7)

Grillby wiped down the glass in his hands as he listened to the hum of conversation that drifted out from the tables and over to his spot behind the bar. They were carried to him on the wisps of pipe-smoke and on the aromas of good food; over from the patrons of the restaurant and to his waiting ear.

Unlike out in the streets or in a home, there seemed to always be conversations going on in that place whenever the doors were open. The restaurant was nothing special; it was probably one of a dozen similar dimly-lit pubs just in that District of the city alone, but that hardly mattered to the customers that were in there almost every day. And it hardly mattered to Grillby either. There was no other place he'd rather be in all of the Underground.

He loved his job. He loved the way monsters talked around him in that place. He loved the stories he learned; the stories that were made there. The world flowed about him, undisturbed by his presence. And yet, without doing anything more than making a few drinks, he still felt like he was an integral part of it. So he was content to just stay silent whenever he was behind the bar. In fact, he was becoming known for it by that point, and he liked it that way. He had come to find that the less he spoke, the more open the monsters around him were.

In the beginning, his silence had made people more reluctant to talk in front of him, of course. But as it became more expected of him, he was surprised by what monsters were willing to divulge in his presence.

Someday he would own a place like this, he had decided, if he managed to live through the next few years. This life represented the opposite of everything he knew growing up, and one day he would live it full-time. But first, there were certain things he needed to see done. That was a thought for off-the-clock, though. For the moment, all he had to do was listen.

One monster, a sort that seemed to be made entirely of slime, slumped over to the bar and piled into one of the stools before resolving itself into a form that had the impressions of a head and a mouth. Grillby's hands were already moving before the monster filled the seat. He pulled a bottle off of the shelf and a new glass from beneath the bar. Placing a single ice cube into the glass, he filled it about half way with the green-colored liquid and placed it before the slime. The monster was one of his regulars (though, admittedly, most of the patrons of the place were), and was always there on the same afternoons every week ordering the same thing.

Grillby pulled up his memories of this particular monster. He oversaw maintenance on one of the generators powering the city that sat in the massive volcanic cavern beneath them, and it had apparently been giving him trouble lately. Last week, there had been a problem with corrosion on over half of the transformer coils (Grillby had to only wait a minute or two before the monster explained to him what corrosion was (and a transformer) and apparently it had caused power to dip dramatically for a few blocks in the North District. Ever since then, the monster had been worried about repercussions coming his way.

Grillby had a few stories gathered from the other side of that incident as well. Rumors mostly, since not many monsters from up that way came this far South just for a drink (though a few did come for the food when they thought they could catch him working). But from what he heard, the tech had nothing to be anxious about.

Apparently, in lieu of power, the locals got together in the streets and threw a festival. Not many monsters did that sort of stuff on a scale like that anymore. It was a nice story.

The week before that, the slime monster had to deal with several of the backup power cells overloading at once seemingly out of nowhere. The monster had been kind enough to explain to Grillby then that the only thing that could cause that was if someone was trying to draw too much power off of the system too quickly. When they went to investigate why it had happened, they had found a new connection that hadn't been there before, one they couldn't they find any log record of it being placed or of it even being planned to be placed. He had brought the issue up the proper channels, but he never got a response, so he just left it and adjusted the power levels back into equilibrium (the monster hadn't needed to explain to him what that meant. Being best friends with a genius skeleton had some perks).

In short, there was never a dull moment in the Underground, especially those days. And in part, he made sure it stayed that way. He had nothing to do with the generators of course, but other matters certainly had his touch.

More than anywhere else, Grillby could feel the unrest that permeated the city from behind the bar. He had felt it for years. He could see it in the postures of the customers, could hear it in their tone of voice as they spoke about the world around them. Monsters were getting sick of being stuck down here. They were sick of being scared of what lay beyond that mountain. They were sick of the king and queen smiling and telling them that everything was peachy while nothing was done about their situation. He could hear them whisper about it constantly, but none of them were doing anything about it. They were like a stove leaking gas into a kitchen. All it would take was spark for the whole place to go up in flames.

That was where he and his friends came in. Last night was the first part of their newest step, and the conversation that had drifted into the bar that day told him it had been affective. Everyone in the city knew about it to one degree or another much faster than he had expected, and the buzz it was generating made him grin. That was why he called his friends in early. Now that the stove was hot, it was time to get the water boiling.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the door swung open and the group of monsters he had been waiting for stepped into the hazy atmosphere of the restaurant. As they did, the ambient noise of the room instantly went up by about thirty decibels.

Jani was the first to enter, practically falling into the dining room and laughing uncontrollably. Teresa followed on his tail with her arm still outstretched from shoving the snake through the door and wearing a glare that take the spice out of a pepper.

That was just Teresa though; she always looked like she was glaring at you. It took some getting to know her before you could learn her moods, most of which were actually happy ones. Grillby had learned from personal experience how to tell when she was genuinely angry. It was not a fate he would wish even on his enemies.

"Why'd you have to pick on poor Gaster like that?" she was saying as she stomped her way through the door, ducking her head to do so. Teresa's expression was not the only thing about the wolf monster that was intimidating. She overshadowed anyone else in three of the four city Districts by at least half a foot, and her bulk made that every bit as intimidating as that could be. One look at her told you it was all muscle too (it helped that she almost never wore clothes), and so most were unable to be near her without trembling, for one reason or another.

She picked the snake monster up by the front of his blue and white striped vest and set him back on the end of his tail, still glaring at him.

Jani, never one to be intimidated, smirked back up at her. "C'mon!" he said, "We had fun, right Gas Man?"

"Yeah, sure, loads…" a sarcastic voice came in answer. Gaster stepped in behind the two of them with his head hung, or more like hobbled. He looked exhausted. Just what had they been up to?

Hannah appeared last as a black and grey smudge that turned back to her blue self as she alighted onto Gaster's shoulder. "Sorry…" she mumbled as she dropped something from her beak into his hand.

"It's okay," he told her, quickly trying to hide the object by covering it with his other hand. "Don't worry about it."

"See?" Jani jumped in before anyone could keep yelling at him. "Everyone's happy." The monster slid his way over to the bar before anyone could contradict him and took the stool right in front of Grillby. "Bartender!" he shouted. "A bottle of your finest wine of my friends and I. Tonight we celebrate!"

Grillby gave him a look before pointing to a sign that hung above the bar.

NO ALCOHOL TO MINORS! it said in big letters. It was a new law being enforced throughout the city. Apparently they had finally realized that rowdy kids plus drinks that made you rowdier were a bad combination, so now you had to have been walking around at least eighteen years to get a drink. Although, they still had not established a reliable way to prove that yet.

Many monsters had recently taken the habit some of their kind had of dressing minors only in striped shirts as a way of setting them apart. This made Jani upset, as he claimed it was cramping his style. The snake had purposefully taken up wearing more dressy clothes to emulate Grillby and Gaster and have monsters take him more seriously. Now it had the opposite effect, not that he would ever change. That would be admitting defeat.

Jani frowned at the sign as the rest of the group joined him. "Gathered them all like you wanted boss," he said next, getting down to business.

Grillby nodded before placing plates of steaming food down on the bar which Teresa happily sat down to begin eating. It was less a reward for gathering everyone early and more a matter of course.

Being who they were and doing what they did – in Teresa's case especially – took a lot out of them, so Grillby made sure to use some his pay to keep them in peak condition. It wasn't like he needed much of the money for himself anyway.

His bartender job also included a room in the place's basement, which was about all he could ever need. He had been surprised to find out that it also included pay on top of that, so he spent what he needed on him and his friends and saved the rest to use to eventually buy his own place.

"So what'cha call us in early for anyway?" Jani asked next through a mouthful of stew. Grillby put a finger to his face to silence him. He went back to cleaning glasses as Jani and the others closed their eyes to listen. They had all been together long enough that they knew what he wanted from them. And soon, they heard what he heard.

"Did you hear what they found on the wall?"

"Guess somebody's upset, huh?"

"It's about time someone had the nerve to do something like that."

"Just seems sort of immature to me…"

"Oh, like you wouldn't have done the same if you knew you could get away with it."

The talk at nearly all of the tables was the same. Jani and Hannah smiled to themselves. Gaster's face remained impassable as he slowly picked at his food despite his apparent exhaustion. Then they all looked up at Grillby. He checked the time. He was overdue for a break anyhow. He nodded and then stepped out from behind the bar and led them to a door near the back. It opened to a staircase leading below. He let his friends descend first, Teresa still carrying her plate of half-eaten food. Grillby shut the door behind them.

It was time to get to work.