Eegras swims up and looks around. He notices a pile of dead bodies and grunk ordering a drink. Sadly for grunk, the acid pit is within arms reach of his foot and Eegras demonstrates that as he pulls grunk in. Eegras then steals his drink.

grunk wonders how he was simultaneously fighting the acid monster and having a drink. Blaming it on the freemasons, he decides just to go swimming in the acid pit. All is peaceful.

@jacabyte, on Sep 3 2007, 09:54 AM, said in The Boozerama Bar: Classic Edition:

JacaByte also wonders why Duke assaulted a Rebel Cruiser factory...

And by the way, I was using a hologram booth. Your tracing abilities are poor to say the least.

I bought this Crusier. What are you talking about. But now that you mention it, that would be a good idea.

And, I know. I just started teaching myself to track signals. It's harder than you think. Anyway...

duke is now angry that Jacabyte foiled his assassination attempt. duke put's it on his to-do list to kill jacabyte secretly. But first, he focuses back on grunk who has somehow survived his fight with the acid monster. Because of this daring feat (actually forced), duke accepts grunk now, but only as an acquaintance. duke orders Root Beer for everyone still alive in the bar for having survived the first two pages. duke is dismayed a little by the slowing of activity, but he continues to keep his hopes up. "This bar isn't over yet," he screams. But then, with a slight look of worry, he mumbles the question, "Is it?"

Nil drinks his free (for him at least) root beer.

duke cries as he suspects the bar will die if know one else participates. Anyone up for a game of chess? Just kidding.

mrxak pulls out his holographic HyperChess, and begins to play against the Tabletop Ultrasnail.

Something large and green descends from the stars. Slimy appendages, bulbous and short, extend as it settles onto a landing pad. Membranes begin to vibrate, and the soothing bossanova-like strains of Lorelei from Lauralee fill the air as a tongue-like ramp rolls out from the lozenge-shaped ship and the sole passenger descends and, adjusting his bow tie, begins to saunter towards the remains of the wrecked freighter that houses the Boozerama.

A lumpy yellow ship suddenly warps into the system and zooms down towards a landing pad outside the bar. A little man with a top hat rushes out, slaps the man with the bow tie in the face with a trout, then rushes back in again. In a flash, the lumpy yellow ship disappears without a trace. As the man with the bow tie is trying to come to grips with what just happened, a small piece of paper flutters to the ground where the lumpy yellow ship previously stood...

"Damn you Freemasons!" Eegras shouts as the yellow ship disappears. A small piece of paper floats down and gives Eegras a nasty paper cut on the neck. He drops to the ground and passes out. A few moments later, he exits the regenerator like nothing happened.

duke picks up the note dropped by the lumpy yellow ship. It reads, "If you want your grunk back, bring 5,000,000,000,000 credits to Mars. Signed-The Masked Pest." duke knows what he has to do. He orders a round of drinks for everyone in the bar. duke then really realizes what he has to do. He gets on board his faithful Rebel Crusier to save grunk.

Feeling peckish, the green ship quickly swallows duke's Rebel Cruiser before following the yellow ship back into the heavens.

Oblivious to this and to the strange dramas surrounding the razor-edged ransom note, the man with the bow tie (or rather, the lizard in formal wear, for he is not so much a man as a large and multicolored iguana wearing a complete tuxedo) continues on to the bar. Sophisticated passers-by, who would normally be completely unfazed by the arrival of a heretofore unknown species on Evildrome, are nonetheless puzzled by his attire and by the un-hip appearance of his briefcase, which is labelled "CAUTION: VOIDNIANS" in large orange block letters.

In the entranceway to the bar, the iguana signs something for the doorman and takes possession of a hovercart piled high with improbable bits of equipment. He then proceeds to a small stage that has been set up in the corner opposite the acid pit, and opens the briefcase.

Four indescribable wisps of nothingness waft out of the case, enlarge, take on humanoid form, pick out instruments from the hovercart, and start tuning up.

The iguana grabs a microphone. "Folks, we're very pleased to be your entertainment tonight. We'll be playing something for everyone: current top hits direct from Earth, oldies and goodies from all over Known Space, novelties from far beyond and, of course," he says, nodding at the pit, "acid jazz."

"If you've got a request, just let us know! We'll do our best. My name is Dr. Trowel, and these four sentient gaps in the space-time continuum are the Nots."

And with that, Dr. Trowel takes lead as the Nots swing into Sympathy for the Astex Devil-Bot™....

Communicating via cell phone from some godforsaken planet in the Milky Way's unfashionable left armpit, grunk requests the classic "Like a Rolling Asteroid."

Dr. Trowel pulls out his hyperharmonica and obliges. Unfortunately, grunk neglected to upgrade to the new "Generation 5047 mega-cell" service. He misses hearing his song, ironically enough, because the call cuts out when an asteroid rolls between his planet and the Left Armpit Central Cell Satellite.

mrxak laughs quietly about the preceding events. Little did they know that grunk had not been kidnapped, and the ransom demand was just a trick. Along with a holographic grunk tucked away to make occasional phone calls, everything was working perfectly.

"Here girl!" mrxak calls to his Tabletop Ultrasnail. "Daddy's got a little treat for you!"

The ultrasnail slimes over quickly when called, and mrxak pulls out a little mashed up grunk, and feeds it to his pet. As she munches quietly on the grunk and a bit of fresh greens. mrxak strokes her back.

"That's my good girl. Just a little more. He'll be all gone in a day or two at this rate."

grunk realizes that even though he has failed miserably at everything he's done, even if he never amounts to anything, even though he's already died at the radula of a Tabletop Ultrasnail, for God's sake, he knows he at least has a lucrative and profitable future as a pet food product.

Nil takes what is left of grunk and sells him to the camel breeders on Palomino for enough credits to get a fleet of Kestrels. Instead, he uses some the credits to clone grunk's DNA out of the camel dung and gives the new grunk back to mrxak. "The camels seemed to like him," Nil tells mrxak, "but your snail probably likes him better. If your snail doesn't like to eat someone whose DNA came through a camel's digestive system, let him go."

Meanwhile, a small, squishy, radiation-sensitive creature on the asteroid between the holo-grunk and the bar mutates from the cell phone signal.

The band plays Looks Like Heaven, Tastes Like Junga

The Tabletop Ultrasnail turns its nose up at the grunk clone.

duke, by the grace of a supernova, manages to escapes from the digestive track of the green ship. He got back to the bar in time to hear and see everything. duke is angry that Nil took his idea, but happy he can do a better job. duke has to work with grunk to eliminate the threat to the Boozerama Bar. Little does everyone know that duke planted a bomb at Evildrome that would explode if the real grunk every was destroyed. What would be the purpose of life if duke had no one else to taunt. duke scrambles to get some of grunks DNA. Luckily, some of his splattered remains our left on a rock outside the bar. duke takes it and clones a grunk army. But duke makes one perfect grunk for him to fix the old grunk. Using alchemy, duke will take grunk's soul out of his almost gone remains. He will then attach his soul to the new perfect grunk. This may destroy the perfection, but grunk will live on. duke manages to sneak up on mrxak and steal the remaining bits of grunk. duke rushes off to his secret lab under the bar to attach the soul to the new body. Though the process is tough, it's a success. duke then free's grunk with one request: that he take his grunk army and do whatever he pleases with it. If grunk ever needs another army, duke will make him one. With new vim and vigor, grunk heads out with his clone army to do whatever they want. duke, feeling teary-eyed, waves goodbye to grunk and wishes him good luck. Feeling a sense of accomplishment, duke go's back to the bar and orders a round of Levo Cream Beer.

Eegras falls out of the regenerator for the n th time and looks around. He hears something about a 'bomb' and starts looking around. He sees a sign that reads "This is totally not a bomb. Go away." "Obviously that's not a bomb," he thinks, "but why is it ticking? Not-bombs don't tick." He decides to check it out and realizes that the 'This is totally not' is in a different font than 'bomb' and 'Go away' is in wingdings. 'It's still not a bomb.' Eegras grabs a Gargle Blaster and pours it down grunk's mouth and watches him writhe on the ground.