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[Coolrune206]

Cazin, keeping half an eye on the performance, looks for a sufficiently unintelligent dwarf to swindle with some meaningless but impressive buzz-words.

[Whisperling]

Spoiler: Waitlist, presumably. (click to show/hide)

Your Name: Cog
Your Concept: Street-wise mechanic.
Your Talent: Mechanics. Cog has learned to tinker with the best of them, at least when he's working with gears and springs. He has little experience with more expensive tech, but he's got the talent and a burning desire to learn.
Your Malfunction: Cog is an orphan and an urchin, and he doesn't know much about life beyond the streets. He can interact with society well enough to function, but his ignorance and complete lack of social graces make it hard to pass as anything except what he is.
Your Residence: A small space in the magma quarter, spared from both the movement of the machines and the pools of molten rock. It isn't much, but he's gathered enough odds and ends to make it a decent workshop.

[Fniff]

"Heeeey Brommy! Sorry for interrupting your poker game, boys, but the only thing Bromrek sucks at more than cheating at cards is actually playing them,
so you're not missing out." pulls seat out from random mobster across from Bromek, knocking him on his ass, then sits "So, your shitty robot told me I don't work here anymore. Cos of automatization,
it said. I guess they automatised firing your workers to their face, so we'll both be out of a job soon. Anyway, I got a bone to pick cos this job is kind of my life. Especially since, y'know, I don't got the other kind. I was giving, and continue to give, 110% to this sinking shithole of a bar. I was planning to give my never-ending existence to this place. So, my redundancy package is gonna have to account for that. I'll be generous and say you only have to pay me for the first 500 years. I'd prefer it in cash, too. Sound good?"
Storm into the shady backroom poker game and yell at Bromek Brokeshin (my former manager) until he gives me a reasonable (i.e ludicrous) redundancy package.

[ATHATH]

Finish eating my "meal", then reanimate it as a zombie and tell it to wait outside in the alleyway so that I can pick it up later. Hopefully, its stumbling about will be attributed to drunkenness.

Listen to Yeller's performance while also inspecting the other bar patrons.

[Harry Baldman]

Cazin, keeping half an eye on the performance, looks for a sufficiently unintelligent dwarf to swindle with some meaningless but impressive buzz-words.

[One Born Every Minute: 1+1]

You scope out a dwarf you know as Clark, his real name lost to the twin sisters of time and drugs. He's vibrating to the found noise, undulating on his table, his hand on a monofilament battle axe that he revs up in tune to the noise, adding just one more layer to the overpowering sonic hellscape of the bar. He grins at you with diamond-tipped teeth as you sidle up to him with a drink in hand and begin to explain to him the finer points of buying a timeshare. You even have some brochures on your hand.

Despite your best efforts, however, you're not sure Clark can understand you because it's difficult to hear anything in the bar without getting much more intimate with him than you'd like (might give him the wrong idea). That and he seems to be hopped up on enough combat drugs to put his higher reasoning seriously into question. Plus he's staring at Mr. Lovegod on stage in the sort of way that, to you, implies that he is either here to kill him or maim him in some extreme fashion, which means he's on a job, which in turn means he's presently very far in the negatives of his bank account or he wouldn't even be on the prowl.

Your bad feeling intensifies to a very bad one indeed as you look back at Mr. Lovegod and he takes a moment to put in another layer of earplugs and puts a datastick into one of the soundsystems. As a solo of cosmic noise-wall combines with cymbal death in a potent ear damage combo, the entire bar begins to shake.

"Heeeey Brommy! Sorry for interrupting your poker game, boys, but the only thing Bromrek sucks at more than cheating at cards is actually playing them, so you're not missing out." pulls seat out from random mobster across from Bromek, knocking him on his ass, then sits "So, your shitty robot told me I don't work here anymore. Cos of automatization, it said. I guess they automatised firing your workers to their face, so we'll both be out of a job soon. Anyway, I got a bone to pick cos this job is kind of my life. Especially since, y'know, I don't got the other kind. I was giving, and continue to give, 110% to this sinking shithole of a bar. I was planning to give my never-ending existence to this place. So, my redundancy package is gonna have to account for that. I'll be generous and say you only have to pay me for the first 500 years. I'd prefer it in cash, too. Sound good?"
Storm into the shady backroom poker game and yell at Bromek Brokeshin (my former manager) until he gives me a reasonable (i.e ludicrous) redundancy package.

[Backroom Dealings: 2]

He didn't fire you because of automatization, Bromek screams at you (always was a screamer, ol' Brokeshin), he fired you because you were driving away traffic! Yer bad fer business, Nazush, yer a loose cannon! The Asylum needs team players, it needs synergy! Way of the future! And you ain't it, Nazush! You ain't it by a long shot!

Plus, he shouts over the sounds of Yeller seeping in through the back, you ain't got a contract or nothin' either. Employing vampires is against the law, dontcha know. That means when he says you git, you git. Now git!

You sense the telltale motion of heavy armament being readied under the table. Probably not heavy enough to put you down on the spot, but you never know what these Hellbound crazies might be packing. There could be flame rounds in 'em. They are probably aware it's Vampire Night, after all.

One thing is for certain, however, Yeller is really putting out his best material tonight. It's knocking the dust off the ceiling even in here. You look back for a moment and notice your personal therapy assistant in the belt of your skirt, inaudibly tut-tutting your self-destructive behavior.

Finish eating my "meal", then reanimate it as a zombie and tell it to wait outside in the alleyway so that I can pick it up later. Hopefully, its stumbling about will be attributed to drunkenness.

Listen to Yeller's performance while also inspecting the other bar patrons.

[Raising the Dead: 6+1]

You sip a bit at the wino until he's nice and weak, then set him down on the side and give him a moment to recover. That done, you lean into his ear, your beard gently brushing over his poxy cheek, and whisper to him that he is a zombie now, a mere thrall to your will, a member of the living dead.

Best part is, he's drunk enough to believe you. You send him to wait outside, figuring you'll pick him up later and maybe do the several hour ritual to make a proper zombie out of him over in your place. Otherwise he'd just fall apart within like half an hour and that'd just be wasteful.

[At The Opera Tonight: 5]

You're not a particular fan of Mr. Lovegod's work, but you dare say it's quite a lot better than what you've heard thus far. That thing you did for him seems to have paid extreme dividends, because there's no way what he's putting out now isn't some of the dopest shit you've ever heard as a connoisseur of the blackest, darkest corners of dwarfin experience. It's almost enough to forgive the ear damage.

The others at the bar seem to be enjoying themselves a lot as well, but you can't help but notice that a lot of them aren't letting this stop them from sharpening their proverbial axes, knives and altogether less proverbial explosive devices. It seems Mr. Lovegod has attracted quite a lot of attention, particularly from the dark corners - you think you spot your old friend Count Beardless in one and he's never been up to any good for as long as you've known him, and this time he's brought heavily armed friends as well.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Death's Gate: Guest of Honor
Money: 2
Old Yeller: A Horrific Debt
Evil Minion: the Honorary Zombie

Enir Nazush, Barmaid of the Night
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Outfit: Awful Schoolgirl-Dominatrix Uniform
Personal Therapy Assistant: Quietly Disapproving
Death's Gate: Too Many Vampires
Old Yeller: Found Noise Appreciator
Break Yo Shins: A Severance Unpaid
Money: Flat Broke

Urist mac Slughterfiend, Miner on the Edge
Too Slow: 1
Money: Flat Broke
Gruesome Insolvency: Surreal Debts

Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Uncanny Bookkeeper
Money: 1
Old Yeller: Carefully Money-Dwarfed

Spoiler: GM TIPS (click to show/hide)

Fniff's action is a good example of doing things right. Consult Best Practices for optimal results.

Also, you can use a point of Money to get advantage (I roll twice and take the best roll) on any action, but you should explain what you bought, who you paid off or how else you creatively used the cash to get that advantage.

[Coolrune206]

Cazin decides now may be the time to put some distance between himself and the stage. He wisely retreats to the back of the bar, buying himself another drink on the way, and tries to enjoy himself.

[Fniff]

"... Okay, Bromek! I'll just remove myself from the premises and not cause any trouble on the way out, because I deal with my problems in a healthy and constructive way."
Sneak back into my residence/ale cellar, pour out all the casks onto the floor, throw down a match, then run like... Heaven?

[crazyabe]

Attempt to crawl out while everyone is distracted.

[ATHATH]

Get out before someone starts a fight and brings the cops down on us. Take the "zombie" back to my home and properly zombify him/it.

[Harry Baldman]

Cazin decides now may be the time to put some distance between himself and the stage. He wisely retreats to the back of the bar, buying himself another drink on the way, and tries to enjoy himself.

[A Safe Spot: 5+1]

Since the dark corners are awfully packed, you decide the time-tested tactic of keeping low and out of the way is a better idea. You pick a spot where the bar meets the wall and hide carefully behind the barstool while having another drink and listening to Mr. Lovegod's musical stylings. He seems to be rejiggering his setup mid-performance - you didn't think the racket could get much louder but he's somehow managing it, in addition to rolling out a strange device that reminds you strongly of a theremin.

You look around, and spot that the bar looks to have obtained some new patrons. It's hard to make out much about them in the haze of the smoke machines and the flashing lights, partly because at least some of them look like congealed darkness within which small pinpricks of light glow, not always in an eye-like configuration. You think you also make out slavering maws, acid-dripping claws, odd numbers of limbs and wisps of smoke coming out of the corners of their many mouths.

Nobody else appears to have noticed them yet, at least nobody who managed to scream before meeting a horrible fate. The audience looks spellbound at the found noise antics of Mr. Lovegod. You pour the pint of Z-beer down your throat.

Everyone's waiting for the beat to drop. You have seconds to react.

"... Okay, Bromek! I'll just remove myself from the premises and not cause any trouble on the way out, because I deal with my problems in a healthy and constructive way."
Sneak back into my residence/ale cellar, pour out all the casks onto the floor, throw down a match, then run like... Heaven?

[We Don't Need No Water: 5]

Ale isn't the most flammable thing in the world, but there's plenty of whiskey and Z-booze precursors too, and those are gonna go up like a charm - whiskey to provide extra flammability, Z-booze ingredients to give it staying power. Standing ankle-deep in a viscous alcoholic soup, you lean up on your tiptoes to sabotage the fire alarm as well (can't have the suppression system just spray your would-be arson down, can you?), walk up the stairs and casually flick a lit match behind you - the fire spreads instantly, filling the cellar behind you as you jog upstairs and toward the back door for the flawless escape to go with your perfect crime.

[The Back Path: 6]

You open the door, look outside and then close it, thinking for a second. You open it again just to be sure, and are met with a hiss and a ball of boiling acid that burns a small hole through the door that you manage to shut again in the nick of time. A taloned, scaly hand bursts through the newly made opening, searching for a doorknob despite the door being as far as you know completely automatic. Nagging voices screech in abyssal tongues to the demon, asking to be given a turn to try opening the door themselves. You don't think you have more than a few seconds before they figure out it's easier to just melt the damn thing and come in that way.

Luckily you don't really have to wonder what to do with the time because that's when that corpsefucker from the graveyard decides it'd be a brilliant idea to push past you like you're barely even there and open the door despite the clearly demonic arm poking through it, which the demon on the other end clearly appreciates as he pulls the door out of its frame as it starts to close again, rolls it up like ain't no thing and tosses it away.

On the bright side, at least corpsey-boy seems to have their full attention at the moment. Maybe you could kick him into the horde as a momentary distraction.

Attempt to crawl out while everyone is distracted.

[A Dogged Escape: 3]

You slide off the barstool and keep low, beginning your retreat from Death's Gate. The place is packed to the gills and only getting worse as you wriggle eel-like through the multitude of legs, heavy weaponry resting on the ground and other things as well, muttering to yourself all the way that there is no way any of this is going to end well for you.

Thus your suspicions are only further confirmed when what look like fine snakeskin chaps turn out to actually be a set of scaly legs terminating in saurian feet, the skin seemingly a few dozen degrees past boiling as you inadvertently brush up against it.

Looking up, you see a torso with three grinning mouths with four eyes around each, and all of them look very happy to see you as a ring of goat-headed acid-dripping tentacles around them all glance at you. The noise is building up, and seems about to crest. 

Get out before someone starts a fight and brings the cops down on us. Take the "zombie" back to my home and properly zombify him/it.

You slide out of your spot and with vampiric grace (if you may say so yourself) glide right along the edges of the bar, sensing things are about to go very poorly for at least someone here, and you can't afford to be caught by the cops at this stage, not with a would-be zombie on your person and blood still on your chin. You make your way to the back door for a discreet exit.

Seems like that vampire girl (what was her name? everyone calls her barmaid) is wearing one of those weird mixed-fetish getups, which gets a mildly disapproving glance from you as you shoulder past her with a quick "excuse me".

[Pack It In Early: 1]

Then you open the door, getting it right on the second try when a scaly, extremely muscular arm withdraws from the hole in it to avoid being caught in the door mechanism again, and come face to face with an 8-foot goat-headed six-armed demon which in turn appears to have been followed by enough demons to pack every inch of the back access tunnel.

You look at Enir (that was her name!) and push the button to close the door. The demon places a hand under the closing door and its accompanying steel security barrier, pulls it out of the doorframe and rolls it up as if it were a sheet of paper, grinning wickedly as it tosses the door behind itself. You hear the telltale sound of fireballs and globs of burning acid being prepared in your direction.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Death's Gate: Guest of Honor
Money: 2
Old Yeller: A Horrific Debt
Evil Minion: the Honorary Zombie

Enir Nazush, Barmaid of the Night
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Outfit: Awful Schoolgirl-Dominatrix Uniform
Personal Therapy Assistant: Quietly Disapproving
Death's Gate: Too Many Vampires
Old Yeller: Found Noise Appreciator
Break Yo Shins: A Severance Unpaid
Money: Flat Broke

Urist mac Slughterfiend, Miner on the Edge
Money: Flat Broke
Gruesome Insolvency: Surreal Debts

Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Uncanny Bookkeeper
Money: 1
Old Yeller: Carefully Money-Dwarfed

[Fniff]

kick Jal into the demon horde as a distraction

Nah. Enir's low, but not that low.
stares at the horde of demons blankly for a beat"Excuse me, I'll be with you once I finish chatting with my colleague." takes Jal aside "Are you a hobgoblin? Because you just pulled a lever without thinking it through and as a result fucked everyone. I thought necromancers were supposed to be smart. What'd you learn your secrets off, a bathroom stall? Whatever, just shut up and keep them busy, I gotta warn Bear." turns to the demons with a winning grin "Sorry about that. We'll be happy to serve you in just one moment. In the meantime,
let my colleague regale you with the time he fucked a corpse and caught dickrot." runs away
Run back to the bar and warn Bear that shit is about to go down and that we should leg it using a language to gestures we've developed over the course of our relationship as barmaid and performer.

[Coolrune206]

So the bar was full of armed dwarves and (maybe?) demons, which I assume the dwarves aren't fans of. So I just need to get a fight started, and hope everyone works things out from there...

Cazin stands up, draws in his breath, and shouts like only middle-management can:
"They're all out of booze! Kill them all!
He then lifts up a nearby chair, not his safety chair, and throws it into the crowd of demons. He then immediately ducks back into his safety place.

[ATHATH]

"So, er... Nice weather we're having today. Hey, aren't you that guy from, um, y'know, that place?

Not one for conversation? Well, uh, I'm just gonna walk out this way and let you guys come in, okay? No hard feelings about the door thing, right?"

Awkwardly leave the alleyway, then book it with my "zombie" back to the graveyard.

[crazyabe]

Oh shit. oh shit. shit cocking shit.
Scream, then make like diarrhea and run.

[Harry Baldman]

kick Jal into the demon horde as a distraction

Nah. Enir's low, but not that low.
stares at the horde of demons blankly for a beat"Excuse me, I'll be with you once I finish chatting with my colleague." takes Jal aside "Are you a hobgoblin? Because you just pulled a lever without thinking it through and as a result fucked everyone. I thought necromancers were supposed to be smart. What'd you learn your secrets off, a bathroom stall? Whatever, just shut up and keep them busy, I gotta warn Bear." turns to the demons with a winning grin "Sorry about that. We'll be happy to serve you in just one moment. In the meantime,
let my colleague regale you with the time he fucked a corpse and caught dickrot." runs away
Run back to the bar and warn Bear that shit is about to go down and that we should leg it using a language to gestures we've developed over the course of our relationship as barmaid and performer.

You leave Jalormis to sort out business with the demons as you sprint back into the barroom, where much to your chagrin you spot the demons having made much more progress through the front door, their absurd and horrifying shapes menacing from the smoky shadows by the entrance as they appear to listen to the performance.

[The Sound of Noise: 5+1]

You signal to Bear on stage and get his attention easily enough. He looks at you, a dwarf at the top of his game, excited beyond belief in this moment as a horde of creditors and thugs look on in anticipation. You gesture wildly and shout at him about the arson and point at the legions of hell gathering in the barroom, and he does look for a moment before nodding, and fetches two spare sets of earplugs that he tosses over to you, motioning for you to put them in. And you might be many things, but you're not stupid enough to ignore Bear suggesting ear protection.

You plug your ears and glance back just in time to see a barstool arc through the air and melt into slag against the faceless head of an emaciated, six-armed 8-foot figure. It turns to the corner of the room that the chair came from unerringly, and you feel the telltale tingling of a sudden buildup of pressure in the barroom corner currently hosting a mildly regretful middle manager. The demon points all six fingers in that direction, and Bear's stubby fingers travel to a particular button on his ramshackle sound setup, timing the ensuing explosion of flame perfectly with a sudden grinding twist in the found soundscape - where the fuck he found this sample, however, you feel you'd rather not know, it sounds like a forgotten beast having violent sex with a bronze colossus at its most charitable.

Bear ducks down and you follow his lead as all hell breaks loose, the gathered demons opening up on the drinking public with merciless fury, their mob seemingly pushed to boiling point and kicked all the way off the other end as Death's Gate goes from wretched hole to no-man's-land in mere seconds - you see heads being cleaved in three places at once, hair and clothes catching fire from near misses, a vampire attempting to turn into a bat and getting swallowed by a long-limbed frog-thing with sixty-six eyes of fire covering its body and simultaneously glaring at every single thing in the room, yourself included...

... and you also spot a small hole in the back of the stage, the half-hidden figure of Bear urging you to follow before disappearing down it.

So the bar was full of armed dwarves and (maybe?) demons, which I assume the dwarves aren't fans of. So I just need to get a fight started, and hope everyone works things out from there...

Cazin stands up, draws in his breath, and shouts like only middle-management can:
"They're all out of booze! Kill them all!
He then lifts up a nearby chair, not his safety chair, and throws it into the crowd of demons. He then immediately ducks back into his safety place.

[I Predict A Riot: 1]

You spot a demon standing tall - a spindlier sort, no eyes, leathery, about eight feet tall - and figure that'll do nicely as you steal a chair from underneath a nearby deckdwarf and hurl it at the enormous figure, the steel chair twisting around its shape as it leans away like a tree in the wind... but the chair doesn't fall off it again, simply stays there for a moment as it first turns red, then white-hot and begins to liquefy as toxic fumes waft up toward the ceiling. It leans back up and shakes off the molten metal every which way like a dog coming out of a river, hitting several dwarves (who collapse screaming immediately) and a dozen or so smaller demons surrounding it (who seem mildly annoyed).

Then it turns toward you unerringly, six arms unfolding and pointing in your direction as suddenly an infinitesimal chunk of the bar next to you develops a crisis of being as it considers whether it wouldn't prefer to be matter rather than light, and then proceeds to follow through.

[Duck And Cover: 3]

The bar's soundscape suddenly becomes an unearthly and horrid scream dug out from the very deepest pits of hell underlaid by a hell of a beat, harmonizing perfectly with the sudden massive explosion next to you and the deathly screams of ~24 dwarves per second being horrifically ripped apart as the demonic horde boils every which way, crawling up the walls in sheer ecstasy of destruction, flooding over the ceiling, flying every which way vomiting fire, acid and neurotoxins all over the place.

Really, you must have incredible luck to have been blasted all the way to another corner of the barroom and merely getting nearly buried in a blast of dust, barstools and scorched, screaming dwarf chunks while literal pandemonium unfolds all around you.

"So, er... Nice weather we're having today. Hey, aren't you that guy from, um, y'know, that place?

Not one for conversation? Well, uh, I'm just gonna walk out this way and let you guys come in, okay? No hard feelings about the door thing, right?"

Awkwardly leave the alleyway, then book it with my "zombie" back to the graveyard.

If you think you're walking by this many demons (decidedly too many at last count) without so much as a how-do-you-do, you've got another thing coming.

[Sir, Please Let Me By: 3]

The demons push in through the door, pawing at you, pushing you toward the wall, lifting you off the ground as waves upon waves of other fiends wash past them, screaming and crawling on every surface. The large one, however, has taken an interest in you as it pushes its boiling-hot snout into your face, sniffing you all over.

SING, it snarls with breath that makes the wallpaper behind you bubble and peel. SING, it says and starts to squeeze you, nearly ripping one of your arms clean off as it starts to look for something to pull. You sense a horrific depraved desperation behind its eyes, a black and hungry pit where a soul ought to be. It seems to have identified you as some manner of musical instrument, which may be the single reason why you aren't six kinds of horribly murdered right now.

Oh shit. oh shit. shit cocking shit.
Scream, then make like diarrhea and run.

[Escaping Under The Influence: 5]

You roll serpentine away from the tentacled demon, and while you dare not open your eyes to look you're pretty sure it's lost sight of you or at least contented itself with murdering and eating the next dwarf within reach instead as you break into a run on all fours, screaming all the way as you try to simultaneously escape the demons and the bar that the demons are in - you mutter prayers to the many bloody goblin gods as you scamper and trip dwarves of all ages in the audience, all building up to the point where everything explodes into an orgy of demonic violence, all of which you are exceedingly glad to miss as you finally hit a wall. It buzzes as you brush up against it, which is unusual enough that you're forced to open your eyes and look around.

The first thing you see isn't very heartening in that it appears to be a tornado of demonic carnage whirling all around you in about a three-foot radius, innumerable eyes looking at you like the supernaturally delicious morsel you are. On the bright side, you appear to be separated from them by some kind of force barrier, seemingly maintained by a symmetrically whirling array of modified top-grade drones that orbit around a central point - in this case a hyperventilating, wiry dwarf clutching a remote control to her chest, muttering fuckfuckfuckfuck to herself as she gets a very handsome view of the mass destruction all around.

The demons are shrieking and murdering. The drones gently spark every second or two. The surviving patrons appear to be getting their weaponry out.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Death's Gate: Guest of Honor
Money: 2
Old Yeller: A Horrific Debt
Evil Minion: the Honorary Zombie
Too Close: 1

Enir Nazush, Barmaid of the Night
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Outfit: Awful Schoolgirl-Dominatrix Uniform
Personal Therapy Assistant: Quietly Disapproving
Death's Gate: Too Many Vampires
Old Yeller: Come Along With Me
Break Yo Shins: A Severance Unpaid
Money: Flat Broke

Urist mac Slughterfiend, Miner on the Edge
Money: Flat Broke
Gruesome Insolvency: Surreal Debts

Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Uncanny Bookkeeper
Money: 1
Old Yeller: Hopefully Dead
Too Close: 1

Spoiler: HOT GM TIPS (click to show/hide)

Too Close is the measure of how close your luck is to running out. When you reach 5, you will die in an exceedingly painful manner.

Decrease Too Close with relaxation, sustained substance abuse or, optimally, a mixture of both.