Fed II Star - May 28, 2006

BARHOPPING MADE EASY: THE LYNNEA AND ASTERIX WAY!

Well, we're back at it once again after a brief vacation, and we sure are glad to be back.

LYNNEA: I don't know if being too drunk to work actually counts as a vacation, but yeah, whatever you want to call it. I'm just glad I finally found you and got you sobered up enough to have a party.

ASTERIX: Sounds like the same thing to me. Anyway, we went back to where it all started for us: The Muddy Waters Lounge on Sumatra. The Muddy seemed a little worse for the wear by the time we got there. One of the droids was running a little slowly, and the light in the middle of the bar was put together with duct-tape.

> Muddy Waters Lounge
The lighting is low, the drinks are cool, and the music is hot. Clusters of comfortable seating drawn up around small tables dot the room. Under a spotlight, sound pickups and a pair of chairs are arranged ready for the night's jazz set. Waitdroids silently glide about the room.
The exit is to the southeast.

Just as an aside, you'd think with all the advances in technology, that somewhere along the line there would have been something better than duct-tape created to fix everyday objects, but alas that is one invention that has definitely stood the test of time.

LYNNEA: What is this? You take a few weeks off, and all of a sudden you're waxing poetic about duct-tape? Get on with the article, already!

ASTERIX: Why don't you tell us how the party started then, little miss impatient?

LYNNEA: First I need to get this damn duct-tape off of my notepad. I don't think visual aids are necessary, Asty. I know what duct-tape is. Ok, let me see... The party started with... um... ah...

ASTERIX: Oh that's right, you can't tell our readers how it started, because you weren't there when it started. Lynnea showed up late this time, and was hoping I wouldn't tell on her.

LYNNEA: Was that really necessary? I mean, as drunk as everyone was, no one would have noticed it you hadn't mentioned it. Don't worry about it though; I have plenty of ammo of my own.

ASTERIX: Well, when the party officially started, it was just a quiet affair with me, Kalandra, Zadymka and Sylvadin sitting around chatting. Kalandra was discussing her planet, Pantheon, and its lack of foot-traffic, Zadymka was determining if she was ready to take on Kalandra's puzzle, and Sylvadin and I were... well...

> Sylvadin says, "I got lost...but we can call it exploring"
Asterix smiles, "Oh, I also got lost... And we can call that exploring, as well :)"
Sylvadin exclaims, "Great. We'll start a club!"
Sylvadin drawls, "Maybe The Losers isn't the best name for it..."

LYNNEA: I think "The Losers" is a great name for any club you're in Asty... Everyone came dressed to party and I have pictures of all who attended. Well, everyone except for Catspaws, who was NOT in any shape to have her photo taken. She was matted and ratty, just like the stray alley cat she is, and she smelled like kitty litter. I soon found out that was because she was carrying around some sort of hollow ball that was leaking kitty litter out of it. Apparently her time away at the flea-dip hotel didn't do any good at all. For everyone else though, they looked great, and you can see their pictures below.

> Examine Founder Kalandra
Kal is wearing a deep blue gauzy, short, sleeveless dress that matches her intense blue eyes. She is barefoot and is absentmindedly flipping a 7-groat coin.

> Examine Commander Sylvadin
You see a young, intelligent woman with a hard gleam in her eye. She's been around the spaceports long enough to know how to handle herself but not long enough to look it. Her liquid green eyes intrigue you.

> Examine Manufacturer Zadymka
You see a blonde woman wearing hipster cargo pants, a while lace camisole top and low-heeled leather sandals. Silver jewelry glints from her neck and ears. Around her wrist is a silver bracelet engraved GORDIE.

> Examine Founder Asterix
You check your reflection in the mirror field of your comm unit. Asterix wears a loose-fitting white t-shirt and a pair of blue and white striped board shorts

> Examine Founder Furgas
You see a man wearing the royal trapings of House Dilconia. Upon his head is the crown of Dilconia and he carries with him the royal seal of the empire.

> Examine Commander Sabrina
Sabrina is dressed in a plain T-shirt and jeans, and is wearing Birkenstock sandals.

> Examine Founder Rowan
Green eyes dance with wickedness as her hand plays with the golden crest of Maji at her throat. Her black low cut dress flows to her ankles, her dainty feet incased in tight leather boots.

> Examine Financier Racingnut
White and Gray T-shirt with POLARIS on the front and a picture of his Mossy Oak camo Sportsman 700 EFI on the back, regular jeans and boots. Helmet and goggles are in hand, it is ATV season after all

> Examine Founder Necrose
You see a tall man in black body armor molding every muscular curve comfortably but as strong as steel. Black and gold spikes run down the outside of both arms. From his black cowl glow two pupil-less yellow eyes.

> Examine Founder Lynnea
A tiny woman with long, silky black hair wearing a black body suit with a gold vortex emblem and decorated with black and gold studs down the outside of her arms and legs. She wears black boots with gold buckles.

> Examine Industrialist
Honoria You see a small red haired woman wearing a short leather skirt, a leather vest and strappy high-heeled sandals. Silver gleams from her ears and neck and you notice a silver chain riding low on her waist

> Examine Industrialist Jinto
Jinto is wearing a white cloak, the cloak is unbuttoned and rather plain looking clothes, t-shirt and jeans can be seen underneath.

> Examine Financier Squeeky
Wearing its best khaki pants with its tail stuck out the back and a matching khaki shirt and jacket along with a helmet with holes in the top for its ears

ASTERIX: At about this point, everybody started buying drinks, so I figured I'd give everyone something special to mark the night.

> Asterix has bought you a cup of goat's milk... Goat's milk? Gross! You send it back and ask the waitdroid not to bring you any more drinks from Asterix
Kalandra giggles and sips her Cider.
Sylvadin says, "And thanks but no thanks Asterix"
Sylvadin thinks the goat milk should hit the fan...but then everyone would smell like it.
Sylvadin wrinkles her nose.

LYNNEA: Ok, so far, I am glad I was late. I don't think goat's milk would have done anything good for the wobbly water... Yuck!

ASTERIX: After that, nobody seemed to let me buy them drinks for the rest of the night, which is just as well I guess; after you showed up with that pitcher, I was in no state to buy anything for anyone.

LYNNEA: Now that I know the rest of the story, I'm guessing your desperate crawl on the floor to find the sofa had more to do with the goat's milk than wobbly water. But I am getting ahead of myself... Please, continue.

ASTERIX: Just after all the goat's milk got sent back to the bartender, Nugget showed up, but just barely poked his head into the bar before he left.

LYNNEA: I don't blame him. If I had shown up while goats milk was being served, I wouldn't have stayed either!

ASTERIX: At this point, Rowan wondered if the Muddy was offering a main-course of puppies. I told her that I'd see what could be done if she said she'd show up. When she said she would, the search was on for a puppy, or at least something resembling a puppy.

> Asterix frantically looks around for a puppy
Sylvadin says, "I think there's one behind the bar.."
Asterix dives behind the bar, knocking over the bartender-droid in the process

Well, my search for a puppy ended poorly, and Rowan was certainly disappointed when she showed up.

LYNNEA: Still pissing off vampires, Asty? Just like old times. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gon... Oops, sorry, please continue.

ASTERIX: And of course, the moment she arrived, Rowan was ready for her dinner.

> A soft growl in her throat, Rowan has just arrived. Rowan is carrying a keyring.
Rowan asks, "puppies?"

But sadly, there were no puppies ready for her.

> Asterix looks at the bartender-droid accusingly, "He's hiding the puppies."
Sylvadin says, "The bartender-droid is holding out on us."

That is until Sylvadin came through with the puppy-based dish.

> Sylvadin has bought you Puppy Surprise
Sylvadin says, "Found some."

And then, after everyone was finished dumping their Puppy Surprise onto Rowan's dish, the highlight of the night occurred. Lynnea finally found her way to the Muddy to join the party.

LYNNEA: I would have been really touched at your greeting, Asty, had I not had to visit the spinal alignment center the next day.

> Asterix cheers, "LYN!"
Asterix has given Lynnea an ecstatic hug.
Asterix jumps on Lynnea, nearly knocking her over

And I have to admit, I was happy to see you too.

> Lynnea exclaims, "Asty!!"
Lynnea hugs Asty and swings him around

The enthusiastic welcome I received from everyone was heartwarming.

Priscilla has given Lynnea an affectionate hug.
Zadymka smiles, "hey Lynnea :)"
Priscilla exclaims, "Hey Lyn!"
Rowan smiles at Lynnea.
Rowan says, "Hello Lynnea"
Rowan has given Lynnea a tasty kiss.
Kalandra smiles, "Heya Lyn :)"

The warmth suddenly died down though, for no apparent reason. I don't understand that.

ASTERIX: It probably had something to do with everyone's drinks suddenly disappearing just a few minutes after you showed up.

> Lynnea gets a pitcher and makes her way through the people stealing their drinks and pouring them in the pitcher.
Zadymka passes Lyn a bottle of tequila for her wobbly water
Lynnea gets a large spoon and after dumping half the bottle of tequila in, stirs the pitcher. "OK, Who wants wobbly water?!"

LYNNEA: Hey, had the wobbly water already been made up when I arrived, I would not have had to go to such extremes. You know there has to be wobbly water at the party. Otherwise, what would we blame all the madness and mayhem on? I do realize, of course that the wobbly water itself has some strong effects on people, but that only makes it a better scapegoat for the damages.

ASTERIX: One of the most important effects is just talking about it. Apparently, its mere mention makes people think for some reason that I'm a good dancer.

> Lynnea asks, "Who is a good dancer?"
Rowan asks, "Who is a dancer?"
Zadymka perks up
Sylvadin says, "Asterix...see I'm poking him to get his attention"
Sylvadin pokes Asterix some more so everyone can see.

LYNNEA: I'm not sure where that rumor got started. Apparently not by anyone who has actually seen you "dance," because frankly my friend, you're a lousy dancer.

ASTERIX: Amen to that... But Sylvadin, Zadymka, and Rowan wouldn't listen to reason.

> Rowan grins and hoots for Asterix to get on a table.
Zadymka exclaims, "Go Asty! Go Asty!"
Sylvadin says, "Wooowoo"

LYNNEA: It was lucky for you that Honoria showed up with her - peculiar - brownies. That was just the distraction you needed.

> Rowan asks, "Did you bring brownies?"
Honoria laughs, "Of course..." She then pulls out a bag and hands it to Rowan

The brownies didn't last as long that night as they normally do. Let me see if I can remember why. Oh, Yeah!

> Rowan grabs the bag and begins to horde the brownies.

We need to be certain and have puppies for her next time. The brownies are really supposed to be for us.

ASTERIX: That definitely is a great idea. And of course, once the brownies were passed out and everything slowed down a bit, Sylvadin went right back to poking me, but this time it went a little further.

> Sylvadin act goes back to determinedly poking Asterix in the rib.
Asterix tries to squirm away from Syl
Priscilla pokes Asterix
Rowan pokes Asterix.
Priscilla finds a nice tender rib and pokes Asterix again

LYNNEA: Aww... My poor Asty. Everyone picking on you that way, and it really looks like you were torn up about it too, and totally unable to party after that. At least you had Racingnut there to help you through it.

> Asterix puts the lemon wedge on his hand, licks Lynnea's notepad and downs his shot of tequila, then throws the lemon into the corner
Racingnut sucks the shot and slugs the lemon..errr ducks the shot and sucks the lemon err....ok think I had too much to drink

ASTERIX: I'm sure I was in the middle of taking important notes and that was a really important action for me.

LYNNEA: Either that or you were just drunk.

ASTERIX: I don't know about drunk, but I think those brownies were starting to get me kind of giddy. I had a bit of energy, too.

> Asterix grabs a handful of peanuts and tosses them all around, hitting Necrose, Furgas, Rowan and Lynnea in succession
Rowan exclaims, "Asty!"
Lynnea grabs her eye, "OW!"
Rowan picks peanuts out of her hair.
Necrose glares at Asterix. "Rowan can get away with that. You can't."
Sylvadin pokes Asterix for his bad behavior.

LYNNEA: I'm still picking peanuts out of my hair! And speaking of drunk, what came over Racingnut and Rowan? They became totally destructive! First, Racingnut started throwing darts around the room wildly. Several of them nearly hit me.

> Racingnut grabs a fistful of darts and throws all of 'em at once ending up all around the bullseye, the board, the wall, the floor
Lynnea tries to get out of RN's throwing range.

Then, I made an assessment of the bar to see of everything remained intact. And look what happened!

> Lynnea looks about the bar, "Has anything been broken yet?"
Zadymka says, "not yet Lynnea"
Zadymka winks, "but we can fix that ;)"
Racingnut says, "broken? ::picks up a stool and swings it against the wall shattering it::: yep now there is"
Asterix looks at the broken stool
Lynnea glares at RN. "I will report that."
Racingnut slams another stool into the wall
Racingnut says, "k"
Lynnea nods to Asterix, then whispers, "Did you see RN break that stool?"

ASTERIX: Right after Racingnut was done breaking half the barstools at the Muddy, Jinto came in.

> Carrying an empty toilet paper tube and a ticket for littering, Jinto has just arrived. Jinto is carrying a keyring.
Asterix asks, "Who got TP'd, Jinto?"
Jinto frowns, "the GA building looked boring, but I guess they like boring :("

Sadly though, I didn't get to ask Jinto what the GA building looked like after he finished with it, because Racingnut threw a glass and hit me in the head.

> Rowan asks, "Shall we break something Lyn?"
Rowan says, "I suggest something glass"
Racingnut asks, "glass?"
Racingnut says, "break something glass hmmm...::picks up a glass and chucks it absently at Asterix"
Asterix gets hit in the face with the empty glass
Lynnea gasps and looks at Pasty's face.
Asterix sits down gingerly, "I think I'm ok..."
Sylvadin give Lynnea some ice for Asty's face
Honoria glances at Asty, "Are you okay?
Lynnea tends to Asty, while glaring at RN. "Thanks Syl."

LYNNEA: I still can't believe he did all that. And that Rowan put him up to it. I really think we should show the tape of the incident to Hazed so we don't lose yet another paycheck because of your medical bills. I would really like to reach my goal of being paid this year sometime.

ASTERIX: It figures that would be the first thing on your mind... Once I finally recovered from that ordeal, Sylvadin was just about ready to leave. I said goodbye to her warmly.

> Asterix exclaims, "Thanks for coming!"
Asterix says, "And don't be a stranger, neither!"

But apparently, there was something wrong with the way I said that.

> Lynnea asks, "Neither?"
Honoria rolls her eyes at Asty, "Neither?"
Lynnea says, "Apparently you have not had enough to drink, Asty."

LYNNEA: And you got us all back by giving poor Zadymka quite the scare.

> Asterix says in an exasperated voice, "Obviously, you guys don't know how the cool kids are talking these days."
Zadymka looks around "I thought WE were the cool kids"
Zadymka asks, "Now wait a minute!!! We're not cool?"
Zadymka asks, "how about kewl? Are we kewl?"

ASTERIX: Hmph... You all deserved that kind of a scare for making fun of the way I talk.

LYNNEA: One way or the other, cool or uncool, nobody deserved what Squeeky did to me right after he showed up!

> Squeeky pulls out a big banana nose and glasses and whips it on Lynnea

I was in such a hurry to restore, or, dare I say, maintain my coolness quotient that I was able to quickly remove the nose/glasses from my face. Somehow, though it ended up in the wobbly water, and lets just say, it didn't come out with all of its pieces intact.

Lynnea pulls the glasses out of the pitcher of wobbly water and gasps to see that the banana has been eaten away.
Asterix says, "Oh great, that means it's ready, Lyn"

ASTERIX: And we get right back to the effects of wobbly water. Someone said something about nobody being able to move around in a straight line after too much of it. I, of course, set out to prove that entirely wrong.

LYNNEA: And you, of course, you did a fab job of that.

> Asterix says defiantly, "I can move in a straight line!"
He promptly falls off his barstool, and crawls toward the couch.
Honoria laughs and watches Asty crawl to the couch
Lynnea laughs, "You're not even crawling straight."
Jinto says, "Yea, but he can fall straight"
Lynnea pinches Asty in the rear as he crawls away from her.
Asterix realizes that he's nowhere near the couch

ASTERIX: It's not my fault they moved the couch since the last time we were there. This is entirely unfair.

At this point though, Honoria tried to help me up off the ground, but she couldn't lift me. She fell down right next to me, and for some reason blamed me for the entire event.

> Honoria glances at Rowan then glares at Asty, "I am on the damn floor because you pulled me down."

LYNNEA: But Honoria sure did get you back for that.

> Honoria quickly flicks her whip and stings Asterix on the butt
Asterix yelps in pain

ASTERIX: Yeah, but nobody was particularly happy to see that happen.

LYNNEA: What are you talking about?

> Rowan claps and smiles at Hon.
Honoria winks at Rowan

But there was something a little more devious going on than you getting whipped like you always do. Catspaws decided this would be a good time to put a damper on our party. With her fleas. She showed up with her fleas circus and kitty litter ball. Someone should have called animal control. Nobody was happy to see her.

Catspaws waves to Lynnea before leaping onto a table
Catspaws smiles, "Hi, Stinky Hair :)"
Lynnea nods curtly. "Fleabag."
Catspaws says, "Rats Nest"
Lynnea drawls, "Stray..."
Catspaws says, "Stinky Hair"
Lynnea drawls, "Mutt..."
Catspaws glances up to growl at Furgas before chasing her ball under Lynnea's table. Sitting on Lynnea's feet, she purrs and rubs her head against the ball.
Lynnea stares down at the cat and wrinkles her nose.
Catspaws bats the ball hard, and kitty litter seeps out and into Lynnea's shoe
Catspaws begins to climb up Lynnea's leg with her ball in her teeth and kitty litter seeping out
Lynnea glares at the cat, "OWWWWW! You damn stray, get down!!"
Asterix sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose, "What... is that smell?"
He sniffs in Lynnea's direction, "Is that you?"
Lynnea points at the cat.
Lynnea says, "It's the cat hanging off of my leg."

ASTERIX: Actually, I think that just about everyone was happy to see her, except you.

> Rowan exclaims, "Yay, the main course is here!!"
Occy grins at kitty
Honoria has given Catspaws an agreeable hug.
Catspaws purrs to Asterix
Asterix purrs to Catspaws

LYNNEA: That may be, but as you can see, Rowan was just excited because she thought food was about to be served.

> Rowan growls at lunch.

Obviously, Catspaws wasn't around because people enjoy her company!

ASTERIX: Well, after the back and forth between you, Rowan and Catspaws, everyone was about ready to call it a night, and that's just what we did. There was a plethora of hugging and kissing, and I think a few snogs were hidden in the scroll. All in all we had a great night. A few bruises, but no worse for the wear. Not like the Muddy anyway. Thanks again to Hazed for supporting us throughout all our ordeals, and I'm sure the bill will be on its way to the Star offices soon, which means Lyn and I will be nowhere near there.

Until next time, keep the tequila flowing, and the water wobbly!

LYNNEA: And remember folks, don't let stray cats or squeaky mice into your parties!