Chad slammed his beer down on the table and made a dash for the door she’d indicated. While he was out of commission dealing with the oncoming system purge, Carver fell into a mad fit of cackles. She wrapped a vine around Barrel’s shoulders to help hold herself up.

[i]Ho-hold onto that d-drink, Lock,[/i] the pumpkin creature managed to tap through his laughter. [i]Le-let’s see ho-hahahah-how far we can t-t-take this![/i]

Agatha started to let out a tiny cackle of her own. Then a realization dawned on her, and her expression shifted to one of mild horror. [i]That’s[/i] where the missing adderpepper juice had gone. And it wouldn’t require the whole vial to spike just one drink past a human’s tolerance, so… [i]What were the tricksters going to do with the rest of it?[/i]

Lillith daintily sucked on the tips of her fingers as if she had gotten some pudding on them. Amused as she was, she also realized she had to take the role of responsible semi-adult, again. She kept an eye on the flailing Chad to make sure his health wasn’t going to be significantly affected by the poisoned food or whatever Shock had spiked his drink with. Thankfully, his level of dramatic flailing indicated that he was relatively fine (at least for the time being).

Carmilla caught herself about ten seconds into a gratified giggle. She snapped herself out of it as fast as possible, given her state of mild inebriation. She struggled to put her scowl back in place, mentally cursing Shock for being the kind of monster that the vampiress couldn’t allow herself to outwardly appreciate any of the bitch’s work. But death… watching the sweet justice of Chad’s comeuppance was just too good to hate…

After several minutes, Chad came back into the main room of the lair. He was holding his mouth open and panted, trying to breathe past the residual burn in his mouth. 

“Dang, you guys weren’t kidding! Those poison puffs are no joke!” He stopped to take a few long deep breaths. “No idea how you guys aren’t reacting to them at all. You must have spicy food every day to have that kind of tolerance!”

He rubbed his tongue over the roof of his mouth and let out several shorts bursts of air. Finding the flavor not completely gone, he made his way over to his beer. “Swig of this should rinse the last bit of the burn, then we can get the party really rockin!”

Carver could barely contain themself as Chad took a big gulp of the beverage and, instead of swallowing it immediately, decided to swish it around in his mouth first. By the time he realized the heat was getting worse instead of better, it was too late.

“HOLY SWEET HOT STUFF, IT’S IN THE [I]BEER[/I]!” Liquid ran down his chin onto his shirt as he made his exclamation. He quickly closed his mouth and forced himself to swallow what remained, before falling right back into panicked flailing and heavy panting.

Carver lost all control and burst into hysterical laughter. He lost his grip on Barrel’s shoulders and fell to the floor. Lillith brought her hand up to her face, pressing two fingers to her brow as she sighed. Carmilla cracked again and quickly took a drink to hide her expression. Agatha simply stared, unsure of what to do.

Chad noticed none of this. Between the flailing and the hollering, he was completely occupied right through the point he had to race back to the bathroom.