A stranger arrives...

[GypsyGirl]

Etiania eyed the tavern doubtfully and checked her map.  Was this the place she'd been looking for? 
There was no hope for it....She had to go inside.  Less than an hour remained before her Vitalus serum was completely drained and rumor had it that there were others here that may have a few necessary ingredients to replenish her supply.    Suddenly, her mother's voice was like a fly, buzzing around, loud and clear in her head.  "You're a healer, Etiania.  This fascination with building things has to stop.  You lug around all kinds of materials  in those bags of yours, none of it helpful unless you plan on decorating  a house!  what good is all that junk when there are people in need of medical attention and supplies??"  Gah.  She knew she was starting to feel very cranky when her mother's disembodied voice started sounding reasonable.  She needed Vitalus soon...preferably chocolate-flavored.  She may not be able to taste it, but she could damn well smell it, and woe to the hairy little Chua that got snarky around her when she was hungry.  Feeling rather conspicuous just standing outside, she  adjusted her gun belt, a habit so ingrained that she was no longer even aware she did it, and, sighing dramatically (another unconscious habit), pulled open the door. 

Etiania stood in the entryway of the tavern and sized up the patrons.  She was familiar with most of the various races sitting at tables, visiting with each other, but some of them looked totally different than anyone (anything?) she had ever seen.  Was that really a...leaf...growing out of that woman's head??   Despite her odd hairstyle, the leaf-woman was strikingly beautiful and evoked a strange sense of familiarity, as if she had known her in another lifetime.  Etiania reached up self-consciously to her own head and felt the mechanical plugs in her scalp, wistfully remembering her own, long-lost luxuriant hair.  Shuddering as if she could physically shake off the memory, she silently cursed her own vanity.  As she stepped inside, she pulled her hand away from her scalp.  As conversations paused and heads in the tavern turned towards her curiously, something fell from her head, the metal *ping* of a lugnut bouncing loudly across the floor. Not exactly the inconspicuous entrance she was hoping for.  Purple Vitalus goo dripped steadily onto her eyebrow piercing.  "Well, hell,"  she thought to herself.  "That can't be good." 

[GutsMcGurt]

(For some reason, I don't recall this ever coming up as "new" for me, so I feel stupid for missing it and replying on it a month later.... but I can't resist.)

Tanua had been in the bar for some time and currently resided in a chair in the corner.  The old chair was leaned back on its back legs and it's back back rested against the wall.  This human girl, or was she an adult?  No one is certain because of her skin being crusted with dirt and dust along with her sad excuse for clothing, as well as her body being built slightly like that of a teenage boy with a hint of curves under the baggy brown drabs of cloth she wore as attire.  Either way she appeared as though she was in a catatonic state of existence with one arm draped over her lap, holding a nearly empty bottle of some unknown booze, its contents dripping on her shirt, and the other hanging at her side like a piece of string in the air.  Her filthy long brown hair ran along the length of her back, sandwiched between the back of the chair and the wall, and the bangs hid most details from her face though her tired eyes could barely be seen underneath. 

The tables around here were vacant as her... lovely... stench of various types of booze and filth polluted the air around her.  No one was able to enjoy a drink even remotely near this sad excuse for a sack of meat and bones and most questioned how she got the money to have the bottle.  But there she laid, like some sort of corpse.. that was until the sound of the lugnut hit the floor loudly and caused her eyes to jot open, her arms flailing like mad as the chair trips out from the suddenly jolt and she ends up on the ground... groaning loudly and laid out flat despite the sudden movement.

[GypsyGirl]

"Scuze me!", said an annoyingly cheerful voice from behind Etiania.  A flash of pink hair bounced past her, through the door, making a beeline for the lugnut as if it were a mouse, and this Aurin was a cat. "Not much difference between the two," Etiania thought to herself.  Still, she watched the small creature dart back across the room, bouncing and smiling ingenuously, stopping a bit too far into Etiania's personal space for comfort, and holding the lugnut high in her palm of her very tiny hand. 

"Did you drop this?", she said, and without taking a breath, added, "I'm Ilyandri, but you can call me Illi.  You're not local, are you?  You're very tall.   Wow, you're leaking just there," and pointed helpfully to Etiania's forehead where the Vitalus serum had dripped.
 
Etiania distractedly took the lugnut from Illi's hand and reached up to put it back in place.  Looking over Illi's head to the corner, she wondered if she should go help the human girl (or was it a boy?  It was hard to tell.) off the floor.  She would have thought it was impossible for someone to have created a bigger scene than her lugnut had, but the human falling drunkenly to the floor in her chair seemed to have accomplished just that.  Or would have, that is, if there had been anyone in the tavern besides her, the semi-conscious human on the floor, and this incessantly bouncy, annoying, and yet, somehow slightly endearing ball of pink fluff.  A ball of pink fluff that, Etiania noticed, was now perched on the back of a nearby chair, with her tail gently poking at the wires on Etiania's elbows. 

"Shiny...", Illi muttered reverently to herself, her eyes entranced by the polished wires, bolts, and miscellaneous fixtures attached to the Mordesh's joints. 

"Erm....excuse me?", Etiania said, rather loudly, in the direction of the pile of rags on the floor.  "Ummm...I, umm...hate to bother you, but do you, perhaps, know where I might find some Vitalus serum?  I was told someone here may have some for sale?  Hello?" 

[GutsMcGurt]

The body of the human laid completely still with her body sprawled out on the floor, drool flowing from the side of her mouth.  Even after the question was pointed at her, she remained like a corpse for a few moments.  Suddenly and without warning, her upper body shot up to a sitting upright position and she lazily gazed around as if wondering where she is.  She glanced down at the bottle still in her hand and tilted it up to her lips, leaning back so far she had to catch herself with her freehand from smashing once more to the ground.  Shaking the bottle a few times over her dry tongue and yielding nothing, she sneered and chucked the bottle above the bar, it suddenly explodes in a lavender poof (For those who are swift and keen of sight, there was a hint of a telekinetic dagger that appeared from thin air, resulting in the bottle's explosion).  The contents of the empty bottle somehow fell neatly into the trash can below it. 

She scratched herself in rather unsightly areas, still in her up right position, a mix of content and grogginess on her face.  Her eyes focused on the two at the door, tilting her head some to the side, and emitted a simple, "Whut?"  Her exile accent clear as day... or was she just so drunk that she slurred over a single word that much?  She looked left and right with much more effort to see if anyone else was around than glanced back to the two and pointed to herself, her body bobbing and slumping some. "Were you ask'n me some'n?  Some'n about Lirum?  I ain't evah met the guy nor did he sell me anythin illegal, Officer!"  The drunkard seemed to be getting a touch defensive there, though judging by her excessive blinking, she might have been trying to process if she believed herself or even knew a Lirum.