The world was a flat grey. On either side of Vrog, the rocky crag they found themselves on seemed to suddenly drop into an unknown abyss. Behind him, the finger of rock stretched beyond sight, not that he had as much, and in front of him -- the very same. He was not alone, however, and stacked impatiently close was a single file line of strange and various monstrosities. The queue was so dense that each sweaty back and achy shoulder pressed against each other, digging into Vrog as he stood in the same line.


He rubbed his head, trying to puzzle together how he had gotten there. Something in his hand clinked against his helmet, and a darting tongue verified that he was still holding the bong. Which was, as all evidence suggested, not quite loaded with tobacco. What the spit has he put in it at all? Not even drinking himself blinder than usual had ever ended with him waking up in a line. As if he would ever wait in one, and for an occasion like this!


Vrog's fingers fumbled around the cracks of his armour and produced his new pocket watch. Good thing it had not been picked yet in this mash. He snapped it open, listened to the mouth's clattering, closed it again. Scumgut, he was going to be late at this pace, and those idiots ahead did not seem to be moving at all.


With a growl of [color=saddlebrown]“Get outta the way, spitface”[/color] he shoved back an unnaturally contorted limb that was protruding into his armpit and began a ruthless work of claw and elbow, trying to push himself ahead among the tightly packed miscreations. 


Pushing and clawing, Vrog managed to force himself further in the line, only to find the end stil out of sight. There was a resounding ‘ding’ and all the members of the queue suddenly took a single synchronized step forward. The motion all around him pushed him forward in the middle of a precariously long step. Spitting and swearing, he stumbled forward, hooked fingers digging into someone's back as he reached for the nearest point of support. Bits of flesh seemed to easily fall from the victim’s back, letting loose a sickly smell.


His prop coming apart under his hands, Vrog found himself tumbling to the ground. A few inches from the ground, the concerted action of a dozen tongues stopped the fall of his head, though not before his much broader body hit the rock with a clang. He picked himself up with foam at a few mouths, hissing ghastly blasphemies under his breath, and gave the watch another listen. This just could not be right! It was this late, and now was the first time he remembered someone being called up ahead. There had to be somebody managing things, or else, and he did not like the thought, he really would be arriving that much over time.


Vrog spat a seed into someone's supernumerary ear, aimed a spiteful kick at the unfortunate back before him and began to shove his way forward again. No way a bunch of slaggers like this was going to keep him from making it in time, or almost. 


There was a tug on the muscles responsible for Vrog’s hearing, and just as his mind suggested a ding was coming, a terrible droning melody followed instead. It had no real ups or downs, nor real hook or impact -- it was just a repetitive pattern of bland notes. As if to compliment the grey sounds, a snotty sniffle sounded somewhere in the line followed by a single wet cough.


His fingers went to his temples, or what passed for them, and his teeth grit against each other. To his horror, they quickly turned out to settle along with the tune, if it could even be called that. He tried to make another push, but found that he was a hair away from letting loose and starting to tear his neighbours up, which, he knew almost for sure, it was better not to do right here. But if that music went on much longer-


No, cut that. He had to take his mind off it, anything would do. Not finding any better stimuli, Vrog's tongue stretched out and slipped through the crowd like an oversized earthworm, snaking its way towards the source of the sickly sounds. It went, and it went, and it went.


[i]DING![/i]


The line shuffled forward an abrupt step, the mossy armpit of some creature with at least eight somehow clipping the tongue into a loose grip. Another of Vrog's mouths spewed a [color=saddlebrown]“Gutted scrapass”[/color] as he tugged to pull his limb free. No use - the hold was not strong, but the armpit seemed to go an absurdly long way in both directions. That had to be flat arms, ridiculous. Without a warning, pointed teeth sprang out over the tongue's length, cutting into its captor. Fibrous and stringy flesh with the hue of rot shredded from the being as it dumbly shuffled away from the tongue.


There was another ‘ding’ and suddenly the line moved one massive step that seemed to disorient reality. As the greyscale world shifted and fuzzed away from Vrog’s senses, an entertained cackle filled his head -- and slowly as the world came back, he knew he was elsewhere.


Sitting on her throne, Diana was cackling madly, one arm wrapped around her stomach and a single tear on her cheek. Vrog's tongue, or what remained of it - a sizeable part was lost somewhere in the transition - whipped back into his mouth, in time for an annoyed scowl.


[color=saddlebrown]“Sure, it's all a laugh until somebody gets-”[/color] he stopped, at a loss for what somebody was going to get, while his cut-off tongue emerged again at the familiar smell. [color=saddlebrown]“Hey, it's you. Explains why nobody got a spitting moving proper fast.”[/color]


“Oh you,” Diana stifled her cackle, “Still as ugly as ever. I have to say, I’m liking what you did with your tongue, very creative.”


[color=saddlebrown]“No point not doing my best,”[/color] claw-tips self-satisfiedly scraped the ghastly amalgam of grime and iron that passed for a belly as the mangled tongue snapped and drooled about, [color=saddlebrown]“Can't say the same for you. Still the rottenest bitter around. You blasted up anyone else lately?”[/color]


“Only if you count their minds,” Diana hummed, “But that’s just as well.” She held out a hand and a teacup appeared between her fingers. Taking a hot sip, a sulfuric smell livening the room, she gasped at the taste.


[color=saddlebrown]“Wouldn't be much different in here either way.”[/color] Vrog's musing was interrupted by the waft of sharp stench. His tongue tipped dangerously close to the cup, then coiled back in disgust. [color=saddlebrown]“That's what you wanted that lake for?! You're sure as scrap wasting it, and yourself drinking this scumbroth.”[/color]


He tossed up the bong he was somehow still carrying, and it landed back in his hand as a battered metallic flask, smelling unbearably foul despite the lid. [color=saddlebrown]“Think you were in a run last time, but we're not late for a thing now, so-”[/color] with a deft twirl of his wrist, he tossed the flask over to Diana, [color=saddlebrown]“-this one's on me.”[/color]


A dark tendril caught the flask and gingerly placed it into Diana’s waiting fingers. She unscrewed the cap (her teacup floating on its own) and took a whiff under a wiggling nose. She bounced her eyebrows once and took a sip. With an appraising hum she slowly poured the contents into her sulfuric tea and handed the flask back to the tendril. 


“Thank you,” She mentioned idly before taking a renewed sip, a gentle smirk on her face (with jagged teeth poking out through her lips). Gulping once she let her eyes flicker across Vrog once more, “So what, oh what, brings you here out of all places, hm?”


Several of his tongues clicked in a mix of surprise, disappointment and approval as he drank from a second identical flask that had appeared from some unclear corner. [color=saddlebrown]“This,”[/color] he held up the bong, whose steam was not of the colour it probably should have been, [color=saddlebrown]“And whatever scrap I put in there, can't have been tobacco. But I was coming by anyway, got something from my main piece to yours.”[/color] A spat seed buried itself in the floor. [color=saddlebrown]“He can put it where nothing don't shine for all I care, but you know how bosses get. Your stunt with the screaming at night made a cry all right.”[/color]


“How silly,” Diana squinted with a smile, “But go on, I want to hear this.”


[color=saddlebrown]“Wasn't there when it went down,”[/color] Vrog took another swig, [color=saddlebrown]“But picture yourself this. He's got himself these slaves - gutted packs of muscle and scab, all of them. Millions. All they know is obey, work, kill, bunch of spitting killer machines, that's what he wanted. And suddenly,”[/color] he snapped his fingers with a metallic screech to illustrate just how suddenly, [color=saddlebrown]“he gets the lot of them wailing like a bunch'a snivelly runts! Hah!”[/color] The gurgling guffaw was drowned in another sip. [color=saddlebrown]“Can you imagine his face at that if he got one?”[/color]


“Ha!” Diana nearly spat out her drink, “That is too funny. I don’t know if irony is really the correct word, but having a supposed army of might turned to grovel at their first nightmare really is a pinch on the cheek.”


[color=saddlebrown]“Spitting right.”[/color] A few of Vrog's mouths continued to chuckle even as the central one sobered down after the flask left it. [color=saddlebrown]“But, whatever you're calling it, the one who's got to shovel this slagheap now's yours truly. He wants to yell at the scrapper in charge here, and I'm the only mouth he's got.”[/color] The mouth in question went through a few pensive chewing motions. [color=saddlebrown]“Truth, though, that really your boss who did it? Thought the whole thing stank sorta like you.”[/color]


“Oh well, who can really say?” Diana curled a bashful smile, “As for your boss, I don’t know what he is expecting to accomplish, but I suppose you can just say you did ‘accomplish’ whatever that may be.” She wiggled her nose, “Would you care for a blistering steam?”


[color=saddlebrown]“Know what, let's go with that. Not like the gutface can peep in here.”[/color] The central mouth twisted back upwards in a filthy grin. [color=saddlebrown]“Bring it on.”[/color]


“Very good!” Diana smiled. With little else a rope uncoiled from an unseen ceiling and with a hearty tug, a pillar of screaming steam blasted over Vrog.


A sound like [i]psscha[/i] followed the watery howl, and a damper, hotter Vrog hobbled out from the cloud. He poked disappointedly at the rivulets of dirt running down his person. [color=saddlebrown]“You didn't say this thing'd [i]clean[/i] me,”[/color] he grumbled, [color=saddlebrown]“but I'm feeling a bit lighter now. What'd you think?”[/color]


He opened his mouth, and a burbling sound like a boiling swamp burst out of it, followed by a cloud of noxious vapours that roiled over Diana and her throne. Vrog scratched his jaw in wonderment.


Diana blinked through the cloud of gas, “Terribly sorry, I hadn’t a clue it would clean you.” Her smile indicated that she was clearly lying, “So what do you intend to do now that you’re here and have finished your hard wrought quest?”


[color=saddlebrown]“Now? Tell you what, I'm in no rush to get back out.”[/color] Vrog scraped his finger-hooks against each other as if cleaning fingernails, though the latter were a notion as foreign to him as cleanliness. [color=saddlebrown]“You going to tell me you've got nothing fun to do in here? Places to live up, stuff to drink, people to hurt?”[/color] His grin became visibly hungrier with the last words.


“Oh! I know just the thing,” Diana beamed, “We could have a nice long chat about our feelings.” Her sickly eyes washed over Vrog, a wobbly stool appearing next to him, “Doesn’t that sound grand?”


He tapped the beaten seat with a finger, a mouth over his shoulder humming an annoyingly uneven tune. [color=saddlebrown]“You want that, you got to give me something better than tea. I'vet no scrapped near drunk enough for it yet.”[/color]


Diana cackled, “I’m surprised you even considered it. I have half a mind to call your bluff now.”


[color=saddlebrown]“You haven't seen me when I've had enough. Can't say I have either.”[/color] Claws pensively clinked against each other. [color=saddlebrown]“Be nice to find out if there's enough breakables around to last me till I hit it.”[/color]


“Hm,” Diana tapped a finger to her chin, “Would you like to find out?”


[color=saddlebrown]“Damn right.”[/color] Wary as he might have been of being given the exact opposite again, Vrog could not but produce a large grimy keg in expectation.


“Why don’t you lie down,” Diana suggested, and pointed a finger to where a ceiling should be. In the endless expanse above, a single rusty nozzle poked down, a drip of alcohol forming on its edge. Diana arched a brow, “And let’s just hope we get most of it into one of your many maws.”


[color=saddlebrown]“Don’t worry about that,”[/color] the keg was tossed away as Vrog took position under the nozzle, laboriously angling his head upwards in spite of his lack of a neck, [color=saddlebrown]“I can accommodate.”[/color] His largest mouth stretched even wider, far beyond what should have been possible, while the body underneath flattened itself with rubbery ease. The toothy edges seemed to span from wall to unseen wall, or such was the oppressive feeling inspired by their incredible breadth.


“Now if only some more fleshpods were beyond that nozzle,” Diana mused to herself with a wink. She sat forward in her chair, eager to watch the show and with a snap of her slender fingers, a torrent of burning alcohol flooded out from the nozzle at rapid speeds. 


[color=saddlebrown]“Rather have it fla-”[/color] was all Vrog could manage before the stream drowned out his voice, the mouth it came from and the throat behind it in a go. For a moment, it seemed that the fiery-smelling flood would spill over the brink of his maw, no matter how wide, and something like a fountain appeared in the center where the jet rebounded. But, unaccountably, the tide of spirits inside him abruptly began to ebb, funneling down through unknown passages into a bottomless well. His body began to bloat horizontally, and iron plates drifted apart, letting pieces of the fluid abomination underneath drip to the floor. The rush of the updraft in the middle gave way to the satisfied gargle of a whirlpool.


It kept pouring down. The mouth and everything underneath were stretched so far as to disappear into the distant corners of the surrounding space, but still the flow gave no sign of thinning. The enormous pool that still retained some broad similarities with Vrog twitched faintly around its circle, then again, more determinedly. With a monstrous effort, the ring of the mouth lifted itself up and shrank, tapering up around the stream like a rotting cone of flesh. Something creaked, churned, snapped, and the enormity twisted and folded itself in a kaleidoscope of mutilation, rust and putrescence. A chaos of organic forms reigned for a moment, and then it was over, a noticeably swollen, but otherwise not greatly changed Vrog standing where he had been before. One of his mouths was stretched out in a broad-ended tube over his head, like some grotesque proboscidal umbrella, while the rest grinned stunnedly, but contentedly. Not a single drop had gone lost.


[color=saddlebrown]“Thhat’ss-”[/color] he tried a few mouths, checking if any were not drawing out sounds, then pulled and stretched something inside one with a hand before continuing, [color=saddlebrown]“-gutsdamned amazing, never once had this good a chug- you, really-”[/color] he jabbed a finger with some hesitation, but surprising accuracy in Diana’s direction, [color=saddlebrown]“'re the worst- best- whatever, [i]the most[/i],”[/color] he gave a meaningful pause, as if about to carry on, but slipped off from the line of reasoning and continued less fragmentedly, [color=saddlebrown]“Guts’ luck there’s someone in a spithole of a place as this-”[/color]


He sliced off the proboscis with a neat swipe, and the severed mouth remained hovering in the air, catching the downpour into a now invisible throat. His figure continued to bloat at a slight pace notwithstanding. 


Diana clapped her hands with glee, “I’m glad to be of service, now if only you were a mortal so I could make this mindset stick to you in the waking world.” She bit a jagged fingernail, “I can only imagine the fun little scenarios you would end up in.” A wide smile formed on her face, “Do you want to do it again?” 


A spell of thoughtfulness, such as it was, came over Vrog. [color=saddlebrown]“Mortal, no mortal, I'm sure as guts going to feel this up here when I wake up,”[/color] he tapped the side of his helm, [color=saddlebrown]“The best cure for that is to have some more, so,”[/color] he concluded, once again beatifically, [color=saddlebrown]“sure as the slagged pit I do!”[/color]


Diana smirked and waved a hand, the floor under Vrog suddenly dropping. Vrog dropped into a dark pit, the fall seemed to last forever, until finally there was a loud splash that he knew all too well. Diana called down from the top floor, her voice a hollow echo, “There you are!”


His tongues darted into the fluid, drinking it in hungrily with leech-like maws. Beatitude became toxic fervour. [color=saddlebrown]“Said it - the most!”[/color] he bellowed upwards from an unclear number of mouths, [color=saddlebrown]“You're a real-”[/color]


He launched into such an atrocious, innominable invective that the dank walls scrunched up into simulacra of horrified faces that wept bloody streams. The most hideous words of every language between Barrier and Core, and a few that could not quite be placed, mingled with blasphemies against every divinity that came to mind. Between the euphoric voices in which they were shouted, the various speaking organs growing steadily more discordant, and the rebounding echoes, the cacophony was such as to permanently deafen any ear of less than godly strength.


When he finally ran out of breath, Vrog spat out something stuck in one of his throats. A splash was followed by a squeal, and a porcine snout joined the gurgling chorus followed by a mad cackling from above.


[color=saddlebrown]“By the way,”[/color] he followed his apocalyptic tirade with a familiarly matter-of-fact tone, [color=saddlebrown]“I got these funny little people you dropped. Want me to put them anywhere particular?”[/color]


“Oh, I can think of a few places,” Diana mused out of sight.


[color=saddlebrown]“Tell you what,”[/color] he briefly went under as the piggut tried to clamber over him, then shoved the creature away and bobbed up again, a fair bit more swollen, [color=saddlebrown]“I'll think of some too, then you tell me how close I got.”[/color]


“Oh, this ought to be a delight,” Diana cackled, “Name your first!”


Some meditative gargling, then [color=saddlebrown]“How 'bout - a place where they got whelps to snatch? Can't name any now, but I'll sure find at least one.”[/color]


“See, I was thinking about something a bit more... disturbing,” Diana’s voice dipped, “But if you really are serious, then how about a little tip -- if you promise to spread the misery?”


[color=saddlebrown]“Hey, was just one idea,”[/color] the answer from the well came with joking offense, [color=saddlebrown]“I'll spread you that and worse!”[/color]


“Then listen close, you ugly hunk of delight,” Diana called down, “There is a festival of new and young minds on Galbar. So fresh, so naive...” She cleared her throat, “The best part is the variety, an entire cluster of continents and islands in the northwestern hemispheres. Maybe try your luck there.”


[color=saddlebrown]“You cann-”[/color] the voices intoned with the cadence of a bawdy song, [color=saddlebrown]“count on me to-”[/color] the following part was largely indistinct, drowned as it was by cruel enthusiasm, but the bits that floated up did not presage anything good for whoever inhabited those places, [color=saddlebrown]“-them! Aalways count on me!”[/color]


Some more sputtering mixed with chopped-up delighted excoriations in Diana's direction, abruptly interrupted by a grunt and the sound of a fist hitting the surface.

[color=saddlebrown]“'Fact, so you know to remember-”[/color]


A knife whistled up the pit, thrown up with phenomenal force. Its rusty, jagged blade was adorned with a crudely scratched [i]All my loathing - V[/i].


[color=saddlebrown]“Be rude not to leave nothing back for everything,”[/color] followed the eager, if not very cohesive explanation, [color=saddlebrown]“Should be good for nails.”[/color]


“I do like to look presentable.” Diana called back down, “I’m nothing if not a perfectionist.”


[color=saddlebrown]“Can't say for looks, but you got the right track with the rest,”[/color] the garble of voices was beginning to grow fainter, receding to greater depths. [color=saddlebrown]“Keep at it and they'll gag on their guts soon as you're near. Tell me how it works out next time.”[/color]


The churning spiked up into the roar of a cataract, and over it rose, like a chorus of wrathful damned souls, [color=saddlebrown]“Catch you later!”[/color]


Then silence, darkness and the all-pervading smell of alcohol.


[hider=Where there's a troika, you don't need a liver]


High as a kite after smoking the wrong thing at Chopstick's party, Vrog passes out and dreams about being in line for something in a place as obnoxious as can be. After some antics, he stumbles through into Diana's presence. She convinces him to sweep Narzhak's order to go find K'nell under the carpet, and the two have a lighthearted chat punctuated by drinks. With the unfathomable power of dreams, Vrog gets properly smashed for once, much to his joy. Diana gives him some pointers on where to drop off the pigguts, after which the vision completely degenerates into alcoholic haze.


[i]No Might spent.[/i]


[/hider]