Emmery

First appearance: S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes · watch it on YouTube

Emmery is the owner, bartender and brewer of Emmery’s Tavern, a grimy little pub with a giant monster skull over the fireplace and exactly one drink on the menu: his patented number two ale, made from grain smoked over sheep dung. He spends every waking moment wiping the same worn spot on his bar and badgering customers to buy something or get out. He has become the Dread Fortress’s favorite booze distributor and has hosted two of its stranger outings. Beneath the weary shopkeeper act he is a changeling, a fact he revealed in the middle of a Deathmatch by stepping in as a champion’s tag-team partner.

Story

Identity Crisis

Emmery first appeared in S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes, during the Season of Fate. Thea chose his tavern as the arena “to inspire the monstrous fight.” She promoted it as a way of supporting small businesses and assured everyone that Emmery didn’t mind if they wrecked the place: “what else are taverns for?” Nobody knew his last name. The champions walked into stone floors, a warm fire, gentle music and a sad man lying there, possibly asleep and possibly dead, leaking “vomit or blood or something else.” Emmery was behind the bar, wiping.

The Professor politely paid for a number two, and Emmery quietly confided the secret ingredient: “I like to smoke the grains over sheep dung. Maybe a little sprinkle in.” The Professor asked for a straw so it wouldn’t get in his mustache, downed the whole thing and ordered another. His opponent, Kopy Katt, copied him exactly. Emmery was delighted: “This is the most business I’ve had all year.” The rounds kept coming. Thea put drinks on the Lord of Fate’s tab, and Emmery held her to a four-drink minimum. When the Professor hurled a table into the fireplace, Thea rewarded him with three more number twos, which Emmery was very happy to pour.

Emmery’s patience did have limits. As a chinchilla began to ice over, he swept in and tucked it under his armpit. His arm is extremely long, so he kept wiping the counter from a distance while scolding both fighters: “What is wrong with you two? You’re both monsters.” He still didn’t throw them out, because he needed the money. Then Kopy Katt, now a gorilla, picked Emmery up and threw him at the Professor. Emmery’s hand was somehow still on the bar, so the two of them tangled in his long, elbow-y arm and fell into the fire together. Emmery dragged himself out, and his skin burned away “like a layer of paper.” Underneath was a second face: Kopy Katt’s, with her squiggly drawn eyes. He went back to wiping the counter and staring at her. Thea’s verdict: “This is the weirdest place I’ve ever brought any champions before.”

As the fight neared its end, Kopy Katt limped to the bar and held out her hand. Emmery mirrored it, and she slapped it to tag him in. Emmery was a changeling. He took the form of the Lord of Fate and swung a haymaker that missed. He turned back into Kopy Katt and shrugged at Thea in unison with the real one. Finally he became Mama Cervantes, the Professor’s own mother, still in her bloomers with her corset ripped away. She pulled the slipper off her foot and swung. The first swing missed, so she went for the other foot (“You unruly child”), and the second swing came down in slow motion, gleaming under the bar lights “almost like a halo,” to land the killing blow. Emmery is a changeling who ran his bar as a hideout and a place to gather information. The Season of Fate turned out to be a vision only the Arbiter lived through, but Emmery and his tavern exist in the real Void as well.

The Hunt for #2

In S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1 — Team C (Frigidum, Bob the Barbarian, the Duke) v Billy, the Dread Fortress needed more booze. The Arbiter opened a portal to “our favorite distributor over at Emmery’s Tavern,” and the smell of stale peanuts, beer and musky, sweaty man drifted through. Team C, made up of Frigidoom, Bob the Barbarian and The Duke, found Emmery wiping the same spot as always. He was baffled: “I just loaded them up with like 50 barrels of the number two. They already drank it?”

Emmery explained that the town was in trouble. Customers had gone missing or been maimed, people had had their throats ripped out, and buildings had been burglarized, his bar among them. Much of his supply was destroyed. He did have a reserve, though, and offered a deal: find out “who’s been fucking up my bar,” and he’d supply the booze. Along the way he defended his recipe. The sheep dung only dries the grains, so there’s “hardly any shit in it,” just “a very minuscule amount,” and “It’s more about mouthfeel than anything.” Frigidoom, who has no fingers, grew five little ones on a tentacle to show he understood. Emmery approved: “You seem like a cultured guy.” When the team swore a long, grand oath to take the job, he answered dryly: “Simple yes would have probably done.”

Emmery helped the investigation in his own small ways. He served a regular, a fox with a grape for an eye, its “special” drink in a perfectly ordinary tankard and warned it to be careful with the mug. The fox eventually gave up a clump of coarse gray and black hair from its attacker, then ran off with its favorite Emmery mug. When Frigidoom asked for a light, Emmery handed over a Zippo. He also passed Bob a pack of Black and Milds a customer had left behind, mostly because he wanted them off his counter. After the team killed the culprit, Billy, Thea told Emmery he would surely hand over the alcohol now. “Yeah, sure,” he said. Thea could tell Billy was dead because he had pooped his pants, and Emmery yelled that he knew it was over too: “The walls are very thin. I heard him die.” Thea put the extensive damage on the Fortress’s tab, and the team left before Emmery could send a bill.

The season finale

For S6E7, The Hunt for #2 - Part 2 (season finale). Team C final - Frigid Doom v Bob the Barbarian v the Duke, the Grandmaster sent Team C back to the tavern to fight each other. The werewolf was gone, but nobody had cleaned up. Pools of dried vomit and passed-out drunks were everywhere, and the ceiling had turned transparent, with thousands of Acolytes in the floating grandstands screaming, throwing blue slushies and punching each other. The Grandmaster told the tavern keeper exactly where he stood: “This bar means nothing to me. He means nothing to me. Destroy this place.” Emmery offered only, “I do not have insurance.” Frigidoom promised to try to preserve the place, then immediately admitted he wouldn’t. Emmery boarded up the kitchen. Later in the fight, Frigidoom’s arms smashed Emmery’s floor, doing everything he’d said he wasn’t going to do.

Number Two Hot Chocolate

By S7E10 — Thea’s Adventure Emmery had franchised. He was wiping the counter of Emmery’s Number Two Hot Chocolate, a stand in Sugar Hills, when Thea handed him a list asking for a driveshaft. He sold hot chocolate, not driveshafts, but he admitted he had a car. Thea threatened to break his bones, stick them in the icing, light them on fire and make her own birthday cake out of them. He handed over the keys to his 1994 Pontiac Bonneville: “Just don’t go back.” She drove it down the sidewalks and eventually wrecked it against a candy cane tree.

Personality and Abilities

Emmery comes across as an old, tired bartender with a single obsession: the spot on the bar he wipes until it’s worn and dented, before moving down to start on a fresh one. He is mercenary to his core. Customers buy something or get out, minimums are enforced, and he’ll put up with monsters as long as they keep paying. He is also a proud craftsman who will happily talk anyone through the finer points of dung-smoked grain. He isn’t heartless either. He rescued a freezing chinchilla by tucking it into his armpit.

His body is odd even before his secret comes out. One arm is so long that he can keep wiping the counter from across the room while doing something else. As a changeling he can copy anyone, and he mirrors whoever he is watching like an actual reflection. In the arena he became Kopy Katt, the Lord of Fate and Mama Cervantes in turn, and he finished his one fight with a slipper.

Relationships

• Thea: Chose his tavern as an arena and kept his register busy with rounds on other people’s tabs.
• Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes: His best customer for one evening, and later the man he struck down while wearing his mother’s face.
• Chinchillas: Saved a freezing one by tucking it under his armpit; it rewarded him by drinking his ale in a corner.
• The Dread Fortress: His biggest client, to which he shipped 50 barrels of number two, and which keeps a running tab.
• Frigidoom: A “cultured guy” who appreciated the mouthfeel, then smashed up the tavern floor anyway.
• Bob the Barbarian and The Duke: Members of Team C, who took his job to stop the attacks on his bar.
• Billy: The culprit behind the attacks on his bar, whose death Emmery heard through the thin walls.
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Declared that his bar meant nothing to her and ordered it destroyed.

Memorable Quotes

“If I didn’t need the money, you’d be out of here, but I do. So keep buying drinks.” (S5E2 — Identity Crisis)

• “This is the most business I’ve had all year.” (S5E2 — Identity Crisis)
• “What is wrong with you two? You’re both monsters.” (S5E2 — Identity Crisis)
• “It’s more about mouthfeel than anything.” (S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1)
• “Simple yes would have probably done.” (S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1)
• “The walls are very thin. I heard him die.” (S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1)

Appearances

• S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes
• S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1 — Team C (Frigidum, Bob the Barbarian, the Duke) v Billy
• S6E7, The Hunt for #2 - Part 2 (season finale). Team C final - Frigid Doom v Bob the Barbarian v the Duke
• S7E10 — Thea’s Adventure (Thea’s Revenge, a one-shot)