As the barkeep congratulated him, the masterful puppeteer vaulted onto a bar stool once more, chuckling as he steadied himself. With a wide grin, he watched the barkeep fill the first draught of ale and cheekily responded to the man's comment, "From whence I come, it is said that one never regrets a business deal with a puppet master." After his comment, he chuckled to himself and quickly accepted the free ale from the barkeep as a few strangers hobbled over to him. While he was interrupted from drinking his ale, he noticed both the drunkenness of the strangers, and the shouting gnome from the St. Christopher who had managed to hobble over to the bar. "Drink up," Zimnis cheerily commented, raising the over-sized mug to his friend before taking a big gulp.
Zimnis then put the half-drank mug down and conversed with the drunkards for a few minutes as more drama unveiled around himself. He explained what a puppet was to the drunkards, then sent them off, claiming that, "my tricks are my meals. No one wants to give away their meals, eh?" With his conversation over, he looked around the bar, trying to ignore the rambling gnome beside him as he finished off the last of his ale.
The drunkards asked for free ale, but the barkeeper swiftly told them off, as did Zimnis, who immediately felt internally guilty upon doing so(despite their persistence). The gnome looked around for the rather large and calm orc from the boat, but the green-skinned giant was nowhere to be seen! Swerving around, Zimnis grabbed another ale and, raising it towards the barkeep, claimed, "the orc won't be needin' this tonight," before trying once again to drown himself in the brilliant, frothy, golden liquid. This time, as opposed to the first, he could make out the faint taste of honey in the bitter-sweet drink. By the time the second draught was empty, he was certain that the hole which previously occupied the space of his stomach was full to the brim.
As he slammed the empty draught down beside the last, he released a rather loud belch and briefly complimented the barkeep before turning his attention to the creepy robed guy and the other gnome.
Zimnis grinned excitedly as the barkeeper agreed, anticipating an incredible performance. From his time aboard the St. Chris, between his furious bouts of up-chucking, eating and sleeping, Zimnis only managed to observe BamGardo playing cards, rolling dice, and forking over coins to unusually cheerful sailors. As the gnomes of Highesthill always said, a gnome's at his best with his tools and a challenge. Or were those dwarves I heard that from... he thought, briefly tuning out the rambunctious fellow in order to try getting a few more drops out of his draughts. To his brief horror, the barkeep stole both draughts away right as he reached for them, destroying his hopes of extracting the last few drops.
After another second, he chuckled to himself, dismissing his unluckiness, and directed his cheerfulness towards BamGardo, openly inquiring, "I wonder what fantastic miracles he can pull off with those!"
Zimnis hadn't expected the barkeep to have lost his cheerful mood so quickly, but that was how the situation played out for the loud gnome. For a moment, the puppet-master felt like hobbling over to console the gnome. Before the puppet master could make up his mind, however, the gnome sent him the glance of an impassioned, berzerking Meatwrencher and stormed out, probably to plot a gnomish scheme for revenge. As he thought to reach for the gnome's ale, realizing that BamGardo would probably not be returning for it, the [perception check to see if Zimnis is drunk enough to see Hai's rotting flesh] blurred hand of the creepy robed guy as he stole away the ale.
Once again, before Zimnis had the reaction time to object, the rippling, robe-covered figure was rushing towards the door, small drops of ale dripping from the brimm-filled draught. The puppet-master watched in amusement as, behind the door, the robed guy spoke to someone who sounded like BamGardo, then watched as the figure returned with the empty draught in-tow. Zimnis chuckled as the figure sat nearby, then turned his attention to a few drunkards who happened to overhear the exchange and, renewed with the passion for free ale, meandered over to the bar once more.
After waving off the drunkards once again,
the persistent buggers he thought, feeling less guilty about it, he looked around once more and noticed the seer's booth near the back of the tavern behind the happy, but obtrusive faces of humans and dwarves. Zimnis had to squint to identify the rather shiny, green orbules of light from his companion's clothes due to the alcohol, but the resemblance was unmistakable once his sight was focused enough to see. Turning back around, he watched the odd, robed fellow drink his ale in amusement and told the barkeeper, "I hadn't spied those fancily-purpled draperies in the back over thar before now," at this he pointed to the fortune-teller, "what can you tell me about them?"