one of the full ale glasses to Mayhem's side. "Enjoy! How's the hammah?"

Mayhem starts with the ale, because, thirsty. She tips back the cup and chugs it down, stopping only when it's empty and she kinda needs to breath. After a gasp and tiny cough, she starts into the stew, finally releasing her grip on the hammer to trade it for a wooden spoon. "Agh. Is good." She says between mouthfuls. There's a few glances at Miki while she's chowing down, but it's hard to talk through all that. "Magic guy? He's yours now?"

Mikilos ducks behind the counter a moment again before heading over to the table with now three shot glasses and the bottle of what might be motor oil. "Nah, not if they deserve it. And he deserved it." The Oxley are terrible people. It's true, you can ask anyone. Even other Oxley. Grabbing a chair, he frowns mildly at Mayhem. "I am my own."

Murder giggles and snorts. "Nah, he ain't mine. What would I do with a clothie? An acquaintance, yes?" She looks to Mikilos. "Are ya drinking oil or tar or something? That looks gross." She looks back to her sister and slides a second full ale over to her. "It's watered down a little, but keep in mind it's a tall person glass. Don't drink them too quick. Yer heavy enough t'carry as it is, yer worse when yer drunk." She runs a hand through her hair. "You got a place anywhere yet?"

"You'd squish him." Mayhem answers as if it's plainly obvious what you'd do to a clothie. She wraps herself up in a huge as if to demonstrate, and sways back and forth making kissies faces at her sister. "Squuuuuish." Oh wait, now there's another cup of ale. It is a tall person one for sure, and despite the advise from her sister she kills that one as swiftly as the first. In the aftermath she blinks once, slowly, and stares over at Mikilos again, slightly cross-eyed. "You should be my own. So, pretty... and hair." What was she talking about? Oh right. "I want to buy a cart to sleep in and fill it with junk. We can go wherever that way. It's a home... that's mobile!"

Mikilos hehs, and pours a trio of shots, sliding one to each. "Gunpowder Whisky, the owner makes it. I never have quite figured out how. Just don't get it anywhere near open flame. Or hight heat. Or direct sunlight. It's rather explosive." Sort of a blend of gunpowder and everclear, but not nearly so healthy for you.

Murder will stand to fetch them, and bring the two shots back to their booth nearby. She carefully sets Mayhem's down, and simply tosses her back. She makes a few interesting faces, and gives her head a shake. "Good lord. That's actual gunpowder." She hiccups. "Nobody light anything!", she says, fanning her face. The Gobber chases that shot with a full glass of ale. "That's nasty." Murder huffs out a breath and regards her sister a moment. "A wagon, huh? Like, a housewagon? With donkeys or something? Could do that, I guess. We could pool our coin."

Explosive drinks? The clothie is surely trying to win Mayhem's heart. She looks convinced, anyway, as she reaches out to stop the sliding shot glass as it pulls up to her. "Oooooooh." She coos, as weirdly, she refrains from tossing it back immediately and instead leans over to peer into the black liquid, and sniff. Further investigation is required after that, so she pulls a heavy gauntlet off and dips her finger into the liquid and holds it up to the light. "Ooooh. I must have the recipe!" There's a few nodnods for the housewagon idea.

Mikilos hehs, and tosses back his own shot, scrunching up his face for a few seconds before relaxing. "Good luck, Myrana keeps it a pretty close secret. Though might have told Sandy, her wife. Or more likely blabbed it to her without meaning to. Those two have that sort of effect on each other."

Murder gahs and eyes her sister. "Jus' drink it!", she complains. "The last time you tried makin' somethin' explosive, well... we needed a new place to stay. And new clothes. New everything." She laugh at the remembering of it, and shakes her head. "Lemme guess, you want a still on the wagon, hmm?" The Gobber in leather looks to Mikilos. "How much for the bottle?"

"Yes!" Mayhem agrees, sold on the explosive qualities alone, since she hasn't even tasted it. She does that after with a quick gulp that seems to agree with her well enough, she doesn't explode and it stays down, she even licks her lips as if quite pleased with the flavor. "Mmm good, Miki. Sister, we could put it on the top, behind the mounts for the thunderbelchers." Right, because those go together and aren't a dangerous combination at all.

Mikilos chuckles and shakes his head. "Not for sale. Technically not mine to share, but I'll work out something for trade. Anyway, is just about empty. Might be another one stashed around somewhere, but I don't know where. Bad idea to store them too close to each other." He turns focus to Mayhem. "Anyway, you build all your own stuff, or just making plans?"

Murder pouts at Mikilos, and leans her chin on her hand. "What would she want in trade? Maybe we could get it, or have it already?" She sits up suddenly and squints at her sister. "Sis! You can't put those two things so close together. One bump and there'll be naught left by a smoking crater where our cart used ta be. One or the other, kiddo, not both!"

"No no, it's perfect." Mayhem insists as if she has it all figured out in her head. "I'm the expert!" That's probably debatable, but given the bizarre looking armor she's got on, she must have some talent. "I make all the stuff, but these especially." These, being dragonspitters, since she leans back and pulls one of such guns from a holster at her hip and drops it on the table hard enough to rattle the cups and shake her bowl. "It's alright. No problem. I can make this." She'll further insist, this time of the explosive drink, she takes another test gulp and ponders the tastes.

Mikilos considers a few moments, and shrugs. "Food, clockwork, booze she hasn't tried before. Hard to say, really." He nods, eyeing the weapon a moment. "May I?" He inquires, reaching towards it.

Murder sputters. "If one of your explosions kills me, sister, I'm draggin' my arse out of where ever I end up, just ta kick yer ass." She downs one of the ales sitting at their table. "Ye might be an expert at them guns, but ye know as well as I do that they are wonky at times. Ye don't want that mixin' with alcohol." Murder snorts and looks to Mikilos. "Oh? Well, I think we can arrange that." She glances back to Mayhem. "Oi, sis. There's a thing we can do to earn coin. We can sign up for the adventurer's guild. They have missions and they pay well. There's also an artificer's guild here. Ya might like ta go see that."

The dragonspitter, a brutal looking contraption with little art about it, save the inlaid bone on the grip, is slide across the table to Mikilos. "Don't push the thing on the side." She warns, but considering she just gave the elf a potentially loaded gun, she seems completely unconcerned about it. "You'll be fine! Explosions are fun. So you lose your eyebrows. They grow back, usually." She has most of hers still, sure the left one has a diagonal break in it right now, but that's temporary. "We get a contract and make money. It's easy right? We just go kill some jerks and take their stuff for these guilds?"

Mikilos looks over the spitter with a professional gaze, mindful not to point it at anything he doesn't want shot. "Nice. I craft myself, though typically stick to blades. As for the Guild, some jobs are hunts for monsters, others are bodyguard type, some search and rescue, some research. All sorts of jobs, really. The Guild masters are pretty good at matching you up to somethign taht suits your skills. Is a lot of paperwork at the start, but a good file is how they make the matches. I don't think the Artificers Guild gives jobs, not directly anyway. More a club for like minded folk."

"Still, a club is a club, they likely offer some support. Member's discount and such, or whatever." Murder waves a hand at Mikilos and looks to Mayhem. "I like my eyebrows intact!", she grumps, "I have plenny of scars already." The little woman lets out a huff of breath, and then hiccups. "Anyways, yeah, that's the point. We go shoot somethings what need shooting, or we like, follow someone and shoot the things that try to hurt them. Or, the most boring part? We go looking for herbs or some long lost rock or something. As Miki says, they got all sorts, and we can agree to the ones we wanna do. Hopefully duck the boring stuff."

"BORING." Mayhem complains, waving off the idea of doing paper work or escort missions, or anything of that, "You do that stuff. Tell me what to explode. I'm too busy for that. I'm making the biggest, most powerful dragonspitter ever created in the history of ever. I just need some special things first." She's a gobber with big dreams. Big explosive dreams. She doesn't specify if she's going to do that before or after she renovates a wagon into a death trap.

Mikilos mmmms. "So you're familiar with the Planar Disjunction Cannon, then?" biggest gun -he- knows about.

Murder glances to Mikilos and shakes her head. "Great, encourage her why don't you?" She snots and looks to Mayhem. "There will be plenty of missions to make things explode. Yeah, you might get some boring ones, but I am sure you can find something to shoot at still. And uh, do you remember that we have a family and clan to avenge, right?"

Mayhem picks up her spoon again and begins to stir what's left of the stew around, making sure the carrots are equally distributed or something. Or just thinking. "Planar disjunction cannon?" She murmer, and stirs. Mikilos totally just gave her an idea. "No... No! Yes! If we make this gun we will have revengeance, Merdah. All the avengeance!" And, now she's violently waving the spoon around, so she's fully riled up.

Mikilos laughs. "If hadn't already would hear about it soon enough. Is something of a local landmark. Big cannon on a mountaintop, sometimes called the Spell Cannon. No idea the details of how it works, but rips a tear between planes along it's shot path. Not sure what exactly happens to the target, but they use it to destory castels that are too dangerous to attack with an army."

Murder yawns then, and stretches. "Well, I am going to go get some shuteye." She stands, walks to the other bench and crawls over it to hug her sister. "Stay alive!", she says with a grin, before slinking away, nabbing her greatsword on her way out. "G'night!"

For all the talk of vengeance and stuff, Mayhem seems happy enough to hug her sister tightly. "Always! I'm almost done too." She says in her scratchy little voice and once Murder is off she gets into her stew again, having a few heaping spoonfuls while eyeing Mikilos. Eventually, she says, "It's on a mountaintop here? Will you show me?"

Mikilos shrugs. "It's a bit late for a trip, is a fair distance. not the sort of thing to keep near an inhabited area, but it's not too difficult to reach. Likely won't let you head right up to it though. Security is pretty tight, for obvious reasons." Well, obvious to most people.

Murder has disconnected.

Mayhem chews on the inside of her cheek as she listens to Mikilos, head tilted, eyes avid and ears perked. "Nother time then." She decides with a sweet, for a gobber, smile. "Maybe, what if, I make a gun that turns people into frogs?" To console herself with, for not being able to see the giant awesome cannons. "And then, then the frogs explode. Is frogging difficult to spell?"

Mikilos laughs. "Mildly difficult, yes. It's the fifth circle of arcane magic. I'm not sure about doing it with artifice."

Mayhem reaches up to pull her ear through her hand a fews times, like she's trying to smooth it out somehow, or make it pointier. Not that it does either, but maybe it helps her to think. "Oh. That's difficulter." She quietly admits, "I could make them shrink and then squish them with the hammer, but it would be more fun if they were frogs." Siiigh. "Stupid frogs and their stupid croaking and hopping around. SQUASH!" She hits her stew with the bottom of her spoon, splattering it out of the bowl.

Mikilos mmms, and shrugs. "Might be able to work something out, the spell I use is meant to change them -safely- into a frog. If squishing is the goal, might be able to find a workaround."

"Squishing is always the goal!" Mayhem says, pushing the mostly empty bowl aside as she does. She reaches for the hammer she'd left leaning against the bench and swings it smashy side up as if she's going to start squishing stuff. Thankfully, she doesn't, but smiles 'sweetly' again at Mikilos then slides to the edge and then off her seat. "I'll be back to see you." She promises.

Mikilos nods. "I'm around here and there. All else fails, head up the Mountain Road and look for the gaint sword. If I'm not there, at least they'll know where to find me."

Mayhem has left.