Morning After

Jon Chess felt like a thousand dwarves were conducting practice for the annual Winter Veil Anvil Ringing concert in his skull.  He could barely remember what he had done to earn such pain - and then he remembered the night before.  Eight bottles of Hearthglen Ambrosia.  About six over the recommended limit of smart people who knew better, like Chess did.

Someone had tucked him into bed in the upstairs spare bedroom at the offices of the Allied Detective Agency last night; Jonathan sometimes stayed over in Stormwind if the hour was too late to return to Dalaran.  Whoever had seen him safely to bed had removed Jonathan's boots, bracers, and weapons, setting them neatly on the chair in the corner.  Jonathan winced.  One of the assets which made him such a good investigator is that he had a remarkable memory - not perfect recall, as such, but not far short of it.  Lynesia had been the one to tuck him in.

Chess groaned as he sat up, feeling every small discomfiture and pain as dressed and set himself straight for the morning.  He thought about breakfast, but the roiling of his stomach indicated that to be a poor idea.

"Right then," he mumbled to himself.  "Alchemist before breakfast."  Fortunately for Jonathan, he had an associate to whom he could turn.  Just as fortunately, the alchemist lived in the Dwarven District nearby.

Unfortunately, his alchemist associate - a mage whose area of specialty focused on arcane forensics - was not in the mood to help Jonathan mitigate the consequences of his indulgence the night before.  "Ha!  Serves you right, you idjit tallard!  Suffer, and maybe the memory of it will preclude repetition!" crowed the gnome loudly, taking satisfaction in Jon's subsequent wince at her volume.

"Fel-farts!  How does such a tiny slip of a woman like you make such a large sound?" whined Chess miserably.

"Wassamatter, Jonny-boy?  Head a mite painful?" answered the gnome alchemist.  Phredaria Lunafarea - "Phred" to her friends - looked around for something metal to bang against to create an even greater cacophony.   "I keep telling you - next time you are feeling sorry for yourself, come see me!  I'll put you to bed and you'll have nothing but a satisfied smile the next morning, not a hang-over!"  Phred had long since made it known that she'd take Jonathan to bed in a Goldshre minute.

"I might not survive it, Phred!"

"Oh, you'd live... I have potions that can raise the dead... so to speak.  I mean I can get you to rise again and again,..."

Chess smiled in spite of himself.  "I'm sure you do... but not even a little something for the pain?  Are you going to make me beg on the steps of the Cathedral?"  It was an old joke between them - how Jon maintained his faith in the Light while being a thief, an assassin, a forgerer, and a con artist was beyond Phred's comprehension.

"Well... OK, maybe a little something... but only because I love you, not because I have any sympathy at all when you do this to yourself."  The alchemist opened a small set of vials from a belt pouch.  "Here, drink this, and drink it fast... I don't flavor my own stuff."

Chess slammed the contents of the vial without question.  Phred was right - the concoction tasted like a distillation of rotted gymnasium socks.  On the other hand, he almost immediately felt much better. "Thanks, Phred... oh, that tastes horrible."

"Yeah, that's why I keep it in a vial.  Vial, vile?  No?  Gash, you have no sense of humor sometimes!"
Phred muttered.