Tate let out a low whistle and met Cheyenne’s gaze with a helpless shrug.
The halfling just shook her head and turned back toward Ogsa to watch the bartender pour the fellwine. I’d drink like that if I was FRoE too.
The fellwine came from the metal urn at the end of the shelf, as it turned out. Ogsa’s broad back blocked Cheyenne’s view of the process, and then the orc woman turned and brought back two copper cups. When she set them on the bar, Yurik leaned sideways to glance at the drinks and quickly pulled away. “Whew. You couldn’t pay me to drink tonight. Not after last month.”
“I’ll take it.” Tate reached across his buddy and slid one nearly overflowing copper cup across the bar.
“Running tab?” Ogsa asked, wiping her hands on her stained apron.
Yurik let out a long sigh. “Guess so. Hey, and none of you assholes orders anything else without me knowing about it. You hear me?”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Bhandi grabbed her tankard in one hand and a pitcher in the other before turning away from the bar. “Thanks, Ogsa.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What?” Yurik growled and picked up the three empty tankards while Tate grabbed the other pitcher and a copper cup. “She should be thanking me.”
Smirking, Cheyenne stared into the cup of fellwine in front of her and frowned. Green wine, huh? Should’ve known.
“Enjoy it, drow.” Ogsa nodded at the halfling, a smirk rippling around the giant tusks.
Cheyenne lifted the cup and nodded. “Thanks.”
She turned to follow the agents as a skaxen wearing a green suit as bright as his orange skin slammed his clawed hands down on the counter. “Ogsa! I’m dyin’ over here.”
“You shut your rat-faced trap, Rork! You’re not the only one breathing down my neck.”
The halfling moved as quickly as she could across the tavern toward a metal table in the back corner. The off-duty agents had already taken the chairs facing the rest of the room, and she set down her copper cup with a sigh. “So, I get the chair with my back turned to the whole damn bar, huh?”
Yurik shrugged with a little smirk as he poured brown-red foaming grog into the other three tankards. “We pulled rank. And you’re the new guy. You can handle it.”
Cheyenne pulled out the chair and slowly lowered herself into it, staring at Bhandi beside her. “Maybe she should’ve sat here instead. Doesn’t look like she’s paying attention to anything but the tankard.”
The troll woman leaned back in her chair, tipping the tankard until her head almost hit the wall behind her. Then she slammed the thing down onto the table with a clang, wiped her mouth again, and let out a massive belch.
“Woah,” Cheyenne muttered with a hushed laugh.
“Jesus.” Yurik shook his head.
All the other conversations from the tavern’s patrons died down, then someone shouted from across the room, “Goin’ for a fell-damn record over there, Bhandi?”
“I will for twenty bucks.” The troll woman pumped her fist in the air without turning to see who’d yelled at her, then the drone of many voices picked back up again. Bhandi looked up at everyone else around the table and smacked her lips. “What were you guys saying about me?”
“Oh, just that you might need to find some kinda twelve-step program,” Yurik replied. Tate snorted into his tankard.
“Yeah? Like Magicals Anonymous? Shit, Yurik, if that’s it, we’re living a goddamn twelve-step program.”
Tate held up three fingers and gulped his grog.
“What’s that, Tate?” Yurik cupped a blue-green hand around his ear. “Didn’t hear you.”
The troll lowered his tankard with a hissing sigh and thumped his elbow down on the table, his fingers still raised. “Three-step program. Don’t let them see you, don’t be late—”
“And don’t fucking die,” the three agents shouted, lifting their tankards to crack them together at the center of the table. Dark grog sloshed over the sides, and they drank.
Cheyenne laughed, her hand wrapped around the untouched copper cup. “That’s all that matters, huh?”
“When you do what we do for long enough, Cheyenne, yeah.” Yurik took another long drink. “That’s all that matters.”
Bhandi grabbed a pitcher to fill her tankard again. “And grog. Everything and everyone else can kiss my purple ass.”
Tate barked a laugh and smacked the table. “Could’ve gone another fifty years without that image.”
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
On the other side of Cheyenne, Yurik nodded. “You tryin’ to hatch an egg or something?”
“What?”
Bhandi waved at the halfling like she’d shove the cup up to Cheyenne’s lips if she had to. “Drink, Goth drow. Come on!”
Laughing, Cheyenne grabbed the copper handle and stared down at the swirling bright-green fellwine. “This stuff any good?”
“Good for you, yeah. That’ll put hair on your chest.” Tate thumped his chest and drank more grog.
“Man, half the shit you say doesn’t even make sense.” Bhandi leaned back in her chair and scowled at the other troll, shaking her head.
“It’s a figure of speech. Come on. I don’t think any of us wanna see Cheyenne with a hairy chest.”
“Okay, quit talking about my chest.” The halfling tilted her head at him in warning. “You’re digging the hole even deeper for yourself.”
Bhandi threw her head back and cackled. Smirking, Yurik glanced from the copper cup to Cheyenne and leaned forward. “Drink. I gotta see this.”
“Reassuring. Thanks.”
“Yeah, just take a big ol’ swig.” Tate mimed knocking back the drink. “Goes down smoother that way.”
“Yeah, okay.” She lifted the cup to her lips and didn’t have to sniff to catch the fumes rising from the fellwine. “Shit. What is this?”
“Go!” Bhandi shouted.
With a disbelieving laugh, Cheyenne cocked her head and lifted the cup even higher. “Fuck it.”
She took a huge gulp of the overly sweet fellwine and almost dropped the copper cup into her lap. Green liquid sloshed over the sides when she set it sharply on the table, and she doubled over with wide eyes. “Holy shit!”
The off-duty agents burst out laughing. Bhandi slapped the halfling’s back. “There you go! Now you’re in.”
“She did it.” Tate’s low
