A plan. -Cinder
The bartender had always made me nervous. Good old Tim was stronger than he looked, and he had lived a good few thousand years longer than I. Sure, he might not have had the sharp claws or teeth that I had, but those hooves could do plenty damage. There had been more than one occasion where a night at the bar had ended with a sharp hick to the head and waking in the bowels of Tartarus the next morning with a splitting headache.
It made me shudder just thinking about it.
Tim put down the glasses before us, shooting me another withering glare, before he trotted off to serve a cyclops at the other end of the bar.
I sat in silence with Alyx for a minute or two, picking up the glass in front of me and looking at its contents. I didn't actually have a usual. In fact, I don't think I ventured to the bar often enough to qualify for having a usual. The liquid inside was pale, with a faint blue glow. I hadn't the faintest clue what it was, but it seemed safe enough. I took a swig, and turned back to the demigod. It tasted alright. A bit too sweet for my liking, but it was bearable.
"Anyway-" I paused as the sharp aftertaste rolled through my mouth. "We need to ask some questions."
"Mhm." Alyx muttered, still looking around the room with a mixture of what I assumed was awe and fear. She seemed distracted.
I rolled my eyes, snapping my fingers in front of her face this time. "Focus," I said, my words as clipped as the sound. "If your cover gets blown from all your ogling then I'm just as dead as you are."
She looked back at me with distaste, but didn't reply with a scathing comment like I had thought she would. "So where do we start?"
On the stage, the act changed once again, as some monster got tired of listening to the previous one's drone. "We stick together- find a small group of monsters who look like they might know something, and improvise."
The girl narrowed her eyes, her gaze flicking between some of the tables piled with monsters that were barely visible through the crowd. "Improvise?" She didn't sound too thrilled about my amazing plan.
A sigh escaped me (Improvisation was always a viable strategy), and I pulled Alyx from her seat, drink in one hand, and dived into the crowd. She flinched as he wove through bodies, the jolting reaction easy to discern. I scanned what little of the room I could make out as we walked, catching glimpses as the hoard moved and parted, searching for a viable target.
It was packed in here tonight. The bar was rarely quiet- it was one of the few places in the States where monsters could gather without fear of being torn apart by one another, so it tended to attract quite the crowd. But there was busy and there was over capacity. Tim had opened up the back doors of the old barn, the warm light from inside spilling into the darkness beyond along with a large number of monsters. Some of the more bestial monsters stayed without a roof over their head, communicating in various languages I couldn't begin to comprehend. On a regular night, the doors would remain firmly closed.
We made our way toward the edge of the room, where the crowd was slightly less dense. The air was noticeably cooler, and there was actually room to stop and breathe. I allowed Alyx a few moments to regain her composure as we leaned against the wall.
"Over there," I said eventually, pointing to a pair of short humanoids sitting a few tables to our left.
Alyx peered around the cyclopes between us, frowning at the sight of the two creatures. "What are they?"
I shrugged, starting to walk over. "No clue, but they look friendly enough."
