Azim stood stiff, counting down the seconds until he could leave to go after his friends. 38 minutes 47 seconds. 38 minutes 46 seconds. It was going to be a while.
While anything could have been happening outside the walls of his room, out in the drunken hall of angry, energetic, dancing idiots, Azim stayed trapped inside, waiting for the last seconds to tick away. Worry was not setting in, nor was guilt. Azim had no opinion of the decision he had made, nor of the time that was wasted as he waited. He simply recognized that the chosen time was appropriate, and until then he would have to wait.
Luckily for the robot, something was about to get in the way of his interior processors. At his feet, Roman shuffled awake, just for a moment, wanting to rearrange himself. As the creature turned around, it noticed that Leone was no longer lying on the bed. Curious, the mosstail got properly up and looked up at Azim. It walked over to the foot of the bed where Leone had been and meowed. Azim did not understand.
Roman rubbed his body against the end of the bed, walking through where the young man’s legs would have been, trying to acknowledge that they were no longer there. Finally, Azim bothered to guess, “Are you wondering about the whereabouts of Leone?”
The moss-covered creature meowed in response. The robot continued talking: “He left 2 hours and 17 minutes ago, alongside Iman, to go look for Riva. She has been gone for 5 hours and 12 minutes.”
Roman meowed again in a low tone, as if he was concerned.
“I have arranged to leave as well in an effort to check on them, as well as her, myself. It will be suitable for me to leave in 37 minutes and 19 seconds.”
Another whining meow.
“I am simply following the acts displayed by my companions. Leone and Iman left to find Riva exactly 2 hours and 55 minutes after she had left. I am waiting until 2 hours and 55 minutes have passed as well, so that I may go out in search of Leone and Iman. It is simple pattern recognition, Roman.”
At this point, Roman walked over to the door and started scratching. The messy creature also nudged its head against the door, staring at Azim as it did. Azim walked over to where the mosstail stood and looked down. “Is it of importance to you that I exit the room now in search of Riva, Leone, and Iman, rather than waiting the last of the 36 minutes?”
Roman bumped his head against the door one final time, meowing as well for added effect. The robot obliged the animal’s request and opened the door. Looking back, Azim asked Roman to stay behind in the room and be safe, before closing the door behind him and walking down the hall. It was early morning now. Azim could understand that taverngoers might have been the kind of people to party all night, but he noticed that the earliest traces of sunlight were starting to illuminate the dark, early morning sky through the windows. The metal man wondered what his companions had been doing all this time out on their own.
The robot quickly got an answer to his question when he saw the liveliness of the tavern floor. There were a few more people present than there had been when he and his friends first showed up. The android assessed that they must have arrived later than them. Regardless, the place was buzzing. It was approximately 4 in the morning, and yet people were still ordering drinks. Sure it was coming down slightly, not as much raging energy as one might anticipate in the earlier evening, but the energy could still be felt around the room. Mya was walking up and down the floor with plates of breakfast, the barkeep was pouring daytime and nighttime drinks alike, and the crowd was a mix of patrons just starting their buzz and those who had clearly been at this for a few hours. Among the latter crowd was Riva.
Azim noticed the woman he and his companions had been looking for sitting at one of the few booths near the walls of the tavern. She had several empty glasses on the table in front of her, and a rosy blush to her face. Azim recognized that blush as the over-saturation of the liver, leading the alcohol to redden one’s cheeks as a result. That encyclopedic knowledge he had unlocked access to earlier in the day was really proving its usefulness. Azim decided it was in his interest to keep Riva from drinking anymore, lest she cause any severe damage to her insides.
Sitting with the woman was none other than the metal man’s other two companions. Leone was holding a glass similar to the ones in front of Riva, and harbored two empty ones in front of him next to hers. Iman had a different-looking glass in front of her, though she carried one in her hand that blended in with the rest of Leone and Riva's. As Azim walked over to join his friends, he noticed that they were all laughing, hiccuping, and cheering sporadically. Neither Leone nor Iman seemed to be talking to Riva as if they were concerned. If anything, they looked to be cheering her on as she drank.
Before reaching their table, Mya stepped in front of the android, smoking her cigarette and carrying a freshly empty tray. Taking the cigarette from her mouth, she blew the smoke in Azim’s face just as she had when she first met them, before asking, “Ay’, what can I do for ya’? Need a drink, big man?”
“I do not ever need a drink,” Azim stated, coming up more bluntly to the woman than the robot realized.
“Ah, nonsense, go get yourself a glass of something, lad. An’ what you wearing that helmet for? We’re getting you a drink, you oughta’ take that off. I’m sure Benny can even get you a glass on the house.”
“I do not know who that is, nor do I find it necessary to find out,” admitted the android. “I apologize but I only left my room to find my companions, however, I see them now and must join them.”
Mya blew another puff of smoke in Azim’s face. She looked over to where Azim was facing and noticed the three patrons enjoying themselves at their booth. Not saying another word, she moved out of the way and let him join up with his friends. When the metal man arrived, all three of them threw up their arms in excitement. Confused by their overly energetic welcome, the robot asked if he had done anything deserving of such praise. The rest of the group just laughed.
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“No, buddy, we’re just happy you’re here!” explained Leone. “We’re happy you came to enjoy the night with us!”
“I apologize, but I do not understand,” admitted Azim.
“Don’t you get it?” Leone asked, before chanting in unison with the other two. “Big Bart’s is the best!”
Azim could only look at Leone. “You asked if I was content in the room. I acknowledged that I was. You said that you and Iman would leave to check on Riva and that you would be back soon. I was not sure how long ‘soon’ was, so I waited the exact amount of time that you waited until leaving to look for Riva. Yet, you have not brought her back. You did not even return to report that she was all right before returning here. Why did you not return?”
Extending her arm across the table toward the android, Riva answered, “Azim, dear, it’s alright. I’m alright! I’m great! I’ve been having a wonderful night. We got up to dance a few times. Iman played a song?! Maybe two, I can’t remember. But the point is, we’ve all just been enjoying ourselves. We’re good, hun’, don’t worry.”
Azim stopped talking to his companions and looked around the tavern. There was an odd air to the room, as if no one knew what time it was, let alone how long they’d been here. He had seen that the signs of morning were already starting to shine through, and yet everyone else either did not seem to notice or care. The robot looked across the way, over at the desk where Garrett was seated. He was fidgeting. Azim noticed him glance over at the metal man a few times, before quickly darting his eyes away. He looked around at the patrons. They were drinking, they were swaying, all normal signs of behavior at a tavern as far as Azim could understand. However, the more the robot looked, the more he noticed how many patrons were bumping into nothing or falling over seemingly out of nowhere.
Now, of course, instability and loss of motor control were more than common sign effects of alcohol. However, what was not a common side effect was getting pushed out of your barstool by an invisible force. While nobody else seemed to notice or care, Azim did. And it was the strangest thing. The robot would watch a happy patron downing his glass, either alone or with buddies, and the unlucky individual would tumble off their seat with zero warning. They often fell at a time where others would pass it off as leaning too far back or not grabbing hold of the table, but Azim could tell. No matter how inebriated the patrons were, the way in which they fell in no way suggested the idea they had lost balance on their own. If that wasn’t enough, most of these incidents would always be followed up by the fallen patron commenting that their money or stuff was missing. In response, their drunken friends, or even the staff, would brush it off, and in a matter of seconds, the group would be back to laughing as if there hadn’t been an issue or even a fall in the first place.
Azim looked over at the bar where the feliome barkeep was working, and notching he was talking to Mya. Both she and the barkeep were looking at him. Something was wrong. Azim did not know what, and was not even sure if there was anything he could do about it, however he knew something was wrong.
Mya and the barkeep soon started walking over to the table where Azim stood. When they first arrived at the group, the barkeep asked the others if Azim was bothering them. The group assured him that Azim was not, and he was, in fact, their traveling companion. The barkeep then said that while he understood, he still had to ask the metal man to leave. The group asked why, though Azim could not help but notice there was no sincere concern on any of their faces. They were curious, sure, why he had to leave, but none of them seemed worried at the idea of it. Something was definitely wrong with them.
Taking over for the barkeep, Mya started to give Riva and the others a nonsense excuse as to why the metal man had to be escorted out of the tavern. As she spoke, the gruff feliome put his hands up to usher Azim out of the building. Azim did not know what to do, as violence was not a clear choice, however for whatever reason, no one at the moment was able to listen to sound reason. The robot resisted slightly as the barkeep pressed him, though made sure not enough to cause any real conflict. As he was pushed away, his friends paid more attention to Mya’s half-assed excuse than to his exit.
Just then, another patron, just a few meters away, was lurched forward. She was as happy as the rest of the crowd, however she was not swaying excessively or indicating any decline in stability. It looked like she might as well have been pushed.
Azim, notching the incident, spun around the barkeep before he could react, twisting his arm and pushing him away as he moved. Moving as fast as he could so as to not miss the moment, he reached for Mya’s cigarette, snatching it right out of her lips. Without missing a beat, Azim spun back around, shoving the cigarette between the seam on his face. In an instant, the android expelled an intense cloud of smoke, aiming directly behind where the woman had just fallen.
Blown at seemingly nothing, the smoke seemed to cling to the air right behind the woman. “Ack, pthah, pthah, gah!” an unseen voice spat. “What the hell?! Pthah, bleh!”
At that moment, everyone turned to look at the floating cloud of dust that held some ambiguous shape. Mya and the barkeep were stunned. They didn’t know what to say. They didn’t know what to do. As the patron stared at the sight in front of her, she patted herself down only to realize that something was missing from her pocket. Looking at the cloudy figure, she noticed her missing pouch of gold was just floating at its side. The woman, a thin-framed elf who looked about 45, reeled back her right arm to deliver a satisfying punch to the invisible figure. As it smacked into a nearby table and onto the ground, the figure revealed itself to be an elf as well. One that had been benefitting from an Invisibility spell.
Azim seized the opportunity that the elf woman had created, announcing to the whole tavern, “Attention, patrons of Big Bart’s. The people serving you are taking advantage of you. They are clouding your mind, through the use of manipulative magic in their drinks and this woman’s cigarettes, to rob you.”
The robot pointed everyone’s attention to the elf lying on the floor, holding his nose in pain. He continued, “They cloud your perception of time, as well as your judgment, making you content with all that happens, even falling over multiple times throughout the night or being pushed by an unidentifiable source. The source is them, the staff of this tavern, who are robbing you of all that you own while you drink your composure away. I urge that you regain it, and see the trap that they are setting for you. Check your belongings, your gold especially. If anything is missing, it is because of these individuals.”
All at once, the crowd of people started checking their pockets and their bags. One by one, patrons started picking up on the fact that they were all missing their possessions and their money. And this time, none of them were letting it go and returning to their drinks. Riva, Leone, Iman, and everyone else who had succumbed to the tavern’s spells all rose from their seats, a majority with looks on their faces suggesting that the mood of the room was about to change.