KOBOLDS ... in a pub. Open tavern thread.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

I had been expecting to open the door to see a fairly busy public house. I had predicted there would be a few familiar faces scattered around the circular oak tables that littered the Greyhound's main lounge, supping their usual poison of choice. I had anticipated the reptilian presence, and a longer wait at the bar to get served.

What I was not expecting was an atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a katana. I was not expecting to see my friend Philomel van der Aart nestled at a table being oogled by random occupants of the inn. Though his presence in a drinking establishment was not, by any means, a surprise in itself, I was not expecting Storm Veritas to have specifically chosen this one to hole himself up in for the night. If I had bothered to take the time to put two and two together, I could have tied Philomel's presence to Storm's, but I had other things on my mind.

My less-than-elaborate entrance had come to a grinding halt and now I found myself statue-still in the gangway. Previously, my plan had been to simply walk up to the bar, order a nice cold drink and let myself slide into nice, drunk obscurity for the rest of the evening. Now, though...

Now there were a troupe of heavily armored, bipedal reptiles standing between me and service. I don't quite know for sure what the hell had happened; whether they had come in spoiling for a fight or whether, in the thirty or so seconds they had been there before me, Storm had said something to rile them, but claret seemed imminent.

Honestly, they looked pissed.

My first instinct, being who I am and carefully reading the mood around the room, was to survey their arsenal. They carried all of the niceties of war; gleaming steel swords, warhammers, axes and the armor to go with them. Lots of metal. That was good, seeing as the number one proponent of magnetism-related fatalaties happened to be sat ten feet away and, judging from the look on his face, seemed to be contemplating his next masterpiece in metallic origami.

I hadn't actually said anything yet to anybody, but despite the best efforts of the dwarven waitress to seat the unruly mob, the closest reptile to me had read my facial expression and made an assumption about my frame of mind. He snarled to his comrades, wrapped a clawed hand around the pommel of his sheathed short sword, and paced to me until he was about three feet away. He was a tall, golden eyed beast, with razor sharp looking teeth, scaly skin that was cracked from various scars and breath that could have dropped a donkey.

"Do you have a problem? Another meatbag. I can smell the fear!" The giant iguana spat through his enormous fangs. I had been in plenty of bar fights and I could tell from the spread of his entourage that they were positioning themselves in attack formation, keeping their distance tight between each other, ensuring their flanks were covered. This one, though, seemed intent on riling me.

I smiled.

"If you want to keep your hand attached to your arm, I suggest you back up a few steps, embrace an attitude adjustment, and give the path to the bar a wide berth."

I already knew that my words had fallen on deaf ears, but that was fine. As I spoke, veins of ice crackled and snaked beneath my heels, creeping out from underneath my boots and snaking their way to the armored boots of the lizard in front of me. He was too caught up in his bravado and swagger to notice that his feet were welded to the floor with dehlar strength ice. As he tried to step further forward to get in my face, his body jerked and he swayed to and fro from the momentum of being rooted. An enraged snarl preceded a storm of spittle, and there was a green flash as the thin, scaly hand tried to unsheath the blade at his side.

Five seconds later, the lizard was howling in agony, watching his hand spasm on the floor in front of him as Enpera's blade dripped with green blood.

"I warned you. Now," I said, calm as a coma, to the gathered Kobolds, "Does anyone else want me to make them famous, or can I just get a god damned drink?"