"Not to your liking baroness?"

"I think...water would be preferable."

"Tsk. Of course you would be too good for such a delicious beer."

"Aaaannnddd wwwiiiittttthoooouuutttt taaaasssstttiiiinnngg iiitttt fiiiiirrrrsssst."

"Some of us are used to more...refinement in their choice of beverages."

The Baroness pushed the mug away with a solitary finger, as if a swarm of germs would consume her if she used anymore of her skin to touch it. She looked at Ted with a fake smile before she turned to Ted. "Perhaps you'd be so kind as to show me to your best room?"

"Oh, that'll be easy. Long as you don't mind sharing," smirked Sentenza.

"I hope you aren't implying a savage like you would be sharing my room."

"Not for all the gold in the world. You're far too much maintenance and baggage for me." replied Sentenza as he tipped his hat.

Narissa turned away in a huff as she stood up from her seat. "Innkeeper, if you would be so kind."

Ted sighed and tilted up his mug. He struggled but pushed through as he chugged down the rest of his drink. Although, after he slammed his mug down, he started to cough. Bakade slapped his back lightly until it passed, and he wiped his mouth with his sleeve before he stood up.

"Alright," he said as he caught his breath. "Follow me, and we'll figure something out."

The Baroness Narissa Grimaine ignored the quiet jeering behind her as she stiffly walked behind Ted.

And who was waiting for them on the upper landing? Why none other than the toughest fighter out of everyone on this rock, Nugget. She stared right at Narissa with her cold, steely gaze. But Narissa stared right back, and even managed to match her intensity.

"Oh, that's Nugget. She's...well, just try not to rile her up. She's a good chicken, and our best source of tasty protein." Explained Ted as he remembered back to when he tried to pick Nugget up. "Definitely don't touch her without permission."

"You don't say," murmured Narissa as she crossed her arms before moving her fist up to rest under her chin. All while she continued to stare into Nugget's eyes.

Ted stood there as the two of them stared each other down. "So, about finding you a room..."

Narissa waved her hand to dismiss him. "I think I'll be able to manage it alone. You may go now."

"You aren't going to try and hurt her, right?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said with a smirk.

Ted leaned past her and looked at Nugget as she stood defiantly. "And you aren't going to hurt her either, right?"

"Bawk," Nugget declared abruptly.

Ted sighed and went to head back downstairs. "Maybe that truck did hit me, and I'm just hallucinating. Like each new person could be hospital staff or something."

This was of course not true at all. Ted had indeed been transported to another world. Sadly, for him, there was no reasonable answer that could make sense of everything happening.

"Did she complain that the rooms were too small?"

"We never made it to a room."

"Oh? She get too uppity and you had to put her down yourself? I'm proud of you Ted! That's real growth." cheered Sentenza. "Why I still remember my first kill."

"What? No, she just..." Ted sighed and shook his head. "Never mind, I'm sure we'll all be hearing it soon enough."

"Heeeeeaaarrriiiinnnggg wwwhhhhhaaaaaaatttt?" croaked Bakade.

"Alright. She and Nugget were staring each other down." Ted scratched his cheek. "You ever see the ocean before a tsunami? Where the water just all pulls back? Seeing the two of them felt a bit like that."

Bakade and Sentenza both turned to look at each other, and then scrambled out of their chairs.

"Nnnnuuuuugggeeettttt! Mmmmyyyyy mmmmooooonnneeeeyyy'ss ooonnn Nnnuuuugggeeetttt!"

"Oh, now that's no fair! You can't just bet on winning and losing, because that's too obvious. Now, betting on what all of her gets broken, there's something I'll risk a few chores on."

The two of them scrambled to get a good position to watch what they were sure was going to be a fight. They continued to argue over the specifics of the betting as they huddled near the stairs to try and get a good look at the action.

"Sid, Ted, we should join them." declared Trizel as he refilled his mug at the barrel next to the table.

"I do not see the point. Despite her appearance, it is clear that Nugget will be victorious."

"Think of it as...as a relief of the stress she has put us under."

Sid lifted a finger as he said, "Watching the baroness fight a chicken is not a..." Sid slowly closed his mouth, and then lowered his hand as he started to move towards the stairs. "Although, it would be beneficial to see this sort of betting ritual Bakade and Sentenza seem so obsessed with."

"That is the spirit!" laughed Trizel as he put a hand on Ted's back. "Come on. Relax with the rest of us."

Ted moved out from under Trizel's arm. "Actually, I wanted to take care of something in the kitchen. I had an idea for those berries Sentenza found hidden in his wagon."

Sid looked over at Ted a moment, as if he was about to say something. But he just turned away and walked over to join Bakade and Sentenza at the side of the stairs.

Trizel watched Sid leave, then turned to Ted. "Need any help?" he asked.

Ted smiled and shook his head. "Not this time. It's just a small thing. Besides, you'd miss out on...all this."

Trizel chuckled. "Fair enough. I would regret if I missed seeing Nugget knock that supposed baroness down off of her high horse."

While the others all gathered near the stairs for various reasons, Ted was separating berries in the kitchen. They were all together in a small basket, but it seems that they were mostly blackberries. That would work just fine. He got out some measuring cups, and carefully put one cup of blackberries into a pot, followed by three fourths of a cup of sugar, and half of a cup of water. He turned the stove to simmer and looked at the rest of the blackberries and then back to the pot.

"Well," he sighed. "No point in being stingy. I mean, if this goes over well, I'll want more of it anyway, right?"

Before he could change his mind, he added the rest of the blackberries to the pot. It was lucky he had been using one of the larger pots, because it was about seventeen more cups of blackberries. After adding them he roughly measured out more sugar and water to keep the ratio about the same.

Ted had been using a potato masher to smash the berries while stirring to combine everything together on the stove. As it started to simmer, Ted set the timer for fifteen minutes and gathered a few more ingredients between when he would periodically smash and stir the chunky liquid. Once the time was up, he slid the pot off of the heat.

He strained the liquid into a large glass jar. As he poured, he thought about how odd it was that all these glass jars were found right after they had finished the still. But they were perfect for what he needed, so he wasn't going to complain.

After he strained the sugary blackberry ooze into the jar, he cut four lemons in half and added their juice to the jar. He wished he had some vanilla extract to round it out, but it would be fine. At least, he hoped it would be fine.

As Ted waited for the syrup to cool, he reminisced back to the first drink his uncle gave him. He remembered how his older sister had taken him out to get a drink for his birthday now that he was finally old enough. Now she was quite the drinker and could probably even show up Trizel. When they went out, she got him a very dark beer. It was one of the worst things Ted had ever had. It was just bitter with so many other strange aspects to it. His sister was kind enough about it, and hardly teased him for struggling to drink it. Well, when the family reunion rolled around in Summer, his uncle showed up with drinks for everyone.

Ted was avoiding it, after how disastrous his birthday drink was. Well, it didn't take long for his uncle to find him, and after congratulating him on making it another year, his uncle offered him a drink. Ted started to refuse it, but his uncle insisted he try at least one sip. Finally, after a lot of literally prodded by his uncle's elbow after a lame pun, Ted gave in and tried it. It was amazing! So delicious and sweet. He would never have guessed there was alcohol in it. His uncle seemed genuinely happy to see he liked it and gave him a full bottle of the stuff. Though he warned him to be careful, because it was sixty percent alcohol.

His uncle explained that there were lots of ways to hide the rougher aspects of alcohol, but that the way he did it with that drink was one of the easiest. It was just half apple pie filling and half rum. Strained and rebottled after sitting in a mason jar for a couple months. Those were Ted's favorites. The dessert rums his uncle would make. Often it was just something simple like that, where he would flavor it after he had finished turning it into alcohol.

"Yep, that's the plan," Ted told himself as he tried to decide what would provide the alcoholic part of this drink.

Finally, he settled on a bottle of rum that was distilled just yesterday. He put it next to the slowly thickening blackberry syrup and started to long search for where he would actually store this so he could age it in the time machine. At least since he had already strained the syrup, whatever container he put it in would be where it stayed.

"Worse," sighed Sentenza. "It was boring."

"So sorry I didn't entertain you by making an absolute fool of myself." scoffed Narissa.

"He is just upset because I won the bet." explained Sid.

Narissa rolled her eyes. "Of course, you're the kind of guy who bets every chance he gets. Now what, pray tell, was the betting on."

"How many broken..."

"Ah, that's not so important." Sentenza cut Sid off as he tried to change the subject. "So, what did you drink since all this beer is not to your liking?"

Narissa bristled at Sentenza's question. "I think you are getting a little too familiar with me."

There was a loud beeping that was quickly silenced. Then Ted came strolling out with a couple green wine bottles. He set them down on the table with a big smile on his face.

"Oh wait, I almost forgot." Ted said before he rushed back into the kitchen. He quickly returned with half a dozen clay goblets.

"Now I know that you didn't care for the beers, or the rums, but I think this will be different."

Narissa rolled her eyes as Ted poured a little into one of the clay goblets and pushed it in front of her.

"I don't need to drink you know. I am perfectly fine just as I am." She lied.

"Just try a little. Please." Ted said as he smiled at her.

Finally, Narissa sighed and shook her head. "Curse my kind nature. Very well, I will try this new concoction of yours. This had better sate your curiosity until you perhaps find some well-aged wine made from the finest vineyards."

She closed her eyes and brought the cup up to her lips. As she started to taste it, Ted poured some into each of the goblets, but before he could pass them out, Bakade did it for him. As the others all started to taste the blackberry rum, Narissa set down her goblet.

She nodded her head slightly and said, "I must admit. This is pretty good. Definitely more of a dessert wine, but quite good, yes."

She nudged the goblet towards Ted. "Perhaps you could see to it to refill my goblet kind innkeeper?"

Ted laughed as he poured more in, and the others all gave similar praise. Though it was far too sweet for both Sid and Sentenza. But it was an overall success, and best of all Narissa enjoyed drinking it. After she was well into her third glass, she started to open up more. By her fifth she was complaining about her ungrateful stepdaughter.

"You know," she said before she took another long sip of the blackberry rum. "You try to do your best as a mother, but it's so hard. Especially when the daughter is from an earlier wife. I mean, how could I ever measure up to her birth mom who she never met? She had a perfect image of her built into her little head, and it just...UGH!"

"Fffaaaaammmiilllllyyyyy cccaaaaannnn bbbeeeee dddiiiiifffiiiicuuulllttt," agreed Bakade.

"Yes, exactly! So difficult. And did she ever thank me?"

"Let me guess, no?" smirked Sentenza.

"That's right! No. Never. Not once. And of course, her father didn't want to be hard on her, so I always ended up being the bad guy. Dealing out punishments and so on. Now, I may have wanted her father out of the way, but that was only after he started to take her side over mine! I mean, I get loving your daughter, I do, but making your wife second fiddle to that tart? It's practically unforgiveable! Especially when it takes so much work to maintain good looks at my age. Oh, those young girls have it so easy. Just wake up, and bam they're beautiful enough to catch the gaze of every visiting noble. So, if I turn to steeper measures to keep my beauty who would blame me! It's definitely not enough of a reason to try and collapse an entire manor down on my head!" She shook her empty goblet back and forth until Ted, with a light chuckle, refilled it for her. "Thank you dear. You're an absolute peach."

"Baroness," started Sid.

"Please, call me Narissa. As you all were right. This isn't my kingdom, and so I don't really have claim to a title, do I?" she giggled.

"Very well. Narissa, why did you not simply communicate the disconnect you and your husband had? Surely it could have been amended before it got so bad."

Narissa sighed. "Sit down boys," she paused and smiled up at Bakade, "and girls. This tale will likely have to extend over multiple nights. What with its intrigue! The scorned beautiful woman, who only wanted what was best for her family and the kingdom. The spiteful daughter who always got her way! The loveable oaf who was slowly poisoned against his practically perfect wife. And the empty-headed stud who was twisted into nothing more than a weapon."