Brackstead was small enough that you couldn't really get lost in it, but that didn't mean Symon knew where everything was. As he stepped out from the back of the inn, he considered how he was going to find the mayor. They'd first entered the town from the Western side, while he was currently in the South-East where the inn was. Mountains lay to the South, while the sea was to their North. He decided he would just walk towards the centre of the village and have a look around there.
The streets were sparsely populated, but it wasn't a complete ghost town. He passed a woman carrying a wicker basket full of clothes, who averted her eyes as she passed him. Two kids ran by him, one chasing the other in a game of tag, although their lack of attention for Symon seemed accidental — they cared more about winning their game than some foreigner.
After a few minutes of wandering through the village, Symon found one of the only buildings that was different from the rest. He'd spotted it previously and noted that it was still early in the construction progress, but he had to do a double-take when he saw it again. When he'd first arrived, it was just a waist-high square of stones. Since then, he'd visited the tailor, and gotten some food and information at the inn. It couldn't have been much more than half an hour since he first laid eyes on the construction, but things had progressed at a blistering pace. The walls were almost completely done, and it looked like some of the many workers were beginning work on the roof. It seemed Ledger-assisted builders could really work fast, even with just simple hand saws and hammers. When it was done, it would be about the same size as the inn.
Symon walked up to one of the workers who must have been on break and asked for directions to the mayor's office. The man looked him up and down a few times before responding. "Who are you? Are you with the Baron?"
He was getting a little tired of having to explain this, but in the villager's defence, it was a reasonable assumption. Everyone in the village was ethnically homogenous, while the Baron and Symon were both obviously foreigners, and similar looking at that. The Baron had more of a Mediterranean olive complexion, while Symon was noticeably paler, but they were certainly more similar to each other than they were with the villagers. Not to mention, they just so happened to have shown up in the village around the same time.
"No, no, I'm just here with a couple friends on an adventure. It's a cultural thing for them, I'm just tagging along. No relation to the Baron," Symon replied. "Could you just tell me where the mayor is and I can get out of your hair?"
The worker stood up straighter, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning. "And why'd you want to know, huh? What are you scheming?"
"What?" Symon asked. "Listen man, I'm just a travelling healer who thought the mayor might have need of my services. I'm not looking for any problems."
"Yeah, well, I think you might be. You expect me to believe you're a healer who just appears from thin air to come help our mayor?"
"I came from the desert, actually, bu—"
The other man guffawed loudly. "You think I was born yesterday? There ain't no way you came from the Wastes. The way I see it, you're either a changeling or an assassin. So which one is it?"
Okay, this is escalating way too fast. What the hell is this guy's problem?
Symon held out his hands placatingly, and when the other man stepped forward, Symon took a step back. "Seriously man, this is all a big misunderstanding. If you just let me explain..."
The other man lowered his arms from where they'd been crossed against his chest, though Symon didn't take that as a good sign. He could see the builder's calloused hands were clenched into fists and the way his whole body had tensed up slightly in anticipation. Symon might not have noticed it, if not for his Anatomy passive making it obvious to him.
As the man continued to approach, Symon lowered his outstretched hands and rested one on the pommel of his sheathed sword. "Seriously man, you don't want to do this. It's really dangerous for you to get close to me, you're going to get hurt," Symon warned.
That stopped the man in his tracks, but it had the opposite effect to what Symon had intended. "And now you're threatening me? You think I'm just going to let some foreign spy come into my town and start threatening me?"
Changeling, assassin, now he's saying I'm a spy. I'm starting to get the feeling he's just coming up with any reason to pick a fight.
The aggressive man was fairly well muscled, as he'd expect from someone working physical labour. He was currently unarmed, although he did have a hammer attached to his belt. He probably just had a Builder class, meaning he wouldn't have any special combat abilities beyond being strong. In contrast, Symon had his sword, his recently neglected pipe club — though it would probably take too much time to untie it from where he'd strapped it to his back, and of course both aspects of his magic. Overall, Symon was confident he could take this guy if it came down to it.
As his eyes flickered to Symon's sword, he seemed to come to the same conclusion. "Oi, lads, I need a hand over here!" he shouted out over his shoulder. The high wall of the in-progress building had been between them and the current workers, and the site was noisy enough that no one had noticed Symon and the worker arguing in the short period of time it had been going on. Sensing an opportunity, Symon moved his hand from the sword to his club, quickly trying to unstrap it. The other man seemed happy to wait for his friends to show up, so he managed to take the club out even after needing to fiddle with the straps.
He wasn't sure what this guy's intention was, and although it obviously wasn't something good, he didn't want to jump straight to trying to kill them with his sword. He was sure that's what Keelgrave would have done, but Symon didn't want to kill another thinking being unless he absolutely had to, regardless of the fact this guy was being a dick for no apparent reason. Besides, it wasn't like getting hit in the head with a heavy metal pipe was non-lethal, anyway. If he was going to be living in Brackstead for a month until the next trade ship arrived to ferry him away, he wanted to have a good relationship with the villagers. Misunderstandings could be explained after the fact, but not if he just started stabbing.
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Emboldened by a few of his friends coming out of the construction site, the man resumed his slow approach. Symon took a few more steps back to maintain a distance, but felt his back bump into something. It was the house behind him.
Fuck, I was so focused on not letting him get close I ignored my surroundings! Awareness of both one's opponent and surroundings was something Keelgrave had attempted to drill into Symon, but he was still a combat novice — especially against people. Recognising Symon's mistake, the angry builder charged straight for Symon, a vicious snarl on his face.
Taking the advice to heart, Symon tried to stay light on his feet, or at least as much as he could when wielding the pipe. He'd let himself be backed into a corner, and the only way out was through his opponent. Symon quickly accelerated, his foot pressing off the wall behind him like a sprinter's starting block. His sudden acceleration caught the other man off guard, and he reacted too slowly to completely avoid the oncoming pipe. Symon landed a glancing blow on the man's arm, sending him spinning but not doing much actual damage.
The two men turned back to face one another, but no one moved to continue the fight. Symon's adrenaline was already pumping, but he saw that the other workers were already at both ends of the alley, boxing him in. They weren't moving any closer, at least.
"What's going on, Boyan?" one of the workers said while casually leaning against a wall.
"This rich little bastard thinks he can get away with mocking me to my face without handing over any money, so now we're going to teach him a lesson," said the aggressive man, apparently named Boyan, looking around at his coworkers with a cruel smirk on his face. The fuck? Now it's a mugging? I don't think he even knows why he wants to beat me up.
"We?" asked the new arrival. "I don't think you need help with a little weakling like him." It felt like the other man was looking down his nose on not just Symon, but also Boyan. "Wait a second, isn't he an imperial?" Immediately, his expression changed from contempt to... fear? "Boyan, maybe you should apologise to the nice man for the misunderstanding, yes?" he asked. Symon still wasn't sure what the villager's opinion of the Empire and the Baron was, but it seemed to be working in his favour in this case.
"He's a godsdamned assassin! I'm going to stop him, and then Mariyka will see how capable I am!" Boyan practically spat out.
"Wait, what the fuck? You're seriously trying to beat me up to impress a girl? You're like, thirty, bro, at least." Was all this really just because of some childish infatuation? Symon had been thinking it was an attempted mugging of a seemingly vulnerable foreigner, or that he was just crazy. But maybe the truth was... stupider.
Symon's words must have pissed the other guy off, because he yanked his hammer off his belt, tearing it free of the loop that attached it.
"Uh, we aren't getting involved with this," said the still-nameless man, the more reasonable one who seemed to speak for all the other workers judging by their worried looks and nods of agreement.
Symon smirked at the spirit's words, something that sent Boyan into a frenzy. Once more, he came charging at Symon, and once more Symon charged back. This time, when he swung for the centre mass with his pipe club, it landed. Something cracked as the heavy metal pipe slammed into Boyan's chest, but that didn't stop the momentum of his body from continuing onward into Symon. He was both stronger and heavier than Symon, so their collision resulted in Symon being tackled. He didn't go down immediately, instead stumbling back a few steps, before once more having his back slammed against the stone wall behind him.
He felt all the air get knocked out of him, but his opponent wasn't doing too well either. What the others didn't know was that Boyan was already on a timer — Symon's threads had latched onto the other man the second he got in range. The man was doubled over, his shoulder pressed into Symon's chest and pinning him to the wall, but he wasn't content to just let his magic work. The angle was too close and awkward for a proper swing, but even still it would hurt. He brought the pipe up in one hand, then slammed it down with as much force as he could muster, which admittedly wasn't much.
In response, Boyan slammed his hammer into Symon's side, its smaller form compared to Symon's unwieldy club making it more suited to what was essentially wrestling. He felt something crack in his side, and his Anatomy told him two of his ribs had partially fractured.
"Fuck off!" Symon hissed out in pain and anger, dropping his pipe to instead slam his elbow down on the man's exposed back. Boyan let out a grunt in response, which was better than what he'd got from the pipe. Already, he could feel that the hairline fractures in his ribs had fused back together, so he was happy to continue this messy combat. He encouraged Seize to go as fast as it could, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he won. The next time Boyan reared back for another swing of his hammer, Symon grabbed onto his wrist. He wasn't able to completely stop the swing, but the impact wasn't enough to do more than bruise — with his Pain Resistance, Symon barely felt it.
With both men in some type of awkward hug position, Symon took the chance to look around at the other workers. They were all observing the fight with a variety of expressions, but not one had moved to help or hinder either participant.
That meant Symon was able to rain down blows on his opponent's back, and it wasn't long before the hammer swings weakened enough to the point that Symon could stop them completely, eventually pinning the weapon at his side while continuing to both elbow and drain the vitality from Boyan. It felt like a long time, though it couldn't have been more than a minute or two, but eventually, he managed to rip the hammer out of his opponent's slowly weakening grip.
With a heave of effort, he pushed the other man off of him and back into a standing position. He had a slightly unfocused look in his eyes, and swayed drunkenly as he stumbled backwards from Symon's push. He spared a glance at the hammer now in his possession but dropped it onto the ground. Stepping forwards, he quickly went over the steps that Keelgrave had taught him what felt like ages ago. He planted his feet firmly and, with a slight twist of his body, wound up before delivering a massive haymaker right to Boyan's jaw.
The impact stung his hand, but it was much worse for the other guy. He span around a full 360 degrees from the force of the blow before collapsing in a heap, unconscious. Symon could see that his jaw was broken, even without any helpful passives. Briefly, he considered healing him. No, he deserved what he got.
Symon stood up straighter and rolled his neck, any injuries he'd sustained already healed. When he looked around, he was surprised to see that none of the builders were paying attention to him. Instead...
"In the name of the Baron of Brackstead, I command you to halt immediately!" came the commandeering voice from down the alley.