Just Another Bar Room Brawl

Seaside Tavern was great. We drank and consorted with the locals, fishermen, sailors, and of course ruffians and deadbeats. The night wouldn’t be complete without some drunkard bumping into Tempest and starting a fight. We ruffed them up a bit, but all in good fun. Local constable and barkeep calmed everyone down, and a free drink didn’t hurt either.

Suddenly I see a fisherman’s wife who should have had a hook in her mouth, and I couldn’t help but tell him so…….. a bit of a scuffle broke out again. All in good fun. A few well hurled insults, but no one hurt too badly.

A couple of our Troupe decided to scoot out early and find some side fun, so the four of us hung out a bit longer.

Outside we are confronted by a few of the bruised and battered from earlier in the night, and they brought quite a few friends… they wanted a share of the loot they saw us claim earlier….

Not wanting to cause any serious damage, or get overrun by a mob, I grabbed a handful of silver from my pouch and tossed it the other way, telling the scum if they wanted some treasure, go fight for it…. They did, and we ran. Got away from the angry mob for only a handful of silver, seems like a good deal to me.

One of the troupe started telling us of some guys they noticed in the tavern that were watching us, maybe sizing us up. Saw them again at both other altercations. Looked like they reported back to the sailor with the tri-fold hat. Felt like someone is trying to start trouble for us tonight.

AMBUSH !!! this time NOT by ruffians or drunk soldiers. This was an organized Troupe like ourselves, but they meant business.  At first I thought this would be a regular skirmish like in the wild. I would use my brawn and Swashbuckler ways to kick some butt, throw some insults, get them off kilter, maybe even surprise them with a spell they wouldn’t expect me to throw at them… but no, nothing worked.

I found myself with real wounds, with fighters that didn’t miss when I slipped by and didn’t tap or pull a punch. I got pummeled by a few crossbow bolts and thought “time to get outta here!!” but too late. I don’t normally back down from a fight, and I guess I decided to retreat a bit too late, as I suddenly found myself down, and all went dark.

I awoke to my Troupe battered and bruised. Had to thank RedThread for bringing me back with his holy ways. We have been through a lot together, and we always have each other’s backs. I can usually take a few extra blows with his help, which usually helps the rest of the troupe get through the worst of any battle. This is the first time I actually had to be brought back from darkness.

Looking back I guess we really didn’t pull it together this time. We didn’t have a strategy for situations like this one. Before we jump into a battle, we usually have time to hash out a strategy. We really didn’t use each other’s strengths or play off each other as we should. We really need to have a strategy, codes, expectations of each other’s moves and abilities, magical items or things that could help in ambush situations.

I have no idea how the rest of our Troupe survived, or how we got out of that predicament, but I’m glad to be here to stab another day. Barkeep !!!