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Kullen and his group up, eyes narrowed. Kullen gets up. "Creed. I ain't seen you since we paid the previous sheriff a visit. Fat as ever, and dumb as ever if you're showing your face 'round here."
The innkeeper looks like he wants to stop Cuetzpalli from bringing in his dinosaur, but between Spiny's mean look and the current hostile air, he appears to decide discretion is the better part of valor.
Tanith glances at the assembled goons and stares down Kullen as the pale half-orc climbs to his feet. ”And you’re still ugly as sin”, he answers.
”We had business near the Land farmstead and found pieces of someone that was in your gang. Any idea what he was doing up there?” the Kordite asks, unintimidated by the fearsome half-orc.
The big suel studies Kullen for a reaction.
Kullen and the rest of his crew tense. Merovinn looks particularly angry.
Kullen crosses his arms. "You sure it was one of ours, Creed? Sounds like an awful big mess, and it might be hard to tell. Anybody goes up there, they might never know what poor sap got torn to pieces." He raises an eyebrow. "Could turn out to be anyone."
"Thanks." Farrukh whispers back to Carina as he watches the "show" play out in front of him.
"Oh, so the tattoo on the victim's arm wasn't yours? Funny--you seem to have the same tattoos." Carina speaks up.
"Now, I'm not saying you were involved in this, but... see, when we walked by the Land farmstead, we saw the most curious sight: the family graves, all dug up and left open." She puts on her sweetest smile.
"Know anything about that, sir?"
”That’s funny, a witness described someone with ugly tusks like yours up there digging. There are aren’t a whole lot of people in Diamond Lake with tusks wearing Vesst’s mark. They also mentioned seeing you run from an owlbear with your manhood tucked between your legs…”
"Anybody here want to come clean?"
Farrukh surreptitiously begins drinking the Shield extract once Tanith mentions running from the Owlbear.
”That’s funny, a witness described someone with ugly tusks like yours up there digging. There are aren’t a whole lot of people in Diamond Lake with tusks wearing Vesst’s mark. They also mentioned seeing you run from an owlbear with your manhood tucked between your legs…”
"Anybody here want to come clean?"
Kullen's angry look slowly fades. He looks at his axe, at his henchmen, then down at his feet.
He sighs and turns back to the counter, picking up his tankard—
Farrukh alone notices that Kullen's about to attack.
—and spinning to swing it right at Tanith's face, letting out a fierce roar. The hefty wooden tankard smashes against Tanith's hard skull.
Farrukh tries to scream a warning to Tanith.
"Hey, he's just about to-" he manages to get out, before Tanith is clocked upside the head.
Farrukh glares at Kullen.
"You're going down you dirty fighting bastard." he glares.
Though initially surprised by Kullen's outburst, the gang reacts quickly as other patrons struggle to flee.
"'Ey, Kullen, take this!" Navius picks up a chair and hands it off to Kullen.
Kullen shows his appreciation by trying to beat Tanith with the new weapon.
Rastophan grabs a chair and climbs up onto the counter.
Looking longingly at his wickedly hooked guisarme, Todrik instead gets out a potion and drinks it. He locks eyes with Farrukh. "Whatsa matter, ugly? Pissin' your pants at a li'l scrape on your boyfriend?"
Merovinn steps forward. "Hey, Todrik. Shut up and cover me."
Before Tanith can recover from his surprise, Merovinn's hand lets loose a blast of brilliant, clashing colors.
Tanith grunts in surprise as the tankard gets smashed across the side of his head and then a blast of dizzying colors follows. The big Kordite, despite the blood pouring down his face, laughs. "Is that all you got?!"
After a prayer to Kord for the strength to overcome his opponent, Tanith falls back a step and retrieves the vial Carina gave him. "Two can play that game. I'm going to enjoy kicking your ass Kullen."
Farrukh moves forward, snatching up a half full mug as he does so. He swings it at Kullen's fat orc head...
...And completely misses Kullen's fat orc head.
Cuetzpalli moves rapidly through the tables and people in his way to grab a stool, he raises it above his head in two hands ready to smash Todrik in the face with it.
________________________
The baby owlbear stares right into the brilliant lights and falls over, spasming.
Standing by the entrance, Robin looks up. Sounds like a commotion.
"You know, Bermintrude, I think that this town may be of a class lower than ours." He sniffs at the horse, and taps the shortsword on his belt casually, but ready to draw it.
"Maybe we leave after we get our gold. South, maybe? We haven't been to a desert in a while."
Astraden clambers up onto the table and calls Olidammara's blessing on the group again, twirling her fingers around her fist.
Carina isn't at all affected by the spray of color from the mage.
Her owletcub being blasted with it, on the other hand, sets her off.
She picks up a chair after moving out of the way of the ensuing melee between Kullen & Tanith. She then heaves it at the mage who threw the spell.
Merovinn Bask howls as the chair clips his forehead. "You goddamned, stupid, orc-loving..."
Kullen pursues Tanith and swings the chair again again. "Boy, you really are dumb as your god, aren't ya?" he roars.
Todrik jumps up onto the table and shoves a chair at Farrukh, trying to knock him down.
Farrukh is knocked prone.
Rastophan throws the chair he picked up at Cuetzpalli with a grunt.
It sails just over the Olman's head. Rastophan glares and grabs a bottle.
Merovinn Bask's hand goes to his crossbow, but he seems to restrain himself. He fixes Carina with a steely glare as his hands wrap around the weasel on his neck. "Think you're cute, huh?"
He snatches up and flings the shocked ferret at her head. "I'm gonna make a rug out of that owlbear, so here's a f+&@in' replacement!"
Yowling, the weasel crashes through the window behind Carina.
"Aw, f#!!. Goddammit, Rascal!"
Navius clutches his holy symbol. "Fharlanghn, protect your humblest servant from this lot."
Nothing immediately happens.
Tanith grins ear to ear as Kullen’s chair crashes against the invisible barrier erected by Carina’s extract. ”You’re not the only one that can fight dirty, you ugly bastard”, the big Kordite laughs.
”For Kord!” he roars as he balls up a ham-sized fist and throws a mighty uppercut.
Carina just rolls her eyes, picks up another chair and throws it at the mouthy mage.
"Hey, the orc would have a bigger c**k than you, anyway."
Robin glances at the weasel as it flies outside. "They're throwing wildlife." Robin rolls his eyes and draws his bow. "If there's one thing we've learned, it's that you always intervene in a fight where rodents are being used as weapons."
Robin pauses, nods, and takes a stance in front of the broken window, his bow aimed inwards. "Ladies and gentlemen!" He calls in loudly. "I hate to interrupt, but we're in a public establishment! Could we keep this civil?"
"You God. Damned—"
The chair catches him square in the jaw. He slumps.
Todrik snickers. "'Bout time. We ain't had a moment's quiet since the owlbear."
Tanith delivers a mighty wallop that could have killed a lesser man, but the half-orc just spits out a broken tusk fragment and keeps fighting.
"Please?" Robin asks, hopefully.
Robin sighs.
The weasel scampers between Robin legs and over to his unconscious master. He chitters at Kullen.
Kullen pauses, poised to bring the chair down again. He glares at Tanith.
Navius clears his throat. "Kullen, we're two men down now. After what happened to Skutch...we really gonna get bruised up on Filge's account?"
Tanith growls and keeps his big fists balled up but glances at Carina.
Carina glares at the unconscious mage, her hands clenching into fists and relaxing before bending over and picking up her owletcub.
"We came here to talk, not brawl. You should listen to him." Carina says, glancing over at Navius. "He has kept a cooler head than any of us. The Dweller on the Horizon would approve of such sensibility." She cradles her cub like a newborn baby.
"And I can't imagine after what happened at the Land farmstead that you'd be inclined to approve of this mess any longer. I'm sorry about what happened to your friend... being slain by an owlbear is not a way anyone should go. Did your boss send you out there knowing how dangerous it was? Perhaps without letting you know? That doesn't strike me as a boss who cares at all about his employees. And if an employer doesn't care about his employees' safety... well, odds are no smart, sensible person would ever work for him. I like to think you're all smarter than that."
"What she said." Robin grunts.
Kullen gestures to Merovinn, the rage in his eyes dimming. "He's the only one what gave two shits about Skutch. That idiot rogue was the reason the whole mess went down."
"Wasn't Smenk's fault," Todrik says. "Was the necromancer, Filge. Some friend of Smenk's we're s'posed to babysit." His lip curls. "Sent us out to get him corpses, like common graverobbers."
Tanith raises a brow and rubs his eyes to clear the blood from pooling in them. "Necromancer? Like with zombies and shit? You helped him?!"
Rastophan speaks for the first time. "Orders are orders, Tanith."
He gets down from the counter, taking a swig from the bottle he'd been using as a weapon. "You know that."