Hello my DEARIES....
Enjoy being high.....
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The Old Tannery was beginning to look less like a ruin and more like a workshop, albeit one that smelled faintly of dead animals and some shit.
Kegg, the carpenter, was a miracle worker with a hammer. In two days, he had shored up the sagging roof beams with scavenged timber and built a series of drying racks that stretched from the floor to the heightened, shadowed ceiling but Tobias, the glassblower, was very less productive.
He was currently crouching by the makeshift clay oven in the corner, poking at a pile of burning charcoal with a stick and muttering about "heat blowing" and explosions.
Jon ignored them both as he was focused on the table in the center of the room.
On it lay the first batch of his Wolf's Breath.
It wasn't much, just a handful of the jagged, purple-veined leaves he had harvested from the Wolfwood, but they had changed.
After a 24 hour soak in the brine solution Jon had concocted using salt stolen from the kitchens and snowmelt, followed by a slow, low-heat roast over the kiln's exhaust vent, the leaves had curled and darkened.
They no longer looked like weeds but like real marijuana.
"Sticky," Jon murmured, pressing a leaf between his thumb and forefinger. A thick, resinous oil coated his skin. "Good, the brine drew out the chlorophyll, and the heat activated the..... well, the good magic stuff."
He didn't have a spectrometer to measure Thc levels, but his nose told him this was potent as a good ol joint.
The heavy door groaned open, letting in a blast of freezing wind and a dozen shivering bodies.
Duncan walked in first, looking like a shepherd leading a flock of wolves. Behind him shuffled fifteen men.
They were the dregs of Winter Town, men with missing ears, scarred faces, and eyes that constantly darted toward the exits. They wore mismatched leathers, rusted mail, and expressions that ranged from bored to homicidal.
"Here they are," Duncan grunted, kicking the door shut. "The finest scum five gold dragons could buy."
The men huddled together, eyeing the direwolf that was currently gnawing on a beef bone in the corner. Ghost paused, looked at them with glowing red eyes, and crunched the bone loudly. Several men took a step back.
"So," one of the men spoke up, he was a wiry fellow with a long, greying beard and a knife scar that ran through his eyebrow. "You're the Bastard, huh."
"I am," Jon said, not looking up from his leaves.
"Duncan says you're paying," the man continued, spitting on the floor. "But I don't see no gold, I don't see no army. Just a boy playing something in a shit-shack."
A few of the others grumbled in agreement. They were cold, they were likely hungry, and they didn't respect a teenager in a fine cloak.
Jon wiped his fingers on a rag and looked up, his face impassive.
"Gold comes after work," Jon said calmly. "That's how employment works but since you lot look like you haven't had a warm moment in six years, I'm offering a.....signing bonus."
He picked up a small clay pipe, one of Tobias's failed experiments at making a bottle neck and packed the bowl with the crushed, cured leaves.
He walked over to the kiln, grabbed a small ember with a pair of iron tongs, and dropped it into the bowl.
He took a short, shallow puff to get it started.
The smoke was thick, white, and heavy. It hit the back of his throat with a harsh, peppery kick, followed instantly by a wave of relaxation that started behind his eyes and rolled down his spine.
System Alert: Mild Intoxication Detected
Status: Chill
"It works," Jon whispered, exhaling a cloud of blue-grey smoke, oh yeah...it was just like a low end version of Charlie.
He walked over to the wiry man who had spoken and held out the pipe.
"What is it?" the man asked, eyeing the smoking clay suspiciously. "Poison?"
"Medicine," Jon lied smoothly. "For the cold and the aches in your bones. For the fact that you live in a frozen wasteland and your life is miserable."
The man hesitated, then shrugged. "Free is free."
He took the pipe and took a massive drag, inhaling deep into his lungs like a man trying to suck the soul out of a lover.
Jon watched, counting silently. One... two... three...
The man's eyes widened. He coughed, a ragged, wet sound that shook his whole frame and bent over, hacking, handing the pipe blindly to the man next to him.
"Bugger me sideways," the man wheezed, wiping tears from his eyes. "Tastes like.....like burning pinecones."
"Wait for it," Jon said, leaning back against a vat.
The pipe went down the line and each man took a hit, some cautious, some greedy. Duncan took it last, looking at it with deep skepticism before taking a puff that would have killed a lesser man.
For a minute, there was only coughing and the sound of the wind outside.
Then, the wiry man stood up straighter. The scowl that seemed permanently etched onto his face began to slacken and his shoulders dropped three inches.
"My knee," he mumbled, blinking. "I took an arrow in the knee three winters ago. Hurts every time it snows."
He stomped his foot and jumped a little.
"Doesn't hurt," he whispered, a grin breaking through his beard. "It feels..... warm,hehehe"
"My head feels floaty," another man giggled. He was a brute of a man, missing two front teeth.
He was staring at his own hand as if he had never seen fingers before. "Look at the size of my thumb....hehe...It's huge."
"It's a thumb, you idiot," the man next to him said, but there was no malice in it.
He was leaning heavily against a support beam, looking at the ceiling racks with profound interest. "Hey, that wood, that grain..... it flows like water. You ever notice that? Wood is just...hard water."
Jon suppressed a smirk, it's working just perfect... philosophy is always the sign.
Duncan handed the pipe back to Jon. The giant mercenary blinked slowly, his usually sharp, predatory eyes were glazed and red-rimmed.
"It's not bad," Duncan rumbled, his voice dropping an octave to a slow, bass purr. "Not bad at all, better than that swill they serve at the Log. Makes the world seem..... quieter."
"It's called 'Wolf's Breath'," Jon announced to the room. "And we're the only ones who have it."
The mood in the Tannery had shifted entirely. The tension was gone, replaced by a hazy, comfortable vibe. The cold didn't seem to bite as hard.
"Listen to me," Jon said, his voice cutting through the fog, though he kept it soft. "I don't need you to fight in a shield wall and don't need you to die for a banner."
He pointed to the racks.
"I need you to guard this and need you to harvest the leaf from the woods, I'll show you where and most importantly I need you to make sure that nobody, and I mean nobody, touches my supply."
The wiry man, who was now sitting on the floor, leaning back against a barrel with a contented sigh....raised a hand.
"Aye, boss..We can do that. Guarding plants.....Easy work.. hehehehe....."
"And in return," Jon said, "You get gold, you get food and every night, after your shift....." He held up the pipe. "You get a ration of this."
A murmur of approval went through the room. It wasn't the roar of soldiers cheering a king. It was the low, satisfied rumble of men who had just found a very comfortable hole to hide in.
"I'm hungry," the thumb-gazer announced suddenly, breaking the silence. "I could eat a whole horse. Hooves and all."
"Me too," another agreed. "Is there any salt beef?"
Jon nodded to Duncan. "This is the side effect....Extreme hunger. It's good for the taverns, men who smoke this will drink more ale and eat more stew. It stimulates the economy."
He tossed a bag of coins to Duncan.
"Take two of them and go to the market. Buy bread, cheese, and dried meat, lots of it and feed them."
Duncan nodded slowly. "Aye..feeding time."
As the men settled in, some sitting on the floor, others inspecting the racks with newfound appreciation, Jon stepped back into the shadows.
He checked his System Interface.
[Item Created: Wolf's Breath (Batch 1)]
[Quality: B+]
[Effects: Pain Relief, Euphoria, Suggestibility]
[Addiction Potential: Medium]
Jon smiled, It wasn't the high-grade hallucination stuff from his old world, but for a medieval society that only knew watered-down beer? It was pure magic, if Tywin get some of this stuff, he'd be puffing it daily.
"Kegg!" Jon called out to the carpenter, who was staring at his hammer with a confused expression.
"Aye?" Kegg blinked.
"The ventilation," Jon reminded him. "If we don't fix the airflow, we're all going to be permanently high just from breathing the air in here."
Kegg chuckled, a sound he probably hadn't made in years. "Right...Air, good for the soul. I'll get on it, boss....Just..... after I eat something."
Jon shook his head, walking toward the door to get some fresh air.
He had his group of people, May not be loyal but good stuff will make them loyal.
He looked toward the castle walls of Winterfell in the distance.
I wonder if Ser Rodrik has arthritis, Jon mused. I bet the Master-at-Arms would pay a heavy price for a painkiller that actually works.
Authors Note:-
So truthfully, what does it feel to be high and drunk....
Never tried these stuff or alcohol myself...so experienced guys please comment.
Support your dear story with Power stones.
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Go for it.