PATRIARCH FOWL
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Casual Heroing, Chapter 69
🕑 Added 2023-02-28 19:55:54 +0000 UTCRead-y Link (Mobile Optimized)
Next chapter will be the theoretical end of Book 1! ✨✨✨
Chapter 69 – Pub Crawl, Part 2
I keep seeing people give us surreptitious gazes and then move out of the inn. Are they that racist? Is it because of me? Is it because we are too loud? Who knows.
“So, Tiberius, Quintus, when are you two getting some, huh? Must have been a while, right? I mean, the whole homeless look was going strong where I am from, but I don’t know about here.”
Quintus and Tiberius exchange a confused look until Truffles, who’s already at his third beer, starts slurring.
“He’s talking ‘bout segs,” he says, slamming a fist on the table and hiccupping.
I look at the watered-down beer I’m drinking—the kind of beer that would have manly men call Corona a spirit, and then I look back at Truffles.
How did he get this cartoonishly drunk? Aren’t [Alchemists] supposed to be immune to poisons or something?
“Who says we aren’t getting some?” Quintus looks back at me, affronted.
“The fact that you are offended and not smirking like your pal Tiberius on the side. Goddamn, Tiberius. So, your leg is not the only wood you’re sporting, huh? Let’s go, baby! To Tiberius!”
I raise my wooden mug, and we all cheer to the guy while Quintus is even more offended by the fact that his pal, apparently, got a little bit of action.
“And what ‘bout you, ‘oey?” Truffles keeps slurring as he undulates left and right on the spot. “You got any? Huh, cocksucker?”
Everyone laughs at that as I stare at the blondie getting some attitude.
“Well, first of all, you don’t say any. You say some. Second, not yet. I was working on a big catch before the shenanigans at the bakery. This week, I’ve been too busy with work to think about anything else, really.”
“That ‘ounds like you suck cocks, cocksucker,” Truffles keeps chewing each word he’s spitting.
At this point, Antoninus spits the beer he’s drinking and starts laughing and choking so hard that, for a moment, I’m almost positive he will die. Sadly, he recovers after barely a minute.
Damn brute.
And what’s up with Truffles calling people ‘cocksucker’? Is he actually turning into Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys? Is that what alcohol does to him?
“Are you still seriously thinking about courting Lucinda?” Lucillus asks. He’s sitting at my right, and Stan at my left.
“Perhaps,” I say, scratching my chin. “Or maybe not. Eh. I’m not sure I can tackle the childhood friend subplot while I work this much.”
“Augustus?” Antoninus says, chewing on some bread. “I hear everyone thinks they will probably announce a marriage soon.”
“Can you stop that rumor mill?” Lucillus rubs his face with both hands. “Lucinda works with us. If she catches on to the stuff you have been saying, you are getting suspended. You know how [Captain] Drusillus is. With the [General] back in town, you might as well be asking a [Pyromancer] to light you a cigar.”
Wait, what?
“Cigars? This forsaken city didn’t have chocolate, but you are telling me it has cigars—”
“Rotten roots, Clementius, look who’s there!”
A shout suddenly takes over all the loudness of the inn, and I turn to face some truly undesirable guests.
“Oh, Appius, look. Normally, they don’t allow wild animals, so how come there are Humans around?”
I see Appius, the [Soldier] who bothered Stan and me at the park and who almost got his throat ripped out by Grigio. In this case, sadly, Grigio is back at the park. Stan told the dog to wait because he didn’t want to scare anyone in the inn.
The problem here is that behind Appius and the two other chipmunks, there is a veritable crowd of [Soldiers]. And while they don’t seem to be carrying their swords with them, they are all wearing armor.
Shit.
I see Antoninus get tense while Lucillus simply gets up and stands in front of the soldiers. Gregorius, our fat addition, is looking at the situation with circumspection as he surreptitiously eats some of the food Lucillus had ordered.
“What is the meaning of this?” Lucillus says in a straight voice, looking at all the [Soldiers]. “Are you here to cause trouble?”
“Hey, guys,” Appius doesn’t even acknowledge Lucillus’s words as he speaks to his goons, “did you know that now, the Watch can be rented out by Humans? It appears they are finally whoring out! Good for them for recognizing their true profession!”
Damn.
I look at Lucillus, knowing how attached he’s to the city and, consequently, to his job as its guardian. Thankfully, there’s no anger on his face, just a plain look.
“You all need to get out of here,” Lucillus says, putting a hand in his pocket and taking out a stone.
Wait, is he going to stone them? What the hell?
“Oh, are you calling your other little weasels? What’s next on the menu, an orgy with Humans? We are just here to say hi to the Human. It’s not every day that one of them manages to get to Amorium, right boys?”
As the clamor of the other [Soldier] takes over the inn, Appius walks beyond Lucillus and towards our table.
I take a deep breath, trying to think of ways to de-escalate the situation.
“Hello there, you little Worm, how are you doing?” Appius talks to me in a faux-preoccupied tone. “Have you found Amorium to your liking, little Worm?”
Holy shit. Wait. Aren’t they the guys under that other guy? The one Flaminia hid me from at Fulvia’s shop? What was his name again?
“Very much so,” I smile at Appius, looking behind him. “Your boss with you? What’s his name again? It starts with a P, I think. Sorry, you’ll have to forgive me for my bad memory.”
I see a sudden frown on his face.
“You know Plinius, Worm?”
“In a way,” I say with a wink. “What’s it to you?”
“What—”
“I mean, I am sure your boss wouldn’t be too happy about all this harassment, right? Don’t you have bigger problems on your hands?”
Appius seems momentarily stumped by my reaction.
Jesus Christ. Please, let this end without a brawl or another problem.
Even with that brute of Antoninus, the odds are not looking good here.
I don’t know if Stan will pull a mix of Master Miyagi and Van Damme, but he is looking too tame to give me a good reason to start a fight right now.
The thing is, you don’t want to be too aggressive or too little aggressive with a bully. That’s how it works.
“My [Sergeant] doesn’t like Worms as much as me,” Appius’s tone is more insecure now.
Thank God.
“You sure? Why create problems here? With all these people bearing witness? It wouldn’t really reflect well on the military, I think. Plus, we were just drinking and eating – why all the animosity?”
“I don’t like when Worms share the food my people have been working hard for,” Appius says, but I can see in his countenance that he might back up from this.
Well.
He might have done that before Truffles opened his mouth.
“What ‘oes this cocksucker want?”
Everyone goes silent as Appius turns so mechanically I can hear the screeching of his neck.
Holy fu—
“What’re you looking at, cocksucker? You want some cock?”
“Antoninus, cover that idiot’s mouth.”
“Oh, no, no. Please, go ahead, you little Worm-friend. What did you just say to me?”
I can see Antoninus trying to grab Truffles, but the drunk blonde just gets up to square it with Appius and pushes him.
“I said, what are you looking at, cocksucker?” Truffles jams his fingers into Appius’s chest.
The [Soldier] lowers his gaze to meet the finger, and then his face slowly erupts into a disgusting smile as he looks at Truffles.
“Is this an act of aggression? I truly believe it is.”
The next thing I know, Truffles is down on the ground—Appius just punched him in the face and is looking smug now. His lip is bleeding.
“Gentlemen,” I say, putting myself between the [Soldier] and the dazed drunk on the ground. “I’d say this is enough action for an entire day. How about you go your own merry way, and we don’t have to make a mess out of it?”
What I have apparently missed about Appius is that not only is he not stupid, but he’s also very perceptive of details. And deviously so.
One of his friends side-steps me and throws a kick at Truffles before I can do anything to protect him. Rage courses through my body.
“Yo! He’s fucking down! What the hell are you doing?!”
“Oh, that sounds terrible, doesn’t it, Worm? But first, why don’t you tell me how your whore mother managed to eject a revolting piece of crap like you from her—”
[Flash]
I use the skill while looking at the ground. Appius is blinded, and my uppercut catches him off-guard, throwing him to the ground. My hand screams in pain, but Appius screams louder.
“Get the Worm!” He shouts at his cronies and swiftly gets up.
He is now dodging my right swing, but what he doesn’t know is that it was a feint. He eats another [Flash] right in his face before I hit him in the nose with a left jab. There’s no crunch, sadly.
“Joey!” Lucillus shouts as two [Soldiers] move past him, and he’s quickly reminded of what’s about to go down.
“Oh, Worm,” Appius cackles, “thank you so much.”
The Elf, slightly shorter than me, throws a punch at me. There’s little in the way of coordination, but he’s much faster than me. I was already leaning to the side, but he still managed to scrape the side of my face.
Instead of stepping away from him, I move around his next punch, blinded by fury.
I know how this ends.
I know how much it’s going to hurt.
But I don’t care.
No one talks shit about my mother.
No one.
Appius hits me on the shoulder as I brush one of his blows away with my hand. He is still smiling smugly while everyone else is engaged in a fight with the rest of his clique.
“If I could, Worm, I would skin you alive,” he says, putting some distance between us.
I take a few breaths, still raging but more aware of what’s happening around me now. Stan has somehow disappeared from the whole scene while Antoninus is busy wrestling three [Soldiers] at once. Lucillus is already on the ground, out cold, but two [Soldiers] are keeping him company down there.
I see Gregorius, the jolly homeless guy, dragging Truffles away from the conflict.
“Tell your goons not to touch the others,” I say, “I punched your face. Everyone else should go. In fact, what do you say we bring this outside, you little pussy?”
Appius looks at me without blinking, his slimy smile still plastered all over his face.
“I don’t think so. My people shouldn’t associate with Worms.”
Five [Soldiers] suddenly get behind Appius.
Tiberius and Quintus reach my side, and I see Gregorius and Truffles getting tackled by another [Soldier]. They all go down, and my weird blonde friend finally realizes how much trouble we are in.
“Hey! Hey! Wait! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
Truffles’s scream fills the inn until the man kicks him so strong the guy on the ground loses all the air in his lungs. Truffles’s arms start flailing as he’s breathless on the ground; he’s keeping them close to his body, his hands crooked like hooks.
Gregorius has a man on top of him, now punching away at his face.
“Well, Worm, are you coming?” Appius widens his arms in a faux-welcoming gesture. “I’m sure your whore mother would be proud of the little vermin her son has become.”
He clearly remembers from the day he insulted my mother at the Watch.
What a filthy bag of shit.
My mind races, and my body is about to assault him, but Truffles’s distant whimper distracts me. And Appius, noticing it, downs me with a single good swing to the face.
Tiberius and Quintus go down right after.
Everyone is on top of us, kicking and stomping with all they have.
The pain is unbearable, and it comes and goes in flashes. But, as if in a dream-like state, I can only hear Truffles’s laments. He wheezes and chokes, then he starts crying like a loud siren, trying to get away from the people around him. I catch glimpses of him, trying to crawl away. The [Soldiers] have understood how scared he is, so they are not even beating him up anymore; they are simply hunching forward, trying to scare him. They pounce for a quick kick, but it’s not the physical pain that drives the blonde crazy.
Truffles has trouble breathing, clearly not used to any of this. At some point, they even stop kicking. They simply pin him down.
He goes crazy while trying to get them off his body.
The very simple torture consists of their touch, in the little point of contact between their boots and his panicking chest.
Before I go out cold, the world pinpoints reality to only show me Truffles’s pain and pure, unabated terror. In the eyes of the [Soldiers] around him, there’s the same look I suppose one would have while raping and pillaging, that dark part of the Human—or Elven mind that creates monsters.
They are reveling in the torture, inebriated by their prisoner’s pain.
My mother’s face comes to me as everything becomes dark.
Not the healthy one, but the one consumed by cancer she hid from me for so long.
She didn’t even tell me, thinking I wouldn’t be able to take it.
She kept working for me even while doing chemotherapy. I didn’t even notice she was sick until she started losing her hair.
Two thoughts plague my mind at this moment.
I could have cured her, a part of me whispers; the part that pokes my soul every time I think of her. If I had become a doctor, I could have cured her.
But I know it’s just daydreaming—wishful thinking that just wants to destroy my life.
And even then, as my consciousness fades away, another thought takes over me.
I could have beaten everyone here. That’s the second whisper. My soul gets tormented by this thought as I slip into oblivion. If I had learned magic, no one would have gotten hurt.
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Comments
Fowl
The calmest reader of Casual Heroing
Fortunis
I'd kill them. I'd kill them all and shit in their dead mouths. I fucking hate people like that. They have absolutely no redeeming qualities and deserve no mercy and no place breathing my air.
Oliverthms
Hi, i don't think the subplot thingy fits there good. Either that or that nobody seems to find it socially strange to have this word as a relatively common vocabulary. Maybe I am just imaging things that aren't there...
