Jim's PoV

Jim wanted to get drunk. After the rollercoaster that was the last week, he just wanted to take some time and relax. The fact that every helmet had been put to the torch was going to put them behind by years. Sure, he had the schematics, but not only were the helmets burned, but the machines to make the machines were also in there! He would have to rebuild it all from scratch.

So his conclusion was that it was time to get drunk. Super drunk. Fortunately he knew just the crew to party with. Did that world even have liquor? Should be fun. Giving Charlotte a quick text he typed in, "Going to get drunk. Might not answer later."

He immediately got a call back. She said "Hey Jim, before you get intoxicated, can I get some samples? We need to get it FDA approved."

"I told you I don't have that many of the good ones. Also if I give them one, what will stop them from taking it and tossing the contract in the trash can?"

Tiredly Charlotte asked "Is there anything else we can give them? We have been given assurances that it will pass quickly. Unfortunately we have to get this certification or else it will be impossible to have a legally binding contract."

"For the FDA can I just give them something weaker?"

Charlotte said "That should be fine. And Jim.."

"Yes?"

After a short pause she asked "Are you going to ever tell me where this stuff comes from? You're not a chemist Jim. I know that much."

Mock offended he asked "How do you know! I am a super genius if you didn't know."

Flatly she said "Because I'm looking at your college transcript. You got a C in biology 101 and failed out of chemistry. Twice."

Jim winced. Damned super secret manager powers. They always seem to have a knack for finding out stuff.

Taking a second to think about it he said "You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you. Frankly the information is dangerous and in the wrong hands could make both world wars combined look like chump change. Knowing that, would you want to know?"

"Seriously?"

"Super duper cereal. With extra marshmallows."

Charlotte sighed and said "Fine keep your secrets, but it's going to make this a lot harder. Just try to drop off those samples for the FDA sometime today. Okay?"

"Okie. I'll see you in a bit. I need to do a booze run anyway."

After hanging up Jim wanted to do some reconnaissance to make sure Operation: Getting Wasted In Another World would be convenient for everyone. Sitting down he logged into the game.

***

Forrest's PoV

Things were getting really tense in town. Forrest was worried for his friend Davis. The expedition to Jacksberg was planned to happen within the next couple days but it was getting hard to find volunteers.

Everyone was worried and wanted to protect their loved ones. That alone would make people cautious about signing up. Then there was the fact that there was a chance the mission would just be a death trap.

Forrest had already told Davis that he would be coming along, even the Scarlet woman was eager to go. Although she would probably sign on to do anything at this point. She was going a little stir crazy.

That still amounted to three people. A third of which would probably bail at the first opportunity. It was not nearly enough. Whimsically he thought how nice it would be if Jim joined them. It was obvious the man was a powerhouse himself, and the tales of how the wolves had fought that night was probably going to be enshrined in village legend.

Every day the tales were growing more fantastic. Originally it was claimed that they had killed two dozen people each. Yesterday people at the inn were saying it was four dozen each. And just as he left he heard people telling tales of them fighting archmages with tooth and claw. How many more days would it take them to start killing dragons?

As Forrest was contemplating how the tales would grow, he heard some noise coming from Jim's room. Glancing up he saw the man was awake!

Before he could ask anything Jim said "Hey, I want to throw a party. You think people would be available tonight? Just need the people and you can leave the festivities to me!"

It shouldn't be a problem so after a little thought he said, "Sure, that sounds like a good idea. Everyone's a little stressed, so that would be great."

Before Forrest could say anything else Jim said "Fantastic! I'll be back in a couple hours! I'll bring some Earth beer and liquor. You will love it!"

Forrest was drooling at the concept of tasting beer from another world. Jim had already turned back to his room and closed the door before his mind reminded him that he needed to ask Jim something. Doh! He missed his chance to ask him to come along.

Oh well, he can still ask him later. Maybe he and Davis could come up with some way to convince the man to join them. Earth beer huh? Forrest left his house to look for Davis.

***

Jim's PoV

Picking up the phone he called his local pizza place and put in an order for six large pizzas with various toppings. After asking for a pick up time two hours from now, he hung up the phone.

Beer run time! Jim hopped in his car and went to the liquor store. He then proceeded to fill his cart up to the top. Then he piled it higher. When he made it to the checkout line he had to keep one hand on his alcohol mountain to make sure it didn't topple over. Sure, he got a few weird looks, but who cares? After all, variety is the spice of life!

After checking out he figured he would get Maria something too. Oh, and he could get some doggie treats! Stopping by the local drug store he was pumped to see an empty parking spot right up front.

As he was getting out of his car he heard a beeping noise and an unlocking sound. Glancing to his left, he saw the car next to his in the handicap parking space had unlocked. Then he saw an old lady with a prescription baggy in one hand and a key fob in another heading towards the vehicle parked there. With a sinking sensation he watched the recognition light up in her eyes.

Even though he wasn't more than a couple feet away from him she yelled, "You degenerate! The weed not enough for you? Going to start popping pills now?"

Jim tried to ignore her as she started snooping around his car. Evil woman. Why couldn't she have handicapped eyes?

"Oh trying to mix your booze with pills I see! We will see about that!"

As he entered the store he saw the old woman pull out an ancient flip phone. Maybe he could get out in time?

Jim grabbed a little basket and raided the candy aisle, got some doggie treats and then got in line. He sadly only saw one cashier. His eyes scanned over the other customers and he wanted to pull his hair out. Who fills up a shopping cart in a drug store? The question seemed rhetorical because two of them were in line.

Looking out he saw the old woman just waiting around with a smug look on her face. Cops had better things to do than to listen to complaints from old ladies, right?

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Time seemed to slow until the final lady with the full cart was the only one left. Jim watched as the young man efficiently scanned the items. Right before he rang up the last item the woman reached into her purse and pulled out a massive stack of coupons.

Both Jim and the cashier sighed. The man started scanning the coupons and only on the third one the machine made an error noise. The young man looked at the coupon and said "Sorry mam, this is for the large one, you got the small one. I can't use this."

The woman started to argue but the young man kept his bland face and pulled out the item in question and then pointed back to the coupon. After a few grumblings the scanning continued. Nervously Jim glanced outside to see that the evil old lady was still waiting. Did she really have nothing better to do than to harass random people?

Refocusing on the cashier, the machine made another error noise. The cashier again looked at the coupon and then said to the woman, "This one is expired. We can't accept this one."

The woman then started screaming "Y'all accepted expired coupons before! I think you're trying to cheat me! I want to see your manager!"

Without missing a beat the young man said "Of course ma'am, one second."

He picked up the phone and pressed a button and he heard over the intercom "Manager to the front please, manager to the front."

The man then looked back to Jim and said "I'll take you on the register over there in the meantime."

Man, the guy was a champ!

But then the woman started screaming again "You are going to stop serving me? Really?"

"You wanted to speak to the manager and there's someone else waiting in line. The manager is a busy person and it might take a couple minutes."

In a shrieking voice she said "If you serve him before finishing with me, I'm going to call your corporate office and complain about you!"

The clerk just gave her a nonchalant shrug and came over to check out Jim. Soon enough he was outside. Outside with a police car parked on the other side of him. Dejected, he looked at the officer. It was Officer Brady. The guy he punched.

The old bag was calling Jim every name in the book. Finally the officer said "Do you have any proof of your claims? You said he was a pot smoking degenerate yet he doesn't smell like pot. If there is no proof there is nothing I can do."

Surprisingly the woman deflated. After another short conversation the old woman left.

Officer Brady finally turned to him with a raised eyebrow and said, "looks like you're about to have a hell of a party."

Jim attempted to channel the zen of the clerk earlier but he was sweating.

"Yea. Having a lot of friends over in a bit."

Jim was waiting for the other shoe to drop when the officer said apologetically, "I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"You were in jail and I failed to do my job properly. Denying you the use of a full phone book was an abuse of power. It shouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."

Jim was shocked. He was kind of ready to get hauled back to jail. Things weren't turning out that well for him in the past couple days.

Clearing his throat Jim said "No problem. In hindsight things didn't turn out too bad. Uhh. Sorry about the whole punching in the face thing."

The officer scowled and then sighed. "Honestly I've been watching those recordings again and that was a hell of a punch. You do any martial arts?"

"Not unless you can call throwing out a few punches while dressed in cosplay martial arts."

The man laughed and then handed him a card saying, "If you ever want to try the real deal, hit this gym up. Maybe you can give me a chance to return that punch you gave me."

Looking at the card he noted that it was not too far away. Then he said "Sure thing. Going to be busy for a while, but maybe in a week or two."

The officer said his goodbyes and Jim watched him leave. That happened a lot differently than he thought it was going to. Woot! His karma balance was so low recently, he probably got a massive bonus roll on that encounter! Go karma!

Jim dropped off some Minor Healing Potions with Charlotte and then picked up the pizza.

***

Scarlet's PoV

Scarlet was ready for this thing to kick off! Finally something to do instead of just hiding around. She found pilfering Forrest's cellar for beer entertaining enough but he finally started noticing and cut off her access. Damned locks. Why had she not put in more time to figure out lock picking?

Well, she could probably just cut the thing off with Sharpen Blade Lv3, but if Forrest tattled to Jim she might be in a bind. And for some reason those dogs always seem to know when she was trying to steal the key. Twice now they caught her in the act of stealing the key and wouldn't let her leave till she put it back. Meanies.

Everyone was waiting for Jim to show up. Forrest, Davis, Gwen, Maria and the wolves were all gathered around the living room. Scarlet boredly listened to the men's conversation about trying to recruit Jim for the trip. She liked the idea, but Jim didn't seem to be very motivated to do anything.

The gathering went quiet as they heard the clanking of armor. She wondered how in the world he could sleep, or whatever the hell he does, in all that armor.

Jim burst through with a smile and said "I got beer! I got liquor! I got candy, pizza and even doggie treats! Where do you want me to offload the goodies?"

Forrest indicated the kitchen and then Jim started magicing things into existence, just like her dagger. Scarlet's smile grew bigger as she watched the massive stack of alcohol increase in size. It was weird, instead of large casks his people seemed to prefer little glass bottles. They must be rich, glass wasn't cheap. And they all had decorative designs on them too!

Scarlet was tired of waiting so she grabbed one and looked at the bottle. Hard lemonade? No idea what that was but she wanted to try it. Scarlet was pleasantly surprised that the bottle was ice cold! Then the sweetest thing she had ever tasted hit her tongue. It was.. delicious. She eyed the rest of the same looking bottles hungrily. They were hers! Taking a hold of the little handle, she made the five other bottles disappear.

While she was making her theft, Davis said "Jim, this is my sister Gwen."

He turned around and said "Hi Gwen, have you tried pizza before? It's awesome!"

Gwen cleared her throat and said "Thank you for saving my daughter. I'm just so... just thank you."

Jim waved a hand and said "Don't worry about it. No problem! Pizza! Try!"

He shoved a triangle of some sort into Gwen's hand and she tried it. Scarlet wanted that too. Sneaky time!

Jim noticed her drinking the bottle and said "Careful. Those have a good bit of alcohol in them even if you can't taste it."

She dazedly nodded and started drinking more. Mmmmm. Time to try pizza.

***

Davis' PoV

Davis noticed that both Scarlet and Forrest were having way too much beer. He had tried to caution the pair multiple times but they just kept making it disappear. Maria was running around somewhere on what Jim called a 'Sugar high' and the wolves were playing with her in between chowing down on those treats he kept giving them.

Davis had been trying to think of how to ask Jim for the past couple hours, and his buddy was going to be no help at this point. As he was about to say something, Scarlet drunkenly said to Jim "I want my stuff! How much DKP did I get? You know when the battle was going on, everyone was gone! I could have tried to stab you again! That's worth some DKP right?"

Jim was having a bit of a problem getting drunk. The man had been chugging the thing he called "liquor" but the effects only seemed to last about ten minutes. Needless to say, he had seven empty bottles next to him

Confused Jim asked "Battle? What battle?"

Figuring this would probably be his best opportunity, Davis stepped in and said "There was a battle a couple days ago. A merchant caravan that usually trades with us instead brought war and attacked us in the night. Now the village has decided to send a delegation over to Jacksberg to see if we can negotiate peace. Would you be interested in joining us?"

Jim thought about it for a minute and then said "Wow, that's really weird. There was never a battle here in the gam, er, the vision I saw before entering this world. Very interesting."

Then the man thought for a few seconds and asked, "How long is it going to take to get there from here?"

"Probably around two weeks. Maybe a bit longer."

Jim said "Meh. I got a lot of stuff going on. Well, most of it I kind of shuffled onto Charlotte's plate, but still I need to be around every now and then."

Seeing the opportunity Davis said "We could travel at your pace. It would be no problem."

He could already see the rejection in his eyes, so Davis tried another tack.

"You said that you knew a bit of information due to the vision when coming here. There must be wonderous things in this land that only you know about. Jacksburg is a port town and you can go almost anywhere from there. Is there not anything of value you can pursue?"

Davis watched as the calculations ran out on Jim's face. Then with a smile Jim said "Zed! Zed became a god! In the original story, Zed always beat the heroes to each of the three artifacts! But Zed is dead and I know where they all are!"

'In the original story?' That was kind of odd phrasing, but Davis didn't want to push his luck asking about it. He said hopefully "So you will join us?"

Jim said "Yes, but we need to head into the western mountains first. The first temple is there. Do you know anyone who might know the area?"

Triumphantly he looked over to his friend Forrest. He knew the area... but he was currently sloshed out of his mind.

Sighing Davis said "If anyone knows it would be Forrest. If we made this detour, would you be willing to go?"

Jim smiled and said "Sure thing. Just need to set things up so I won't be needed first. It's time for a real adventure! Awesome!"

Davis sighed. He got what he wanted but would it be worth it?

***

Scarlet's PoV

Oh goodness her head hurt. She vaguely remembered getting really handsy with someone. Then she felt the body warmth of someone next to her.

She crossed her fingers and said "Please don't be Davis," in her mind. Scarlet let out a relieved breath when she saw Forrest. Oh, good.

While she was looking at the sleeping man, she came to the conclusion that he wasn't too shabby. Taking the covers off and peeking downward she grinned. Nice, Winner!

Scarlet cuddled back up to him thinking, 'Maybe next time I'll try with less alcohol.'