Taste immediately comes to mind, namely the taste of dead horse piss. This restorative I heard of while still semi-sober from a fellow drunk named Dutong in some hole in the wall tea place outside of the Southern Forest. Seeing as we drunks stick together I listened to him bitch about his life and in the course of doing so he told me about a restorative potion that immediately sobers a person know matter how wasted they are. I gave it a try once when I was about to pass out after ¾ through a barrel of Imperial Spirits, figuring I would be good to drink about another barrel of wine. Though between you and me the only reason I was ready to pass out for after a measly ¾ was because I had just taken a piss in the granary of that very same hole in the wall town so some sorcerer was sent to kill me, so to make a long story short I hacked up the sorcerer who before I got to him managed to summon three toad demons, two horse demons and an elephant demon to defend himself. I quickly got through them to get to him but I was poisoned along the way and a little tired from the fight so between you and me that's why when I stopped for a drink why I was on the verge of passing out after only ¾ a barrel where if I was feeling normal I could have handled a barrel and a half.
Anyway getting back to the taste of dead horse piss, I actually do not know what it tastes like because dead horses don't piss and by the time I was drunk enough to sample live horse piss, I was to drunk to taste or remember so I am just guessing that horse piss would taste like shit. Speaking of the taste of shit, that reminds me of my early years of life. I remember telling some of my allies that I was born in a barn in the outskirts of the Empire and was a life-long badass. But the past is… different. Instead of being born in a whole in the wall barn to some whore, I was born in the Imperial City the son of a bureaucrat and a homemaker. My bureaucrat father took bribes left and right meaning he provided a wealthy living for my brother and mother. Walking through the Golden Way I recognized it as the place where I grew up, I remember riding a pony in the stables in the city and what I remember most was that dad would always drink this weird stuff, it was different from milk or water and that this stuff always made him silly. As most kids do they want to emulate their parents so I always wanted "daddy's drink" but he always laughed and said it was not for kids. Through my childhood I was always curious about it and wanted to try what daddy drank.
Some point in my life around the age of seven, I noticed that our dad no longer lived with us and sometimes at night I could hear my mom crying. One day a man came to our house with some thugs, they burst in the door, walked right up to mom and said something about rent and told her to get out. Mom was hysterical and therefore so was my brother and I. Within minutes we were homeless on the streets of the Imperial City.
That night was my first night on the streets, I was still upset and though not hysterical as I had been earlier, I noticed that my mom was drinking that funny stuff dad always had and afterwards had calmed down some. After she had gone to sleep I wandered over to the bowl she had been drinking from and started to drink. The taste was weird, but pretty soon I felt kind of weird in a good way. I was no longer upset, I felt like was seven feet tall, invisible and able to do anything, I felt so good! Eventually I fell asleep and the next morning I felt terrible. I threw up and it felt like my head had been run over by horse-drawn wagon. Later in the day I felt better though and considered whether or not to try this weird drink which my mom called "wine" again. At first I thought no because of how bad I felt this morning, but then my mind drifted back to my life and I realized that was the Natural Order of Things. I grew up happy up until this moment in my life and now suddenly am in trouble, this must be how the world works. You go and have your fun first and then misery strikes, so to get any happiness you need to go right away and make yourself happy before misery sweeps in like a raptor and snatches it away. Since misery is always stalking you I figured got all you can get while the getting is good.
This idea of happiness and misery influenced my life ever since. After the night where I got drunk for the first my family and I moved with a caravan to some dump named Sho Thin in the Eastern Frontieer. This place was about a month away from the Imperial City and I was glad to be leaving traveling all day and living off a wagon. We soon settled into a two-room shack and toured the town. The next day I was walking around trying to make friends when I walked upon what I thought would be the perfect opportunity, a group of thirteen kids loitering around. I went up to them trying to be friendly and got… the beating of my life. Check that, these kids beat me up everyday and it seems like each beating was worse than the last. After my "friends" tired of the beating they wandered off and I went home in tears. When I got their nobody was their except me and I had no source of comfort available to me, except wine! Wine comforted me when we were first thrown out and wine could comfort me now! Unfortunately their was no wine in the house so I left for the local tavern hoping to some how con my way into getting a bowl without silver. Unfortunately I did not have to go as far as the tavern but got lucky as I encountered a drunk that was face down in the gutter and still had half a bowl left.
I quickly downed the wine and the feelings I had about being beaten up disappeared. In fact I felt that I could take on the whole gang of kids by myself! So confident was I that I started to call out challenges and was caught completely by surprise when none other than the ringleader of the gang showed up and we brawled right there! I am happy to say that one-on-one I beat him! I made him run for home crying! I to wept, tears of joy at my accomplishment. I walked home that day feeling good for the first time since having to leave home.
The next day mom announced that she had gotten me and my brother jobs, me and my brother would join mom as field hands during the day. Most of the silver I made went to keeping a roof over our heads but I was allowed to keep a little bit of the money I made. Enough at least to buy a bowl of wine or two at the local tavern and was I ever thankful for being able to have that bowl of wine. For every day for four years I got beaten up by the same gang of kids which was the low-point of my day and every day I got drunk and that was the high-point of my day because all the bad feelings I had about getting beat up went away. This went along with my view of the Natural Order, get all the happiness you can, while you can because you never know when bitterness will come and take it from you.
Eventually four years passed and the day came when the Black Whirlwind was born. It started out as a pretty good day. I had saved up some extra silver and was able to talk the boss into giving me the day off. Avoiding the gang that usually beats me up I was able to make it to the tavern and engage in my favorite past-time, that of drinking. When I was good and drunk I got up and began to walk out when in walked, the very gang that was always beating me up! A fight immediately broke out and raged around trashing the tavern. I had always fought back even though I lost but this was the first time I had fought back drunk and to my complete and utter surprise, I won! This completely and utterly convinced me of the combat uses of wine for this was the first time in four years I had beaten up the bullies who beat me! I felt like Emperor Sun Hai himself. I strutted around town proud of myself and yelling at passersby that I was a Black Whirlwind of destruction. On my way home I ran into an old group of friends, the ones I had fought in the tavern but this time they had brought some extra friends so their was about twice as many as I had fought in the bar. Being a nice and charitable guy I invited them to my house to play, but their was no need to walk all the way home as fighting broke out immediately and I tried as hard as I could but I just could not win, things were looking bleak and I fought even harder but 1:20 odds is too much to ask of anyone, unarmed that is.
During the course of the fight the brawl brought us fighters close to Old Man Miyahon's house. Old Man Miyahon was a carpenter so one of his many tools was an axe which he used to chop wood from the trees to get materials for his various works. More importantly their was an axe on the premises which I soon found myself using to my advantage. In what seemed like a matter of seconds the fight was over and I was victorious and I was covered in blood. It was in those moments basking in my victory that I realized that I had discovered the two loves of my life, wine and battle. Pausing for a few moments I realized even drunk as I was that killing 20 people is not something smiled upon in court and prison or dying had no appeal for me so I ran from Sho Thin no longer an anxious little boy but reborn as the Black Whirlwind.