Wine was definately the most glorious gift from the gods that this lowly earth could ever think to recieve. Some, the drink of the empty headed, was very watered down and slid easily down the gullet. Others, mostly the sort Wilhelm Grimm favored, burned as it forced its way down one's throat. It was thick, deep purple liquid that could never slither down ones throat gracefully, and was more often than not hurled down. Each time Wil came to the tavern, he wondered again and again why he was so determined to stay away from wine and it's absolutally lovely effects. He always remembered why in the morning, though. The worry that an unstable tongue gave Wil the next day near killed him each time he went out for a night of drinking.

The past never left a deep enough imprint on him to keep him from the bottle, because he would always sneak in for just a quick gulp. But once he started, he was never able to stop. See, the man was a writer. The legend that all writers drank quite a bit did not skip over Wil. Although he wished he could keep himself from the irresistable bottle, the call of the alcohol was too much, too strong for him to handle.

Another extremely favorable trait taverns held for Wil was the general lack of a magniloquent atmosphere. He was always the most intelligent man in the room, because he was one of the few people who managed to keep his brain sharp while on the drink, even if his tongue flopped around loosely. Everyone likes to feel like the smartest person around, right?

His cheap, wooden "chalice" emptied quickly, as it always did when placed in front of Wil. Eagarly he snapped his fingers at a server girl, and she sidled over to him with a seductive switch of her hips. He handed her his cup with an agitated "Whatever was just in it." The cup shouldn't have emptied that quickly, he thought. Must not have been full.

The Bardian born blonde made sure to hike her dress up a little further than acceptable, making her body relatively available for wandering eyes. Wil kept his eyes only on his hands as he waited for her to return with a full cup. He never favored Bardian women. Especially tavern women. These girls were always relatively cheap to tumble, being poorer than dirt. They were born bastards, left to fend for themselves, to follow in the footsteps of a whore, the only path a mother would leave them. And Wil didn't like the usual straight figures, blonde hair, and extraordinarily meatless bones. Yet the girls tended to favor him when he visited their place of employment. If they were going to bed with a stranger, then let the stranger at least be attractive, he imagined they would think.

The chair Wil sat on was more sliver than chair, barely holding his weight. The owner of this bar was lucky that nobody in this town... no, in all of Saint Bard, was well fed. Else he would be short most of his seating. The table just about as rickety. He glanced up to a small space where men and women danced, to the out of tune pluckings of an almost crazed looking fiddler. Sometimes Wil wished he had someone to twirl about on the floor, for the spinning chaos looked fun.

The server girl returned, setting the cup gently on his table, for she knew all too well the poor quality. Wil guessed she learned the hard way. She smiled at him, then turned to leave him to his drink, brushing her stick of an arm against his as she left to do her job. Annoyed, Wil brought the cup to his lips, filling his mouth then forcing the wine down his throat before resting it on the table again.

He stared the cup full in the face,