Meanwhile, in the kitchen...
"Everyone here is going to die," muttered Karen the health inspector, while holding up a jar of expired syrup with chunks of raw chicken floating in it. The jar - labelled
For Humans - had sucker-pod marks all over it, and had been left on the shelf with various bulk supplies for cocktail-making.
TAKA TAKA TAKA! declared her arachnoid typewriter.
Karen frowned. "What do you mean there's a portal opening behind me? That's against regula--"
The health inspector turned, and the jar of chicken-syrup went flying as she was tackled to the ground by a lusty wench. "Aha!" declared Vira, a largely non-descript pirate who had appeared in the kitchen from a glowing blue portal. "Avast ye salty dog! Yer booty or your life." She put Karen in a chokehold (with her left hand) while straddling her on the freshly-mopped tiles.
Karen spluttered. "PIRATES? IN THE KITCHEN!"
"PIRATES IN THE KITCHEN!" agreed Vira, before making out with Karen in a slobbering, syphilitic frenzy. Beside them, the typewriter took notes, before being crushed by a boot. A second intruder stepped from the glowing portal.
"This is where it happens..." murmured Limbo, his hair bone white and his eyes crackling blue like the portal as he peered around.
Karen assumed this man to be the manager, so kicked her voice up a few notches (chokehold be damned). "Who are you people?"
"We be time pirates!" declared Vira while fixing a dog collar around Karen's throat.
"We're not time pirates!" snapped Limbo, irritably. "We're here to save everyone."
Karen spluttered some more as the dog collar was attached. Beside her, the jar of syrup and chicken had suddenly become....
fresh?. The vegetables on the counter were also looking remarkably ripe, and the dairy products by the stove were no longer spoiled.
Karen relaxed under Vira's thighs, nodding approvingly. "I surrender."
Meanwhile, in the dining lounge...
Caelcrust reached for his isotope gun. It was time to put an end to Eolanthe's disruptive behaviour.
"HELLO, BRIGHTSMILE! WE ARE 'THE UNCOMFORTABLES', AND WE CAME TO SLAY!"
Everyone gathered at the window turned to look at the stage, which had been largely neglected in the corner of the dining lounge. Stepping through the curtain was a short albino boy with white wings, who appeared to be blind. He was guided by his companion: a limber girl who was horned, winged, furred, pawed, tailed and ready to rock.
"GIVE IT UP FOR ALOY, THE BLIND BIRD BARD!" purred Neirie, before winking at everyone.
Everyone blinked back at her.
Neirie winked again, then started dancing, her chameleon body moving in strange, confusing undulations. She swirled and sashayed across the lounge towards the crowd, while the bird-boy, Aloy, opened his mouth and began to sing the most beautiful, haunting song.
"Oooooh...." everyone murmured, as the duo unfurled their mesmerizing performance.
Meanwhile, in the corridor...
Zazzy and Vess were interrupted as a pair of passengers passed behind them. One looked blasé as shit, and had a mechanical arm and a cigar. He also had skull-face paint like Zazzy, which was neat. "I'm just saying," Kash remarked to his customer. "You seem awfully eager to sell that sword. Which is strange for a sellsword."
Beside him, an armoured elf with tumbling, golden locks scowled while holding a glowing broadsword. "I just want it far away from me." Fenne hissed back. "And I need the money. Are you buying or prying? Surely your employers like swords?"
Kash puffed on his cigar. "Bitch, don't be concernin' yourself with what my employers do and don't like."
Meanwhile, in the dining lounge...
"Boo!" yelled Sera, a tiny mage girl with a tail who had been sitting in the corner all this time. But the performance of the bird boy had brought her out of obscurity, and now she was the only one in the room heckling while Aloy and Neirie entranced everyone. "Boooooo! You suck!"
Aloy stopped singing abruptly, and his blind eyes searched around. "Who said that?"
Sera scowled. "I'm a cat predator. And you're a bird. We are enemies!"
Another cat-predator (of the burglar sub-species) was Cima, who at that moment blinked out of her hypnosis, and looked down to see Neirie's hand in her pocket, filching her valuables. "Oh, you bitch!"
Neirie grinned nervously, sweat beading on her chameleon face. "Aloy! I told you not to stop singing!"
"Cat predator!" shrieked Sera before tackling Aloy off the stage. Meanwhile, Cima put Neirie in a headlock. Around them, all of the passengers by the window were shaking of the siren enchantment.
Then the kitchen door was kicked open.
"YAAAAAARGH!" shouted Vira the Time Pirate, waving a cutlass around in her left hand while holding a struggling health inspector on her shoulder with the other. "WE BE BOARDIN' YER SHIP, ME HEARTIES. GET THEE FUCKED!"
Limbo stepped out of the kitchen behind Vira and her plunder, shaking bits of typewriter off his boots. "You don't have to use that voice, Vira."
"The Agency will hear about this!" Karen declared while licking her legs.
"We're from the only agency that matters," Limbo answered, then he raised his voice to the entire confused lounge. "The
Time Agency. We're here to warn you that the volcano erupts earlier than calculated. You all die in the eruption."
The crowd gasped. Caelcrust formed a question-mark over his head. "Nonsense. My calculations are perfect."
"Your calculations are shit," Limbo retorted. "Luckily, I'm a chronomancer. And I've come here from the future, arriving exactly one hour before the eruption, which will take place at 6pm."
The clock above the bar chimed, and all of the octopuses waved their arms, celebrating the start of Happy Hour, which was at 6pm every evening.
Limbo's eyes went wide.
Caelcrust formed a smile. "Now whose calculations are shit?"
Then the volcano did this, but without the watermark (because all the water was instantly evaporated):