Entertaining to say the Least

[Madame Cognito]

A black leather gloved right hand flipped a cube of ice into a short, stout sipper half full of scotch. Then, a deep content sigh prior to a liberal sip. The Cognito had made her money, rubbed elbows with elitist types, and ran a successful club on Coruscant, the Paradiso, that she'd recently moved to Scintilla. She wanted to be closer to one of her favorite business associates, a one Mister Salem Norongachi. She also deigned to be any where near the bullshit that was the Core and it's politics. The club move to Scintilla brought a change in operations. Where she was public, multi-storied, and flashy on Coruscant, Arya rebranded the club to be a little more in tune for her more low key sensibilities anymore. It was a more intimate space that served the seedier crowds of the Space Construct by providing a tasteful skin show complete with live jazz, blues music.

The glass of scotch and it's owner transported themselves over an alcove seating area within the appropriately seedy Kark Off. Having been in Eve for only a few months, Arya decided to finally pay a visit to her old acquaintance and see his bar. She enjoyed the Slums area. Her attitudes had settled as did her ideals. She wanted nothing to do with anything beyond her work at the Club and the neighborhood of the Slums.

Salem Norongachi

 

[Salem Norongachi]

The night was in full effect and a sheen of sweat covered Norongachi's brow. The place was packed, wall to wall degenerates and scum bags filling the small bar area with heat and the intermingled scent of sentients and ethanol. It was at times like these that Sal often wondered whether he should higher another hand, Essada was fine for her part but her skill set was...very particular. He needed one of those barmen that tossed cocktail shakers in the air while whistling the Imperial march and flirted with three people for tips. As it stood he could feel his patience starting to break, the constant baying of the clientele demanding more of his time than he had to give.

The beer taps never stopped flowing, and a half dozen times he had to break open another case of whiskey. There was a lull, a five minute respite from the driven determination of the Slums residents and he used it to wipe his face with a rag and take a long cold swallow from a pint. He set the empty glass down next to the three dozen others and found his eyes drawn upwards and saw her. She had a drink, which was odd because he didn't remember serving her (If you saw Arya Cognito, it wasn't something you forgot. Unless of course you died shortly after and considering her skill set, that was entirely possible). She moved through the crowd like a shark through a shoal, never touching or insinuating her presence but none the less people moved out of her path.

"Can you handle a tap?" He yelled over the din of a full bar. The kid, because he couldn't have been any older than twenty took on a glazed panicked expression and replied "Uh?"

"Serve beer? Pour drinks? Cover for me and your tabs on me." the kid brightened at that and grabbed the thrown bar rag as he made his way round to the business side. That done, Sal grabbed himself a whiskey and glowered and elbowed his way through the crowd until he stood next to her table. A lopsided smirk played across his lips and he tipped his glass to her.

"Well, well well. Heard you were in town."

 

[Raymond Mosses]

Ray sat at the Bar minding his own business trying to nurse a 20 century-old Rakata blood ale. The glass sat in front of him for the better part of an hour now bubbling and steaming like a volcano of superheated bantha blood plasma. Ray remembered asking for the most expensive thing that had in the bar and fully expected something interesting and possibly deadly for him to drink. However nowhere in his wildest imagination would he have ever thought this up. The smell was another thing that Ray could have never imagined existed. He had been exposed to many a tainted aroma in his day but nothing like this.
"Did something just move in this glass?" Ray asked the woman sitting next to him at the bar leaning back away from the glass. The woman eyed him with disgust then turned back around to talk to the pompous Fallen with his green skin and delicious pheromones. He gazed into the dark eyes of the green man and had to snap out of the daze it had put him in. He turned around leaned over the bubbling cauldron of death he had been served. The stench shook him from the trance and he once again went back to staring at the glass thinking about what he was sure was some sort of intestinal leech swimming around in it. He wrapped his hand around the glass bright the glass up to his lips and threw back the vile fluid.

Three hours later Ray's eye twitched and he realized through the hazy cloud of near-death that Salem had left some new guy behind the bar. "haeyyysyeeedydyyyey Yooufuuuu, givvvvsssee me aaaajaaanottttthhhoer onezzze oobb tdededdddsese coma drinks."

 

[Madame Cognito]

Arya smirked trying to stifle a laugh as she raised her glass of scotch to her lips. Her eyes had glanced over to the goofy gentleman in a wonderfully business casual look. The lopsided smirk the cause of her stifled laugh. She slid her eyes from him over to the obnoxiously drunk signore at the bar. A wide grin breached her lips. Arya was loving the ambiance of this delightfully seedy establishment. "So Sally, how have you been, darlin? I just LOOOOOVE what you have done with the place! It's so....grimy, dirty, slutty even. I can not believe I have been just down the way and have not seen this spectacle of an establishment before." Arya said with a playful smile.

Arya had felt like she was just finally getting on the upswing from drowning as of late. Leaving the Core Worlds is the best thing for anyone's mental clarity and sanity, Arya was no exception. A move was necessary and a tip on real estate from her old Twi'lek assistant, Talina Delos, sparked the somewhat recent traversal to the Scintilla Space Construct capital of Eve. In the past three months, Arya went from closing down operations in Coruscant's Entertainment District after being a staple there for 6 years to having become fully engulfed in setting up and controlling the day to day operations at the one street over Paradiso Club. She needed a bit of a respite and this evening away from her club was just what she needed. Arya had done as Sal did and left a barman in charge for the evening, though from the looks of it, her barman was a far better bet than this tea sandwich of a man that looked like he was almost scared of his shadow let alone this increasingly drunk and belligerent crowd accumulating around him.

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"Its not much..." he replied as he slipped into the booth across from her. He didn't have anywhere to go from there so he concluded. "Its not much." he took a mouthful of thoroughly cheap whiskey and grimaced at the tang it left on his tongue. She hadn't aged a day, Sal thought as his eyes threatened to water from the sheer chemical stink of the whiskey. He'd known her for a long time, over a decade, and while his body seemed to slip ever further into the broken category and time and experience took its toll, Arya Cognito simply remained.

"What brings you to my little slice of crap?"

Meanwhile, the errant impromptu barman for the evening was finding that the job wasn't quite as easy as it looked. His dark hair stuck to his forehead and despite the place only having two types of drinks he was getting the orders ass backwards more often than not. Every minute or so his eyes scanned the sea of bodies, hoping against hope that Sal would reappear to save him from this cutomer service based hell. It never came, he was committed. His only absolution would come at closing or when, inevitably, a drunk brained him with a bar stool.

Lady luck smiled and the guy sitting at the bar, twitching like a corpse attached to a battery, took the first of the thrown furniture. Harf, he thought, if there is ever a time to get down and pretend you don't exist, this is it. And that's what he did, the twenty two year old dropped behind the bar, hugged his knees and prayed for salvation while surrounded by highly combustible liquids while the Kark Off enjoyed its tradition of wanton violence and casual destruction.

 

[Raymond Mosses]

"Waiijhuiiiit, wwhheeeggdneree areie dyooooeuu Goooo....oooo... Frak!!!" said to the adolescent barman as he fell to the ground behind the bar. At that moment a chair flew and shattered against a wall sending chunks of its busted wooden frame against the side of his head. Ray whipped around to see a drunken man grinning at his accomplishment. "What are you smiling at idiot. This perm cost me two thousand credits." said ray to the man just before picking up the glasses in front of him and throwing it at the man. The man somehow managed to dodge the glass even in his drunken state and swung at Ray. Ray blocked the swing and answered with his own left hook impacting the mand cheek and chin. The man's head turned away from the force but snapped back more swiftly than Ray liked. Ray took this opportunity to evaluate his situation.. One they were both drunk. that worked for Ray, he saw that as fair and both would be slowed down. at least that was until the man bounced back from Rays punch so quickly. Two Ray had been in many bar fights and knew what to expect and how most of them went. The two would trade blows until one man fell down. This was right in Rays wheelhouse. He would trade a few blows then fall down and act like he was done and then when it was over buy the man a drink and all would be well and good. This was sober Ray talking. Sober Ray had excellent problem-solving skills and a somewhat keen sense of odds. Sober Ray would note that the man across from him was twice his size and seemed to not be affected by Rays punch. if anything it had made the man angrier. Drunken Ray, however, had no such skills. Drunken Ray screamed at the man and jumped towards him to scratch out his eyes.

Somehow Ray had gotten the upper hand on the man and with one Eye dangling out of the man's head, watched the man collapse onto the floor and pass out. Ray looked around at the crowd around them and slimed in victory eyeing the girl who had sat next to him which was now looking at him not the green-skinned devil beside her. He winked and she blushed a bit ad their eyes met. Ray began to walk over towards the woman who was now de-blowsing and preparing for him to reach her when a loud noise rang through his head.

"Hhheeeegfgeeyyy whhheeevere diidiidiiid she's goooosed" Ray shook his head in wonderment as the woman he had been moving towards had vanished. In fact, everything was black but the dim light shining through his barely open left eye. He fought to open his eye and realized his hand had been trying to ball up and raise from his waist for the better part of three minutes. his eye slowly opened and before him sat the glass he had drank the poison from. He was sure the owner had poisoned him instead of given him some rare expensive libation. The last five minutes or so had been some sort of near-death, life flashing before his eyes kind of thing. The chair had been real enough, Ray figured he had at least been conscious enough for that to register. The fight, the victory, and the girl, however, had been some sort of intestine leech fuelled hallucination. He tried to raise his arm to the bar from his side but it seemed he was at least partially paralyzed. With a grunt and incredible determination he managed to get his arm up and slam his fist on the table.

"bbaaarjjjrr Keeaefp.... Wheeerfebz Mmyyuyy ddddddrrrinnkkk1"

 

[Madame Cognito]

Arya shifted in her seat and straightened her bright red suit as she turned towards Salem. "Sal, darlin. I wanted to see what was going on in this slice of crap and to get away from my slice of crap down the street." Arya took the final swig of scotch before placing it down on the table and directing her full attention to Sal. No sooner had she shifted her focus, Arya noticed an altercation brewing from her periphery. The night had certainly turned more interesting. Suddenly, a solid spray of scotch left her lips as she cackled at the drunken stumbling that almost resembled an interpretative dance that the smaller gentleman was doing around a larger thug.

'Holy shit! His eye was now hanging out of his head! OOOH! They're both down now!' Arya thought was a stupid grin on her face. She knew her attention should be focused on Sal after speaking with him, but this bloody mess and the view of Sal's strung out bar keep struggling to keep it together was so damn amusing and distracting.

Salem Norongachi Raymond Mosses

 

[Salem Norongachi]

Sal barely gave the kerfuffle, because calling it a brawl was an insult to the Kark Offs denizens, a cursory glance. Instead he sat back, swirled the chemical concoction that called itself whiskey around its glass, and made himself comfortable. "I heard tell a new place had opened, couldn't find much on the owner though." he smirked then, with the proper amount of chagrin, noted that Arya wasn't paying attention. Maybe they didn't get the friendly eye-gouging dust ups in her part of the slums, could be that they had this 'security' thing a recently de-eye'd customer kept crying about, either way she was affixed to the goings on around them.

Reluctantly, and with a sigh, he took in the crowd. Usual faces, although their names hadn't been logged. They drank alot and the chiss owed 40 on a bar tab, 70 after the table he had just broken with his body. Then Norongachi saw the other guy, over by himself shadow boxing the entire Imperial legion and losing, if Sal was any judge.

"Never change, Kark, never change..." he muttered and took a drunk.

Madame Cognito Raymond Mosses

 

[Madame Cognito]

Arya closed her eyes momentarily to listen to the wonderful goings on of the establishment. The reason for her success in the entertainment sector was one word: Ambience. This place had a fabulously amusing bit of it. Her eyes opened once more with a satisfied smile as she returned her gaze to the devilishly handsome Salem Norongachi. With a coy smile Arya replied to Salem's statement, "Well, it seems that the owner you heard about has found you. What brought you into the entertainment sector? I imagine it was the idea of escapism from the irritatingly redundant activities that come with galactic service. Goddess knows that is why I found my niche in this industry. There's no pressure to be anything more than a simple owner--"
Her communicator rang out with a series of two low tone repeating beeps. "Sorry, darlin. I need to take this real quick--"

"Talina, what can I help you with that couldn't wait until I returned to the nightclub, babe?"

Down the street, a booming club was packed with a mixed bag of the attractive...and far less than attractive drunks trying their best at a nightly dance of coupling. Talina, a blue skinned Twi'lek with gorgeous lekku tats and face makeup stood high above the massive complex on the club office's balcony that overlooked the whole scene of flashing beams of light and plays of color that oscillated to the beat and rhythm of the music playing from the main stage. Pole dancers gyrated rhythmically in time with the beat of the music titillating the throngs of patrons that had packed the nightclub. "I know I should wait, Arya, but-"

Arya shifted in her seat into a posture that almost gave away her annoyance at the interruption. "I am going to stop you there, Talina. I put you in charge of the nightclub when I am not around for a reason. You are my most trusted employee. Please just take care of what needs to be done. If it's a rowdy patron, take care of it. If it's inventory related, handle it. Please only contact me if the bar is in flames or Goddess forbid security is being overwhelmed. Have a good night, Talina." Arya tapped the call off with no time for a reply.

Talina stammered as the hologram of Arya suddenly disappeared. She looked down at the club as she knelt against the railing of the balcony and contemplated her next move. Within seconds, Talina regained her steely, professional composure and spoke into her ear piece issuing orders to her staff.

Arya returned her attention to Salem. She was curious about this gentleman in appearance that seemed like he had a vast bit more to his story than he was allowing to shown under his smartly dressed visage and somewhat laissez faire demeanor.

Salem Norongachi Raymond Mosses

 

[Salem Norongachi]

It seemed like everyone had their troubles, although Aryas seemed to be a mite less than Sals at this given moment. A chair fired from the crowd and he looked at his guest, then the chair, then his guest and with a moment's calculation flicked his hand up and to the side. An unfortunate bystander caught the face full of wood that was due Ms Cognito and let out the appropriate scream for such an occasion.

The crowd was getting right into it now, the throng of bodies clashing and melding into whatever the opposite of an orgy was and involved only slightly more blood. You had to appreciate their dedication to grievous bodily harm, in a twisted sort of way. The furniture could be replaced of course, and would be by bashful brawlers come tomorrow, but bonds forged in the heat of a fight between two strangers as they stood back to back and kicked on-comers in the balls was something that could be cherished for a lifetime.

Sal sat back, watching the bloody violence like someone might watch a fireworks display, he ooo’d when the time was right and appreciated the spectacle the rest of the time. He’d have to clean it up of course, there would be hours of searching for lost teeth, cybernetic eyes and occasional peg legs but this is what made the Kark special; When it was done, and everyone had taken their lumps, they’d be back here tomorrow as closer bar flies than they had been the night before.

“Trouble on the homefront?” he yelled over a wookiee war cry.

 

[Ikki Ike]

The seeker class came out of hyperspace as Ikki stood there within the cockpit. The petite atrisian cinched up the straps of her synthatex top and adjusted her headpiece. The family had sent her here for something... most likely she was following up on some sort of lead in the long term exploration and development of force technologies. Their more advanced projects often went ot the obscure places and as the ship touched down she stepped out of the cockpit locking the controls to the chevron pad on her wrist. The gloves on her hands holding the slice wire spools as she clasped her hands in front of her body. With a small tight lipped smirk on her facewhen she walked down the ramp of the ship she looked up.. she always looked up at the others who were around her.

She was also used to not being noticed and as she moved she heard several things throughout her walk one of which was the voice of something or someone loud and proud of... of... oh dear was that a mess. She looked at it and moved quickly slipping into the bar as she stood there with the tight skirt and her top. Bronzed skin and black pools for her eyes before she watched the scene before her.There was a lot of violence and so much disorder, she felt her eye twitching for a moment and she reached into her small pack producing some cleaning supplies as she started to tidy up. The force enhanced movements makin her move faster, her body a four foot seven inch blue that moved to try and at least create a little order to this chaos. Her mind racing as she spoke to herself. 'So uncivilized.'