Chapter 375: Chapter 337 – Just Another Tavern Brawl

“Most taverns built in port cities, especially the ones closer to the docks, knew better than to hope for there to be no brawl. Accordingly, they either use cheap and disposable furniture, the sort they wouldn’t even blink about when they inevitably get broken, or splurge on particularly sturdy ones that would survive such brawls instead.

 

After all, there was no way a mass gathering of rowdy sailors, many of which were drunk on alcohol, would pass without a brawl of some kind happening.” - Chester Garibaldi, Long-time sailor and Captain of a trade ship.

“Gangway!” came a shout from inside the tavern just as Cal and the rest of the group - including A’ng-Whu - was about to reach it. They barely had a moment to react before a humanoid figure was bodily hurled out of the tavern’s opened door, to tumble and roll on the ground before they stopped when their back collided with a drinking trough for horses on the other side of the street hard enough that some of the water splashed down on them and drenched their clothes.

 

Cal looked at the grumbling figure as they got up and was simultaneously surprised yet not to see that it was Uruza, Arquivaldo’s “adopted daughter”, who had not seemed to care one whit about the drenched and dusty state of her disheveled shirt before she got up and went back into the bar while rolling her sleeves up.

 

After they exchanged half-confused glances with each other, the party then walked closer towards the tavern. As they approached, they heard cheering from what sounded like a rowdy crowd, as well as the occasional cursing and the sound of fists meeting flesh hard enough to be audible. They waited a moment to make sure that there was nobody being thrown out again before Cal took the lead and stepped into the establishment.

 

Inside the tavern, was a sort of orderly chaos. Multiple brawls had erupted all over the place, each of which happened in a cleared-out area, while other patrons simply lugged their tables over to the side to both make room for the brawlers and for them to sit and watch the brawl from. Cheers and jeers alike were shouted, barely audible through the overall ruckus, and ale was both drunk and splashed around, often on faces or heads which led to yet another brawl being started on the spot.

 

Cal took a look around the room, and spotted both Avigeya’s hulking figure and Uruza, along with a few other crewmen of Arquivaldo’s she had seen previously, in the middle of a massive brawl with a large group of therians that were each easily as large or larger than Avigeya’s already large form. No real surprise that Uruza had been hurled out of the door earlier, then. The half-merfolk woman was a good fighter and powerful in her own rights, but she was also a lanky meter seventy and maybe fifty kilos soaking wet.

 

For what it was worth, Arquivaldo’s crew acquitted themselves admirably in the brawl, despite the physical disadvantage. More noticeable was how there seemed to be no malie involved in the brawl, and the large sailors who were beating each other up looked more like children who were burning off their excess energy and aggression on each other instead. Had the fight been a malicious one, Cal knew all too well that Uruza would likely have turned it into a bloodbath within moments.

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The unliving captain himself, Cal found seated on one of the tables surrounding the cleared area where the massive brawl took place, cheering alongside some other members of his crew and many strangers - likely other patrons of the establishment - while he chugged down tankard after tankard of what smelled like strong ale.

 

Cal saw one of the other patrons, an obviously drunk woman, splash down a whole tankard’s worth of ale down the captain’s shirt. The captain laughed uproariously instead, and in turn overturned his own tankard over the woman’s head, after which both laughed out loud and cheered some more. Clearly brawls like these were not only a very commonplace occurrence, but was pretty much part of what passed as entertainment for the locals.

 

Behind the long bar, the tall and intimidating proprietor - a heavily scarred therian who resembled an alligator - just watched the mess with their hands crossed over their chest and a shake of the head, yet Cal also noticed that they seemed more amused than annoyed at the spectacle.

 

Her group carefully weaved their way around the brawls and the cheering drunks towards the bar, where the proprietor welcomed them with a nod, and quickly slid over full tankards of ale with skilled hands shortly after they were seated. Cal took a drink of the ale and found it stronger than most she had encountered outside dwarven lands, but also with a mellow flavor which was rare to find in stronger drinks like those.

 

“This sort of thing nothing out of the norm around here, huh?” she asked at the proprietor as she slid her emptied tankard over the bar for a refill.

 

“Pretty much,” replied the proprietor as they refilled the tankard with foamy ale and slid it back Cal’s way. She gave them a nod in appreciation over their skill, since barely any of the ale spilled over the bartop in the process. “Ain’t never had a week without at least a few. Doubly so when it’s the busy season, then it’s pretty much an everyday thing around here.

 

“They’re pretty harmless though,” said the proprietor in a way that made Cal think of a mother looking at naughty children. “Those boys and gals just needed an outlet after being pent up for months on end at sea, so they’re come ashore, drink their fill, beat each other’s asses end over end, then later in the night either head for the brothels or take a visit at each other’s rooms. Nothing out of the ordinary, pretty much. Youngsters will always be youngsters.”

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