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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Bunnytob on 2024-11-16 09:45:30+00:00.

Look, it’s either that (and what to not do), or I’ve had the most atrocious luck with the Humans I’ve met in my life of just about anyone who’s met as many Humans as I have.

There was one Human in my village growing up. Apparently she’d disregarded the memo on Halifang Xenophobia against everything that wasn’t an Orc - she figured, as I remember her telling me, that her being 1/16th Orc would count, or if it didn’t, her training as a melee fighter would protect her from our, y’know, Hally Fangs. Which other melee-minded folk like the Gnolls and Dragonkin seem to forget we have even though it’s in the name. It’s a lovely surprise… anyway, yeah, the Human. She had been told multiple times – we had told her multiple times, believe it or not – that something would end up happending to her, and she couldn’t care less. We had told her multiple times before that martial melee specialisations aren’t something that women are supposed to have in Halifang “society”. And a few of the braver ones apparently even told her to go somewhere more civilised. So when someone jumped her at night? Yeah, she won.

That happened five more times before those who wanted her out of the village just gave up. I think she still lives there. Not that I’d know, I, eh… let’s just say I had a falling-out with the village and leave it at that. I’d only burn a few houses down if I had to go back there.

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Surprisingly, no Human traders actually turned up to our village when I was young - at least, not that I met or recall - so the second time I met a Human was in Ye Olde Adventuring Pub. Kinda like this one, just more out-of-the-way and with fewer demigods frequenting. Or bartending. Yes, one of the bartenders is a very experienced adventurer. No I won’t tell you which one. Anyway, this pub, there was - I don’t think I really need to describe the scene too deeply. Some blonde Human cleric of Light and Healing with a permanent smile on her face was harassing a brooding Leather-and-Daggers in-the-corner Drow about accepting the fact that socialisation is an extant concept or what have you. He repeatedly told her to go away. She didn’t listen.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them again, but I did chase down the rumour mill a few years back out of idle curiosity. Allegedly, she unilaterally decided to retire after dying twice in a cave somewhere - didn’t want to waste any more divine goodwill - and then had a Half-Elf or two.

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The third Human I met was a Paladin in the group I got tacked on to for some crime-busting mercenary gig I did as my first real job. He was a Holy Paladin of Light and yadda yadda I’m not saying it. I didn’t fully get how Paladins worked at the time. I do now. With reflection, he must’ve been a real piece of work, some kind of insubordinate piece of genetalia who liked to use his title to grow his head size. He must’ve received a boatload of warnings from his deity(-ies?) already because when he shanked some poor sod in cold blood he just got dropped dead right on the spot. Yeah. Some types of Paladin oaths allow your power-givers to do that to you if you’re a jerk.

That was also where stuff went, shall I say, downhill. The fourth Human I met was one of the Crime Head’s goons. The original party sorcerer, out of spells, decided to bluff and tell the two goons, quote, “don’t try me.” So of course the Human did. That was the day I found out that Pseudo-Trolls bleed purple. Fortunately, none of the tackers-on were Human, so none of them said “no” when I decided we might be better off running away.

For what it’s worth, that crime ring went legit and got a pardon from someone hoighty enough to give them one after some incident involving an Aderyn-To. Someone didn’t listen to the “get back here alive” part of the motivational speech that was given, and, curiously, that’s when the Human vanishes from the record, so… what’s two plus two? Yeah.

Fortunately, the fifth Human I met was slightly less evil. One of the tack-ons I ran away with was a Half-Elf scion of some minor noble house nearby, and them nearly getting killed made the family re-evaluate their stance on adventuring. The fifth Human, then, was the half-sister of this Half-Elf, and she took over as the family glory-winner. The Half-Elf told her to get lost, she didn’t. I ended up in the same new adventuring group as her. I told her about the first Human I’d met and suggested she train in melee. She didn’t listen. That one might have been a good thing as our group ended up being a bit too large and with too many melees, so I parted on amicable terms after another guy - an Orc - got ejected for telling said Human to get lost. In the end, she- well, you’ve heard of that Mimic who became an Archmage a century and a half back, yeah? She studies under him now.

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And then the sixth Human I met…

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He’s a Bard. The lack of a “but” there should give you enough context to understand what I mean. When I entered the tavern, an Orcish woman was telling him to stop flirting with her. Did he listen? No. That’s how I learned that she was a cleric capable of mending fractured bones. That’s what it took to get him to stop flirting with me, too. We only ended up in the same party because a brooding Leather-and-Daggers in-the-corner Drow (a different one) ended up recruiting us to form a party. Add in the mage and the sorcerer - twin Dragonkin, back then - and we’d got ourselves a party of six. You may have realised who I am now. Or maybe my ego’s too big. Don’t tell me which one.

But yeah, that was us. It took a month… no, a month and a bit for him to stop flirting with the other three. Words didn’t work, of course. I think the Drow scarred him for life when she resorted to using actions instead of words. I’m told that a month and a bit is actually a below-average amount of time for a Human Bard, too. And with all of that, you may wonder why we kept him around. Well, why does anyone keep a bard around? He was just too good at his damn jobs, that’s why. You can tolerate him being a stubborn jerk if he’s really good at doing what you need him to do. Such as persuading the seventh Human I ever met to stand aside after the worst battle we ever had. Granted, he that was just a side-effect, because, y’know, you can’t tell a Human to do things, but hey, small wins.

But yet, Human #6, or rather, “the Bard”, as I shall call him from now on, was a bit insubordinate.

I told him to not fight that Gealbhan. Did he listen? Nope. Our cleric learned a new healing spell after that.

I told him to not fight that Txolarre. Did he listen? Nope. Our cleric used that new healing spell after that.

I told him to not to fight that Zhvirblis. Did he listen? Yes, actually, but it shouldn’t have taken him three times to learn to heed my advice on not fighting things, dammit!

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And yet, despite all of that, he was a damn good Bard. We were all damn good, actually. I wield a very mean pair of swords, or a spear, or an axe, or really anything you put into my hand. The Orc knew far too many healing spells for her own good and, once she’d found some hobgoblin mace she apparently had a bloodline claim to, also knew too many non-healing non-spells for our enemies’ own goods as well. The Drow didn’t fight in most of our battles, unfortunately, but that was because most of her battles weren’t really fights, per se. And the Dragonkin Duo could sling out every type of magic that the Bard couldn’t, and then some. I’m the only one of the six of us to not know a healing spell, and that was true back then, too. And that was the six of us, fighting crime, getting into fights with the Vorobey the Bard pissed off that one time after Dragonkin #2 told him not to, and generally moving up in the world.

Which is a hell of a way to gloss over, what… four, five years? Human #8 was a tavern-keep who I don’t think we ever made demands of, but many an adventurer had apparently suggested he move where he kept his tavern, according to the bard. Human #9 was dead before we knew she was even there but she would probably have tried to kill us, Human #10 was a cultist who refused to stand down, and Human #11 was an even more insubordinate little piece of coprolite who went the same way as #3 when he directly violated the rules our Cleric - of the same deity as his Paladin Oath - set out for him. I still hold that he was sent by someone to infiltrate our group by someone who wanted us dead.

And that’s it for all the Humans we saw over those years we at all interacted with or even heard about, really. They aren’t too common where we were, obviously enough, but - yeah, I guess I saw roundabout, ehh… just under a hundred other Humans for maybe a few seconds each. Couldn’t be certain all of them were even Human. But I’m digressing.

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It was roundabout the time when the Drow patched things up with the Vorobey (and the time when the Bard, against my advice, started a fight against a Varpunen and a Varblane at the same time that we had to bail him out of at the cost of our Cleric’s first Divine Intervention) that we ended up moving to the blazing ruins of The High Kingdom. Yes, those Blazing Ruins of that High Kingdom.

No, we weren’t the party of three plucky locals who went from sewer rats to Godslayers in the span of a year and a half like something out of a stereotypical fiction novel, but it was from them that we learned that divine avatars could be slain. We just helped ourselv…

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