“Thanks, Clarabelle,” Mordecai said, patting her on the shoulder. He tossed her a gold coin. We went through the door.
“Holy shit,” I said a moment later, gazing upon the room. I had to shout to be heard. “This is considered ‘dead?’”
There had to be 200 people of all shapes and sizes in the first room. Pounding dubstep filled the nightclub. Seizure-inducing lights flashed. The floor shook. Smoke rose from all corners.
Mordecai made a circle in the air with his finger, drawing a halo over himself. A translucent bubble formed over his head, making him look like he was wearing Zev’s spacesuit helmet. He motioned for me to do the same. I twirled my finger in the air, and a circle formed, covering my head. Donut also repeated the gesture, waving her paw in the air.
The moment the bubble formed, about 95% of the pounding music filtered out. I could still hear it, but it was now background noise. A new sound emerged. I looked about, and a small portion of the people in the club had the bubbles on their heads. I could hear them talking amongst themselves, as if we were in a moderately-busy cafe.
“There are a few types of privacy bubbles,” Mordecai said. “This is the most basic. You can talk to anyone in the room without having to shout. Most clubs give access to this or similar spells.”
“Weird,” I said. I poked at the bubble with my finger, and it popped. The pounding music returned, startling me. I quickly reformed it.
“This is the main room of the Desperado Club,” Mordecai said. Several rooms led off to different areas. Most of the rooms were labeled with floating neon signs, all in that same 1920s, speakeasy-style font. The whole place gave off a retro-futuristic, Blade Runner vibe. Of the 200 people filling the dance floor, almost all of them were NPCs. I did see a few bewildered-looking crawlers wandering about. My map also showed the distinctive white dot with a cross, indicating a few elites that trawled the dance floor.
“This room,” Mordecai continued, “exists on a different plane as the outside of the club. It’s the same thing as my guildhall. The moment you come into the members-only area, you are in the same room as everyone in all the club locations throughout the entire level. So these crawlers you see come from all corners of the Over City. But when you leave, you’ll come out where you came in. You cannot use the club as a fast travel location. Usually.” We approached a booth. The four elven NPCs sitting at the table jumped up. They popped their bubbles and moved to the dance floor, allowing us to sit down.
“Most of these NPCs are bots,” Mordecai said. “The club will always appear as if it’s full of people, but that’s just an illusion. If it’s a young, buff or beautiful half-naked creature it’s likely a bot. They’re not even real NPCs. You can dance with them. You can even bang them if you have the gold. But they can’t hold more than a rudimentary conversation, and they don’t exist outside the club. The moment a real NPC or crawler enters through the door, one of the bots disappears, and vice versa.”
“Weird,” I repeated, looking about. I counted about ten crawlers and three elites. Each of the three elites were engaged in conversation with crawlers. I felt my hackles rise at that.
Donut jumped to stand on the table. “How did you get in here so easily?” she asked. “Do you also have a tattoo?”
Mordecai nodded. “I had a pass early on. They know me here now.”
A blue-skinned woman NPC in a privacy bubble came to stand over the table. She didn’t have a name or level floating over her. It just said Waitress. “Drinks tonight?”
“I want a Dirty Shirley,” Donut said. “And you have to put it in a bowl.”
“Certainly, your majesty,” the waitress said.
“Do you have earth alcohol?” I asked.
“Absolutely, hun. What can I get you?”
“Bring me a bottle of bourbon.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “That can either be a ten gold request or a 1,000 gold one. That ain’t covered by your drink coupons.”
“Let’s keep it around 50.”
She nodded. My eyes caught the haze of smoke filling the large room. It flashed in the light. It didn’t smell right, but I felt a familiar tug in my chest. “Wait, do you sell cigarettes here?”
“Absolutely not,” Donut said. “He’s not allowed to have cigarettes.”
The waitress shook her head. “I’m sorry, hun. We don’t have earth tobacco. We have blitz sticks, however. Would you like me to send a pharmacist over?”
I had no idea what a blitz stick was, and the last thing I needed was a new addiction.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, sighing.
“Actually, who’s the pharmacist on duty?” Mordecai asked. “Is it Quint?”
“Quint is working, yes.”
“Send him over,” Mordecai said. “And I’ll take a flagon of Empress's Mead.”
“Very well,” she said, wandering off.
“What the hell is a pharmacist?” I asked. “And what’s a blitz stick?”
“Oh, he’s just a drug dealer,” Mordecai said. “And stay away from blitz sticks. They’re hallucinogens, and they’re highly addictive. Magically addictive. You don’t want that.”
“Then why are we summoning a pharmacist?”
“He’s an old friend,” Mordecai said.
“Are we safe here?” I asked as we waited.
“This place isn’t a saferoom, though the security here is pretty good. But only in this room. This place has a lot of nooks and crannies. The bouncers aren’t in the other areas, except the casino.”
I looked up at the neon signs leading off to other areas. Three signs were unlit, but I could still read them. One read Casino, one read The Hunting Grounds, and the third was Guild-O-Rama. Of the lit signs, they were Bitches, Penis Parade, Jobs, The Silk Road, and Restrooms.
There was a ninth door, but there was no sign over it. A rock monster guarded the entrance. I watched as a waitress emerged, and I realized it was the room to the back.
I’d noticed the Bitches and Penis Parade signs first, and I’d assumed they led to the restrooms until I saw the actual restroom sign. “So, what are these places?” I asked.
“Bitches is the female strip club and brothel. Penis Parade is the same thing, but for those who prefer dudes. Don’t go in either of those places, especially not on this floor. You’ll get shanked. Plus viewers tend to ridicule the crawlers who go in there.”
I immediately thought of that new quest with the prostitutes. Mordecai had just shaken his head when we told him about it, and then he’d told us to ignore it. The quest would go away the moment we left the floor.
“…Jobs is a place to get quests,” Mordecai continued. “These tend to be NPC assassinations and theft-themed gigs. The silk road is a marketplace. We’ll go in there in a bit. Guild-O-Rama holds several rogue-themed guild rooms, including an explosives guild. There are guilds available on this third floor, but the more specialized ones don’t become available until later, so that section isn’t open yet.”
“Wait, will the Desperado Club be available on the lower levels? Like four and five? And are those really stairs to the Hunting Grounds?”
“Yes, and yes,” Mordecai said. “But the club will be harder to find on the fourth and fifth floors. When you go in, you’ll find yourself back here in this room, just like my guildhall. Those stairs to the Hunting Grounds open up once you hit the sixth floor. You can only come back up to this floor once you get to the sixth floor. That Hunting Grounds level is much bigger than this one. Something else interesting happens once the crawlers hit that floor. I’ll explain that later.”