Hell Hath No Fury - Book One

The Bender v.1

"That is beside the point. Listen up, I'll give you a quick rundown," Xyra leaned forward and pulled the tray away from the man and over to their side of the table. The man hesitated in his explanation then continued, but Xyra ignored him and began an explanation of her own, "This is a sampler, it is eight gold."

"Eight gold?" Ava's eyes went wide.

"Aye, it's high-quality stuff. The sampler comes with four rows of five substances each. Each one has their name on a card under them so if you like it you can ask for more," Xyra pointed to each row as she explained, "Starting from the bottom are things you smoke, then things you snort or swallow, then things you eat, then things you apply."

Ava examined each row and sure enough, each of the drugs lined up matched somewhat with their row. The first row had mainly herbs and grass, the second looked like tablets and powders, the third was an array of edible materials, and the last one was ointment in small jars. Sure enough, they were organized by method of consumption.

"On each row, it goes left to right by potency. The ones on the left are less potent, beginner drugs and as you progress to the right they get stronger. You, though, are strictly limited to the first two in each row because anything else and you'll need a babysitter all night. You can mix a drug with the row above or below it but not any other row, got it?" Xyra asked after dumping the load of information on Ava.

Ava nodded her head slowly to show she had comprehended, the smoke in the air must have already affected her because Xyra's words were taking a while to sink in. Limited to the first two, only mix with the row above or below.

At that moment, a short, robust man walked through the door. He had a long and full beard and when he walked in, Theo stood up to greet him.

"Grogon, it has been too long since I have seen your wonderful face," Theo walked over and hugged the man, bending down to reach him.

Grogon laughed and patted Theo on the back, "I had to come by and see my favorite customer. Am I your first stop on the bender?"

"First and last," Theo grinned, "had to show a new pirate how it's done."

Xyra leaned into Ava and whispered, "It is tradition to finish our second night where we started. First and last."

Ava nodded, understanding the exchange between the Captain and Grogon after Xyra helped. Theo, Morgana, and Cooker were usually the ones to answer her questions. With one of them absent and the other two too engaged with other things, Xyra took up the role of the guide. It was sweet of her and a nice change. While Theo finished up her conversation with the short man, Xyra reached forward and picked the first thing from the first row, smokable and for beginners. She then tapped Iona who was next and asked to be handed something.

Iona passed Xyra a box and when opened it revealed a large array of different paraphernalia. She reached in and picked out a pipe and put some of the stringy grass inside the pipe.

"Here," Xyra handed Ava the pipe, "this should be good to start with. Relax and ride it and when you are ready for something else let me know."

Along with the pipe, Ava was handed a piece of twine. Xyra instructed Ava to light it using the candle on the table and then shake it to put it out, then she turned away. Ava tried her best to get all the steps correct. Light the twine, put the pipe to her mouth, light the grass, maneuver the pipe, inhale, then exhale. She managed to mess up somewhere along the process and the amount of smoke she let out was laughable.

This time it was Oceane who stepped in to help. She crawled over to Ava from her pillow on the floor and helped her position the pipe correctly. Oceane lit the pipe and Ava inhaled, this time taking a large amount of smoke in. She exhaled everything in her lungs, falling into a coughing fit at the end of her exhale. Her lungs felt like they had pins inside them and she wondered if she would ever be able to breathe again. Slowly, her lungs opened up and she was able to recover.