NOVEL NEXT 67 – How to Get a Homunculus Drunk
“You’re that sure I’ll win?” Zel grinned again, raising the glass to her lips to take a sip. The smell of fruit hit her nose like a hammer, amplified by the sugary syrup and near-overripe black cherries that made up the kompot portion.
Not-Quincy smiled back, cleaning a tankard with a rag, “No, I just doubt you’ll come away from it with less than four gelt. Even losers usually make at least ten or twenty from what folks toss into the pit, unless you’re a particularly bad sport about it or tried to cheat. Everything thrown into the pit is split half and half between the fighters, regardless of the winner.”
She supposed that it made sense, it was a good way to avoid having someone get deterred by a losing streak. “Sounds good to me,” she said, taking another sip. “Say, are you related to Quincy?”
He stopped cleaning, looked up at her, and the smile briefly froze on his face before he said with a subtle undercurrent of resentment: “He’s my uncle and a thief, and that’s that.”
A simple nod of acknowledgement. Another sip. It went down dangerously easily, and strangely enough, about halfway through the glass she was finally feeling something. It was just a vague warmth and a buzz, but it was something. A few minutes passed.
“So what about that fight-brew?” asked Zef.
“Think of it as a pre-emptive healing elixir. Helps the body mend damage and recover from exhaustion quickly, but spoils quickly and only lasts a short while,” answered Not-Quincy. “More effective and easier to make than “proper” elixirs, if you know when to use it.”
A few more minutes passed. Zel got up to watch the fight down in the pit, leaning on the stone wall at the edge as she slowly finished her drink. Sure, she had to damn-near bend over to actually lean on it, seeing as it was waist-height for one far shorter than her, but that was fine. The view from up here was about as good as it could get, and she wagered that those sitting at the bar behind her would’ve said much the same.
Punches and kicks were both exchanged and blocked, haymakers and uppercuts delivered, jabs dodged, and so it went. Both of the combatants were determined, skilled, clearly well-trained, and… Boring. There was a rhythm to their fight as if they’d done it this way ten-dozen times before and they were ready to do it again the same way ten-dozen more. There was no real tension to it, no excitement, no anticipation of a spectacular climax. Just the rote physicality of the exchange, little more than bodies slamming into each other until one either couldn’t or didn’t want to continue.
So her attention wandered, and she got a better mental image of this strange place. Near-everything was wrought of ancient stone blocks, each a distinct shape that suggested minimal tool work, and yet somehow they all fit together perfectly, beyond any reasonable tooling tolerances. It was like the stones had been melted into perfect interlock, without the use of building-glue like cement. It was, unsurprisingly, lit by lightgems - ancient ones framed by metal and set in depressions in the stone itself, which shone a perfect even milky-white. They’d probably been here since this place was built.
The pit itself had a floor covered by some sort of black sand, its perimeter lined by a fence of wooden logs wrapped thickly by leather - probably to stop fighters hitting the stone - which was separated into quarters, the gaps filled by methods of exit. Ladders to the upper layer were carved into the stone on the left and right side from her perspective, and the spots on the wall immediately ahead of her had doors blocked off by beaten-up wooden gates, their constituent logs also wrapped by leather.
The older man delivered a right hook to the jaw of the younger with a loud grunt of exertion to accompany the resounding impact, sending him spinning to the ground. He laid unconscious for a few seconds, only to jolt upright and call out his defeat, “Ygh… You got me! What’s that, nineteen to twenty-one now?”
They gripped hands, leaned in, exchanged quiet words, and proceeded to leave through the opposing doors on either of the ends of the pit. With empty glass in hand she turned from the edge, catching in her peripheral vision the two younger men quickly turning back around in their seats, while Berga remained leisurely sat facing the bar, slowly sipping something, and Zefaris didn’t turn a single degree from her comfortable seat, back to the bar, glass of Fruit Right Hook in hand and her cheeks flushed pink just enough to be visible. She looked up to meet Zel’s eyes, her gaze briefly stopping twice on the way up as it crossed her stomach and her chest.
Zel returned to her seat at the bar, putting down the glass in front of the window. Before she could decide to say or do anything more, Berga turned around to look at something out of sight, then turned back and said, “Looks like yer just about up. You uh… Don’t feel too drunk to fight, I hope.”
She didn’t. The warm, vaguely heady buzz had washed over her and vanished within minutes. It was honestly just impressive that it had done anything at all.
“Got a buzz three-quarters of the way through the glass, it was gone by the time the fight was done,” she remarked with a chuckle, letting her slight disappointment bleed through. If she ever wanted to get any sort of drunk, it’d take not a Fruit Right Hook, but a Fruit Cannonball. Then again, if drunkenness was that sort of buzz merely intensified with the addition of some flushedness and a loss of motor dexterity, perhaps it was not desirable. Zelsys thought that if she ever sought respite through intoxication, some Rubedo-infused bath salts and her own Fog-breathing would be more than sufficient, whether she was alone or with Zefaris.
“Outstandin’,” nodded the old man while Not-Quincy came up to take the glass, giving her a brief look, looking at Zef, then just walking away, visibly certain that she wasn’t drunk. “Now’d be ‘bout high time to place yer own bets if ye have any an’ wrap yer fists… Er, fist.”
