It's harder than it looks.
"Get 'im, Syril!"
That's Gebbin. He's a little guy, maybe about five-foot two. He's an idiot, and he's a psychopath. He's one of Syril's guys, but that's only until he works up the courage to stick a knife in Syril's neck some night.
The fist comes swinging towards my face. It's a big fist, with grotesque, bulging knuckles that are covered in wiry black hair. It belongs to Syril, a half-orc half-who-the-hell-knows who's even more grotesque than his bulging knuckles. He's got about eight inches of height on me and about twice my apparent body mass. He's also got a forehead like a Klingon Crash Test Dummy, and about as much brains.
He makes up for his lack of intelligence with sheer stupid strength, and that's what makes this whole thing so much more difficult.
See, I'm trying to show one Mr. Lazarin Hundar that I'm a pathetic drunk who couldn't possibly be hanging around his seedy establishment (The Hangman's Noose - great name for a bar, I have to admit) to spy on him. The best way to do that is to drink a lot of booze, mumble a few insults about the First Orc Nation of Metahuman Awareness (or whatever it's called) while in earshot of Syril and his band of idiots, and try to make it look good when they kick the crap out of me.
Which is, as I said, harder than it looks.
Syril may be an idiot, but he could probably bench press a few thousand pounds if he had to. He's a seasoned fighter, judging from what I've seen. Let's put it this way: He's good enough to get kicked out of one of the underground fighting rings here for ripping some guy's ears off. Apparently that was against the rules. Who knew?
The point is, Syril knows what he's doing, drunk as he is. And that means when he swings his fist at me, it's a nearly perfect punch. I could almost marvel at the way his left foot pivots as he shifts his weight along the angle of the punch, but that would be a very bad idea.
Cause if I let Syril hit me dead in the face with a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand pounds of force, three things are going to happen.
One: it's gonna hurt.
Two: Syril's going to shatter his hand.
And three, everyone in this stupid bar is going to know that I'm not quite the pathetic drunk I worked so damn hard at being. So that means...
The impact of his fist smacks wetly across my cheek. At that instant, I'm already pushing off the ground with my right foot and swiveling away from the blow. I jerk my head around, using the momentum of Syril's punch to propel myself backwards. I spin in midair and do my very best not to squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation of flopping lifelessly down onto the very hard chair in my way.
I land on top of it with a heavy crash, sending splinters of wood flying all over. Someone hisses in a breath of air, a sympathetic wince at how hard I went down. The groan I let out is definitely NOT an act. That hurt like hell.
Syril doesn't shake his hand up and down in pain, but he does flex his fingers a few times as he stomps over to me. A gruff voice tells him to teach me a lesson, and a moment later I feel him pick me up by the back of my shirt. He hauls me up, grinning with a mouthful of ugly teeth, and with an angry grunt of exertion (I'm heavier than I look, but Syril's too angry and too dumb to notice) he throws me outside.
What follows is a stunning example of method acting, as I allow myself to be stomped by an angry half-orc for nearly ten minutes in the middle of the street. When it's over, and when I'm coated in enough of my own blood to hide the fact that I'm hardly bruised (which is not to say, hardly hurting, cause: OW) and that my wounds are pretty much gone, Syril spits on me, kicks a little dust in my face (thanks for the added cover, fella) and leaves me to wallow in my defeat.
I lie there for a while, waiting to see if anyone in the bar will actually be foolish enough or decent enough to come out and help me. Nobody does. Seems like that's the name of the game in this city. It's about as "see no evil" as you can get. Everyone's terrified to step into someone else's business.
So I pick myself up, stumble off to the little hovel I'm using as my "home" and try not to think about what kind of microorganisms were floating around in Syril's spit.
Next planet, Wolvie gets to be undercover guy.
"Get 'im, Syril!"
That's Gebbin. He's a little guy, maybe about five-foot two. He's an idiot, and he's a psychopath. He's one of Syril's guys, but that's only until he works up the courage to stick a knife in Syril's neck some night.
The fist comes swinging towards my face. It's a big fist, with grotesque, bulging knuckles that are covered in wiry black hair. It belongs to Syril, a half-orc half-who-the-hell-knows who's even more grotesque than his bulging knuckles. He's got about eight inches of height on me and about twice my apparent body mass. He's also got a forehead like a Klingon Crash Test Dummy, and about as much brains.
He makes up for his lack of intelligence with sheer stupid strength, and that's what makes this whole thing so much more difficult.
See, I'm trying to show one Mr. Lazarin Hundar that I'm a pathetic drunk who couldn't possibly be hanging around his seedy establishment (The Hangman's Noose - great name for a bar, I have to admit) to spy on him. The best way to do that is to drink a lot of booze, mumble a few insults about the First Orc Nation of Metahuman Awareness (or whatever it's called) while in earshot of Syril and his band of idiots, and try to make it look good when they kick the crap out of me.
Which is, as I said, harder than it looks.
Syril may be an idiot, but he could probably bench press a few thousand pounds if he had to. He's a seasoned fighter, judging from what I've seen. Let's put it this way: He's good enough to get kicked out of one of the underground fighting rings here for ripping some guy's ears off. Apparently that was against the rules. Who knew?
The point is, Syril knows what he's doing, drunk as he is. And that means when he swings his fist at me, it's a nearly perfect punch. I could almost marvel at the way his left foot pivots as he shifts his weight along the angle of the punch, but that would be a very bad idea.
Cause if I let Syril hit me dead in the face with a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand pounds of force, three things are going to happen.
One: it's gonna hurt.
Two: Syril's going to shatter his hand.
And three, everyone in this stupid bar is going to know that I'm not quite the pathetic drunk I worked so damn hard at being. So that means...
The impact of his fist smacks wetly across my cheek. At that instant, I'm already pushing off the ground with my right foot and swiveling away from the blow. I jerk my head around, using the momentum of Syril's punch to propel myself backwards. I spin in midair and do my very best not to squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation of flopping lifelessly down onto the very hard chair in my way.
I land on top of it with a heavy crash, sending splinters of wood flying all over. Someone hisses in a breath of air, a sympathetic wince at how hard I went down. The groan I let out is definitely NOT an act. That hurt like hell.
Syril doesn't shake his hand up and down in pain, but he does flex his fingers a few times as he stomps over to me. A gruff voice tells him to teach me a lesson, and a moment later I feel him pick me up by the back of my shirt. He hauls me up, grinning with a mouthful of ugly teeth, and with an angry grunt of exertion (I'm heavier than I look, but Syril's too angry and too dumb to notice) he throws me outside.
What follows is a stunning example of method acting, as I allow myself to be stomped by an angry half-orc for nearly ten minutes in the middle of the street. When it's over, and when I'm coated in enough of my own blood to hide the fact that I'm hardly bruised (which is not to say, hardly hurting, cause: OW) and that my wounds are pretty much gone, Syril spits on me, kicks a little dust in my face (thanks for the added cover, fella) and leaves me to wallow in my defeat.
I lie there for a while, waiting to see if anyone in the bar will actually be foolish enough or decent enough to come out and help me. Nobody does. Seems like that's the name of the game in this city. It's about as "see no evil" as you can get. Everyone's terrified to step into someone else's business.
So I pick myself up, stumble off to the little hovel I'm using as my "home" and try not to think about what kind of microorganisms were floating around in Syril's spit.
Next planet, Wolvie gets to be undercover guy.