Bar Room Blitz!
1983 Words
Samuel was many things.
Frail. Pessimistic. Sarcastic. A surprisingly good knitter.
But coward?
Well... yes. Yes, he was also a coward.
But the girl at the table with him was now on the receiving end of some truly hateful glares. The various old men around the bar scowled as she hung her head low, the one who’d stood up swinging the hand axe about as if he were warming up for some major event.
“I...I’ll just go.” She said, food forgotten. She looked at Samuel, eyes listless again. “I’m sorry for letting this happen.”
“For letting what happen?” Samuel asked, surprised at his own bravado. “That the people here are assholes?”
“WHAT’D YOU SAY?” The axe wielder bellowed, stepping around his table. He was big, towering over Samuel where he sat as he approached. He had a massive beard and greasy hair that hung down the back of his neck. He bulged with what could possibly be muscle as he brandished his weapon. “YOU WANT TO DEFEND THIS TRASH?”
Samuel winced at the volume and rubbed at his ear. “Think you can take the volume down there, buddy? Look, we’re just eating a late lunch, then we’ll be out of here. Just... chill, okay?”
The man glowered, stopping a scant few feet away before swinging the axe down. It connected with the heavy table with a hearty *thunk* as it was embedded in the wood. The bowls of stew rattled, the empty one flipping to roll and shatter on the floor at the woman’s feet.
The man leaned in close, his yellowed teeth visible behind his bushy beard, foul breath wafting over Samuel as he spoke.
“You must be hard of hearing, kid.” He growled, eyes dancing with rage. “Not going to say it again. Leave. Take your w***e with you.”
Samuel felt his eye tick at that. While he rarely worried about being attacked by others and would take his beatings just to get them over with, he detested it when men were rude to the fairer s*x. Especially when said fairer s*x didn’t deserve such rudeness.
Leveling a flat stare at the man, he heaved a sigh. “You’re not letting us leave without a fight, are you?”
“Ha!” The man laughed, looking back at his friends with a feral smile. “He ain’t as dumb as he looks! Yeah, you’re-“
Samuel raised his hand and decided this would be a fine time to test out one of his newer skills.
“Chargebolt!” He said with a smile. A crackle of electricity and sudden and overpowering stench of ozone was the only warning the man got as he was blasted with a thin bolt of lightning. It lifted him off his feet as it raced over his chest where it’d struck, throwing him back and into the bar with a splintering of wood.
The axe tumbled from his hands, clattering on the floor, as the bar fell silent, save for the man’s pained groans.
Samuel looked at his hand in shock, amazed that an introductory skill like this could do something like... that! Looking around the room, everyone seemed just as surprised, with angry glares turning frightened in seconds.
Sparing a glance at his companion, who was staring, he cleared his throat. “Um, yeah. We’ll... we’ll just be going then, I... guess?”
A tense silence followed, lasting three long seconds before the bartender spoke up. “Ransford! Go get tha guard!”
One man stood and raced out the front of the tavern, not daring to look back.
A pit formed in Samuel's stomach. He grabbed his drink and downed it as quickly as he could, most of it spilling past his chin onto his robes. He belched and looked at his current partner-in-crime. “Time to run!” He declared, standing to rush out. He heard her footsteps behind him and hushed whispers as the patrons parted like the Red Sea for them.
The harsh brightness of the afternoon sun blinded him for a moment before he realized that all the villagers seemed to be staring at him in horror.
“Great, that guy must have shouted as he ran off...” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Not the best start to a dream of being a hero.”
“Dream? Hero?” The Half-Elf asked next to him, clearly confused. “What in Jotelf’s fire are you babbling about? Come on!”
She grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the alleyway. “This way! I know a way out of the village!”
“Sounds good!” He agreed as he heard the first of what he assumed would be many sharp whistles ringing from a different street.
They sprinted down the alleyway, jumping over the toppled barrels from before as they ducked down another side alley. Slipping around without the scared stares of the villagers was helpful, especially when he started hearing the authoritative cries from what he assumed was the town guard.
“They went this way!” The man bellowed, his voice deep and angry. “Spread out, take them down fast and take them down hard! They already attacked two people, so be wary!”
A couple? I blasted one old bastard! Great, just freaking fantastic! He thought as he pressed up against the flimsy wall of an old hut. Great dream I’m having, my subconscious apparently hates me…
“Where we going?” He asked softly to not catch any of the roaming guards’ attention. From his vantage point, he saw two young men in simple leather armor running down the street, swords and shields at the ready. “They seem pretty pissed.”
“Yeah, well, d***s are like that when their racist bullshit lands them in a hospital bed.” She snarled back, re-wrapping her face. “Have to say, they do seem a little too organized for what you did. They normally take like half an hour to stop picking their own noses, yet here they are like a stirred up hornets nest.”
She slinked to the edge of the alley to peer up and down the street. She seemed satisfied, motioning for him to follow her as she spoke. “Come on, move quickly!”
“Like I need to be told that!” He chuckled, sprinting across the road after her into the next alley. “So, Half-Elves are treated poorly, I take it?”
She spared him a glance, eyebrow raised. “What rock did you crawl out from? Not that I’m complaining, you’re the nicest guy I’ve met in years, but still…”
“Uh, I kind of lived a sheltered life before all this…” he replied, unsure how to answer. “Just assume I know nothing.”
She shrugged. “Should be easy enough, you’re a Zilni, after all.”
“Ah… thanks?”
She let out a bark of laughter before shushing herself. “Okay,” she said after composing herself, shaking her head, “we’re going to have a talk after this, assuming they don’t hang us.”
“Regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
She snorted as she slipped under a window, careful to avoid being seen by anyone within the house. “I’ve been eating garbage for like six years, trust me, this is me being positive.”
“… great, someone more screwed up than me,” he mumbled, following her.
She either didn’t hear him or didn’t care to respond. They slipped through the labyrinth of dirty alleys between homes and businesses. They could hear the guards running about, shouting out to each other while whistles shrieks pierced the air in timed bursts every few minutes.
Must be how they signal when they can’t see each other… he mused when they next paused to catch their breath. Great, that means they have training. This is going to suck.
“Okay,” she said as she studied the road before them, Samuel recognizing it as the path he’d walked into the town just half an hour earlier. “We should be in the clear, time to make a run for it.”
“Okay, see you on the other side?” He offered.
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
She sprinted out of the alley and turned to head to the bridge out of the village. Samuel followed, hot on her heels…
… until he almost rammed into her where she was standing stock still.
Behind a small crowd of guards, and the sounds of fighting. The sounds of metal clanging off metal, along with pained cries and shouts of anger, filled the air.
“Gods be damned, close in on their flanks!” The deep voice of what had to be their commander called out from somewhere near the front of the group. “By Freya’s t**s, why are you idiots letting the big one so much room! Close in, cut him off you fools!”
It was at this point Samuel realized that the guards weren’t searching for them. Something else was going on.
“Hey!” Someone shouted behind him, prompting him to turn and look at the new voice.
It was the old villager that had sprinted from the tavern. He face was pinched and red, and he was panting as if he’d been running for a while.
“Guards, they have back up! A caster or something, and the Half-Elf! Watch out!” He bellowed, gathering the attention of the guards just in front of them.
“s**t…” Samuel swore as the men turned, brandishing their weapons.
Four guards started spreading out around them in a half circle. “Lower your weapons, surrender before we have to take you down!”
“What weapons?” He asked before noticing that the Half-Elf was brandishing her knife. “Are you freaking serious?”
They’d already lunged towards them by the time he spoke, swords raised in attack.
“Web of Cords!” He bellowed, using another one of his skills. He could feel the drain as he fired it off and made a mental note to figure out what his limits were.
From his outstretched hand sprang a dozen whipping cords, lengths of interlocked links of iron that whipped out and tripped two of the guards. “Look, we don’t want to hurt you—”
His words were cut short as the woman ducked under a swing and rammed her blade into the side of the guard’s unprotected neck, yanking back to leave a massive bloody wound that sprayed out at least three pints of crimson life in a way that spoke volumes of the rapidly dying man’s need for blood pressure medicine.
“Okay, you know what? Screw it. You guys aren’t real anyway.” He said, switching up to his more effective spells. “Chargebolt! Chargebolt!”
The two bolts struck the two more guards that were fixing to try and close in, while the Half-Elf tripped the other soldier that had closed in on her, stabbing him in the face with a flourish as he lay prone. The two flew into the crowd, knocking them about like bowling pins. Now thinned, he could see that a number of guards lay in the street with nasty injuries.
Most likely inflicted by the massive man wielding a pair of curved swords as if they were hammers, the guards all unruly nails. Behind him as a shorter, slimmer man with a smaller sword and shield.
“Ya’ll ‘elpin’?” The tall one bellowed, voice raspy. “Knew dis village ‘ad some like-hearted folk in it! Told ya Needles!”
The shorter one grunted as he sheathed his sword in the chest of a rather brave guard, kicking the corpse off his blade as he spoke. “I just said this place didn’t look like it’d have anyone useful, okay? Can we please get away from the people trying to kill us before we start arguing?”
“Sounds good!” The tall one cackled, beheading a guard and cleaving into their former coworker, who would now be able to high five fifty percent of the time. The man dropped to the ground clutching his bleeding stump, screaming. “Follow us, we’re leavin’ fore they get the bigger troops!”
Samuel nodded and threw his hands up again, funneling his last offensive skill into action. “Sunburst!”
The sudden blast of bright light was like a thousand cameras flashing at once. It sent the guards screaming at their eyes as they burned, Samuel seeing spots despite closing his own eyes as he used the ability. He reached over and grabbed the shoulder of the Half-Elf. “Come on!” He said, dragging her through the panicked crowd and after the two fleeing men.
So far, he sucked at being a hero… maybe he was going to be a villain in this dream?
- Writer
