Raiivyn's Story

"What's your problem anyway?" Raiivyn rocked backwards and forwards on his heels, tilting his head in an obviously perfectly calm manner. "I can't remember what I did to make you so angry. I'm just namecalling! Everyone does that!"

The demon huffed. "You should be more careful around your sis!"

Raiivyn rolled his eyes. "Fine, ignore me. I'm not going anywhere, though, Parsnip. You really ought to stop making your sister cry!"

The demon folded his arms and leant on the edge of the booth moodily, glancing at Logan as he did so. He didn't like the look in the thing's eyes.

Raiivyn disappeared again, smoke billowing out from where he had been. He reappeared closer to where Beth was fleeing to. The demon was keeping an eye on Logan still - Parson could take care of Beth well enough, but he hadn't seen the thing that hid in the shadows.

"Beth..." he called, as she approached it. "I don't think that's safe..."

For a third time, Raiivyn disappeared in a cloud of smoke. This time, though, rather than reappearing somewhere else, he was instead replaced with a pile of cloth - a scarf, upon closer examination. A scarf that happened to be quite similar in colour to the floor of the bar.

The scarf started to shuffle - inch by inch, as subtly as possible - towards Beth and the cougar, occasionally one of the tassels on the end would lift up, as if looking around to make sure it was going the right way.

Raiivyn was in the form of a scarf, actually.

At that point, the scarf reached Logan, and encountered a dilemma. There was a lot of cougar between it and Bethany. And scarves weren't known for their agility.

The scarf edged around Logan's paw, one tassel extending to try and tap on Bethany's leg to draw her attention.

If it was possible for scarves to scream, then this one would have.

As it stood, even though it wasn't possible for scarves to scream, Raiivyn did anyway. The demon let out a shriek of surprised pain as the animal's quick movements caught him by surprise and pinned him to the floor, before he got a chance to dissipate away. Once he realised what was happening (which was quite soon after the claws happened) though, the demon got out of there, vanishing in a cloud of smoke and reappearing back away from the table.

Back in his natural form, Raiivyn winced and nursed a line of gashes down his side. Apparently, wounds in his inanimate form carried over. The child demon groaned in pain, whimpering as blood started to cake in his fur. Those were some nasty claws! Raiivyn was too distracted by the fact that he had holes in him even to start crying!

As Logan started to slink towards him, Raiivyn did the most sensible thing that anyone could have done in that situation.

He stopped being in that situation. In one final cloud of smoke, the little demon vanished from the bar, back to whatever place it was he called home to lick his wounds. Maybe not literally though - he wasn't actually a cat. But Xyntha could help him..!

It was after closing time on a Friday night, and Harriet was wiping the counter of the bar off, humming. The normally hectic bar was close to empty, which was understandable given the time of day - it was actually Saturday morning, technically. The last few patrons had been booted out by security and by all rights Harriet should have been alone. Of course, things were never quite that simple.

"You plannin' on leavin' any time soon?" the middle-aged woman inquired of the corpse lounging at a table near the bar. Namira was staring intently at an amulet of some sort, but her glowing eyes rose to Harriet at her question.

"The best laid plans of men and dead people go oft awry," she replied, "Besides, I want to be here when everything goes to shit."

Harriet raised an eyebrow, "Goes to shit?"

"You know," Namira tucked the amulet away and hopped up, spreading her arms dramatically in an all-encompassing gesture, "Melting walls, funny smells, tremors all across the universe - even in space! How do you get a tremor in space? There isn't even air to vibrate!"

Chuckling, Harriet shrugged, "I've lived through nonsense alike to this before, lass. If there's one thing I've learned it's not to get in a tizzy over it, just keep livin'. No point worrying myself over things I can't control, eh? I'm no mage or scientist or the like."

Namira nodded, "Wise words indeed! I don't worry either, but I am looking forward to it. I'm already dead, so what's the worst that could happen? Kill me again?"

Harriet shrugged, "Personally I think you don't worry because you're badshit insane, but aye..."

At that point, the door of the bar swung open, and Harriet turned towards it with an eye roll, "Am I ever going to close tonight? Oh, well look who it is!"

Alanna made her way inside with a smile, "Been a while since I was here after hours, how are you Harriet? I haven't seen you in a while."

Harriet returned the smile to the old security guard, "I don't tend much any more. Mostly work in the back room, what with our fancy ordering systems now."

Nodding, Alanna sighed, "I'm not here to chat, sadly. I'm here to ask if you've seen or heard anything related to these anomalies. I know there's a lot of loose talking here at Gambit's, I was wondering if anyone had seemed in the know."

Harriet shook her head, "Nobody's got a clue so far as I can tell. The Aschen are lookin' into it, but you can probably guess they'll be bein' tight lipped if they find anything."

"It's all a mystery!" said a bar-stool. Harriet and Alanna exchanged a glance.

"How long have you been here, Raiivyn?" Harriet asked, "And why?"

With a puff of smoke, the stool disappeared and was replaced with a furry little demon, who flapped up to sit on the bar with a flurry of his wings. "A while," he said, grinning, "The weird stuff is happening back home too."

"Home?" the bar manager asked.

"Back in hell!" Raiivyn laughed, "Everyone down there is very confused, there's a lot of yelling. I don't like spending much time there anyway, but now it's even mooore stupid."

Namira raised a finger, "Now that is interesting," she said, "If it's happening in hell, I have not the foggiest idea what it might be! Not much affects multiple realms like that."

Alanna frowned, "That means what we've been thinking so far is probably on the wrong track. I'd love to stay longer, Harriet, but I'm trying to get to the bottom of this."

"The best of luck to ye," Harriet said, smiling, "In the meantime, I'll be goin' about as usual. Nothin' I can change anyway."

Nodding, Alanna turned to leave, "I just hope that this isn't any worse than anything we've already seen."

An unused chair next to Boss Stylar and Ashley's table seemed to be amused by this. The chair giggled.

"You sure you're old enough for girls, wolf-man?" The chair asked. How it asked this was unclear, because it didn't seem to have a mouth. Nevertheless, it spoke. "You sound like a lil' kid whinin' to his mom!"

"Oh sure, that's the mature thing to do!" The chair creaked in a way suggesting it was rolling its eyes. "Just pee on things that annoy you, you know, 'cause peeing on the floor is the kinda thing grown-ups do."

The chair burst into flames as the fireball hit it, burning just as you might expect wood to.

The light-fitting above it whistled. "Man, I don't envy that guy. I love a room full o' people who solve their problems by setting them on fire. What, if a guy on the street looked at you funny would you set him on fire? Overreacting much. I think you're just insecure and feel the need to wave your ring-fire-ego about like a looooser."

The light fitting giggled.

"Who are you to judge what's meant t' talk or not?" The light-fitting retorted, "Last I checked this was a free country! You're just racist, that's it. Somethin' different, better set it on fire!"

The light-fitting waved its bulb at Raiden and Kiyomi irritably, "You guys are assholes!"

"Dude I'm up here," the light fitting noted as Raiden sent more fire at the chair, "Don't have a hissy fit at a burned chair, now you just look crazy and immature. You need to take a long look at your life if you lose your temper over a talking chair, I mean man, imagine if like ... someone actually did something offensive! You might explode!"

"You have anger management issues dude," the light fitting noted, "Like, a mountain? Really? Really? Who sets a mountain on fire? Who does that? That isn't a thing. That's just not cool. You know how many fuzzy bunny rabbits probably lived on that mountain? Lots."

The light fitting tutted, "You're a bunny murderer is what you are. I bet you kick puppies in your spare time. You're awful."

"That mountain was home to lots of bunnies. Bunnies who had families, and little kid bunnies. And husband bunnies who went to work every day to put carrots on the table and you roasted them all alive!"

The light fitting swayed backwards and forwards angrily, "The poor innocent bunnies! You didn't even notice! Them and all the little birds in the trees! Their nests and their babies! Murderrerrrrrr!"

"You mean to tell me that on that entire mountain, that whoooole massive stretch of land, there wasn't one fuzzy pretty creature? Not one squirrel, not one bunny, not one bird or butterfly or wolf or ladybug? Not even one? I think you're lyyying so you don't look bad."

The light-fitting then sprouted a tongue specifically to blow a raspberry. "Liar liar pants on fire! Or should I say fuzzy animals on fire!"

"I betcha at least one died," The light fitting said, "One little butterfly, or one little squirrel, not smart enough to take the hint. Wham, burned to death. And all the little baby birds that couldn't fly? What about them? Huh?! You can't explain that!"

The light fitting giggled, "And if you don't wanna get called a girl, get a haircut, doofus!"

"I still reckon you're lyyying," the light fitting said, "Unless you wandered 'round pickin' up all the nests and taking them somewhere else. Face it, pretty-boy, you burned some little birdies alive 'cause you're insecure about your masculinity."

The light-fitting swayed backwards and forwards, "Just own up to it! Embrace the dark side! Muhahahah!"