A Special Occasion

I spent a good ten minutes delicately placing the Bluebug Wine bottle into its new cellar home. Once a year, I allowed a splurge for my tavern, something to save for special occasions, or special patrons, and Bluebug Wine was a splurge above the rest. How Old Krenek’s Dry Goods had come by it is a mystery I decided would be best unsolved. Krenek wasn’t known to be a fence, but there have been a couple times his careless purchases and sales have landed him, his patrons, and indeed the whole town in hot water.

Any case. It was ten minutes of careful unpacking almost ruined by the boisterous arrival of Krahj and Company. Krahj was less about opening doors as he was about breaking and entering, and this entrance rattled the roots of the cellar, near knocking a dozen bottles off the rack. Like to have broke my door bell again, too.

“Barkeep! BAAAAAAARKEEEEEEP!”

Muttering in half dismay, I braced myself. I put my service smile on and ascended. Already seated was the odd assortment of Krahj’s merry band - a pair of teasing halfling twins, an elf of distant attitude, a half-mad human wizard… and the great half-orc himself, Krahj, 6 feet tall sitting, skin the shade of an evergreen, and a body like an obelisk.

“Your finest, if you please!” Krahj said with mock nobility.

I brought a couple bottles of Thickland Brandy to the table, and was surprised by the generous tip thrown casually back at me. It was not long before the party was drunk with raucous laughter, and I was secretly glad of it. Money is good, but good cheer is not easily bought.

There came a time when Krahj needed to ruin the outhouse for everybody, and the tavern fell into a torpid silence. The group, draped in various contortions on the table, left me with time to clean up a bit. 

The next moments happened very quickly, but I’ll recount them best I can. Krahj had indeed broken my doorbell, otherwise I would have heard the robber’s entrance. I was cleaning a glass when a hand covered my mouth and a knife pressed against my throat. A slurred exclamation behind me was followed by a not-quite-correctly recited spell, and an explosion rocked the building, blasting a hole in my roof, and me and my assailant to the ground. Released, I scrambled behind the bar, wondering what Krenek had gotten me into this time, but the robber was in quick pursuit.

I was easily apprehended, and the hooded burglar flicked the knife towards the wine cellar. My smile must have been misinterpreted as confusion, because he repeated the gesture. What he didn’t know was Krahj had come running - barreling full force into the bar, pants around his ankles. Baring all to god and country, Krahj landed a fist the size of a cinder block on the back of my attacker’s head, his skull splitting with a thick crack. The burglar fell like a sack of barley, and there stood Krahj, the big oaf, with a worried look such as I never thought possible of his scarred face.

“Apologies, Krahj,” I said, recovering my breath. “I just remembered, my finest actually arrived only today. Didn’t cross my mind.”

Krahj relaxed with a warm smile and, after he hiked up his pants, we entered the wine cellar. The explosion had rocked the very foundations of my bar. Racks and boxes had been upended, broken glass and spilled spirits everywhere on the ground. Not one bottle had survived, except, miraculously, the Bluebug Wine.

Ah… Never had a wine tasted sweeter, and never a laugh more fully savored.