Bloodletter stood behind the bar, polishing a glass. The place had been about half full for over a week straight. Thankfully, his species, Pit Imps, didn't need to sleep. He set that glass aside, dipped the next in lava, an started polishing it too. If he took to long the metal it was made of might dissolve. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get good steel pint glasses in this part of the underworld?

A figure, cloaked in Qlippoth-Encryption spoke, its voice, and identity, hidden from view, replaced by a shroud of what some might describe as pure evil, those who knew the true purpose of the Qlippoth might have different opinions. It spoke in a distorted and inhuman voice "Lava, even the poor quality lava in this God-Forsaken land, does not make a good cleaning agent. Tell me, for what purpose does the cleaning of the glass matter to you?"

@TheUnknowable

@Lucidnonsense"Keeps the customers happy." Bloodletter responded, dipping another glass into the lava. "Some of the stupider and frailer ones think that it will sterilize them and make them safe. Could clean them with holy water to sterilize and uncurse them, I even keep some around for tests of courage and the like, but I'm not burning my hand for less than an Ahnk." He set the now cleaner glass down and looked at the Qlippoth. "Can I get you a drink? Perhaps something with a carnal sin? Got a special on 'Sex on the Beach'"

A Gladiator with a sword and shield walked upto the bar. His leather skirt clapping solemnly against his thighs.

"I'll have that sex on the beach." As he slid his sword into his shield.
"No rocks."

A Gladiator with a sword and shield walked upto the bar. His leather skirt clapping solemnly against his thighs.

"I'll have that sex on the beach." As he slid his sword into his shield.
"No rocks."

Of course, in hell "on the rocks" meant literal rocks, so he just avoided putting any in. Whale blood, pureed kelp, coconut milk, with a dash of lust and a pinch of adultery for flavor. Poor it in a salt rim martini glass and you're done.

He set the glass in front of the guy. "So, what brings you here?"

He perked up at the question. "Well, I just came from a Battle Royale." He said with glee and shine to his eyes.
"I slaughtered hundreds of combatants. I started out deflecting them with my sword over my shield, looking for a real opponent... You know not let the underdawgs get a "beginners luck". Let them earn their own spirit Like I did." He took a swig of the glass, set it down and continued.
"Eventually some of them were making it- and that's when I started slaughtering them. There could only be one Champion anyways. Thought I'd come in for a break, it was only round one of 4."

@Puff Adder"Haven't really followed the fights recently myself. Last time I watched was in the 1940s when they threw those human war soldiers in there. Only a few could stand up to a good demon fighter."

"Hahaha, sometimes I come across those Exotics myself in the ring. Not often, though. Guess up top the world is saving itself quicker than slower." He set his shield down at the mantel of the bar, leaned an elbow onto it and examined the other tormented souls in the bar.
"Can't believe you haven't heard of me, Bloodletter. Only the Champions are allowed to roam freely. The casualties become part of the walls, as you know."

"Poor memory. I was topside during the Crusades. One of those Knights Templar hit me over the head with a relic. Long ago I could remember every mission I was sent on and the details. Now, I can barely remember my client's regular drinks. It's part of why I bought this bar. Forgetting a drink order isn't near as dangerous as forgetting a mission half way through." He point at the human's glass. "Want something else? I have some human food around too if you're nostalgic. Bring it in from some of the 'heaven' areas. Sometimes the dead, demigods, and humanoid demons like to order some sort of meat-on-bread thing called a 'hamburger'. No idea why it's called that."

The robed being wondered why it bothered with descending to this hell, the place disgusted it. a corruption had been spreading throughout the tree of life, a cancer perhaps it could learn more of the plague that gripped the multiverse. 'Which crusade were you attacked in?" it said. It would start with small talk as these creatures seemed primarily concerned on trivial concerns as physical events.

@Lucidnonsense"I don't remember." he responded bluntly. "Probably Second or Third. I know in the First I was working with a succubus to get priests to break their vow of celibacy, mostly because of her. It was one of two hundred years after that. I was trying to turn priest to the other side, don't remember which, when one of the Knights realized I was a demon. Or maybe he realized I was turning priests. Can't remember. He picked up a relic of some sort and hit me over the head. Some time later I woke up in Asphodel, unsure how I got there. It must have had some real powers, because the wound still hasn't healed."

In walked the vaguely masculine form of a tortured humanoid being clad in strangely revealing garments that looked like black leather mockeryies of priestly garb. His chest was bare save for metal hellrunes embedded into it spelling out the names of his overseers. The flesh of his face had been removed from his skull and it had been rewrapped in featureless smooth skin that was merged to the skin on his upper body in such a way that his sharpened teeth, wormlike tongue, and jawbone could be seen through long vertical holes where a mouth and neck might once have been. Yet the rest of his "face" was absent. Just pale, smooth skin where eyes and a nose should have been. Two kris dagger blades emerged from the sides of his head like horns. His right hand was replaced with a long scythe-like blade, and metal rods with spikes at either end had been stabbed three times through each lower arm, twice through each upper arm, and one long rod seemed to have a point emerging from each shoulder.

This was clearly one of the Initiates of the Order of the Gash, a group of Cenobites who mantianed Leviathan's Labyrinth, and served Leviathan. They claimed to experiment in pleasure, but the experiments they performed seemed more like torture to the outsider.

He walked up to the bar and raised his left hand in a gesture that meant "something strong".

A young man had entered the bar wearing a black trenchcoat and matching black pants and boots, A white t-shirt underneath with a picture of Charlies Manson on it. The last thing he remembered was helping a friend out of a bar and across the street when a bright white light came at them. Walking inside the building and towards the bar taking a seat. He did not know why a bar would be here he wondered if this was heaven and if so why it had a bar.

@Malygris
Bloodletter poured the man a Styxwater and Masocism, with murder victim's blood, something that seemed quite appropriate given his faction. "Let me know if you want anything else." he said, seeing a human soul walk in. Quite unusual. As the Gladiator had said earlier, very few humans are allowed to run free.

@Eviledd1984
"Hello," he greeted the human, hoping the assortment of demons in the bar didn't frighten him too bad. After all, if you had a heart attack down here you couldn't die from it. You had to endure until it went away. "You look a bit lost. Are you just now dead? How did you get by the gates?"

@TheUnknowable

A bit confused on what he was seeing looking over at the bartender, "Eh recently dead..i guess i got hit by a truck helping out a friend.." He said his hand moving towards his pocket feeling the rosary that was his late grandmothers. "Mmm well guy at the front told me to stay here for a bit while i was being processed or some shit" He said gripping the rosary in his pocket.

@TheUnknowable



Jaz walks inside the Pool and takes a good look around at the rest of the people in the bar. A few seemed like they had been there before, some looked completely lost to the whole idea to the afterlife. Quite the crowd today... she thought to herself.

She looks up at the bartender and looks down at the note in her hand. "Are you Bloodletter." She said hoping to get his attention as she sat down at the bar and placed her pouch of money on the bar.

@Eviledd1984Bloodletter nodded. "You were supposed to stay at the gate, but I guess getting your brains splattered across the asphalt is a bit confusing." He went over to the bar, grabbed an Earth drink called "Budweiser" and brought it back to the human. "Here. Just sit down and have a beer. I'll contact someone to come get you so that you can go to your choice of afterlife."

He walked back towards the bar to call the front gate and get an agent over here to pick him up and pay for the beer. @DominoPoolSomeone new was sitting at the bar, though, asking about him. "Yeah, I'm Bloodletter. Can I help you with something? Need a drink? Looking for a job?"

@TheUnknowable

"Ah thanks so is this place like limbo or something?" He asked the bartender opening the bottle and taking a sip out of it, Looking around at the other patrons thinking to himself where he was, His eyes looking at he table and then back to the patrons having this strong feeling to cry but didn't because he did not want to look weak or pathetic.

@TheUnknowable

Jaz picked her scythe off her back and rested the handle against the bar as she relaxed her shoulders a little more. At least I am in the right place. She thought to herself as she smiled. "Well a drink to start. Been a long time since I have had some good whiskey." She said smiling up at the bartender knowing she was just there to relax before taking a job.

@DominoPoolBloodletter pulled out a glass and half filed it with whiskey and asked "want a sin or some blood?" After giving her a drink to her satisfaction, he motioned for the human to come over. @Eviledd1984 "This is the underworld, kid." he said, "the various pantheons used to fight over it, and no one was happy with having to battle for territory, so Lucifer came up with the idea of everyone sharing it based on the number of souls they had, and most of them agreed. What should have happened when you arrived at the gate was that they would ask you what religion you followed, and you would be handed off to a representative of that religion. Then that representative would figure out where you were supposed to go based on their rules. A couple of times a day someone slips through, though. After all, they have a lot of souls to process."

He looked at the woman with a scythe. "You're a Reaper, right? Could you help me explain this, since the front gate dropped the ball and this is kind of Reaper territory?" The gate had a pamphlet they were supposed to give him in his native language, but there was a good chance he didn't get one. Bloodletter only had them in a few ancient languages from before he bought the bar, so unless the kid wanted to read the Old English pamphlet or knew another such language, Bloodletter couldn't help him there.