strangetrip | GP/EP: Check-In Day: Turning Tricks into Treats

Entry tags:

GP/EP: Check-In Day: Turning Tricks into Treats

Instead of the remains of a raucous night of dedicated drinking, the chairs were up on the tables, the counter was cleaned, the floor had been vacuumed and mopped as appropriate. Kitty had had plenty of time to straighten up at close yesterday, since almost everyone seemed more interested in drinking in Bonesville. For her part, she'd had enough after her and Wyatt's little adventure in Funland. At least, she'd had enough for the few days it would take her to heal.

On the upside, that made opening up this morning easy and fast. On the downside, it meant she had an entire day with not much to distract her from wondering when Barrel of Fun would lock down access to the outside and why it couldn't open onto a world with higher tech. She had managed to scavenge some computer circuitry and cell phones, but she hadn't worked out how they'd solve her current tech problem yet.

If Dot were still here, she'd be baking for Halloween. Even if they'd had to explain Halloween to her, she'd be making cookies and candy and cakes, and probably sewing costumes, too. Those thoughts summoned a wistful sigh from Kitty while she took down the chairs. She was still sighing when she finished refreshing her stock of cut up fruit.

By mid-afternoon, she'd put away a pot and a half of coffee, she was practically vibrating, and a buzz-by from Caroline prompted an amazing idea. Why not spend the afternoon testing Halloween and Thanksgiving cocktails, to help turn the arrival trick of Check-In Day on the 1st into, well, a little bit of a treat? So it was that the new arrivals, two days earlier than expected, found the bar counter covered with spooky and kooky and dry-ice steamy drinks and Kitty literally spinning between her coffee cup and the next bright green, weirdly black, or pumpkin orange drink.

[ooc: find Kitty making any of these or drinking yet another cup of coffee, she's OTA]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He liked the mouth on her, that was certain. Jackson couldn't help the small smile twitching up his moustache as she told him about Elves. Although her last words made him look back at her ears in surprise. "They can get pointier?"

"Much." Vex did have a mouth on her, and somehow talking about elves brought it out even more. Probably because it had caused her so much trouble growing up in Syngorn.

"Do you really come from a world with only humans?"

"Some of us more human than others," Jackson confirmed, and tore his eyes away from her ears. They looked real enough. "But yes."

"I'd ask if that wasn't boring, but I suppose, if you've never known any different... how could it be?"

She grinned, tilting her glass to watch the light catch on rising bubbles. "Well, I assure you, in the sober light of whenever you decide to sober up, my ears will still be this pointy." It could be a shock, arriving here. Add drinking himself stupid, and she wouldn't blame him for not trusting his eyes.

"Other than the humans-only thing, is your world much like this? It was quite the adjustment for me."

"It was a lot less pink, I can tell you that," Jackson stated, glancing around again. What in the hell was up with all that pink and gold? Though he remained more curious about her ears.

"I'd be worried if it wasn't." Vex had never seen a place with so much riotous color. "Have you gotten your room yet? Some of them aren't as bad. Mine's all in shades of blue... with a lot of stone. Not as much as Percy's though, but he uses that mostly as a workshop now."

"Percy your fella?" Jackson asked after taking a drink. That sounded like a very regular name, and he wondered if 'Percy' was human.

"He is." Vex's expression softened just thinking of Percy being hers. Her fella, as Jackson said.

"You'll probably see him around. There really aren't that many of us here. Tall. Handsome. With white hair and glasses. He's a tinkerer, still taking things apart and putting them back together to see how they work, and make them better. And if you have extra black powder to go with that gun of yours, you may be his new second favorite person."

"Sorry to disappoint, darlin'," he told her with a shake of his head. Even if he'd had extra gunpowder, he wouldn't have parted with it. "Is he an elf as well?"

"I'm half-elf," she corrected, eyes harder in warning than they'd been so far.

"No. Percy's human. The only human in Vox Machina actually. Although our friend Kash is human, and he's here as well."

Jackson raised his hands in the universal sign for backing off at her glare. Half-elf, right, yes, not forgetting that.

"What that's now?" he asked after she was done speaking, back to nursing his drink. "Vox Machina."

"That's what we call ourselves, my companions and I. We're an adventuring party." Vex laughed. "We used to be The S.H.I.T.s, but then we saved the sovereign, joined the council, and became respectable... well, somewhat respectable, and needed something that sounded better.

"Me and Vax, Percy. Pike – she's a gnome, about so tall," Vex held her hand out about three feet off the ground, and since he still seemed fascinated by her ears added, "they have pointy ears too, by the way. Then there are Keyleth and Grog, who aren't here. And Tary's been following us around lately - he's human too, but he's hardly family."

"Lotsa people you know 'round here," Jackson remarked. He didn't see how it might fit into the scheme that was being played on him - he didn't see how elves, or half elves, did either, mind you. But he was too drunk to try and figure it out right then.

"There are only about fifty of us stuck here." She hadn't really thought about it before, that the ones she called family were about a tenth of the inn's 'guests'.

"Not counting the staff, but I'm not entirely sure they're people at all. You'll see what I mean once you sober up. Just... when they offer, and they will, tell them you don't need any towels."

Jackson frowned at the advice. "What if I do need towels?"

"I've needed, and not had sufficient, towels only once in my five months here. When I first arrived, absolutely sopping wet because I'd been in the w- ocean." Probably a good idea not to mention the Water Plane to someone who'd never so much as heard of half-elves before.

"And I was handed towels before my room key even. I don't know. It's a thing with the staff. They always want to give us more fresh towels. And the housekeeper keeps plenty in everyone's rooms. It's like they know."

It was one thing to talk about elves and pockets in the universe and whatever the hell else. But this... "Why are we talkin' 'bout towels?" Jackson had to ask, genuinely confused.

Vex laughed, nothing cruel in the sound. "It's... Don't worry about it for now. You'll understand once you've been here awhile. Probably before you accept you'll be here more than just awhile." Vex still believed they'd get home someday. But she'd accepted there wasn't much she could do to hurry it along. It took people time to get to that point.

"Oh, one more very important warning, though. If you see a bear, in armor, near in the inn, whatever you do, do not shoot it. You seem a decent sort; I'd hate to have to shoot you full of arrows."

Jackson eyed her curiously. "I ain't got cause to shoot a bear 'less it attacks me or I need food that badly. Is it yours?"

He'd never heard of a pet bear, but he'd never heard of a half-elf before, either.

"His name is Trinket. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was harmless, because he is a bear. But he's perfectly safe for anyone who isn't attacking someone he likes.

"Some people attack first, ask questions never, especially when they see an unfamiliar bear, and I've seen the damage guns can do. It's just better for me to warn people upfront."

"Agreed," Jackson confirmed, and took another drink from his glass. "Is that a common thing for half-elves, havin' pet bears?"

Look at him, remembering to put that 'half' in front of 'elves' before she went and glowered at him again.

"Poachers tortured his mother to death." Near to death, actually, leaving Vex to provide the only mercy she could, and only after see the cub she'd orphaned.

"I couldn't leave him to fend for himself. He'd have died too. So I raised him from a cub."

"You like to take strays in," Jackson remarked. He'd never heard of anyone taking in a cub stray, but maybe elves and friendly bears went hand in hand. What did he know.

Did she? Vex had never really thought of it that way. There was Trinket, obviously. And in their own ways, Snow, Kash, even Percy once upon a time.

She was quiet a moment longer than maybe necessary before, "We were strays together. But I have been accused of being soft-hearted for a cynic."

Jackson looked at her, lips pursed in a curious pout. "You're a cynic?" She'd adopted a bear cub. That didn't exactly scream cynic.

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA

Re: Jackson - OTA