They spent a few more minutes talking to Jim until Waverly promised the Minotaur they’d catch up later. Then she dragged Victor into the main room, which looked pretty much like he had expected. Lots of dark, worn wood, and a crapton of neon signs, flags, horns, oil lamps, and other memorabilia nailed to every free square inch of the walls.
It was a bit busy, but he appreciated that there were many places to perch and people watch from, including dark corners, the second floor (A Mezzanine! Victor loved those!), and even some wooden beams that ran over the main floor of the pub. All in all, it was surprisingly spacious, even though Victor doubted they used any spatial magic in here. If they filled this place every night, as Waverly had claimed, then it had to be a pretty darn cool bar indeed. Right now, however, it was empty, with the heavy wooden tables resting their knife-scarred tops before the coming rush of patrons.
Waverly made a beeline straight to the bar, drawing Victor’s attention. The barkeep seemed to be out, the counter deserted except for a lone crow, probably the club’s mascot. It had perched on one of the taps, and was eying Waverly as she came closer.
The werewolf pulled back one barstool for herself and one for Victor and began talking animatedly to the crow while the catboy made his way over.
“…and like that’s when I really began to miss you guys! But otherwise, it wasn’t too bad.”
“Caw!” said the Crow, and Waverly laughed.
“Noooo, I don’t think so. Oh and yeah, this is Victor!”
Victor waved to the bird and said “Yo,” because that seemed the polite thing to do, even though he didn’t quite know what was going on.
“Oh shoot! Sorry, Victor!” She reached over the counter and grabbed a shot glass with one hand. She stretched her other arm for a bottle she couldn’t quite reach, but then she grunted and just transformed the limb into the longer werewolf version, grabbed the bottle, and pulled it back to her. She was back in human form before she started pouring.
Victor was always impressed by her control over her [Shapeshifting] skill, even more so after she told him she’d gotten it to S rank by the time she hit level twelve. That sort of mastery took a lot of dedication.
“Here you go! Your CrowShot,” Waverly said with a wide grin.
“Do I want to know what’s in here?”
“Caw!” said the Crow.
“[Potion of Eternal Understanding: Crows] and some other stuff that tastes really funny and burns kinda nice when it goes down your throat. It’s kind of like a ritual for first-timers to drink this stuff, and people make really funny faces, and everyone kinda laughs a bit at their expense, but it’s not like, dangerous or anything.“
“Caw!”
“Yeah, doesn’t even give you a buzz.”
“Alright,” Victor said, opened his mouth, and poured the shot in.
A second later, his ears flattened.
Then his eyes watered.
His throat was on fire, but all he could say was “Mew.”
“Caw!” quoth the Crow, and Victor understood it as:
Hahahaha! That’s one of the best reactions yet. Don’t worry, it’ll fade in a second. Just don’t breathe through your mouth for a while. You’re not a mouthbreather, are you?
The crow cocked its head, staring at Victor as if to judge his immortal, damned soul. Victor could do nothing but shake his head and take very shallow breaths, but the Crow was right. After a while, the fiery discomfort faded, and Victor let out a long breath.
“Damn,” he said.
“Caw!” said the Crow, meaning: “Yep! Welcome to the CrowBar, kid. I’m the host, but you can call me The Host.” He poofed his plumage a little, and Victor had to admit it looked rather stunning, all midnight black with a blue sheen, like rich ink.
Waverly nodded sagely. “In here, his word is Caw.”
[https://i.imgur.com/NkO01AT.jpg]
As she broke into a giggling fit, the Crow gave her the side eye.
For what it was worth, Victor actually quite enjoyed the pun.
“Nice to meet you,” he said when he was done chuckling, and extended his hand. The Crow shook it with one of his feet.
“Caw!” said The Host, which meant: “Nice to meet you, Victor.”
Then he added: “ Caw!”, which was to say: “So, you’re going to the same college as our Waverly? You better be fucking treating her right, or I will have your eyes for breakfast.”
Victor didn’t quite know how to respond to that, to be honest, but the Host saved him with another “Caw!”, meaning: “Does she do well in her classes? I would have asked her myself, but she hasn’t been here for months. Everyone missed her a lot. I don’t know how she lives with herself.”
It wasn’t just the contrast of his words that almost gave Victor whiplash. While speaking, the Crow’s head jerked to one side first, staring at Victor, then the other, drilling his intense gaze straight into Waverly. It was an…effective amplifier for his words, at least in Victor’s opinion. He’d never been as intrigued and intimidated by one single person at the same time, and he regularly had dinner with [Master Vampires.]
It seemed like he wasn’t the only one, either. Waverly’s smile froze a little and her tailwagging slowed to an apologetic twitch. “I already told Bal, college is super stressful. I’m like, really sorry.”
But then, as sure as the sun set and the moon rose, her tailwagging intensified again. “Oh and Victor is super nice, so stop it with the disappointed judgment routine!”
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The Host just squinted at Victor as if he hadn’t heard the werewolf.
Victor hadn’t even known Crows could squint up until this point.
But finally, the bird said “Caw!” and meant “Okay fine, sorry, we were all just a little worried, I guess. What do you guys want to drink?” He hopped back over to the taps, where he telepathically maneuvered two glasses to float before him as some sort of peace offering.
“Wolfsbane!” Waverly said, eyes wide with excitement.
“Caw!” said the crow, to tell her: “Nice try. Not until you are an adult, Waverly!”
“She hit level 18 first day of College,” Victor said. “I was there.”
“Caw!” “Did she pay you to say that? Waverly, let’s see your stats.”
Anywhere else, that might have been a very offensive question, but where controlled substances were concerned, people usually had a right to ask.
So Waverly pulled out her Wallet, flipped it open, and pulled out her latest character sheet.
“I, like, got it updated a few weeks after, so it’s not super fresh, but like, look up there!” She bounced on her heels, which made the crow’s head bop up and down as he read until he pecked at her hand.
“Caw!” “Hold still!”
Waverly did just that and returned to tailwagging instead as The Host scanned her Stat Sheet.
“Caw!”, he said. It was a drawn-out sound that meant: “Unholy Smokes! You are level 18!”
Then, he inhaled deeply and let out an extremely loud CAW! That made Victor’s ears flip backwards. “JIM! GET IN HERE! WAVERLY’S LEVEL 18!”
Not a second later, the Minotaur burst out of the kitchen and stampeded towards them, coming to a stop by slamming into the bar and knocking some stools aside.
To Victor’s surprise, they all survived the assault. They had some sturdy furniture in this bar.
Jim grabbed the sheet with surprisingly delicate fingers, scanning it over. If Waverly minded, it certainly didn’t show in the wagging of her tail, which continued, unabated.
“Ha!” Jim yelled, pointing at something on the sheet. His voice was loud enough loud enough to make the glasses clatter. “Fight Night is going to be amazing today!”
As the Minotaur took his sweet time to read over Waverly’s stat sheet with a furrowed brow, nodding occasionally, Victor’s ears began to twitch. He scratched them first, then his nose. Then he bit his lip a little and leaned forward…
As Waverly gave him a look, he immediately drew back. “Sorry, Wave. Cat instincts.”
Eh. For giving in to your curiosity, and not getting killed for it, you gained 1 Catboy experience!
But to his surprise, Waverly just grinned and pulled the sheet from Jim’s hand to pass it over to him.
“It’s, like, fine! I don’t mind!”
So Victor took it, recognizing what a level of trust it implied, and read it over while he fished for his own wallet in his back pocket.
Name:
Waverly Bloodhowl
Race:
Werewolf
Level:
18
Classes:
[Werewolf]
Level 18
Skills:
Shapeshifting [WW 5]
SSS
Feral Dominance [WW 10]
D
Call of the Moon [WW 15]
D
“Yo…” he said, and couldn’t help raising his own eyebrows. “Shapeshifting at SSS? At level 18?” He’d known she was good, but he had no idea she maxed out her first skill already, and was close to her second.
“Oh, like, I got it way early and I always liked how versatile it makes you, you know? It’s like a really cool skill to have, in general, because I can just be whatever I need to be in the moment.”
That didn’t explain how she’d gotten it to the highest possible level this quickly, but Victor knew Waverly well enough to know that once she’d sunken her canines into something, she wouldn’t let go of it until it was done. It was the thing she did against being distracted by everything, she’d told him, once. He could respect that.
Finally, he managed to fumble out his own wallet and open it. Then he thought about it for a second. There was no doubt in his mind that Waverly had earned every right to see his stats, but The Host and Jim?
“Yo, you guys, I…” he began, but the Minotaur and the crow were already talking to each other animatedly. So animatedly, in fact, that his [Courtly Intuition] told Victor he was being ignored on purpose. He smiled a little.
“Cool people,” he said to Waverly, and she nodded with enough enthusiasm to make her blond hair drape over her face. She blew away a strand and said “Oh yeah, totally. I always come here when it gets, like, too noisy at home, and they always let me stay as long as I want, well, except of course until after Fight Night.
“What happens after fight night?” Victor asked, pulled out his stat sheet, and handed it to the Werewolf.
“No idea. I wasn’t high enough level for them to tell me, they always said. Ohhhhh! Wow! Look at you!”
Name:
Victor Cesare Barthemew von und zu Katzer I.
Race:
Vampire / Catboy
Level:
18
Classes:
[Catboy]
16
[Vampire]
4
Skills:
Stealth [CB 2]
S
Observation [CB 4]
SS
Four-Footed-Feather-Fall [CB 15]
E
Courtly Intuition [VMP 2]
C
“Ohmydevs, you have like, FOUR SKI—“ she hold her hand over her mouth. The Host and Jim both kept talking as if nothing had happened.
“Sorry!” Waverly whispered with chagrin. “But like, four skills! And two of them above S rank! That’s like, soooo cool!” She handed him back the sheet, and he put it back into his wallet. “You’re going to kill it tonight!”
“What?” Victor asked, pocketing his wallet.
“Fight night, dummy!”
“Yeah, I thought I was just going to, you know, watch? I’m not really a fighter, Wave.”
It was true. He had his fencing lessons, of course, because his mom insisted on it, but never taken a sheen to “the sport” as Vampires called it. He also knew how to scratch at people until they left him the fuck alone, but that was all instinctual.
Waverly’s ears drooped.
“But Victor! Um, like, if it’s your first night at Fight Night, you have to fight!”