The shade of Vitriol coughed out a small cloud of dust and smoke, replacing the aroma of incense with a redolence of old ashtrays and bitter coffee.
"Who dares disturb my rest, dagnabbit!" croaked Vitriol, visually scanning the room while patting his pockets in search of a ciggy. Locating a crumpled pack of Camels in a breast pocket and producing a lighter from the left front pocket of his trousers Vitriol fishes a cig out of the packet and lights it.
A waspish voice pierces the room's shocked silence: "You can't smoke in here you fucking moron! Read the goddamn sign!"
Frood grimaces and leaps down from the stage, making soothing gestures toward the back of the room.
"Hush Flynn... just let it go. You don't want to piss off a shadow pers-"
"Don't you fucking hush me you androgynous jar of expired mayonnaise! Cigarettes fucking stink and it's illegal to smoke in here and I don't have to fucking put up with it!"
Vitriol, expressionlessly watching this interaction while occasionally puffing on his cig, grins and says:
"I knew a Flynn once. Mouth like an overflowing sewer and a disposition that could teach a wet hornet a few things about being aggressive. I don't reckon you'd be *that* Flynn, would ya?"
Frood apprehensively places his hands over his face and turns away as if to indicate he literally can not stand to witness what's about to happen.
"Aggressive?! SEWER?!?" Flynn sputters in volcanic indignation.
Just when the tension crackling through the air between Vitriol and Flynn seemed about to reach cataclysmic levels an enormously loud *THUD!* causes everyone to turn their attention back to the stage.
"Hah. Would you look at that." a deep, gravelly voice rumbles. "Now it's a party."
The cloud of dust the object caused crashing through the roof before destroying the stage raised a large cloud of dust which began to dissipate upon the the utterance of that gravelly
voice. The large party of revelers who were minutes before encouraging Frood to peg himself, now wanted no part of this new party and vanished like the wind.
The breeze caused from the quick exit of Froodles 'friends*ahem*' blew away the smoke and dust and a coffin lay upright through the middle of the stage like a gravestone newly set by a stone mason. Flynn and Frood stared blankly at this surely singular strange circumstance. Vitty's cigarette dropped from his physical mouth, only half smoked. He knew full well what was about to happen, and he wanted no part of it.
The top lid of the coffin opened. A fog poured out. Two red pinprick points of light appeared through,
Piercing the haze.
A face slowly appears.
Hideously smiling.
Gravelly cackling.
Vitty is the first to react. After all,
It was Caskur who cursed him into being half a shadow person to begin with. So he knew it was her at the first thud. The pig was back
Vitty began to fade, pissed he wasn't able to finish his cigarette or get another coffee while still in his mortal state. Cas had schooled him again. And as he slipped into shadow, he began to hiss 'TWAP says you look better dead than when you were alive!'
And with that, Vitty whisped into the the dark corners of the night.
Frood got so scared his magic, far less potent than Caskurs, failed,
And his micro penai turned in like a snail into its shell,
And his gash formed once again.
Much like seeing Medusa, Frood was transfixed like stone, his bald head shiny with sweat, the only thing defining he still drew breath.
Flynn's face showed no emotion. The Botox treatments had taken their toll, and with the exception of a slight tremor on that highway billboard forehead of hers, or his, or whatever the fuck it is,
Flynn was as still as Frood.
Caskur spoke. Gravelly. Like an old crone of a witch who drank too much of her own potions,
"Now the REAL party can begin!"