It started like any other day. Sure I'd been drinking the night before... like any other day. But I head in to work nonetheless. I'm a carpenter, though in truth I sell more leather goods than wood. Anyway, so I'm standing there minding my shop when I catch a whiff of alcohol. I check to see if I spilled anything on my clothes last night, but they look fine. Something still smells like alcohol though, and not the good kind either. It smells like someone used a barrel of sewer brew to pickle pig intestines and then left it out in the sun for a week. It's getting stronger and I'm really starting to wonder where it's coming from.
But I don't have to wait long, because at that moment, in walks an incredibly skinny women reeking of booze. She's also completely naked, except for her long saffron curls and the splatters and stains of every kind alcohol on her feet. 'Looks like someone got even drunker than I did last night.', I think. On they other hand, I didn't recognize her. I figure she might be one of those "adventurers", which usually means trouble. And it did, but not any kind of trouble I was prepared for.
She approached and announced (in a disturbingly not-drunk voice) that she was "Etha Oraana" and wanted to trade. "Let my guess, you to want to buy clothes. But what have you got to offer?"
"These!", she said, holding out her hands. In one hand was an eye. In the other she cupped a small pool of whip wine.
"Surely you don't expect me to buy wine you've been carrying around in your bare hand, that's disgusting. And so is that, whose eye is it anyway?"
"This is a cow's eye, it's fully prepared and ready to eat. And it's none of your business where I carry my wine."
"Alright, I'll buy the eye, but what am I supposed to do with the wine? Where would I put it?"
"I don't care, just buy this stuff. I think 600 gold would be fair."
Now this part I'm used to, so I offer her a silver for them rather than risk angering an obviously unstable character. She accepts and then she just pours the wine on the floor and drops the eye in it. I should be mad, but at this point I'm hoping she will just leave. No such luck.
"Here, let me clean that up for you.", she offers and starts trying to scoop up the spilled wine with her hands. It doesn't seem very effective, but she manages to collect a small pool of wine in each hand. "I want to sell you this.", she says.
"Now wait just a minute, you already sold me that!"
"No, the wine I sold you spilled, this is some one I found on the flood." I can't argue with that logic (primarily because it makes no sense) so I agreed do give her a few coins for it, and she dumps it back on the floor.
"Alright, you've sold your goods and got your money, please leave now."
"Wait", she says, "I want to buy something." She points out a plain dog leather waterskin on one of the shelves. Predictably, she offers a copper for it, but I counter with two silvers, about as much as I paid for her worthless mess. She seems very pleased. What she did next was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. She used the waterskin to slurp up wine off the floor, and than tried to sell it back to me, along with another handful in her other hand. She pointed out that the waterskin holds more than her hand, which is undeniably true, so I agree to give her more than two silvers for all of it.
And then yes, she empties it back on the floor. At this point there is a substantial puddle of wine at our feet and I don't quite understand where it all came from. But she's not done yet.
"I want to buy this too.", she says, pointing to another waterskin. This one is embroidered cat leather and worth more than the two silver pieces she holds in each hand, so I must refuse.
"Okay, I'll just borrow it for little while."
So with a waterskin in each hand, she sucks up more wine from the growing puddle on the floor. Although I'm very confused by this point, I agree that yes, two waterskins full of whip wine is worth a gold piece. She repeats process until she has a sizable pile of change on the table.
"Now, what I really have my eye on, is a backpack.", she says, holding out one gold piece in each hand. I'm tempted to point out that she's still naked, so clothing might be a better choice, but figure that would only prolong my suffering. So I get to the point and tell her that the backpack costs more than two gold, and suggest she part with a little more of her money. This backpack had menacing spikes of cow hoof, but it wasn't really that expensive. Still, she's adamant that she can't offer more than two gold at a time.
"I'll just borrow it than", she says again. And uses it to scoop up wine form the floor. Of course she then tries to sell it again. In desperation, I offer her 20 gold for whatever wine she managed to squeege into the backpack, on the condition that this be the end of her shopping trip. She accepts the money, then unleashes a torrent of wine from the backpack, and leaves. Just like that. She never bought any clothes, and she never paid for that backpack either.
Well, that's what I thought happened. In retrospect, I was probably just drunker than I realized... at least I hope so.
Author
Topic: Why Erab Panadre Quit Drinking (Read 5490 times)