Partyfive

"Demons!" Weft shrieked, seemingly at random. Another patch of empty atmosphere was adeptly vanquished.

Suitov(?) froze for slightly too long before trying to laugh it off. "Are you nuts? I am Suitov."

Julia put on her suspicious face.

"Well, if you're Suitov, where's your hellhound, Wolfy?" she asked, testing him.

Hang on... there was something at the back of his memory... something about real ultimate power?

"Wolfopuccu is back home," Suitov(?) said with certainty. "Sh-- he doesn't like parties."

"A-HA!" Julia cried, and lunged inexpertly with Lady Knight's sword. She managed to chip a table leg, twist her wrist and drop the sword. She'd not even come within a foot of him in that manoeuvre.

"Ouch" she said, as her wrist and her pride were damaged.

She whimpered a little and backed away from Suitov(?).

Lady Knight sniggered shamelessly. "And jus' what where ye thinkin' ye're doin', takin' a lady's weapon withou' even askin'?" (The sometime thief pointedly ignored the fact that she herself would take a baby's candy just to have candy.) "Och, ye did well fer bein' untrained," Lady continued, though she stared at her sword as she retrieved it from Julia's feet.

"Ye great idjit," the warrioress whispered to the blade when she thought no-one could hear.

Hirax observed this from beneath the buffet table, observed silently that Lady Knight was nucking futz, and absolved himself of intervening by slipping past the nearest doorjamb.

"Did I do something wrong?" Suitov(?) asked dryly.

Julia mumbled her apologies to Lady Knight, and thought that in her current slightly ruffled state, she'd imagined Lady Knight actually talking to her sword. Bizare.

She turned her attention back to Suitov(?).

"The real Suitov's hellhound is called Baskerville. The real Suitov would have known that... and he wouldn't be such a shameless flirt either."

"I... was testing you?" Suitov(?) tried... but there was an unmistakeably unSuitovlike edge of worry to his voice now. He appealed. "Hey Weft, you trust me don't you?"

"About as far as I could throw Pasht's fat derrière," Weft replied, his hallucinatory state having impaired none of his charm.

"Huh? I thought we were close friends," Suitov(?) said, confused.

This finally seemed to get through to the monk, whose pale green eyes widened. "Who on earth are you?" he said.

"I've always wondered that," said Mhelarn,unasked. "My parents never saw fit to tell me, I guess."

The darker ale was quite good, in fact. If a little off, in a way. There was more than a hint of some kind of liquor infusing it.

"Aruagh? Graough, enuai." he added, and attempted to thunk Weft on the shoulder in a pleasantly oblivious fashion.

"Firstly, that was a nasty thing to say about Pasht." Julia directed at Weft. Hour-glass figures are definately more elegant than twig-like, and she was secretly jealous of Pasht's booty anyway.

"Secondly, what do we do about... it." she nodded her head towards Suitov(?)

Pasht silently dove at Weft and delivered a fierce backhand at his cheekbone. In her rage, her vampiric canines extended into view and her eyes, which had been a pleasantly warm brown, burned red hot.

Her violence complete, Pasht resumed her normal posture and checked her manicure. "It's impolite to speak of something when you know nothing about it, pet -- especially when you would do well to learn instead of bluff. Not that you shall have that chance now."

With his full horrified attention on Julia and the thing that looked like Suitov, Weft hadn't even dodged.

"You," he said very deliberately, "ridiculous, frowzy vampiric floozy." He didn't seem to notice the angry mark spreading across his cheek, despite every possibility it would soon be joined by a matching pal.

"Hit him again, baby," urged Suitov(?), with a grin that was positively demonic. He winked at Jules, and the 'wolf for good measure. Nice fur. A definite possibility.

The invisible hallucinatory antelope spread their wings and began to play volleybrawl up among the chandeliers.

"You think I should?" Pasht inquired of possibly-Suitov. "It is more pleasurable to jump someone wary than unsuspecting, though this one begs for it so badly that I think he enjoys it as well as I." Was that a leer? Whatever the vampiress' expression, it showcased her fangs very well.

"Ten gold on the the red dresh!" bellowed Lady Knight, who had drained a good portion of ale by this point.

"Who wouldn't?" Suitov(?) asked with a hint of a leer (a very genteel one, mind you).

"You!" Weft said hotly. "You - I mean, Suitov doesn't have taste that bad! Or... well, Jaina, I suppose, but that?" He stabbed at the vampiress, but only with his finger. "A troll wouldn't touch that."

For all he knew, of course, Suitov(?) WAS a troll.

Noticing that the only two people with weapons and the skill to use them seemed to be... well, sloshed, made Julia rather uneasy.

"Alright, look" she directed at Suitov(?), "you're clearly not Suitov and you've got none of us fooled so either explain yourself and your intentions..."

She shuddered. For all she knew he could be one of those angels that humped everything.

"or clear off... please."

"Deck 'im!" Lady Knight roared happily, wobbily indicating Weft with her sword-hand. Her opposite held a steadily emptying bottle, which sloshed as she moved.

Pasht agreed. She spun on her heel and moved to twin the monk's cuff mark. "A real troll," she pointed out, "would prefer your loathsome touch."

"Oh well, curse you, your perspicacity and Weft's feminine intuition," said not-Suitov. He seemed to shrug, then shrug some more, then a pair of black bat-wings exploded out of his shoulders. After this, several things changed all at once. Notably, he became a she and several inches shorter. She was also attired more appropriately, or rather completely inappropriately but very skin-tightly.

The expression on Weft was pitiful to behold. His sword hung at his side like a burst balloon, forgotten. When he recovered, of course, he would probably begin to kill everything in sight.

"Surprise surprise, me bitches!" said Ishtar.

Pasht had ignored not-Suitov in favour of an arse-whupping, but his abrupt manifestation of giant wings stopped her in her tracks. Then he became a she, one who looked to be very much Pasht's favourite sort of woman.

"He-llo!" the vampiress greeted Ishtar, spending a full second on each syllable. "Well done, love. Tell me, was that or this a full shapeshift or a masterful illusion?" Pasht tweaked something supple on the 'bus. "You feel real. And beddable. What were you saying about bitches?"

Lady Knight squinted alternately at her nearly empty liquor bottle and at Ishtar before blinking and hurling the bottle at the wall. "Mush shober upf," she slurred. "Sheein' crayshee shtuff."

Having dropped any pretence to bonbonhood, Ishtar had abandoned the pheromones, forged morphic signature and chemical tells she'd been faking along with the shape.

"No illusion," she drawled. "What you see is what you get, if you're very very good."

Ah, she's interested now I'm visibly horny, she thought. And they were very sexy horns, it was true.

"..." croaked Weft.

"As for bitches, I'm more than happy to share," Ishtar added generously.

"I'll go for that." said the mhelarn contemplative. "Or a dog. Dogs, bitches, it doesn't matter. They're all like the same from on top. I've given up on having a relationshwatever."

He downed another from the cooler, grimaced at the taste, and continued on. The audience, or lack therof, seemed immaterial.

""Ish a point. The first time you think ye really, really, communicate yer lying to eachosher. Differnen interpretations. Last one, she was kinda a materialist. It was all about the cuddling and the kibbles. No higher philoshophy, no chess, no mindbendin gambits. No fakeouts of the monkeys' rank n file. Nuthin to talk about." The reddening eyes blinked.

"Oh, a butterfly!"

The werewolf gamboled about the room.