[Beta]

Vish was not happy about being kicked in the shin, or being shoved into the figurative spotlight.  What a time for the raggedy man to lose his nerve for fast talk!  Still, business is business, so he did his part.

"Nice to meet you ... Len, was it?  You can call me Vish."  The dwarf put on his best smile, confident that the man he was talking to would be able to appreciate the effort despite the dark.  "I've got to say, Al here must really like you, because he really pushed for us to make this offer, when the rest of us were not really caring so much.  But Al, he said you were a good, respectable, owner.  A man who knows what is what and how things are done.  A man who deserves some consideration.  So her persuaded us we should make this offer."

An impatient noise came from in front of Vish.  Hopefully from the bundle of body heat he saw seated at the desk, but he wasn't entirely sure if that was the case.  Fragging spooky office had his nerves on edge, that's all.  Well, time to get on with it, action always helped him find inner peace.  With an effort of will he created an illusion, first a featureless man-shape, faintly glowing to be seen in the dark.  As he carried on talking he gradually added contrast and color, facial features, a uniform.

"Stay frosty -- I'll get to the details.  I just thought it was important that you understand the situation a bit.  One more detail that probably matters -- it is about to come out that you are cooperating with Ares -- have probably been doing so ever since you got out of prison, to make sure that you stay out -- and that you've been giving them free reign of your club to monitor people of interest."  He walked the illusion of the KE officer towards the office door.  "This illusion is just by way of illustration, by the way.  Our proposition is that we stage manage things tonight such that no such rumor comes out, nor does any evidence to support it.  We need access to your security, and will likely shut the club down early, but your reputation stays intact.  And if the meet that we need to have here later goes badly, the fall-out doesn't result in a lot of dead customers."

The responding growl of anger certainly seemed to fill the office -- hopefully just a trick of acoustics.

[Jack_Spade]

Steel stalks through the kitchen like a man.........well, more like a troll, I guess.........on a mission.  The handful of cooks and cook assistants in the large room seem to mostly ignore him, moving around his bulk as he walks to the door that leads out to the hallway.  Ducking through, he sees Kynos standing there and moves closer, smiling a welcome.  "Hey.  Great night to be sending some demon minions back to hell.  Just the two of us back here so far, eh?"  Steel moves his massive arms and draws his two swords, flicking them on and smiling.  "I love the hum they make.  So, what is the play here?"

Kynos raised a single eyebrow behind his glasses: "Up to this moment it was keeping a low profile and stop anyone from going through that door into the cellar. Now, I guess, it's only the last part.
I mean, come on: Really? Swords!?"

Meanwhile upstairs:

"Ares!" Only a single word, but how he uttered it, it carried an enormous mix of fear, hate and revulsion. But as fast as the outbreak had come, Lenny had his voice back under control: "Now, why would you start spreading such silly stories, I wonder..."
In the silence of the room, the little click of a button press was remarkable audible.

[adamu]

The click was just enough warning for Al to reach out and grab a piece the edge of the trap door as the floor fell out from underneath him. Legs dangling over darkness deeper than that in the room, he scrabbled at the tiles with tobacco-stained nails to keep from dropping into the abyss sucking at his boots. He glanced around to see if he was the only one to catch himself...while wondering if he could spare a hand to reach for his commlink.

[Mercy Merchant]

Steel's grin is hard to read; it could be friendly but it could mean something else entirely.  He moves the swords slightly, listening to the hum as they cut through the air..  "Yes, my friend, swords.  They should help cut the bugs to size, but would you rather I put them away and just looked tough?"

[Jack_Spade]

Kynos shrugged. "I'm not your boss and I don't care if you want to gulash the guests to stop them from squealing. If I'm honest I don't think we'll have to wait to long for the Alpha Team to ask for reinforcements. Those guys look tough, but they are a far cry away from the early Firewatch teams. Those neither would have taken lip from me nor would they have hesitated to flatten this whole rotten building after hours. And they are going up against bugs. Those things are beyond tough - tougher than me actually. I expect screaming any second now..."

"AAAHHHH" came the muffled voices from beyond the next wall, where according to the building plans the owners office lay.

"Damn, I'm good. Although I have to admit I expected them to come from the cellar"

[Mercy Merchant]

Steel grins again.  "So much for putting the swords away, my friend.  I would think that the walls in this fire trap are fairly thin, right?  Maybe we just go through this one into the next room?"

[Jack_Spade]

"Be my guest, but don't be surprised if you are covered in cockroaches afterwards."
Kynos had drawn his taser - a pityfull small weapon, considering what they might be facing the very next moment - and nodded towards the wall while he send a message to Alpha Team
<<There seems to be trouble in the office, we are investigating>>
But almost immediately he received an automated message back <<Recipient not responding. Target device out of reach and/or disconnected>>

[adamu]

It didn't take long for Al to realize that he could, in fact, not spare a hand for his commlink, since Lenny was now looming over him, the heel of one upmarket designer sneaker grinding into the scarred fingers of his right hand.

Len looked exactly the same. But he felt different. Really different. Tightening the tenuous grip he had with his left hand, Al pulled his right free and tried to grab the club owner's ankle, but it danced easily out of reach.

"Seriously, Len? Roaches?" Ominous skittering sounds echoed up from far below Al's dangling feet. "Ya wanna turn yerself into a bug, could've at least gone fer somethin' cool like a mantis or somethin'."

"What can I say, Al?' Lenny replied, bringing a foot down hard on Al's lonely left hand. "It was a gender thing. But roaches aren't that bad, as you'll soon..."

The villain's taunting was interrupted by a crash as the troll called Steel erupted through the far wall, plaster and plaswood framework disintegrating around him. Unfortunately, the light that spilled into the room from the hallway revealed a brown cockroach the size of a horse on the ceiling directly above Al's would-be rescuer.

"Bogey on yer twelve!" Al shouted.

But he wasn't sure if the troll heard him, since his voice was drowned out by a tremendous explosion from outside.

[Beta]

Vish was quick to step backwards when he heard the click of the button, despite the distraction of sustaining the illusory KE officer.

Unfortunately he’d only taken one stride before the trap door opened, and one stride of his short legs was not enough get him clear.

What the stride did do was send him falling in a bit of an arc, instead of straight down.  With his lined coat billowing up around him on the short fall he couldn’t see what was beneath him during the brief moment of freefall, so it was a surprise to land on something soft and sticky instead of a hard concrete floor.  Not the surface was that soft – the landing still drove the breath out of him of wrenched at his knees as he lurched to one side and tumbled off the whatever-it-was.

Glancing around, Vish’s IR vision found little temperature variation, which was all the more disturbing given the rustling and clicking and slithering sounds he hear bouncing around the basement room.

[gilga]

ICE finishes placing the crates and then assembles his gun. Monica confirms what he suspected all along, There were many flash form in the club, spreading their infestation, to unsuspecting innocents.  The man finished assembling his assault rifle in the toilet while Monika made sex sounds to make his presence in the toilet seems legit.

ICE texted ">> The entire place is infested, half the people are are bugs and the other half will be infested once they get drunk enough. Find some place defendable and then we start feeding them bullets, I am at the toilet. Don't be subtle just don't get infested entire gig is a bust."

[adamu]

Undeterred by the appearance of the cavalry, Lenny continued to stomp on Al's fingers.

Hurt like a bitch, but Al and pain were, if not exactly on friendly terms, at least longtime acquaintances.

But a glance around revealed that the dwarf had gone down the hole, and that left nothing for it. "Soon, asshole," Al rasped, then let his bloodied hand slip while his other gave Len the finger.

The scream on the way down wasn't because he was scared. He just wanted the dwarf to get out of the way.

[Mercy Merchant]

Steel shoulders his way into the room just in time to hear Al shout a warning.  One of the advantages of being a Troll is that you don't really need to stretch much to reach the ceiling in a room, and this room was no different.  He instinctively steps a bit to the side and runs his swords up and into the the creepy-crawly above him.  The gore dripping from the corpse now on the floor is satisfying, but not as satisfying as seeing that one of the bugs was standing at the hole that Al had just dropped into, apparently watching him with some sort of glee.  He hears the thing say something about seeing Al later, but the words are cut off by two of the finest vibro swords Ares makes as they slice into the creature, dropping him into the hole in two pieces.  Barely sparing a look down, Steel looks about to see if there are more of the creatures.  >>Kynos, Al has gone some sort of pit in the office.  What is our play?<<

[adamu]

Al landed with a painful thud on some sort of sticky, semi-pliant surface.He couldn't see shit.

No sooner had he pulled his knife and activated its phosphorescent coating than the top of Lenny  landed on his feet and the bottom of Lenny splatted down next to his head, a dangling entrail slapping him across his unshaven face.

Then both halves sprouted legs and scuttled off in opposite directions into the darkness, the one with the head chittering and muttering like a maniac with Tourettes on a zen-kamikaze cocktail.

Al looked over at the dwarf beside him and said, "That ain't supposed ta happen, is it?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<What is our play? ATTACK. Kill until there is no opposition left>>
Kynos stepped through the newly formed hole in the wall, splashed his synth whiskey on the vest of the club owner and fired his taser, intending to ignite the high proof alcohol.

[Mercy Merchant]

Steel senses a third bug in the room and turns to meet its charge, allowing the thing to impale itself on his swords, spewing ichor from a pair of fatal wounds.  Drawing his weapons clear, he watches the body shiver and drop to the floor before he severs its head from its body.  The fourth and currently last monstrosity in the room is already on fire as Kynos' taser does an excellent job of igniting whatever he had tossed on it.  The flames lick at the form of what used to be a man and a wild shriek permeates the room before the thing stumbles to and over the edge of the pit in the floor.  >>Look out below, Al.  We're sending you something to provide you with a bit of light.  Are you alright down there?<<