Session XXXIII: Just Deserts

 Hello again! We just got out of possibly one of the best sessions yet, chock full of combat, 1980's anime femme fatale cameos, mystery, suspense, romance, and it all ends on a cliffhanger... And to top it all off, Hal Brunchkiller... HAL FRICKIN' BRUNCHKILLER came away looking badass ... all on his own!

Let's get into the opening crawl.

AI images will only let you get so far before you start to infringe on copyrights. Pretend L1 and Golden Wheels are there.. um... lying down where you cannot see them. Also there's too many dudes. The characters present should be: Vero, Hal, Golden Wheels, Lo'Sar Tan, L1, Soan Voan and D'Wook. Everyone else who was not present were chilling on the Silverlight.

Session 33: Just Deserts

Aboard the desert skiff that they “borrowed” from the late Jabba the Hutt, Delta Team rides into the Dune Sea, the next step in their search for the legendary Republic tactician Adar Tallon.

According to Labria, a Devaronian drunk who seems to know people, or at least people who know people,  Slag Flats, an Ithorian “oldster,” might have information to aid their search.

Tallon is the key, not only to turning the tide of the Galactic Civil War, but also as bait to lure out Jodo Kast, a small-time bounty hunter posing as a Mandalorian, whom Soan Voan and Lo’Sar Tan have unfinished business with. This is the way!

Alright so on the way out to the desert, the group kept talking to Labria, and he explained what an oldster was. He said that the three remaining oldsters, Heff, Slag Flats, and Old Arno, were the last of the original settlers that came on the colony ship roughly 80 years ago. Mos Eisley sprung up around this colony ship, and they remember the good old days and they have been keeping meticulous records as part of a civic organization they set up, the Mos Eisley historical society. While they are all good friends, they also are rivals for the presidency of their organization, which... has three members. Their goal is to set up a museum to preserve the historical and cultural legacy of the town they saw prosper back in the first 20 years, but then saw sharp decline with the arrival Jabba the Hutt and all the criminal activity associated with him.

Eventually they pulled up toward a broadcast tower that was converted into a water silo. Labria asked Vero to stop the skiff. In a drunken stupor he jumped down, got on his beat up speeder bike, bid the party farewell and put the bike in reverse.  

Unfortunately he had forgotten to untie it first. Not realizing his error he continued to accelerate backwards until one of the players jumped down, turned off the bike, and untied the rope.

Labria thanked them and turned around, heading back in the direction of Mos Eisley.

The members of Delta Team stepped toward the water silo.

It looked like this.

Everyone stepped inside except Lo'Sar Tan, who decided he was going to check out the back. There he found an old speeder. The doors to the building slammed shut after everyone else inside entered. Lo'Sar observed four or five shadows of people jump into the speeder and ride off into the desert.

He decided he wanted to give chase, so, he ran back to his own speeder and took the steering wheel and gave chase.

Meanwhile inside the water silo building, D'Wook ignited his lightsaber trident. In the center of the room the party could see an Ithorian lying on the ground. Soan went over to check his pulse.

Not knowing exactly where the vein on an Ithorian's neck is, she moved her hands up and down feeling around, eventually feeling a tiny dart sticking out of his neck. She pulled it out and instantly recognized it, as it was something that Jodo Kast, her ex and former loanshark, had used often when they were out on missions here on Tatooine five years ago. She showed it to Lo'Sar who also instantly recognized it as a Kaminoan poison dart. In fact, he was sure this was one that he had made himself, due to the imperfections.

Kamino was destroyed by the Empire decades ago, and Lo'Sar Tan, when he still had his armor, found that the supply of darts dwindled in the years after the Kaminoan civilization met its end. So he took to making them himself. They were functional, but not as good as the original.

(Note: When this module was written, we'd never even seen Boba Fett shoot a dart in either the Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. It was used as Jodo Kast's signature way to assassinate people and so the players know that the same suspect is killing all these different people. That means that in Episode II, Jango Fett's calling card and Obiwan's whole assassin dart goose chase was inspired not by Boba Fett, but by Jodo Kast, who was eventually retconned.)

They determined that the Ithorian who lay before them was Slag Flats. Slag had a scrap of paper in her hand. Soan removed the paper and read it aloud. 

"Arno's next."

It takes minutes to die from the poison darts, so this note was Slag Flats' last action before she passed away.

The team began discussing why Jodo Kast would be wanting to kill Slag Flats. Then one in the party remembered that when they had accompanied Turk to visit the religious zealot, Turk had been too concerned with collecting the right amount of mystical bantha poop to care about the passersby who he'd overheard talking about "Old Heff" having died of a mysterious poisioning. Turk had told the rest of the team about it prior to their sojurn out to the desert tonight.

(Note: In the previous session nobody cared to follow this lead. And most of the players had forgotten about it in this session, so I had them roll knowledge to see if they remembered that Turk had said anything about this to them. Several of them rolled successfully, so we treated it like common knowledge.) 

The team started discussing... why would Jodo Kast kill these oldsters? What does that have to do with his search for Adar Tallon?

Just then D'Wook felt a drop of rain hit his face. Now wait, it couldn't have been rain. It was now a steady stream. It was making a mud puddle on the sand floor. Wait, now it was a small waterfall.

They all looked up to see the roof of this building was opening and the water in the silo above was flooding this room.

Meanwhile, Lo'Sar Tan was gaining on the old speeder and about to catch up to it but someone on that speeder started shooting. He took a few evasive maneuvers, but he's not the best driver. The skiff is also big and bulky, and while it may be built for speed when it is moving in a straight line, it does not corner well. So one of the blaster shots connected, disabling one of the engines on the skiff, and the speeder got away. Lo'Sar Tan turned around and headed back to the building. Much more slowly.

Back inside the silo building, the water was up to D'wook's waist, meaning it was about knee-deep for everyone else. The note, which Soan had laid on the floor was now completely destroyed by the rushing water, which was now falling like a giant waterfall into the building.

Hal Brunchkiller marched over to one of the doors and attempted to jam his lightsaber into it. It caused the saber to bend in a strange way. The doors, in fact, the whole building, was "magnetically sealed." 

Vero activated her jetpak and began flying, observing the roof. They might be able to go through the hole with the water rushing down... if the water would stop.

L1-NK pulled out a life raft, which he somehow had within him for some reason.

(Note: L1 has an ability to once per session, pull out any item at all if he has a nonzero roll on one die.)

Anyway some of the members jumped aboard the raft. The two droids sunk to the bottom and were now completely covered.

There was some more trying to break the walls. One person suggested explosives, but they decided against it because they might get hurt. Besides the water might nullify their effectiveness.

Long story short, eventually all the water entered the room below and they swam up through the hole. Inside the silo portion an access latter let to a hatch at the top of the silo. They climbed or jetpacked out the hatch, then lowered to the ground, Vero and Lo'Sar Tan helping everyone except Hal Brunchkiller to get down.

Hal instead used the force to get down, swan diving and at the last moment stopping himself with the force. Unfortunately he over-rotated and landed on his head. Uggh. He wasn't hurt, but he was humiliated.

Golden Wheels used his magnetic abilities to walk up to the top of the tower and walk his way back down. But L1 was still inside. He tried shooting his grappling hook but the water made his shot off target.

The party decided to use some thermal detonators to blow a hole in the building so that L1 could get out.

Kablam!  A huge lake now surrounded the building, and Slag's body wooshed out onto the sand. L1 rolled out, thanking the team for the rescue.

Just then they noticed four shadows jumping descending from above and landing on the silo.

A cloud moved away exposing the moon, and this is what they saw:

Soan Voan took one look and couldn't help but smile. These ladies were just too cool.

The teal one (Sylia) shouted out: "Knight Sabers.... Sanjo" 

(Note: Why not. I've brought in so many 80s references at this point that I might as well bring the Knight Sabers in from Bubblegum Crisis. They are hunters... Maybe they don't have the same objective but they were coming to meet Slag Flats and saw the explosion and the dead body and sprung into action.)

The Knight Sabers and Delta Team engaged with each other, fighting back and forth. The green one (Linna) did some cool backflips and sliced off L1's middle foot with her blade tails. This was the first time L1 had been injured, and it was on one of the only weak spots on him where he wasn't covered in Beskar.

The blue one (Priss) shot a micro needle at Golden Wheels, piercing his armor and rendering one of his hands immobile.

Soan noticed that they seemed really focused on taking out the droids first.

Sylia pulled out a retractable almost lightsaber like blade from her glove and took a swing at L1 that was blocked by Hal.

The pink one (Nene) took a few shots (machine gun bullets) at D'Wook, missing... she stepped back and told the others that these guys might not be pushovers.

D'Wook sprung into action and knocked his lightsaber tine into Priss' battery pack.

The battle went back and forth for a while and Soan noticed that Sylia was giving the others commands. So she dropped her sword and said.. wait! Wait! Stop everything! Let's talk.

Priss: Never! You killed Slag Flats and now you and you're gonna pay!

D'Wook: Assume much?!?!?!? 

Soan: No..we were here to meet Slag Flats! When we found him he was already dead.

Priss: And so that's why you blew up the building? To hide any evidence that you killed him? You bounty hunters are all the same. Torture your prisoners for clues, then kill them so nobody else can get the same clue. You really think you'll be first to get to this mysterious Adar Tallon first when there are hundreds of bounty hunters combing the whole desert? 

Hal: We're not bounty hunters. We're trying to protect Adar Tallon.

Priss: Lies! If you were trying to protect him then you wouldn't have killed Slag Flats!

Sylia: Priss.. calm down. Let's hear what they have to say.  How did Slag Flats die?

Soan: We found this small poison dart in his neck.

Nene: Hmm, another one by the same weapon.

Linna: So we have to find out who is making these darts. They are obviously looking for Adar Tallon and want to kill all the people giving them clues so they can get there faster than the competition.

Lo'Sar: Well... um... actually... that's my dart. I made it.

Priss aimed her needle launcher at Lo'Sar Tan.

Priss: See? It was them! They killed Slag and they killed Heff!

Sylia put her hand on Priss' arm, lowering it.

Sylia: Alright.. explain what's going on.

Lo'Sar explained that he made the dart, but Jodo Kast had stolen his armor and was running around impersonating him.

Sylia: We can relate.* Alright Knight Sabers stand down.

Soan: So.. you ladies are pretty cool. Can we join?

Vero: Yeah do you have any openings?

Sylia: Well, if you can drive our repulsor truck better than my teenage brother, we might have an opening, but somehow I think that's probably beneath you, Ma'am.

Vero: Yeah, you're probably right.

Sylia: Alright, good luck with your search. Mackie we're ready.

A repulsorlift truck, driven by a pimply faced teenaged boy pulled up and the trailer opened up, revealing more cool looking mech suits.

This is what he was doing during the combat.

The Knight Sabers hopped on, he trailer closed, and they sped away.

Soan: Wow.. those ladies are just ... so ... COOL!

(*Note: The Knight Sabers can relate to being impersonated by folks wearing similar looking armor. See Bubblegum Crisis episode 6! No... I'm not an otaku nerd! Really I'm not!!!! Sigh.. .okay... Let me explain.  So.. a long time ago in the decade called the 1980s, D'Wook's player who was a cool high school dude used to come over to our house to hang out with us. I was probably around 10 or 11 when we first started hanging out a lot. He introduced me to anime through two series. Saint Seiya, and Bubblegum Crisis, both of which he had on vhs copies of copies of copies, with fan translations, most likely very poorly done. Bubblegum Crisis is about four mech armored ladies in a near future Tokyo who fight against an evil corporation that has developed human-passing robots that do more than just menial labor and being servants. They are also military grade armored soldiers that serve as hired muscle for the corporation's corrupt executives. The corporation is so big that its power exceeds that of governments. Anyway, the human-passing robots are called "boomers." The fan translation called these "bumo," with the translator likely not aware that they were calling them boomer and just going with what it sounded like as their accent. I am convinced that the fan translation missed a lot, because years later an official translation came out and we found out that one of the police officers was very gay and had been hitting on the other police officer at every chance, but this did not come out in the fan translation at all.

All that is to say, I got hooked because of this series and in anime in general.. up until high school in the early 1990s, when suddenly it was like everyone else had "discovered" anime themselves. I was still a fan though, but only of things that were not so over the top mainstream. Everyone was doing backflips for Akira at this time, which I thought was drawn well, but honestly the story is a bit much. People also went crazy over Dragonball Z, and that's one that I pretty much skipped. I had more refined tastes, afterall. Fast forward to college and I still watch anime but not so religiously. The time came that due to my major I had to take a foreign language. I am ethnically Korean but there was no Korean class beyond the introductory level. Spanish and French had huge class sizes. The choice was between Japanese and Chinese for me.. and well, the choice was clear. I started with Japanese 101 and threw myself at it. And that's where I started rubbing elbows with anime otaku every... single.. day. The type of people who interrupt class to ask the teacher about episode 37 of Sailor Moon. Who always bragged about how into Japanese culture they were because they saw all the non U.S.-released extra episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion or whatever other series was supposed to be cool at the moment. The type that would go out and get "Japanese symbol" tattoos. [THEY ARE NOT FRICKIN' SYMBOLS! THEY ARE JUST WORDS WRITTEN IN EITHER CHINESE CHARACTERS OR ONE OF TWO SYLABARIES].

To people serious about learning languages, the most annoying people to be around are those who are only superficially enthralled with the culture that speaks that language, but aren't interested in putting in hard work to learn any degree of fluency, and who [in this case] can't stop talking about anime, their fetish for Japanese girls, or worse, their fetish for anime Japanese girls. Thankfully, about half of these dropped out after 101, and about 90% of those that remained dropped out after 102. From 201 onward it was just people serious about learning Japanese, cultivating meaningful platonic relationships with Japanese people, and ultimately being respectful to those in the cultures we were learning about. Yes, I am holier than thou. I know that's how I come off. In the years since then, I've rediscovered anime that I like, but almost always if I am going to really watch anime it's gonna be something from way back. 

Rant over. Like what you want for whatever reason you want, but just... ... just... alright here. I'll just leave this here:

Um.. end parentheses.)

So after the Knight Sabers left, the team headed back to Mos Eisley.

They decided to leave their skiff outside of town and walk in. The streets were lined with groups of bounty hunters coming and going, whispering to each other so nobody could hear them.

Delta team decided they should look around Heff's place for clues. But they didn't know how to find him. They stopped at a dewback rental shop and the shopkeeper told them he was closed for the day.

They talked about taking a tour out on dewback the next day to pique his interest so they could pump him for information. They asked about old Heff.

Dewback shopkeeper: Oh, wow.. you guys really are tourists eh? You can find old Heff's souvenir shop near the docking bays. Tourists rarely come very far out of town, really dangerous. But they will visit shops like his to get there Tatooine spoons, shot glasses, and T-Shirts. Trouble is.. I heard Heff is dead. Maybe his daughter is gonna keep the business running, but who knows.

They instantly went to Heff's shop and knocked on the door. They could hear a woman crying inside.

Soan talked to the crying voice, saying they wanted to help find her father's killers.

The door opened and Tebbi, a pink rabbit alien, welcomed Soan in to talk.

She's neither tiny. Nor tuney.

They got to talking and Soan learned that indeed Heff had been killed by a poisoned dart. She'd discovered his body when she returned home from school. (Note: retconned to college... beacause... you'll see why.) Tebbi had been crying all day and hadn't had a meal yet, so Soan explained that her friend was an expert chef and could whip her up a nice carrot stew to comfort her. Tebbi welcomed everyone in. Soan asked if they could search for clues among Heff's things. She agreed.

Teff had been the kind of person to take noted by hand, so Soan, while searching Teff's desk found an address book. She coughed and somehow it ended up in her pocket.

Everyone else noticed what had happened and stopped searching.. instead they started looking at Tatooine souvenirs. There were spoons, t-shirts, plates, all kinds of standard junk that people buy when they go on vacation. D'Wook picked up one of the spoons and asked GW to read it to him.

"Made in Corellia."

D'Wook: WTF! Why?!?!? That makes no economic sense!

Tebbi: We can't produce these locally.

A best seller

They continued to rummage around the souvenirs when Lo'Sar Tan took a step out of the kitchen and proclaimed the stew was finished.

Soan thanked Tebbi and headed for the door.

Tebbi: But gee.. I'd be so lonely eating all on my own. Won't one of you stay and enjoy this stew with me?

Hal Brunchkiller had been trying on a "My parents travelled all the way to Tatooine and all they got me was this lousy t-shirt," t-shirt. 

Tebbi approached him and began nuzzling her head against his arm.  Tell me Master Jedi, could you keep me company? I'm so terrified to be alone.

Hal: Um...

Tebbi: If you stay, I guarantee you'll get more than a lousy t-shirt out of it.

Hal: So do you have this in a medium then?

The rest of Delta Team shuffled out of the shop, some of them throwing up in their mouths. D'Wook, who has a special connection with Hal, kept changing expressions between alarmed and disgusted.  

Does someone have some bleach I can pour into my eyes?

Back at the ship, Soan pulled out the address book and searched for anything about Adar Tallon. Nothing came up. But they did find Old Arno's address. They decided they would go there at first light. They all turned in for the night.

D'Wook had a huge frown on his face.

At around 5 or 6 a.m. Hal sauntered in. His hair a huge mess, buck tooth scars along his neck.

D'Wook stared him down.

Hal: What?

D'Wook shook his head:

D'Wook:  just you wait... just... you... wait.

The first sun rose and they traveled to the outskirts of town, where according to the address book, Arno lived. 

On the way they noticed lots of teams of bounty hunters getting into speeders and heading out in different directions into the desert.

Each had a different rumor. Someone matching Adar Tallon's description was spotted out near Anchorhead. Another tip said he lived in Mos Espa, still another... he went to Tosche station to buy power converters.

They continued on to the address, but along the way, a mean looking, heavily armed Trandoshan bumped hard into Soan and told her to watch where she was going.  

Soan cracked her knuckles and told him to watch where HE was going. She drew her sword. He pulled out his axe.

Trandoshan bounty hunter: Believe me, sis. You don't want none of this.

Soan: Sir, today is the wrong day to mess with me. Say you're sorry and be on your way.

Trandoshan: I'll say sorry after I drop you.

A crowd gathered around them and the people started taking bets. Golden Wheels bet 1500 credits against Soan. He whispered at her to throw the fight. She refused.

The battle started with defensive posturing on both sides, some swings and misses and light banter back and forth. 

Another day on the streets of Mos Eisley.

Soan did a cool looking flip, got the better of the Trandoshan bounty hunter and sliced him.... 

...across his breast plate for no effect.

As she landed and prepared to rise into a defensive position again, the Trandoshan turned his axe sideways so as not to kill her, and slammed her across the face... knocking her out.

Golden Wheels cheered and collected his cash.

Trandoshan: Sorry miss... I've got a bounty to go collect.

With that the Trandoshan departed with his friends.

Hal dashed forward and decided he'd use the force to heal his friend.

D'Wook, in tune with his intentions thought it might be good to create a distraction so as not to bring attention to Hal.

He began punching the onlookers between the legs. In pain, most of them moved away.

Hal's hands began to glow and Soan came back to consciousness.

Soan: What happened.

D'Wook: You got smacked silly by a reptilian bounty hunter who probably was triple your weight, all muscle. 

Soan: Man.. my head hurts.

D'Wook: Eh, it happens. For what it's worth he tried NOT to kill you.

Just then they all heard a click as an onlooker with a camera took a quick shot and darted down the nearest alley.

Hal gave chase and using the force, caused him to fall in a most unnatural way and break his camera.

Delta Team decided to disperse and make their own way to old Arno's house.

They converged at the address. It was a row house made of parts of the first colony ship. The door was wide open.

They went inside and saw that the whole place had been ransacked. They discovered a suitcase that was half packed. It looked as if the most likely explanation was that Arno knew someone was coming for him, so he left in a hurry before bounty hunters arrived and ransacked the place.

They started knocking on doors to ask about where Arno went. Next door was a kid to protested that he wasn't allowed to talk to strangers. But he reluctantly told them that he saw the old man get in his speeder and head towards downtown. Then some guys in all kinds of mismatching armor came along and started searching the place. They left about an hour later, saying they should have gone out into the desert like everyone else.

Another neighbor came out of his house asking why they were going into Arno's house and asking all these questions about him. He decided to call the militia to come along and arrest these suspicious people.  Delta Team decided it was time to make their exit. Some on jetpack, some on foot, and Vero on jetpack and eventually dewback, which he rented from the dewback keeper the night before.

They decided to go into the cantina and start asking around for more clues, as the trail had gone cold.

In the cantina, they started asking around for clues. Hal caught the attention of a female Wookiee, who winked at him. He bought her a drink. She said to him:

Wookiee: Raaar.. roar roar. Raaaaaaaar! 

She smiled.

Hal cleared his throat.

Hal: Roooar rooar rooooaaaar roar!

(Note: I told Hal to make a languages roll. If he failed he would have just spouted out gibberish. He failed.)

The Wookiee woman poured her drink on Hal, grabbed him by the shoulder and socked him right in the jaw, knocking him out.

The band went quiet for a second as people stared to look. The wookiee stood up and walked away, very angrily.

Hal's friends came by to help him into a nearby booth. Labria walked in and sat down next to them, starting to chat them up. He expressed his sadness at Slag Flats' death, but told them that Old Arno would be by to meet them here in the cantina soon. Apparently before Slag died, he contacted Arno, saying that he should meet the purple Twi'lek and her friends.

Lo'Sar Tan got suspicious. Afterall, Labria had previously led them to a death trap and skipped out before anything dangerous happened. Now here he was again, leading them probably into another trap.

Come on, Lo'Sar Surely this guy is trustworthy! Have you ever seen a more honest face?

Labria: Okay you got me....  EVERYONE! THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO  SLAG WANTED TO MEET! BEGIN THE ATTACK NOW!

The band stopped playing and hid under the stage. The bartender ducked, screaming NO BLASTERS NO BLASTERS!

Most patrons headed for the exits, but 14 bounty hunters surrounded the table. Another, a Lasat known as Puggles Trodd, ordered them to shoot.

They began shooting.

D'Wook leapt forward and started parrying the blasters of seven of these guys with his lightsaber trident.

Lo'Sar Tan and Vero flipped a table forward for cover. This was obliterated by the first volley of shots from the seven bounty hunters on their side of the table.

As D'Wook parried all the shots of the bounty hunters on one side, the rest of the party began attacking the other seven picking them off one at a time. Hal levitated one to the ceiling. Lo'Sar Tan bonked one with a frypan. Soan cut one violently. Hal sliced another. Golden Wheels shot his gambling winnings at one.  L1-NK punched one, but then he flew up into the air using his thrusters. Lo'Sar Tan caught him and slammed him downward into the last one, smushing him repeatedly.

Everyone watching noticed that when Lo'Sar touched L1, the green panels on the astromech began to glow mysteriously.

Vero sliced up Puggles Trodd.

After those seven bounty hunters were dead one of the other seven threw a hand grenade, which Lo'Sar picked up and threw back at them.

One of the shots made it through D'Wook's defenses and singed his fur, angering him.

Hal Brunchkiller had never felt angrier in his life. He threw his lightsaber and sliced each one with it, using the force, one by one.

(Note: Hal's player came up with this on his own. He said he wanted to throw his lightsaber and use it against all of them. There's actually no mechanic for this in the game. Wielding a lightsaber uses the lightsaber skill, and lightsaber combat enhances this. I figured that attacking with a floating lightsaber would use telekenesis, and that lightsaber combat should help him to attack with this. In the interest of saving time, I told him that he didn't need to roll one by one, but had to hit a 50 to pull this off. Since the bounty hunters were shooting repeatedly and not really doing much else, I figured that they would be fairly easy targets, so rolling 50 for all seven should be right. So, Hal's alter skill is 4D and his control is 6D. he concentrated successfully for an extra 4D. That's a total of 14D. He used a force point to make it 28D, but he was 6D off because he was attacking seven targets. So he rolled 53 with 22 dice. Everyone at the table was quite impressed.)

(Hal's player said he would write an exact description of what happened. When he delivers I will add it here.) 

But long story short, the saber mowed them all down. Hal did a flip and caught his saber mid-air. He looked really frickin' cool.

The rest of Delta team looked at him, mouth agape, that they had forgotten about the grenade, which exploded, turning the mutilated body of one of the bounty hunters into mush.

At that, the group could hear the signature beeping of a thermal detonator coming from the body of Puggles Trodd.

Hal used the force to throw the thermal detonator into the ladies' bathroom, blowing the back wall out of the cantina completely.

The bartender stood up and surveyed the damage.

I just got that back wall replaced!

Bartender: Who is gonna pay for this mess?!?!?!?

As everyone was staring at him, Soan grabbed her neck. She'd been hit by a poison dart.

They could hear a jetpack igniting coming from outside.

As Delta Team crowded around Soan and screamed at her to stay awake, a small pig-nosed alien, who had been hiding behind a table, stepped up to the bar, and ordered a drink. The band got up, returned to the stage, and started playing. 

Man, I almost died! I need a drink!

<To be continued.>