Franky's slight grin grew at the corners just a bit more. Of course he knew Fool's Gambit. Every soldier worth his weight in the Imperium carried the dice around. Franky had a set tucked behind a bottle of brandy under the bar. At the mention of a good whiskey, Franky nodded, "For such a game, I'll have to go to my private stash."
Her offer of terms was both most unexpected and far more heavily weighted than he expected. A once in a lifetime sort of deal to be offered, and despite his misgivings, despite the words of warning in the back of his mind, Franky was truly a gambler, and a bold one at that. He didn't know what he would ask of her should he win, but he suspected she already knew what she wanted from him.
She could've asked him outright. She could've even demanded it. Yet she left it up to a game of chance and drinking and... That was it. It wasn't a drinking game, it wasn't a game of chance, not really. It was like how the best poker players often would say that they didn't play the cards, but rather the person across from them. This wasn't a game. This was an evaluation, a test of either readiness or worthiness.
He was sure of it, and he certainly wouldn't disappoint.
"I agree to these terms and may the Emperor bind me to them. If you'll excuse me, I'll be just a moment. I know just the bottle to grab."
Franky stood from his stool, slipping easily around the bar and into the kitchen. It was chaos in there, as it always was. The two goblins were being held back by Weston as they waved knives about, and yet somehow the food was still being cooked perfectly. Weston looked over at Franky as he walked to his private stairwell. A slight head nod, a question, and Franky answered in kind. Weston then returned his focus to the goblins.
A quick jaunt to his office, Franky reached into the back of his cabinet, grabbing an old, dusty bottle. There were bottles of whiskey for birthdays and holidays. There were bottles for special occasions, births and marriages. And then there was this bottle. It was unassuming, no label. The glass was a dark amber, obscuring the nature of the liquid inside. But its cork was a deep, blood red crimson.
Franky moved quickly to return to his seat, just as Chestnut walked out with a plate of steaming Hob Cobbler, setting it before Veronica. In her usual cheery, sing-songy voice, "Made by the best Goblin chef in Zaichaer, formerly personal chef to the Goblin King himself!" Then she went into a falsetto about the goblin king and a fairy queen consorting as she walked back to the kitchen.
Franky grabbed two of the good, crystal whiskey tumblers, standing on the inside of the bar, now opposite Bishop Veronica. "You probably are familiar with this bottle, though many are not. However, this particular vintage should always come paired with a story. You see, this is a Sangen bourbon, though that's not unusual. They have rum and bourbon aplenty with all of their sugar cane down in those swamplands. No, this particular bottle is special because it marks the victory at the battle of Chanterelle Shanty."
The Battle of Chanterelle Shanty was not one of the most well known battles, "I was there in those swamplands, early on in my military career. Difficult terrain. Walking through snake infested waters that came to your chin, sleeping amid clouds of mosquitoes, constantly losing soldiers to swamp rot. Chanterelle Shanty was a small, unassuming plantation village. They grew sugar, cotton, and dyes and they had one old man there who loved to distill his own whiskey. Chanterelle Shanty was a tactical nightmare but a necessity. You see, it sat upon a small backwater flow, a hidden serpent of a river that flowed all through the southern swamps. It took the Imperium scouts two years to accurately track it twenty miles."
"My first command was to take a unit deep behind the lines, secure the Shanty, and block that secret river. We lost a quarter of our soldiers just reaching it. We eventually surrounded the village, moving in, but they were willing to try and wait us out. They had private mercenaries, and the battle itself was short and brutal, but the entire surviving lot of them held up inside of their distillery, a last stand. And they could, after all, the distillery is what gave them clean water in the height of summer. The swamp water couldn't be made pure until colder temperatures came, and our mage died to mosquito fever. They just had to wait and we would die."
"We spent the time blockading the river, which then flooded the farmers' fields, devastating the crops. I knocked upon the distillery's door, telling them that our objective was done, and that we simply needed to wait to receive word from down river. I offered a chance for them to live peacefully under our watch. And much to my surprise, they accepted."
"All except for that one old man. He said he had no interest in breaking bread with invaders that had just devastated his familial home for a generation. I couldn't blame him. It was what we had done, but it was necessary. And so, a tentative peace was achieved as we held the village. Our forces recuperated and gained strength, morale was high among them. We even helped them with trenches to ease the flooding on their fields without undamming the river. They had lost a season but they would be back in the next."
"After we'd received word that we no longer needed to hold the village, I entered the distillery, and set up a table for me and the old man. He never did tell me his name. I asked him to tell me his story, for when the Imperium took Sangen, we would return to repair the damages done, and make him whole."
Franky's face glowered a bit at this, because the Imperium ultimately hadn't beaten out Sangen. Between the Alliance and the difficulties of fighting in swampland, the Imperial March was halted.
"So we shared a bottle, a fresh vintage of his, not yet aged. Something about not wanting to give the good stuff to a dirty Imperial officer. But I listened. His story was not the amazing tales of dragon slayers and soldiers of fortune or anything of such. It was a man who loved his home and his family and had found peace."
"Years after we pulled out of Sangen, I received this bottle from the man with a letter. He congratulated me on our defeat. This was the last bottle he'd ever make, for the Sangen government seized his property for growing food crops, to recover those last in the war. It was made from the grains and sugars he grew in the fields we managed to save from the flooding we caused."
"At first I thought it was a taunt, and I've nearly dashed it on the rocks many a time. But now, I know it for what it is. It's a reminder of how to make things right, and that that may often not be enough. This is that old man's swan song, a culmination of decades of love and craft. And I offer it up for this game of ours. It feels appropriate."
With that, Franky pulled out the red cork, looking at the bottom side of it, smiling. He set it down before Veronica, bottom up, to show they tiniest of words scrawled there. 'Imp. Solace' Smiling at Veronica, "You can have the cork for good luck, save it for when you need it."
He then poured the Sangen Bourbon into the tumblers. It was so perfect, it did not appear to be truly a liquid, but rather a statue carved of golden crystal. It seemed to move thick and slow, and there were notes of swampy oak, a hint of cranberry, a bit of peaty smoke, and the sticky sweetness of sugar cane. When the two glasses were given the appropriate amount, Franky held his up between him and Veronica, looking deep into her blue eyes.
"Skol."