章 41: Bet
"Yo, George, how's it going?" Foster asked with a smile on his face, approaching that tall-grown old man. George turned around toward him and raised his brows, "Ah, it's you guys. Sorry, we didn't manage to prepare everything yet. We just barely managed to unload the caravan, so we couldn't sort anything out thus far."
Foster quickly shook his head, "Don't worry about it, that's not what we're here for yet anyway." He pointed out, and George looked back surprised, "It's not? Do ya guys need more work?" George looked past Foster at Octer and Lynol, but both of them quickly shook their heads.
"Not for now, but thanks for the offer." Lynol said, "We were looking to procure something from you. We have met with a surprisingly skilled and cheap weapon- and armor-smith, but he is a bit... troublesome to say the least. We were hoping to bring him something to get him on our good side."
"...Who are you talking about, exactly? I know most of those in this city. Been here a few times, we sell many of our wares to them." George explained, and Octer quickly replied.
"Ah, I think he said his name was... Zhaine or something?" He replied, and George's light smile immediately turned wry, "Zhaine, is it? An elderly dwarf? The one that still didn't give up his shop on the bottom layer?"
"That's the one." Foster replied, "So you know him? Is he any good? Like, is it worth it to try and get on his good side?"
George closed his eyes for a moment as he crossed his arms, letting out a deep sigh as he shrugged, "That's a tough question to answer, actually. Yes, and no. He's an amazing craftsman, one of the best I know of. Or at least, he used to be. But ever since he started drinking that much, he's been a bit unpredictable. His work became sloppy, he became insufferably rude, and... he's just not the same man as he used to be. The Highland Company actually used to supply him regularly, but now his shop just isn't popular anymore to make that worth it."
"What, so just becauseh is shop isn't doing as well, you gave him up?" Foster asked with a frown, "Isn't that a bit much?"
"You're misunderstanding me. We would bring him materials because he just couldn't procure enough because of the amount of customers he had. Then that changed, and he just didn't need our services anymore. We do still deliver some more specific things that are hard to get around these parts to him, though." George scratched the back of his head, and soon managed to catch onto what it was these three were actually here for, "You three wanna bring him some Dwarven Spirit, right?"
Foster lightly turned his head away, since he felt kind of bad about supporting the addiction of this old man, but soon just nodded his head, "Yeah, kinda... But don't worry, I have a plan, I'm not just trying to bribe him or anything... Especially not after hearing your story."
"I'm gonna trust ya, then. While Dwarves can usually take a bit more of this stuff, you still saw what it did to the big guy. I heard he drinks enough as is." George said, as he turned around. He walked through the warehouse, and returned a minute or so later holding a bottle of Dwarven Spirit.
"Great. Then could you just remove the price of this from-"
"Don't worry about it." George said with a light wink, "Let's just take this as a gift for an old customer we want to bring back to us. And not that it matters in the first place, we're already down a dozen of them because of you."
Foster took the bottle with a slight chuckle, "Dude, I literally saved your ass with that."
"You did, which is why I'm not charging you for all those bottles. Now go on, and come back in a couple days when we actually managed to prepare your bonus." George smiled, sending off the group of three. When they stood outside of the building, they all looked at each other, clearly surprised by what just happened. Octer shuddered a bit as he looked at the bottle, holding his hand in front of his mouth to stop himself from getting sick.
"Well, that worked out a lot better than I thought. I didn't even have to convince him at all." Foster pointed out with a light smile, carefully putting the bottle into his bag.
"That's true. But what is your plan for this?" Lynol asked, "If you don't just want to give it to Zhaine, then what else would you want to do?"
"I think it's better if I don't tell you guys... I think you would want to stop me anyway..."
---
"Let's make a bet, old man. You against me, whoever can drink more of this stuff wins." Foster said with a grin on his face, although he quickly felt a large hand on his shoulder that pulled him around.
"What are you doing?! Are you insane? Did you actually forget what that stuff did to me?" Octer asked with a deep stare, but Foster just smiled back at him, "Don't worry about it, man. I'll be fine." He replied bluntly, since he had a secret trick up his sleeve.
Foster knew the perfect ways to make himself throw up incredibly quickly. And of course, since Zhaine was already incredibly drunk, this should be an easy win for him. Or at least, that's what he was hoping for. If not, then he was probably going to be in a lot of trouble after this.
"You know that we still have a bunch of stuff to do today, right?" Lynol pointed out as well, while Octer turned his head toward him confused, "That's that you're worried about? Seriously?"
"As I said, just don't worry about anything like that for now. I know what I'm doing, seriously. Kinda." Foster said, as he looked back at Zhaine, "So? What do you say?"
"Hm... Well, what're we bettin'?" He asked with slurred words, looking at the bottle of Dwarven Spirit with glistering eyes, and Foster grinned, seeing that this seemed to be working, at least for now.
"Alright. If I win, you become our personal smith. And with that, I don't mean you can't sell to anyone else, but just that you properly listen to our requests and then work on them properly without complaining. And if you win... I'll pay you double for this armor, and anything else that I might buy from you in the future." Foster said with a grin, and Zhaine raised his brows curiously, before slowly starting to grin, "Make it triple, and I'm in."
With a grin, Foster extended his hand toward the man in front of him, "Then we've got a deal. You got some shot glasses?"
Before Foster was even able to finish his question, Zhaine had already placed two down on the table. He opened the bottle with a broad grin, and poured the first round. Both Foster and Zhaine picked up the glasses, and placed them to their lips. They downed their shots at the same time, and placed them back down a moment later.
Surprisingly, Zhaine grimaced a bit after drinking it, letting out a bit of a yell, "Ooh! That's a good burn, ain't it, lad?!" Zhaine stared back at Foster, who slowly placed the glass down onto the table in front of him, and slowly nodded as he smiled, not even having flinched from drinking that shot, something that impressed not only Octer, who nearly threw up just smelling the alcohol, but also Zhaine. A heavy drinker, and a dwarf on top of that, who himself wasn't able to drink it without reacting even a little.
With a slight chuckle, the dwarf poured the next round, "Heh... Guess this is gonna be a bit more fun than I thought."
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