Riss Cobalt, sorceress supreme, recounts a story of being drunk in this short adventure taking place before the novel Kismet and Tell.
Legend of Drunken Sorceress:
An Early Adventure in Sorcery
Okay. So there I was, sitting at a table in the back of a restaurant in Souton, enjoying my roasted pheastant dinner and minding my own business, when I suddenly saw a bright little flash out of the corner of my eye. The next thing I knew, I lay sprawled on the floor beside my overturned chair. I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder.
I crawled to my knees and looked at my shoulder. A dagger was stuck in it, up to the hilt. I figured it was an enchanted dagger, because it had gone through my griffin-leather tunic. A normal dagger wouldn’t have been able to do that. I pulled the dagger out and instantly began a Healing spell on the wound. As I cast the spell, I stood up.
“ALL RIGHT!” I called. Anger dripped from my voice like venom. “WHO THREW THAT?!”
“I did,” said a tall man standing in the doorway of the restaurant. Since the outdoor light was behind him and there were no windows, torches, or magic globes near him, his face was shadowed and obscure. “And it’s only the beginning of what I’m going to do to you, Marissa Cobalt!”
The other people in the restaurant all gasped and crawled under their tables. The restaurant’s staff ran to the saftey of the kitchen in the back.
“Oh, really?” I asked the mystery man. “And what else are you going to do? But first, tell me… just who in the name of the gods ARE you?!”
“You mean…you don’t remember me at all?” the man asked, shocked.
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Should I?”
“Well, after last night, I’d think you would.”
I blinked in confusion. “Huh? Last night? What do you mean?”
The man staggered slightly. “What?! You promised me a date! That’s what!”
My blue eyes widened amd my jaw dropped to the table. “I DID WHAT?!”
“You promised me a date! And then you stood me up, you bitch! And for that you’re going to pay!”
His arms rose from his sides. I saw the glint of metal in his hands.
“WHOA!” I said, holding my hands out in front of me in a gesture meant to tell him to halt. “WAIT JUSTA MINUTE!”
But he ignored me, and with movements so quick that they were almost a blur, he tossed a half-dozen more daggers at me.
I quickly ducked under my table. Six daggers embe dded themselves in the wall, right in the area where my head and torso had been. “Whoa!” I said softly as I looked at the still-shaking daggers with wide eyes. “That was close!” I tipped my table over on its side to act as a wall and sat down with my back against the table. “Can’t we talk about this?!” I called as I brushed blue hair out of my eyes.
“NO!” the man called in reply. “You snubbed me! You played with me, with my feelings! For that you must pay!”
I sighed. I REEEALLY wished I knew what he was talking about! But he left me no choice. Runes flashed in my mind and I chanted quickly under my breath. Then I quickly hopped up and pointed a finger at him.
“Fire Darts!” I called out.
A stream of fire in the shape of darts shot from my finger and flew directly at the man in the doorway…and exploded against an invisible wall before they could reach him.
I jerked back slightly in surprise. “So, he knows how to cast a magic shield,” I mused silently. “Does he know any other spells?”
My question was instantly answered as the man pointed at me and called out, “Lightning Arrow!”
“Yipes!” I quickly ducked back behind my table, and an arrow-shaped bolt of lightning flew by overhead, striking the wall and leaving a smoldering, gaping hole. I stared at the smoking wound in the wall. “Wow, this guy’s serious!” I thought. “Better take this outside. I don’t want the restaurant to take any more collateral damage – and judging from this guy’s determination, any further collateral damage could be extremely severe.”
I hopped up again and held the palms of my gloved hands towards the man. I figured that even if he had a shield, the spell I had just modified should still work. “Wind Burst!” I called out.
A long gust of wind blew from my hands. I had modified the spell so that the wind had the force of a major hurricane, and also so that it would effect the target only, and not any of the surrounding restaurant. My keen sight detected a slight, circular yellow glow where the wind struck the shield. But the wind did as I had hoped. It pushed on the shield until the man was forced out of the doorway and into the street. Then the wind died down, and I followed the man out to the street.
The door to the restaurant slammed shut behind me, and my sharp hearing heard the lock click.
“Well,” I thought, “if they want to keep me out of their restaurant, fine. There are plenty more restaurants and places to eat in Souton. I’ll just take my business elsewhere. But first, I have some other business to take care of.” I brushed my blue bangs out of my eyes and used the early afternoon light to take stock of said business.
The guy was tall and lanky, and wore an outfit similar to mine: the shirt, tunic, and pants outfit of a traveling sorcerer. Though I could tell his leather wasn’t griffin leather like mine. And his boots weren’t of dragon hide, like my black boots were. He was a young man, maybe about eighteen or so – and only about three years older than I was. He had shoulder-length brown hair and piercing blue eyes. And he was really kind of cute – except for the angry scowl on his face.
And after managing to get a good look at him, I realized that he DID look a little familiar.
“All right, Marissa Cobalt!” the man called to me. “If you want to fight, let’s do it!”
We stood in the middle of the street, facing each other just a few yards apart. Spectators lined the sides of the street, hoping for a good show. I just stood there, looking at the may, trying to remember where I’d seen him before.
“Fine,” I finally said, “But first, who ARE you??”
“Don’t you remember at all?” he said. “My name is Palas Luthein. We were supposed to have a date today!”
“So you say,” I said. “Look, Palas. You seem vaguely familiar, but I’m afraid I just don’t remember you. I don’t remember much of last night, either, to be honest.”
“No! The way we hit it off last night at Joss’s Pub…you have to remember!”
“Joss’s Pub??” I said, the name sounding a little familiar.
I rolled the name around in my mind for a few moments. Then I remembered. And instantly wished I hadn’t remembered. No wonder I had forgotten the incident.
After a dissatisfying bandit hunt that afternoon, I had come to the dimly lit place known as Joss’s Pub, looking to drown my sorrows in some of the ale that the place was notorious for. I stalked inside and siddled up to the bar, taking a seat on one of the stools. The place was packed and noisy, but my arrival had the usual affect of quieting everyone by drawing their attention. An infamous reputation does that. They all watched me as I sat at the bar and ordered.
“Barkeep,” I said, “give me your house specialty. And keep it coming until I say otherwise.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the burly grey-haired man behind the counter said. Almost instantly, a large tankard of ale was placed on the counter in front of me. “Here you go, Miss Marissa. Enjoy.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I will.”
I lifted the tankard to my lips, and downed the whole thing at once. The barkeep, as he’d promised, placed another tankard down just as I sat the empty one down. I drank the new one a little slower.
After my sixth ale, I started feeling the buzz and asked the barkeep to hold off on the ales. My brain felt foggy. But I was in a VERY good mood now.
“Feeling better, Miss Marissa?” a man asked from beside me.
I turned to my right. A young man with shoulder-length brown hair sat on the stool. He had a tankard of ale in front of him. I wondered how long he had been there. Had he been there before I came in? Or did he come in later and I hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t remember. But I thought I would have remembered seeing a cute guy like him.
“Yeah,” I said, my words sounding only a little slurred. “A lot better. Thanks.”
“Let me buy you another round,” he said.
“All right,” I said, and gave him a smile. “Thanks. That’s so sweet of you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He turned to the barkeep. “Give the lady another round and add it to my tab,” he said.
The barkeeper nodded and put another tankard in front of me. Not really thirsty anymore, I nursed this one. While I did so, the cute guy and I chatted. And we really seemed to be hitting it off, which even through my druken haze surprised me given my notorious reputation. And somewhere during the talk he mentioned taking me to the local theater the next day to see a play and then to lunch. And, both drunk and overwhelmed at his interest in me, I had agreed. Then I started feeling tired, and he offered to walk me to the inn I was staying at. Then he kissed me goodnight…and I was so drunk that I had actually allowed it.
Once I was alone in my room at the inn, I crashed into a drunken sleep on my bed. When I woke up in the morning, I went about my normal business, with no memory of what had happened that night.
*************************************************
I looked at Palas, who stood in the middle of the street looking at me.
“Well?” he asked. “Remember now?”
“I remember,” I said. “And I’m sorry. But what happened wasn’t real, Palas.”
“Not real?”
“Right. If I hadn’t been so stinking drunk, none of it would have happened! So why don’t you be a good boy and just forget the whole thing even happened, leave me alone, and go on your way?”
He looked at me for a minute, then shook his head. “No! I won’t go until I’ve had my revenge!”
“Oy…” I muttered, holding my forehead in my hand and shaking my head.
I looked up just in time to see a Lightning Arrow flying at me. “Uh-oh! SHIELD!”
My hastily cast magic shield went up just in time. The Arrow exploded against the invisible barrier.
“That was pretty weak,” I called out. “Can’t you do better than that?”
“Weak, huh? How about this!”
The next thing I knew, a big ball of fire flew at me. I quickly reinforced my barrier, and the Fireball exploded harmlessly against it.
I smirked at him as the runes flashed in my mind. “You call that a Fireball?! THIS is a Fireball!”
I tossed a ball of fire at him. It was special Fireball. One that I had modified just for him. It exploded with such force against his shield that he was sent flying back a dozen yards to land hard on his back.
As he lay gasping on his back, I walked up to him. “Now go,” I said. “Get lost. And I don’t ever want to see your disturbed and obsessed face again.”
Palas crawled up off the ground and stumbled off down the street. The spectators, seeing that the show was over, continued on their way.
I stood staring after Palas’s retreating back for a minute, feeling a little sorry for him. Then my stomach rumbled. I suddenly realized that I’d never finished my pheasant dinner. And that restaurant had shut me out. So I walked down the nearest street, looking for the closest place to grab some food. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a pub or a tavern. I’d decided to avoid them for a while.
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