Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
An indestructible, self-pitying gnoll bartender whose severed left hands are needed to start the interdiction carts — killed over and over for the rescue.
Growler Gary is a level-25 Shade Gnoll bartender at The Downward Dog on station 75, and — Carl realizes from a cookbook note — an indestructible quest-NPC who resurrects minutes after death. Barred by an invisible wall from leaving his bar, he watched the whole station die, including the driver Jumping Jen-Jen who called him a coward with her dying breath; a woman then ripped his throat out and stole his liquor, yet he lived. Drunk and broken, referring to himself in the third person, he insists he isn't a coward and calls himself useless — but reveals the interdiction rapid-response carts are the way to run the rescue.
Then comes the grim catch: the carts start only with two gnoll LEFT hands on far-apart sensors, so Carl, Donut, and Mongo must kill Gary again and again — fourteen times — harvesting his regenerating hands. After the first shocked resurrections, Carl finally tells him why; understanding that it's to stop the people who killed his friends, Gary lays down his spear, asks only for a drink when it's done, and tells Mongo to make it quick.
A hyena-like Shade Gnoll, mangy and drink-soaked, clutching a bottle like a baby; sober and terrified between resurrections, huddling with a spear in the blood-slick back room.
An indestructible quest-NPC bartender whose harvested hands unlock the rescue carts — a tragic cost of Carl's plan.
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