Chapter 88: Bottoms Up!
Varsil and the rest of your little band of merry girls finally got off shift. Ten very grumpy players took over guarding the flag at the gates to the sealed up spooky city. It had finally stopped raining, although lightning still flickered overhead.
"Let's move it girls. We have a date with some beer and a big hunk of beefcake."
Hildy shouldered her axe and skipped down the road, her red braids flying about her. "And best of all, it's a drinking contest, which means he's mine all mine."
The other girls disagreed loudly, althought they all knew Hilda's dwarven heritage included a good bit of alcohol resistance.
Filthyfoot the halfling crossed her arms, pouting. "It's not fair! I should only have to drink half as much, being of such dainty stature."
Varsil shook her head. "Does it matter? Once you get drunk, I haven't seen you be picky at all about who's tent you end up in. Hell, that one time with the beastmaster we even heard you..."
"DIDN'T HAPPEN!" The halfling was yelling now. "You always bring up that story. I was only curled up next to the great dane because he was warm, and Scully was monopolizing the the beastmaster after we'd agreed to share."
Scully, a blonde half elf spoke up. "I don't remember any agreement at all. You snooze you lose. And I distinctly remember you saying 'Oh, who's a goood boy!' very loudly for half the night."
They carried on like this all the way to the barn some three miles down the road. Past indescretions were never forgotten in the Vixens and brought up as often as they could. Only six of their group was here tonite. Four others had been casualties the first day. Walking up to the barn they saw that the butcher had been busy getting ready for them. Several lanterns had been lit, a section of the wood floor was swept, a few tables stolen from the tavern, and most important of all, there were three large kegs of ale that had already been tapped.
"Welcome ladies. Grab yourself a mug and lets get the party started. If anyone calls 'Bottoms Up!' we all drink. If you fall over we toss you up in the hay to sleep it off. "
Ozzy was wearing a pair of tight leather pants, his dwarven work boots, and sleeveless tunic stretched over his tight frame. It lacked a few inches of reaching his waste, showing off his hard abs. His bald head reflected the lantern light, and there was an evil gleam in his eye. But it was that good kind of evil that promised a fun night. Everyone grabbed a beer and Hilda immediately yelled 'Bottoms Up!
"So give me some names, Varsil. I don't know all your girls."
The barbarian started pointing and yelling out names. "I'm sure you remember Hildy, she still has your kilt as a souvenir. And Filthyfoot was the halfling playing grab-your-ass that first day. The half elf is Scully, the dark elf with all the knives is Evil Lynne, and the quiet one dressed like a nungone-bad is Georgette."
"Nice to meet you all, or see you again. Drinking is the name of the game until we cut the field down a bit, but I figure we can get in a bit of arm wrestling and dancing if you like."
Varsil eyed Ozzy's biceps. He'd slimmed down a bit, but if anything seemed stronger. Barbarians however, got a +50% bonus in feats of strength. She planned to give him a run for his money. Maybe more than once. Hilda was going to be a problem though. Maybe if she got her drunk fast? Worth a try. "Sounds good. Hey girls, Bottoms up!"
The night wore on. Ozzy took turns teaching them all some fast ballroom dancing as they sung some rowdy drinking songs. The dance had a lot of moves where Ozzy would twirl his partner around, or lift them in the air and spin himself. The sight of him doing a full lift of Varsil above his head and twirling her around several times made them all gasp. For how dizzy she got, Varsil was glad of the dancing. It was going to cut the competition down quicker, and Ozzy had Hilda spinning like a top, the dwarven lass unable to stop as he led her through twist after twist.
Georgette dropped out first. Normally her "wine into water" spell let her neutralize a lot of alcohol, but this damned brew seemed to resist her magics. She slumped after four mugs of ale, and the other girls made her comfortable in the hay. Filthyfoot and Evil Lynne made it to five tankards, but only because Filthyfoot kept pouring her ale into Lynne's tankard. When the two of them were leaning on each other and starting to snore, Ozzy picked them both up at once and tucked them into the hay.
With the competition whittled down, things got serious. One barrel of the Bludgeon Extra-Dark was empty and turned into a table for arm wrestling. Ozzy agreed to let Scully and Hilda go as a team. Losers had to drink a flagon. The two gave in their all, with Scully pushing and Hilda actually hanging from Ozzy's arm and swinging back and forth, but they just didn't have the raw power. They moved aside to down their flagons and let Varsil take on the Butcher for the main event.
Scully looked to be having a hard time of getting her flagon down and Hilda was smirking at her. Varsil and Ozzy grabbed hands and pushed at each other a couple of minutes. Varsil was getting redder and redder as she exerted herself, while the Butcher seemed calm as a rock.
"Dammit! How are you so strong? Brandon told us contract workers don't have any skills!" Varsil was hoping she could at least outlast him on sure stamina. Barbarians got no mana as they leveled up, but lots of STR and CON. At the peak of level 5 Varsil had 1090 stamina. She redoubled her efforts.
Ozzy just laughed and his arm wasn't budging one bit. "Well lass, we only have a few skills to carry out our trades, but we get really good at them. My sub-class was Slaughterer, I've been killing Sedgebeasts with a hammer for weeks on end and hauling their carcasses. I'm strong enough now I just punch them and don't used a hammer. I kept breaking them."
Ozzy's arm moved a bit. He whistled. "Coming on pretty strong girl. What have you gotten your own STR and CON up to? You must be close to Tier 2, aren't you?"
Varsil grunted, "STR of 10 and CON of 9. Which is why you are going to lose. Tell you a secret. My barbarian heritage makes that a 15. I've barely been trying up until now." Ozzy's hand went lower, only an inch from the wood.
The butcher started straining hard. He whispered so only Varsil could hear. "I've got a secret too. You get a real nice bonus if you have STR and CON of 10 when you level up. You'll want to be working on that last point of CON."
The barbarian's eyes got big. "Screw me! You already leveled up?!"
"In so many ways." The butcher smiled evilly at her, and his arm easily pushed hers back to upright, then kept going until her hand hit the wood. "Woo! That makes me thirsty! Bottoms up ladies! That's another each for Scully and Hildy, but you my buxom little Varsil, you owe me two mugs."
Varsil was massaging her arm. "Give me a second. One arm isn't working so well. She grinned up at the butcher. "10 each you say? Thanks for the tip."
That was it for Scully. She got half the mug down, and then lost it all. Hildy had been waiting for it and quickly aimed her out the door of barn. After letting her finish getting most of the ale outside of her, Hildy washed her off in the stream and tossed her up in the hay. "Not bad Scully, not bad, we'll make a dwarf out of you yet!"
Now it was down to two. Varsil had poured her two mugs and downed them both in record time. Hildy was taking big gulps. "This is pretty tasty brew. I've never had Bludgeon Extra-Dark."
Ozzy took a sip of his. "Special double strength beer, made just for this war. These are the first tapped."
Hildy smiled a happy drunken smile. "We're first! Hear that Varsil? We got first tastes. Bottoms up!"
The drinking sped up, Ozzy calling for more beer as fast as the girls drank. He himself kept drinking steadily. He wasn't sure if how much stamina you had affected your alcohol tolerance, but he knew from experience that his Poison Resistance would help. He really should have worked on that more. This contest was coming down to the wire.
Hildy finally collapsed when Varsil started telling elf jokes. Hildy started laughing so hard she got the hiccups, and soon was running down to the creek. She weaved her way back to the barn, shook Varsil's hand and blew Ozzy a kiss before climbing into the hayloft. She was snoring immediately.
Varsil looked at Ozzy an licked her lips. "Well, Mr. Butcher, looks like it's just us standing."
"Which is odd, I had my bets on the dwarf, to tell you the truth." Ozzy took her by the waist and started walking her out of the barn.
"Hildy never worked on her Poison Resistance like she should have. She likes to get drunk, but hates to waste money. I've got that skill maxed. And all that twirling wore her out. And just in time. I can barely walk. But I guess I won't have to be on my feet, will I?"
Walking out the barn door they walked arm and arm to the corner of the barn. Ozzy wrapped his arm around the curvy barbarian and they started to kiss.
'Klang'
One of Betty's cast iron skillets hit the back of Varsil's head, and she dropped to ground unconscious.
"Damn Suzette, she was barely conscious, did you have to hit her so hard."
Suzette stepped out of the shadows where she had been nearly invisible. "Yes. Yes I did. She probably has a skull as thick as a tree. Plus I didn't like the way she was making eyes at you, and you at her! I should hit you one too!"
Ozzy held up his hands in surrender. "Aw, you know it was all just part of the plan. Can't blame me for being adorable."
Suzette stood tapping her foot with her arms crossed. "Can and will. Now get them tossed in the wagon and lets get moving. I brought the ribbon like you asked."
A few minutes later six goblins took over pulling a wagon full of snoring vixens. The wagon was left a quarter mile from Rowan Keep. As the sun came over the horizon, six hung-over vixens slowly came awake. Geogette looked around at the others. "Well, it's obvious who won that round, even if I'm clueless why we are here and not there." Filthy foot fell over laughing, "Oh god, I wish i could get a picture." Scully had a white bow in her hair. Hildy was wearing red bows on her beard and each of her braids. Varsil was sporting a large blue bow pinned to the furs on her chest.
"Damn Vars, I guess you won."
Varsil was poking at a sore spot on her head. "Guess i did. Damn, wish I could remember it all. Shit gets hazy after I lost the arm wrestling.
Hildy was rapidly digging through her pack. "NOOOOO! Dammit! That big sneak stole my kilt!"
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