One thing that Drubjarred knew was that he had a strength and size advantage. In order for his foe to strike him effectively, they would have to swing lower than normal. Additionally, he was in the perfect position to throw them off balance while he was freeing his weapon from the stave of his foe simply by charging forward. The enemy would either have to back up, or watch as a dwarf forced them to hit their groin with their own staff simply by forcing their way forward.
[3+1]vs[3] The dwarf forces his weight down and presses the locked weapons towards the ground. The cultist takes a cautious step back, Drubjarred plants a foot on the iron club, and a clang rings out as he yanks his blade free of the notch, ready to strike against his opponent as the latter tries to free his club from under the dwarf's foot.
"This... it doesn't seem fake..." Merenio mumbled.
Then he started laughing to himself, at first inaudibly, and eventually madly.
"Hehe hehe...WAHAHAHA ! AS EXPECTED OF I ! THIS IS THE START OF MY GLORIOUS CAREER, OF I, MERENI ESCOBARI !"
He clenched his fist upward as a sign of victory, then hugged Zan with all his strength.
"You have all my gratitude Zan ! When I will be famous, I will make sure to pay you my regards !" Merenio mumbled.
Breaking the bro-hug, Merenio bid goodbye to his only friend in Ronke.
"Keep taking good care of yourself friend."
And with that Merenio left like a bolt, heading toward the inscribed location. He couldn't help but mumble the contents of the letter like a broken record "Qualified... Urgently... Risk... Lucrative..."
Unable to contain his smirk, he kept laughing in a way the bystanders found very creepy, even suspicious.
"My life is finally starting !" he thought to himself.
Zan bids a mostly unheard farewell and Merenio strides jauntily into the street, [1] cackling insanely as he speedwalks down dusty desert streets like a maniac. He gets a lot of dirty looks from people, but doesn't notice anything unusual.
Merenio's grin grows even wider as he approaches the tavern. He flings open the door and looks around excitedly, quickly finding the marked table and having a seat at it, hands folded on the tabletop in front of him, posture perfect and straight, almost shaking with excitement.
A gigantic hooded figure, clearly inhuman, leans towards him from the nearest table. It looks him up and down in an almost comically telegraphed way before clumsily lurching upwards to its feet and stumbling to his table to take a seat.
"Merenio Estobari? Velbacia graduated monstrologist?" it stage whispers.
Yaaaaass! Awesome turn as always inaluct! Now I just have to get that sword out of here without drawing too much attention to myself...
...I'm doomed.
"My word," Scarlet breathes, "what's a gorgeous thing like you doing in a place like this?" She gingerly turns the rapier over in her ink-splotched hands, being careful not to leave any ink or fingerprints on the surface. "Don't worry," she coos, "Mommy's here now. From now on you'll have your own display case with velvet pillows."
Scarlet cradles her prize like a baby (no easy feat considering its shape) and shows it off to her fans like a mother shows off her newborn child.
Don't let anyone get too close to my sword. How does Grundig react to my choice?
The rapier twinkles in the light, almost as if responding to Scarlet's words. The crowd oohs and aahs appreciatively. Unseen eyes ache with envy, but the vast majority of the crowd seems too taken with Scarlet to be envious. [2+1 for audience appraisal skills] "Good choice!" Grundig says. His posture is unreadable, and his heavy visor conceals any kind of facial expression he might have. Happy? Envious? ...Relieved?
For the most part, Jalak remained still with the same vacant smile on his face as he continued reminiscing.
At certain points of the memory, however, the excitement was enough to get his present self shadowboxing in his seat at the bar, doubtless looking either mad, drunk or dosed up on lotus- or all three at once, not unlikely in this place.
Remember laughing and darting into the fray alongside the others, ready to swing a boot into any convenient cultists whilst trying to avoid copping the brunt of their attacks. If any of my friends appears to be in serious trouble, step in to help them, blades out if needed, but otherwise just enjoy myself without sticking my neck out too much.
Tesen, on the other hand, chose this moment to display a flair for the dramatic that Jalak has been jealous of on at least a few occasions throughout their acquaintance. He follows up his sword-grabbing-slide by hopping nimbly up onto a still-standing table near the centre of the melee and swinging the blade about with a flourish, menacing any who came near.
If overwhelming numbers rush the table he'll leap off, over them, even swinging on a chandelier if there's one handy.
The others were far less imaginative, simply staggering to their feet and aiming to beat seven shades of hell out of all comers- with the exception of Maxos, who is still trying to clothe himself in a mess of what used to be the cult leader's fancy outfit, all whilst shrieking something about the green bringing out his eyes and reminding him of that tree he saw once in that really green place.
Jalak laughs uproariously and rushes into the melee, rearing back a heavy boot and aiming it at a cultist's back. [1]vs[4] He swings forward and whiffs it dramatically, catching the back of the cultist's robe with his foot before slipping and falling onto his back. [2] The cultist spins around to face Jalak, but she trips over Jalak's foot tangled in her robe and plunges forward to fall on top of him. [2]vs[3] She lands hard but loses her grip on her iron club, which fulcrums awkwardly off of Jalak's fumbling hands and smacks her in the face right before one of her elbows jabs Jalak in the face. She clutches her hands over her nose and groans, eyes closed tight, and dark red blood begins to ooze out from around her fingers. Jalak is momentarily stunned by the pain of a bony elbow slamming into his cheekbone.
It's going about as well as most of the group's bar brawls, really.
"Ah ha! Back, you snake-swallowers!" Tesen swings the two handed blade overhead, menacing the group of cultists who has surrounded his table and [5] clipping off a set of fingers on an iron club held too far up. He bellows triumphantly, cackling as he parries and brandishes with the blade, [4] deflecting blows from all sides. [2] The energy of the cultists around him seems to diminish, and they begin to look back and forth nervously at one another.
To be honest, Jalak couldn't really see what Tumbleweed and Osuttasue-Uhasab were doing at this point, and he doesn't really remember. He does vaguely recall Tumbleweed behaving with his characteristic borderline-unacceptable selfish brutality and Osuttasue-Uhasab getting two black eyes, though. Minos Maxos [3] is far in the depths of his lotus-craze. He shudders wildly as he thrashes the cultist leader, tearing ragged strips from what was once a legitimately nice robe. The tall priest clumsily grasps Minos' shoulders and [1]vs[1] lunges up and pulls Minos down, slamming their heads together in a forceful headbutt. A crack rings out in the bar, partially muffled by the sound of an articulated leather mask crumpling, and both figures go completely limp. Minos slumps forward on the unconscious priest, numb and still but arguably wearing more of the robes than the cultist himself at this point.
she..... quietly kinda shifts and after a few moments of contemplation.
"I'll need to talk with the others first is that okay?"
"Yes, of course. I will await your return." The weird figure bids farewell to Laura, scarcely waiting for her to get up and push in her chair before it leans over and looks at a scraggly maniac at the next table over. It shuffles up and over to sit across from the lunatic before leaning in and whispering something to him.
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Topic: Turaco's Sellswords RTD: Turn 17: I Guess This Counts As Taking Casualties (Read 29077 times)