They seemed soft, a pushover, weak. Because they wept into their beer over killing. The toughs decided to show the mouthy barmaid just how "good" they were after her remark about their mothers by trying to rough up the weakling. They learned, the person may be kind, gentle, soft.... but they've a backbone of raw steel. At least they let this lot live, though the lesson sure as hell hurt..... the toughs that is.
@internutter/challenge-03899-j247-a-killer-of-character -- Fighting Fit
"So you think you're a big man, huh?"
Rike Mossgrove barely looked up at the rowdy braggart looming over him. "Don't matter what I think," he said. "You already made up your mind."
"Damn straight," said the adventurer of menace. "And if I say you're nothing but a pantywaist mama's boy sucking on your thumb, you have to repeat it for all the Inn to hear."
Rike said, "No."
"What'd you say to me? You dare?"
"I told you 'no'. A word your own mother should have told you more often," said Rike. "And I dare because nobody else has. You think you can menace anyone for your entertainment. That's the wrong way to live."
The menacing adventurer drew a glowing blade, "I could cut you down where you're crying, you--"
Rike hit them with their tankard, square in their face, and knocked them out cold. Which seemed to be the commencement of the afternoon bar fight. The adventurers may have had expertise and magical weapons on their side, but they were against a man who knew how to use what he had to hand.
The total damages were one stein, two chairs, a broom handle, one fireplace poker, and four foolhardy adventurers. All those laid unconscious in a radius with Rike in the center.
His victory hadn't improved his mood.
"Idiots," he sighed, "why do I always attract the idiots?"
[Photo by Michelle Rumney on Unsplash]
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