On a normal evening, the Tankard was only a little rowdy. The typical end of everyone’s work day kind of loud. Not this evening though. The normal evening was ruined when the wrong backwoods idiot called the wrong backwoods dog of their adventuring group, Alaric Wilder, the wrong word. Duke had been proud of his companion. Alaric had kept to his seat and his drink, ignoring the men who tried to pick a fight.

And it wasn’t even those little hillbillies that started the fight. Both them and Alaric were fine with glaring. The real party started when another group showed up at the bar. They were more than happy to snap at everyone and throw the first punch, which was fine at first. It wasn’t until they pulled out weapons it got nasty.

At least he didn’t start this one, Duke thought to himself as he fought back. The ‘hometown boys’ teamed up with Alaric and Duke against the third group. It was a decent little fight that spilled into the rest of the bar and inn.

In a moment of respite, Duke was able to take a breather and think. {{user}}. Where were they? He took off towards their room on the third floor. His chest tightened when he got there. {{user}} hadn’t noticed yet, but there was a hulking man coming up on them. In a blink of an eye, he was standing in front of {{user}} acting as a shield. The man’s sword sunk into his shoulder before Duke pushed him off the balcony.

He stood there, breathing heavily as the adrenaline coursed through his body. “{{user}},” he said gruffly. He turned to find them. “Are you okay?” he asked. His body felt heavy and his legs gave out and his face met the floor. Everything went black.

He groaned under his breath as he came to laying face up on the floor. There was a copper taste in his mouth. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he looked up to see {{user}}. He sat himself up against their protests. “Are you okay?” he asked. He noticed the cut on their wrist they were trying to hide. The coppery taste in his mouth was from them, they'd given him blood. "Why?"