Sorkin Prete's Lore

The Tippler & The Alchemist

Sorkin Prete's Story

Originally posted in October 2024

- Chapter I -

Sorkin, in order of personal priority, is a drunkard and then begrudgingly an alchemist. Doctor Prete, as her father would have wanted her to be referred to, is the daughter of an alchemist and a cleric. Her mother was a brilliant doctor that created many potions, salves, and recipes that hospitals still use to this day all over Tenacity. Sorkin’s father blessed the components, allowing them to be used in the churches. He administered many of these potions to the sick and dying over the decades they were in business. Between the two of them, they created a wonderful name for themselves that was wreathed in health and peace.

Sorkin is neither her mother nor her father. It is said though that she can brew a potion stronger than orc skin and more magickal than wizard urine. She can grind up a healing rub that can bring life back into broken fingers and make chicken taste at least twice as good. So it seems that her heritage has left her with some lasting effects useful enough to get some drinking money. Unfortunately, Sorkin’s drinking problem affects her ability to manage any sort of organized notes, so most of her recipes are “memorized” and she can only brew half of them when she is at a certain high level of intoxication. The results of a good day’s potion-making can pay her rent and get her drinking money for a week. The results of a bad day of work causes catastrophic results, usually culminating in city fines of a couple hundred gold.

Sorkin lives in a group house on the outskirts of the north ring of Tenacity. Things thin out around the “edges” of the city and the area is mostly filled with folks who can’t afford living in the center rings. The center rings are what people in the city of Tenacity call the innermost walled-off sections. Large iron gates lock everyone out that don't pull in enough gold to sink a small vessel, and they lock everyone who does inside. Sorkin likes living out on the outer ring of Tenacity though, it blends the fringe city life with a certain type of country living. She’s able to hire hunters for food, work with reclusive mages for ingredients and other recipes, and drink for a lot cheaper than it would cost in the proper city's inner rings. Plus, most people out here are willing to put up with her nonsense when she’s blackout drunk and screaming at the moon for affecting the “tides of her potions”.

Sorkin enjoys the simple life. Wake up, fart about until she feels like working, work for a bit, sell what she can, then get ready to meet her fellow drunkards down at whatever pub they’re currently not kicked out of. Today was an extra ordinary day, meaning it was so ordinary that Sorkin didn't even remember waking up. She still has her eyepatch on from the night before, for some reason she always wears the thing when she gets too drunk. The drunk version of herself thinks it helps with balance, but Sorkin can’t think back to last night with any clarity. She pulls off the eyepatch while looking outside to see that most of the day has already passed her by. Her attempted trip down memory lane is interrupted by the usual morning headache and stomach pains, but otherwise she continues working on brewing some new recipes that she started the night before. A timer goes off somewhere and she tries to remember what it was for. She turns it off, kills the burners, and begins to cool her potion apparatuses. Her head is killing her so she takes a little sip from one of the cleaner mugs in the kitchen, sweet liquid emerald. A cooling and refreshing mixture coats her throat and works its way up to her brain. Nerves sharpen, back straightens, and a rush of adrenaline surges from her chest throughout her entire frame.

“Ahh” she thinks so loudly that her lungs and mouth actually expel the sound. Nothing hits quite like a healing potion. The unhealthiest way to get healthy right away. She downs the rest of the, assumed, healing potion and picks up a few random empty potion bottles. Packing away her gear she pours the now-cooled potions into a few flasks hidden away within her tabard. She makes an attempt at tidying some things around the kitchen, since she definitely won't be tidying anything when she makes it home. The kitchen is a scientist's nightmare; bottles mislabeled or not labeled at all, liquids slorping into open containers and emitting “legally hazardous fumes'', piles of semi-sentient rags, dozens of corked bottles hanging from strings clinking around, but a surprisingly clean kitchen sink. She doesn’t remember cleaning the sink, but she appreciates the version of her that did. As Sorkin makes her way for the front door, she remembers to grab something from the cupboard before leaving the home, and then she’s off.

Today has been a long gray day with the sky hanging very closely to the top of the city. It’s already getting dark in the forests outside the city limits and the chill begins to descend from the air above. The healing potion’s secondary effects are starting to kick in and Sorkin begins feeling more alert and ready to start talking with other living beings. As she walks closer towards Tenacity proper, she begins seeing more stalls and creatures selling their wares: The Night Market. Sorkin loves a seedy Outer Ring night market because they attract all sorts of creatures that want to buy things they shouldn’t. This affords her to sell her weird potions and salves for equal parts ‘not a lot of questions asked’ and, more importantly, ‘lots of gold’.

Sorkin sees an old…she thinks about how she should describe this creature…accomplice? By the time she finishes thinking about their level of friendship and categorization, she’s already standing right behind them, “Ahoy Jirvic!” she yells right behind his head causing him to jump in place and quickly hide something under his robes. The mousy person he was dealing with quickly turns away and retreats into a small crowd of goblins.

Jirvic, a tall half-lizard creature covered in dark crimson and deep purple scales and draped with elegant robes splattered with browns and golds, turns around and unruffles his robes back down to their rightful places around his form, “Sorkin Prete.” He opens his arms wide, “The only person I could possibly want to see right at this exact moment.” Jirvic was always a creature wholly made of charisma, Sorkin could barely tell that he was very mad at her for scaring away his previous customer. But her healing potion has fully kicked in and she is ready to start wheeling and dealing her wares.

Sorkin taps her right hip and goes in to hug Jirvic. During the embrace Jirvic’s left talon slides down her hip and under her tabard to quickly secure something from one of her hidden pockets in his claw.

Sorkin pulls away, “I hope business is treating you well enough to handle all of that.”

Jirvic palms the container into his own pocket and feels the full weight of it, “Oh my. I can see you’ve been quite busy.” Jirvic gestures to the table behind him, “Please. Peruse my affordable goods my darling adventurer of alchemy.” Sorkin can see Jirvic palming the container under his robes and flicking his tongue at the thought of all the gold he’s about to make. The table behind him is covered in the most useless and mundane items you could possibly think of. No one in their right mind would purchase any of these items. Most of them don’t even have prices tagged to them.

“Hopefully not so affordable that I can’t pay my rent.” Sorkin picks up a rusty fork and flicks him a single gold coin.

“Wonderful taste as always Miss Prete.” Jirvic’s right hand slides out from under his robes and hands her a small sack of easily 1,000 gold worth of loot, “Your change madam.”

Sorkin curtseys the way someone does when they are far too happy with themselves and returns to the fray and flow of the crowd within the night market.

Sorkin is pretty happy with the weight under her tabard and with how the whole scene played out. It’s a complicated dance, but Sorkin has done it enough that she knows all the steps and ways to adapt as necessary. There isn’t much to worry about out here in the way of Tenacity guards, but neither her nor Jirvic want to gain the attention of the Guild. Hence the dancing.

She notices that she’s walking so fast that she’s almost skipping as the sounds of the night market fade behind her. A gust of wind blows between two buildings as she enters a more thickly settled section of the city and her tabard rustles in the breeze. The cold air sobers her slightly. She hates it and she notices that she’s actually shivering. “Time to put on my coat.” she whispers to her onyx flask and takes a hearty swig. The sun is almost entirely gone behind the trees and the streetlamps magickally flicker on as a very happy woman finishes her work day and heads to the tavern.

- Chapter II -

A wooden sign, streamed with iron rust, hangs stiffly from a red brick building: Boar’s Arse.

Sorkin pushes open the first door to Boar’s Arse with her left hand, then walks forward and pushes the second door open with her right. She feels the grooves in the wood from thousands of hands wearing it down and conditioning it from over the years. Her hand meets the door like an old friend and she enters the tavern like she lives there. She follows the same pathway to the bar she has thousands of times before and nestles into her favorite spot to get the bartender’s attention, but he’s currently chatting with another patron and Sorkin simply has to wait there and attempt to will the bartender to look in her direction using only her mind. It doesn’t work, so Sorkin just listens into their conversation instead.

“–ve always wondered. Why is it called ‘Boar’s Arse’ and not ‘Thee Boar’s Arse’?” asks the patron.

The bartender grunts up something from his lungs, “Because you need to be a place of certain–” He pauses for a moment, thinking of the right wording, “Reputation, to earn the ‘Thee’ my friend. You should have been around when ‘The Golden Rooster’ was just called ‘Golden Cock’. Lots of confusion back then, let me tell you.”

The bartender sees Sorkin and empties his hands of rags and cutlery, picks up five cleanish glasses and walks over to the taps, “Afternoon Sorkin, simple round as usual?”

“You know us barkeep.”

“Don’t call me that Sorkin, you know I hate it. We’ve known each other for years now.”

“I can’t let myself get too attached, barkeep. That’s when the problems start.” Sorkin gives the barkeep a wink as he finishes putting down all of the poured drinks in front of her.

“Hoo,” he lets out a sigh, “Fine then. Your tab, or one of the others tonight?”

“Mine is fine tonight barkeep. I got a rare brew completed and I’m feeling some gold coins in my future.” Sorkin pats her chest and the barkeep can hear small glass vials clinking around.

He gets very serious, “Now don’t be bringing in outside drinks again Sorkin. You know how much the boss hates that.” He meets the eye of another patron and has to break off concentration from Sorkin and her mobile bar beneath her tabard. Sorkin picks up the five beers with great ease as her fingers nimbly slide perfectly between all of them to lift equally, “Wouldn’t dream of it Nik–, uhh barkeep.” She turns her attention to her table of friends across the barroom and glides through the crowd without spilling a drop of golden relaxation.

Sorkin finally makes it to her table of friends and overhears one of them, Roger Keeley, spouting some absolute nonsense. " I’d just put all of 'em’ on a boat and sail it towards Bouradoon. Let that place even ‘em all out." Roger is a normal human man, and that is putting it nicely. He’s boring. About as boring as you can get, he works on a dock and has about as much personality as one of the posts holding up the dock. He’s nice enough if you truly work through all his baggage, but after surrounding himself with intolerant morons and narrow-minded creatures, he’s picked up a few terms and notions that are best left to drift out to sea. Sorkin and him also had a bit of fling for a while, but neither of them ever bring it up.

Sorkin puts down all the drinks on the table, "My, what a nuanced approach to a complicated problem. That must be Roger talking!" The others at the table give a grunt and perk up as they see another round of drinks hit the table. She then slides one beer very quickly at Roger, spilling some of it on him, and then stares at him, "You're an idiot Keeley." Roger grunts and takes his new drink and perches his dry dry lips onto the rim of it. The rest of the table is an odd group of people that don’t look like any of them should fit together, let alone drink together and be friends.

Keely, the boring one. Most of the group actively ignore him when he’s talking, but he’s been around long enough it would feel a bit odd to not have him there.

Gasper, a traditionally attractive girl that progressively gets louder and more willing to suplex someone the more she drinks. Gasper is more of a drunk by the way she acts when drinking rather than by volume of drink. She once drank something called Coffin Varnish and tried to fight a group of merchant goblins and their mercenaries that were quietly having a drink. She definitely needs help, but it’s not like anyone else at the table she’s currently at is in the position to do anything about it.

Sculpy, an old, drunk sea captain. Although he's not really a sea captain, he wears a stupid captain's hat and will talk any new person’s ear off that doesn’t know he’s a liar. Not a malicious person, but clearly a lonely old man that wants people to look up to him.

Finally Z, a large black-scaled Newl person. Newls are a race of scale-covered people from the East. Z is mostly quiet and drunk. He doesn’t like drama and simply enjoys keeping company with these other miscreants and drinking with them.

Sorkin drinks for a few hours with everyone and lets the night air settle into the bones of the city.

Boar’s Arse starts filling up and the room is beginning to shrink around Sorkin’s head. She doesn’t know if Gasper had been talking this whole time, or if she just started tuning in, “Like reading a story when you're 20, then reading the same story when you're 30. It's a different view on the same story written by someone at a period of time in their life. Do you grow and change, or does the story? I mean obviously the story can’t change. The story is a story is a story.” Gasper hiccups. “But, like, do you read something differently at differently times?” A long pause bounces around the table as the others who were paying attention to Gasper look around.

There’s a longer pause while the rest of the party all look at Gasper.

“HAHAHAHAHAhahaha.” Sorkin bolts out loud laughing maniacally. “What in the actual hells are you blathering about Gasp? Have you been into the harsher stuff again? Let’s not get into another brawl with some goblins or something.”

“Can you even read Gasp?” asks Roger.

“Shut up Roger.” Sorkin leans over and palms a small vial to Gasper, “Here you go my lovely. Drink up and settle down.”

Gasper takes the vial and pours it into her beer. “Good luck everyone else.”

“I actually got something special kicking around in the old bodice tonight girls.” Sorkin jostles her tabard around and out pops a small corked potion bottle from the top, she slides it onto the table.

Sculpy grabs the bottle, slides it under the table, twists the cork from the bottle, and downs a hefty chunk of the bottle into his gullet. A force erupts from his belly and shoots right out his open mouth, “Dear sweet Mima! That could kick the scales off a sea serpent! Sorkin, you are the only one who can make a potion that makes someone feel both better and worse at the same time. You are a damn fine alchemist.”

“Alchemist!? Gods, that makes me sound like a stuffy old wizard sitting in a tower mixing up dreams or some other nonsense.” Sorkin adjusts her chest to accommodate the newly acquired space, “Just call me the Potion Queen.”

“I’m not doing that Sorkin.” Sculpy says with extreme seriousness, “But I can’t deny you the alcoholdes. Wait, acloholeds. Hicyup.”

He stops and puts his hands out to steady his newly acquired hiccups.

“HICYUP! Ahh hells, you know what I mean.”

“I didn’t get any.” Z says with a calm determination. Sculpy slides the half-empty potion bottle over to Z.

“Ha! I do know what you mean Old Sculp, and thank you for it.” Sorkin slaps her thighs and pushes her chair back, “WELP, it’s been a bad time with bad people, but I got to start making my way out of here.” Sorkin stands up and adjusts her clothes again in a drunken manner. “Someone’s got to make some gold around here and it might as well be me.” The rest of the table drunkenly raise their glasses or nod their heads. She feels for her pouch of gold and notices it feels significantly lighter, or maybe she’s just more drunk and can’t judge the weight as easily. ‘Easy come, easy go’ she thinks as she makes her way back out through the double doors of Boar’s Arse.

- Chapter III -

Outside, the chill attempts to creep under Sorkin’s tabard and set into her skin, but her alcohol defenses deflect it off while she walks down the city streets towards the inner rings of Tenacity. Sorkin pulls another large amount of alcohol and health potion into her gullet from her onyx flask. She’s going to meet with a new client at a fancy bar. Jirvic gave her the contact and Sorkin sort of knows the man from friends-within-accomplices-within-friends, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to do it sober. The place is about as close to the inner rings as Sorkin would like to get, and she’s sure it’s as far out as the client would want to go. They’ll both be uncomfortable, which is a great middle ground that makes everyone a little upset. Perfect for negotiating prices.

Tenacity does two things very well: Make gold and alienate everyone within it. Sorkin has become inalienable with alcohol and therefore already solved the second half of the problem, so she was onto solving the first half. ‘Everything becomes so much more easier when you just care about gold.’ She thinks as she twiddles her way down the cold cobblestones of Tenacity. She almost forgets about the massive debts she owes to multiple guild halls, but then she remembers she’s in control of her briney brain, so she does forget about the debt and continues towards her destination, “Next stop: Thee Golden Rooster bar.”

The Golden Rooster bar. Immediately Sorkin is met with the absence of rotting floorboards and old, spilled beer. Her nose appreciates it, but the rest of her hates the implications of the absence. “Fancy…” The word enters her brain from the left and passes all the way to the right. “Faaancceeiee. Hehe.” She thinks about the word and says it a few more times internally. “Fawn-see.” The word has lost all meaning and she continues to mumble it between her lips while she tries to figure out how to find her client.

“--able reservation ma’am?” A short, pretty girl asks half a question at Sorkin’s direction.

Sorkin fixes her posture and stares directly at the girl, “Fawnt Ce. Uh, fancy place. You got here.” A tense pause dances between the two of them trying to figure out who is going to break it first, “I’m meeting someone here.” The girl looks at Sorkin in the most unhelpful way possible. “Ah! There they are.” Sorkin sees the client. “Been so long since we’ve been out to eat together. My brother and I. The man I’m looking to meet.” The girl stares. Sorkin is just as confused as the girl, why did she make up that lie? “I’ll just see myself in.” Sorkin pushes past a small group of impatient and grumpy patrons waiting for tables. The pretty girl returns to not helping any of them.

“Where have you been!?” The man whisper-yells at Sorkin as she aggressively sits down at the booth across from the man. I say aggressively, but it was half falling due to Sorkin’s eyes starting to swim a little. The red leather cushions push air out of them and try to refill under the weight of Sorkin. “I have been waiting in–” he grumpily adjusts his coat, “this place for almost an hour!” Sorkin makes a mental note of the man's willingness to wait that long for his potion. She then thinks about how long it's been since she brought someone back to her house. She then wonders why she's thinking of that right now. Then, she realizes that she’s been staring at the table for about ten seconds straight, so she puts on her metaphorical merchant's pants and gets to dealing. “Alkus wasn’t it?”

He seems physically upset that she isn’t apologizing to him. The man is barely drinking a small glass of wine that Sorkin believes to be very expensive, therefore not taste very good. She never understood wine, always thought it tasted like blood to her and gave her awful headaches in the mornings that weren’t earned. The man sets down his tiny wine and leans over the small table at Sorkin, “Yes, but I regret giving that lizard my real name. Let’s just call me Client Alpha.”

Sorkin actually laughs at this man and puts a big grin on her face, “Of course.” Stifling more laughter. “Al, let’s get down to the brass balls of the thing. You need potions and I’m the local potion queen. Simple transaction. What’re you looking for?”

“Fine.” Al seems very grumpy about not being courted and treated like the client that he is, “I require a vial of–” Al leans in a bit closer and mumbles out the side of his mouth, “Undying Silver.”

Sorkin slaps her hand down on the table while Al recoils thinking she was going to strike him. “You see! I knew it was going to be a day like this today. That is not what you told Jirvic. I’m out!” She gets up to leave while a few other bar patrons look at her clearly drunk display.

Al grabs for her hand and gets a forearm, “Please please no– Ahem! Just a little disagreement.” He says to the few onlookers. “Please sit down!” He’s back to whisper-yelling at Sorkin.

‘I am such a negotiation genius.’ Sorkin thinks to herself after that little tactical trick. “Alright Al. First you tell my go-between that you want a potion that will ‘straighten bent iron’. Your words by the way.” Al lets go of Sorkin’s arm and covers part of his face with his collar. “Now you tell me you want an extremely rare vial of Undying Silver.” Al gets visibly shook up again when Sorkin says the potion at normal volume. He’s either the worst assassin there is, or a scared husband trying to get even. Sorkin didn’t know, but she would happily take his gold and give him a vial of swamp water for it. “What’s a girl to think at this point?” She leans back a bit and tries to sprawl out on the red leather cushions that are still fighting to fill with air.

Al’s mood sours slightly, “I would think you would be very excited to get this potion for me.” He twists his wrist and hand wildly in circles gesturing to something, “Given your…financial circumstances.”

‘That bastard Jirvic! How am I supposed to fleece clients when my go-between is telling them that I’m poor!?’ She thinks, while keeping a weird little smile on her face the whole time.

She straightens up and leans in closely now for the first time in the conversation and matches Al’s volume, “It would be a real shame if someone alerted the Tenacity Guards of this conversation. Or perhaps the Guild?” Al stares at Sorkin like he’s seen a ghost emerge from her throat. “It would be awf–”.

“Anything for the table ma’am or sir?”

The waiter stands next to Sorkin’s far peripheral view holding a piece of paper and some sort of magickal device. His question clears the conversation like a fireball. Both Sorkin and Al blink at each other and Al gestures to Sorkin first. “Uhh, just a golden ale for me.” She stumbles out, “Thanks.”

“Great choice ma’am.” The waiter scribbles something down. “And for you sir?” Al waves at him with the back of his hand. “All right, thank you both. There is no rush.” and the waiter briskly walks away from the table.

The ‘There is no rush.’ hangs in the front of Sorkin’s mind for an extra moment. ‘Why would he say that unless there was in fact a rush?’ She unfurrows her brow and looks over to Al who is also trying to parse out the sentence.

“Jackass. Right?”

“Why would he say that? Unless there was a rush.”

“That’s what I was just thinking. This place man.” Sorkin says with a disdain for the wealthy.

“Quite right.” Al agrees, but for the opposite reason.

“Listen Al, I’m not gonna’ try and toss a mallet into your kitchen.” Sorkin often makes up sayings like this when she’s drunk, and she was drunk, and she suddenly thought a good tactic would be to lunge for the jugular, “But, if I make you this potion, I’m going to need two weeks paid and a lump sum up front.”

Sorkin notices Al fidgeting a bit more and he apparently drank all his wine when she wasn’t paying attention. “Yes. I agree.”

“You agree?”

“Yes, yes. What do you need to get started?” Al was looking over Sorkin’s shoulder and at the entrance of The Golden Rooster.

“Well, for one, I need crypt veil and it’s not like that grows out of living bodies.”

“No, no! What do you need for payment to get started? I don’t need to know the recipe.”

Sorkin smiles at her clear victory with no strings attached, “1,500 gold a week and 600 gold up front.”

“Here.” Al drops a small bag of gold on the table and begins to get up from the red cushions, “I’ll contact Jirvic in two weeks to arrange a pickup.” He pushes off from the table and walks towards the back of the tavern.

Sorkin palms the bag of gold into her tabard and feels the immense weight of it, easily more than what she made this morning. ‘The fool didn’t even count it. Damn, I. Am. Good.’ she thinks as she’s rewarded with the waiter coming back with her beer.

“Ah, my good man, I believe I’ll take this to go.”

“I can’t let you take this off the premises ma’am.”

She glares at him slightly. Stands up. Grabs the beer and begins to chug as much of it as she can. She gets about halfway through the tall glass before she chokes a bit and pulls the glass down from her lips. Opens her mouth and lets out a massive burp, “Excuse me.” She stares at the waiter like she’s accepting a prize for ‘Smarmiest Smile’. The waiter just looks at her.

Sorkin tosses a few gold onto the table, “For the wonderful service.” and makes her way towards the front of The Golden Rooster.

While exiting, she passes a tall and beautiful woman covered in long white fabric and stunning gold jewelry. She has her arm around a smaller man and the two are being taken care of by multiple waiters. Sorkin tips her head to her as she passes out the front door sipping from her flask.

- Chapter IV -

‘Alright Sorkin, you’ve got a pretty good gig going on now.’ She was walking through the Tenacity streets again, but this time with even more gold on her and more of a drunken step to her feet. She actually had this thought and the weight of the gold became slightly sobering. ‘I better get home and deposit some of this loot before I continue on this little tavern crawl of mine.’ she thinks to herself while smiling like a mad-woman.

After dropping off a decent amount of the gold to her very secure ‘Under the Floorboards Bank & Trust’, she refills her onyx flask, adjusts her tabard, shakes out a small pain in her side, and makes it back out onto the city streets. A gulp from her flask and she begins thinking again, ‘Crypt veil. This damned flower or mushroom thing is such a pain to grow I’ll have to drop almost all of my newly acquired gold just to get a stem of it. And that's only if someone even has any laying around.’ Sorkin walks for a long time along the edge of the forest and drinking before turning into the outer ring of Tenacity again and walking further through the streets, ‘Alright, alright. If I can find some myself though, then I’ll keep almost all the gold. I just need to find where a lot of bodies are naturally decomposing.’ She stops her right foot hard on a cobblestone right at the end of the word “decomposing”. Turns around with a jaunty drunken flourish. Then begins walking in a very specific direction.

‘Grave robbers and thieves. I knew my night would end by talking with someone like that.’ Sorkin trudges her way to the tavern she’s been kicked out of more than any other: the Duned Inn.

‘At least they serve good drinks.’

No sign. No lights. Barely even a door. Sorkin pushes her way into the collapsing building and gets ready to make her case for needing to be there before she gets thrown out, but then she hears a familiar voice at a familiar volume, “Oh yeah!? You wouldn’t know what to do without me here!” yells Miranda, a fine woman with short black hair tied back behind a dirty face. “Oh, and now this comes into my bar.” Miranda points at Sorkin as she enters the dark tavern. Miranda turns and yells back under the bar into an open hatch on the floor, “Yes! MY bar!”.

Sorkin sees an opportunity to make an ally, “What’s he threatening you with now Miranda? Tossing you out on the street and trying to run this place without you? He wouldn’t last a week with these awful patrons.” Sorkin winks at a random woman in the back of the tavern and she visibly blushes. The drink was surely seated deeply in her now and her charisma couldn’t be stopped.

Miranda smirks at Sorkin and tosses the hatch in the floor closed, “That little bit of flattery will take you anywhere you want to go in this world, little missy.” A muffled yell comes up from the floorboards. Sorkin recognises the friendly tone in Miranda's voice and grabs a seat at the bar after patting a random man on the back sitting next to her. “Just know that if I ever see you casting spells in here again, you’ll bet on getting a mouthful of my magick boot up your arse.” The mixed metaphor throws Sorkin’s head for a spin, but she blinks and settles it as Miranda slides a tall beer in front of her.

“Wouldn’t dream of it Miranda me ol’ friend ol’ pal.” Sorkin takes a large drink from the beer and gets mostly foam and it tastes like a first kiss.

“See that you don’t.” Miranda starts walking away to the other side of the bar to help more people with their dependencies while a banging echoes up from the basement.

“Oh wo wa-wait.” Sorkin stammers, “I’m actually looking for some help, and I’m hoping you can help me uhh find that…help.”

Miranda stares for a quick second at Sorkin and then her drink and then her again, “Yes?” Wondering if she just lost another patron.

"I have an attraction.” Sorkin thinks about the thought she had at the previous bar, “I mean no, it's not an attraction, but a compulsion." She shakes her head and comically knocks on it, “I mean a question. Ha, I have a question.”

The bartender shifts her weight and appears more interested in Sorkin’s nonsense. Miranda has always loved the stories that come out of her patrons here, and this one was shaping up to be a real interesting one. Sorkin continues to bounce her lips back and forth and only sometimes saying the right words she wants to, “Where can a gal like me chat with someone that’s good with herbs and some such?” A pause. “Of the not strictly legal variety, I mean.”

Miranda sees the opportunity to set up a great story for later this evening, “You know Sorky, I just had another little weirdo come in earlier today asking for someone to talk to about herbs and such.” Her tone becoming overly friendly.

“Really!?” Sorkin asks earnestly and without picking up on the thick sarcasm.

“Yeah.” Miranda leans on the other side of the bar facing Sorkin and raising her eyebrows, “and they told me to send anyone that asks their way.” She points over to one of the myriad darkened corners of the tavern, “Sic ‘em girl.” Miranda smiles and thinks, ‘This is going to be great.’

Sorkin picks up someone else’s beer and walks towards a potential new friend and partner that walked into the Duned Inn earlier in the day grumbling about boiled chicken and turmeric.

When Sorkin gets to the table it looks like someone left all of their dirty laundry on one of the stools, but sees a few small glasses piled up and thinks her contact must just be in the bathroom. She sits down on a close stool that only has a few rags on it and feels a sharp pain digging into her right side. Straightening a leg and trying to reach under her rib, she tries to calm the area. These pains were always a stubborn problem when she would drink this heavily or for long periods of time. Her compulsion reaches down her tabard and pulls out her flask again to take a medicinal swig of her healing potion. A sock or an old rag seems to be stuck to her arm and she flings it off of her and down to the floorboards. The cooling sensation bounces around and settles into the stinging pain under her rib to calm it slightly. Another more dull pain stretches at her skin so she drowns it with the rest of her flask. Her throat tightens as the pain goes away and she notices another sock wrapped over her arm. ‘This place is more disgusting than I remember.’ She tosses the sock down to the darkened floor again. ‘Wait. Again?’ she thinks as she sees the sock moving on its own back up her leg with small silver strings coming out of it making it almost seem like it's unravelling.

“AHH!” Sorkin screams and jumps hard enough to slam her knees into the table she’s sitting under. No pain, but it knocks her beer almost entirely over the edge. She prioritizes the drink and grabs the handle as it mostly spills and she moves around to the other side of the rustled table trying to see where the demonic sock is now. A strange silvery cobweb-like material seems to be flicking around the other side of the table edges, before the evil-mannered sock slaps down on the top of the table again.

“AH!” Sorkin was now attracting the attention of some other patrons of the bar closest to her. “It attacked me!” She yells into the face of a small goblin trying to stay upright.

“Poor it guud an’ svishle urrour.”

This goblin was not going to be any help to her on her quest to defeat the sock.

A gasping throaty gurgle dances up over the table edge, “Ghuggrraa…”

“AHH!” Matching her first scream she begins twitching her hand to cast something at the devil’s linen. But then she remembers Miranda and how she literally just got back on her, well one of her sides, maybe not a good side. Sorkin finishes her beer, holds her side, and tosses the empty beer mug at the sock dancing on the table’s edge. She wildly misses and hears another noise coming from below the table. She remembers that tables have an underside and peeks below.

“Unholy Mother of Merdah you have a large rump!” A sentient trash pile speaks to her only a hand’s length in front of her face.

Sorkin jumps onto the rickety table. On her knees now pointing and yelling below her.

“Get the hells down from there Sorkin!” Miranda yells from the bar with a smile on her face, watching the entire interaction and laughing with some of the other tavern patrons.

Sorkin ungracefully returns to the floor and sobers slightly as she recognizes herself being the butt of a joke. Her scowl only lasts a few seconds until she sees the reforming creature in front of her and it turns into a grimace. The silvery strands pulling rags and trash together into a mound of a living form. “What’s the matter–” The sentient pile of trash’s voice was a deep and sultry low sound that felt very good to Sorkin’s ears. It would have been a great calling card if it wasn’t attached to a stinking mess of dirty rags and wet jars containing sludge. “Never seen a Honginon before?” She hadn’t and sort of wishes she still didn’t.

“Uhh.” Is all that she could muster as an answer.

“Yes,” a fold between flaps of oily canvas opens slightly to issue the response, “I get that quite often as you can imagine.”

BANG!

Two drinks slam down on the table as Miranda appears to Sorkin’s left, “From us and I at the bar. As way of introductions.” She winks at Sorkin and Sorkin misses it as she’s still staring at the mound of talkative refuse in front of her. “Cerok.” Miranda continues, “Sorkin. Sorkin, Cerok.” She slaps her hands together and turns to leave, “Have fun talking about mushrooms and crap.”

“Well, how nice.”

‘Hells this thing has a beautiful voice.’

Sorkin reflexively reaches for the new beer in front of her and says, “Beaut– Wait. Mushrooms?” She pulls from her mug of beer, “You know where I can get crypt veil?”. Mentally slapping herself for just blurting out all of her wants like a newborn. ‘I guess all my negotiation skills have left me for the evening.’ She thinks as she just keeps drinking.

“Gurg GUP!” Cerok pushes a small hand and arm out of a fold, just under a jar of something glaring at Sorkin, and adjusts their…midsection? “Why yes, of course I can.” Another arm emerges from the same side and adjusts the first arm, “The real question is–” Cerok peeks an eye out from under an old sock and stares at Sorkin, “Did you say crypt veil? Or creep vale?”

Sorkin almost vomits into her beer mug as Cerok’s eyeball darts around to find her sitting on the other end of the table, “Ah-yhup. Crypt Veil.”

‘I might as well just hand over my gold now and walk away. I’m an idiot.’

“How serendipitous! I could use something like that in one of my recipes!” Cerok tosses a heap of garbage onto the table and begins flipping through a book in the center of it, “Let’s see, let’s see here. Here!” One of the many arms turns the book while another arm points to a picture of a large bird being steamed. “Grue Pheasant DeShroom!” Cerok turns the book and slides it over to Sorkin as a rotting apple rolls with it and lands in her lap.

She picks it up daintily, “Uhh, here’s a part of … you?”

A small, but very long and multiple appendaged arm quickly reaches out and grabs the apple, “Apologies,” Cerok reabsorbs the apple into itself, “but you did sit on me and scatter me all over.” Spindly white strands flex off from the trash around Cerok’s…shoulder?

“Yeah, sorry about that. I thought you were a big pile of garbage.” Sorkin drinks again and can feel her eyes swim slightly.

“I am.”

“Right.”

“Why did you just sit in garbage?”

Sorkin gestures around the place, “I mean.”

“Fair point.”

“Wait speaking of, aren’t you kind of–” She waves her hand randomly, “Mushroomy?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t cooking mushrooms sort of–” Again with the waving hands, “Cannibalism?”

“No.”

“Just ‘no’? Nothing else to add?”

“Yes.”

“‘Yes’, something else to add? Or ‘yes’ to the ‘just no’ part?”

“I’m confused. Did you come here to dissect my eating habits or hunt for supplies for me?”

“Neither.”

Both of them stare towards each other, but not directly at each other.

Sorkin breaks the silence, “I feel like we’re either close to a friendship or a bar fight.”

“Could be both.”

She was beginning to warm up to this load of debris. “Ha!” Her vision gets a bit blurry and she doesn’t remember having a pain in her side, “I’m looking for the mushroom and a cheap way to get it myself.”

The evening gets very fast here and Sorkin doesn’t remember much, except a few pockets:

“Loads of bodies, but it’s not easy once you’re in.”

“I love this song!”

Kissing an old goblin?

Back on top of a table again.

“I know of a place that might be of interest to you.”

“DRINK IT! DRINK IT! DRINK IT!”

“Poor it guud an’ svishle urrour!” This guy again. Or was I screaming that?

Spinning. Dancing?

“It’s just a little spell!”

“OUT!”

“HA!”

The cold hard cobblestones of Tenacity.

A singing troupe of bandits!

My house?

Warmth and darkness…

—

First the recognition of light, then a hammer to the temples. ‘No more light please.’ A wave in her mind pulses and it feels like her brain is dry. ‘Ooh , even the thoughts hurt.’ She feels around wherever she’s laying, but the sensation of movement rocks her stomach back and forth and each part of her body asks for that to stop. ‘Okay. Don’t move and don’t think. Easy enough. I’ll just go back to slee– OH NO!’ She jumps up from her bed and runs to the kitchen sink to fill it. In between heaves she begins to feel each part of her body and they all feel awful. She slumps to the floor with her back to the sink, feeling as though she’s…empty.

‘At least I’m home.’ She pukes up on her tabard. ‘Oh.’

After a long morning of cleaning and headaches, Sorkin puts on a semi-clean outfit and sits in the sunlight to regain some semblance of decency. It sort of works. She notices a rolled up piece of paper stuffed into one of her beakers. She pulls it out and unfurls it to reveal a small map with black ‘X’ marking a stone tower out by the coastline.

‘Right. You think I’d remember getting something like this.’ Her mind flashes a big pile of garbage and her stomach tries to turn again. She’s daily certain it is completely empty now after a long morning of vomiting, so the fear goes away.

‘Trash? What– Ohhh!’ She moves her right hand and sees a small note written:

Crypt Veil. Wizard’s dungeon. -Cerok

‘Wow. No idea how I got this, but things are looking up today.’ Sorkin looks around her disgusting room and decides to leave on a high note. Leaving her home, she grabs a few potions and heads for the door.

The streets are loud and bright, but she pushes through it all and starts heading for the coastline. Sorkin starts feeling the hangover settling into her forehead and at the top of her neck. She thinks, ‘This is what happens when you stay up all night drinking and not resting.’ Then she tells that part of her brain to go away for now and keeps walking.

All she knows is that this place better have a wine cellar.

– The End –