The snickers were starting to get annoying. Just a little. He pushed the spectacles back up the ridge of his nose. More snickers, even a couple guffaws. Glancing up made them all turn their faces away quickly, but did nothing to stem the childish giggles that followed. As he read the spectacles slowly slid back down the ridge before catching on the bulbous part of the nose. Whispers, snickers, chuckles, giggles. Enough.

“Do I amuse you?” His voice was not overly loud, but it was a foreign language to him, and making the correct sounds was difficult, so the words come out louder than intended. The men exploded with laughter. He closed the book with a snap. This created a new wave of laughter. Fine, the imbeciles could enjoy their watered down spirits without his company.

Rising from the table he placed the book in his satchel, shouldered it, and moved towards the door. “Well, look at that, boys! Guess the stories are all wrong about ‘em. He’s just gonna run away and cry!” The highly inebriated bar patrons burst out once more, this time louder than any time previously. The target of their mockery ignored them, continuing toward the door.

Suddenly the laughs stopped and the voice came again. “Hey, before you leave, you should buy us all a drink for having to put up with your stench!” Chuckles mixed with murmurs of consent. He sighed and turned to face the men.

“You think you funny?” They laughed more. Burn this language barrier, he would have to use some universal gestures. “You want me give you something?” They all nodded with stupid grins on their faces, the leader of the group standing up and pointing at him.

“As a gesture of good will, you buy us a drink, and we’ll not beat you and rip up that book. Not like you could even read it anyway. You’re not foolin’ no one, mate. You had it upside down!” The group together bent over with laughter. Rolling his eyes, he set down the satchel. It was a common mistake. Gnomish writing was not like Common. Well, he’d had enough of this buffoonery.

Reaching out, he grabbed onto either side of the nearest table. It was round, and the people sitting at it were trying very hard to appear not interested in the current situation. Their eyes widened when, with a wrenching sound, the table top was torn free of the single post holding it up. The laughter also died down, except for the man standing up, still pointing.

His laughter didn’t stop until the table top struck him right in the chest, carrying him with it until it struck the back wall of the establishment, effectively crushing the man into two halves, his chest exploding from the impact. The previously laughing men stared blankly at their friend, his gore drenching them.

Grimrod casually bent over and picked up his satchel. “Enjoy drink,” he said loudly before turning and leaving. He wasn’t five steps from the bar before he heard someone running up to him from behind. Great. It wasn’t over yet. Some people never learned. He turned, ready for a fight, but was caught off guard by the smiling face that greeted him.

“Hey, big guy, that was quite a show back there! You’ve really got a great aim with tables. Whenever I try to throw tables at people I usually miss and it goes right through someone behind them. Then through the wall. Don’t know my strength sometimes, you know.” His grin was insufferable. Not half as insufferable as the feathered hat he wore.

“What you want?” Grimrod asked, continuing his walk away from the bar.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“You’re one of them barbarian folk, right? From the highlands? Over above Thruinbilt?”

Well, the man knew geography. Pushing the spectacles back up his nose, the barbarian asked, “Why you ask?” The man’s eyes glanced at his satchel and lit up.

“Oh, hey, you’ve got a whole bunch of them book thingies in there! Wow. What were you reading upside down anyway?”

What was wrong with this person? Did he have an attention deficiency? Grimrod sighed. The book was a treatise on the proper dissection of various breeds of mutated insects found in the Blasted Zone, but he didn’t yet know any of those words in this wretched language. He did the best he could. “Book on how cut monsters.”

“Wow, sounds fun, big guy. Right up your alley. Look, I don’t want to have to keep calling you big guy, what’s your name, pal?”

Grunting, getting more annoyed by the moment, he decided to humor the strange man, hoping to get rid of him faster. “Grimrod.”

“Well, that is a name that suits you just fine.” He stuck out a hand, “The name’s Kendrik, and it is a pleasure to meet you, friend.”

The barbarian finally stopped, reached out and shook the man’s hand. Kendrik squeezed, hard. Or at least Grimrod assumed he was squeezing hard. What was this, some kind of attempt to show off? He considered crushing the man’s bones but decided against it, attempting instead to get to the point of this bizarre exchange, “Why you ask questions? What you want?”

“Yes! Right! I am a person who has been commissioned by The Society to assist in the recovery of certain objects of interest to a very influential and wealthy benefactor.” Grimrod blinked at him a few times. What were all these words he was using? Though he was learning Common as quickly as he could, this man seemed to be intentionally using vocabulary that would be beyond any new learner. What a jerk.

This being his sixth language, Grimrod defaulted to the first thing he always learned with any new language, “I no understand.”

The odd man nodded knowingly, then said, very slowly, “I pay you. You follow me. You smash things. I pay you more.” He smiled and gave two big thumbs up.

It was tempting to just smash this man right here right now, but the unfortunate truth was that Grimrod was low on cash. He had come to Caliphas to learn the language and customs of the so-called “Common” human empire, hoping to disappear in the crowds of the capital city. So far so good. He had, however, grossly underestimated the amount of money he would need to subsist on. Attempting to apply anywhere for work had been an exercise in utter futility due to the language barrier, and now he’d just killed someone. That wasn’t likely to go unnoticed forever. He had seen enough bar brawls go sour to know that such murder wasn’t uncommon, but the guards did still have to at least attempt to discourage it, and he was a unique enough character that he wouldn’t be difficult to find.

“Sound good, little man, Kendrik. Me follow you.”

Kendrik may have had an insufferable grin before, but now that grin turned downright pathological. “Yes! Yes! This is great! You won’t regret this, Grim! Let’s go!” The large barbarian put a heavy hand on the little man’s shoulder. He turned, looking slightly confused. Grimrod held out an empty hand in front of Kendrik’s face.

“Pay first.”

A nervous little laugh wheezed from the man’s lips. “Eeeh, of course! My mistake. It’s not much, to begin, you understand. I can’t give you a fortune now and have you skipping town on me. But a little something for you to get supplies. Yeah?” He had been searching through his pockets and chest pouches while he spoke the words, growing more confident with each syllable. Finally, he produced two coins and put them in Grimrod’s massive palm.

“I understand,” the big man said, putting the coins in his satchel and nodding his head. “Now me follow Kendrik.”