Chapter 14: Cutbastra Walks Into a Bar

Cutbastra stood between two taverns. One of them smelled like rancid vomit, and the other like stale piss. If he walked a few more steps down the streets, there were another pair of taverns, facing each other, with the same broken windows and putrid wood planks and old creaky doors. If he walked up the street? Another two taverns, for this was BackKnife Town, the most grimdark place one could ever accidentally find, because nobody visited it willingly.

Cutbastra entered the one bar whose name seemed not to imply imminent trouble: The Victimized Stoics.

His cheery aura seemed to illuminate the place, making the gray hooded figures and the shitstain-brown-dressed thieves in the corners to contort in pain and run from such a source of beauty. He sashayed through the tables flaunting his ponytail to the unsightly patrons of such a decayed cantina.

He approached the counter and held a stare with the barkeep, a hardworking man who had lost eyes on three different occasions and thus looked at him with a collection of deep sky-blue patches.

“You are a cute boy for someone who dares wiggle their sexy butt in here.” The bartender said, not winking under the patches.

“How can you see when you have lost both eyes?” Cutbastra asked, genuinely curious.

“Being blind doesn’t pay the rent, princess.”

Oracle popped out of the pocket to see where they were, smelled the odor of so many different bodily fluids the only way to describe it is segregated humanity, and returned to his safe space. “Wake me up when we arrive to a place whose main export is legal, friend.”

“So…uh… why are there so many bars here?”

The barman spat on a tankard and began cleaning it, if only to set the atmosphere. “Supply and demand, sir: this is a Grimdark town, we import bars and export capable men.”

“Capable? Are those though-looking guys back there mercenaries?” Cutbastra asked, smiling innocently. Maybe some of them had killed children and could help him share his sorrow, help find a way to cope.

“Well, not exactly. Some do mercenary work as a hobby. But, to exemplify what I meant by capable men, look at that table over there.” The bartender pointed precisely at the center of a table where three bulky, roughed up, men with matted hair sat at, the smallest of them was blonde, the biggest brunette, and the middle one bald. “That flea over there? He’s Johnny, Local Morning Rapist. To his left, the bald one, Sereno, Local Evening Rapist; and to his right, Prick, Local Nighttime Rapist.”

Cutbastra remained in silence. “Is that some sort of slang for rapeseed farmers?”

The bartender left the tankard to a side and raised his hands trying to dispel the misconception. “No sir, honest to the gods sexual predators.”

Cutbastra turned to look at them briefly, and Prick winked at him. He straightened his head and looked back at the bartender. Why was he scared? He was stronger than anyone there. He could kill them before they even blinked. Then why, why did his lips tremble.

“Pour me a drink, bartender, I have currencies from all over the world in my pocket dimension. Name one you accept and I shall pay with it.” Cutbastra felt the cold kiss of metal in his neck. Several times. The sole mention of coin had manifested eight different armed robbers, and five pickpockets (One of them a pickpocketienne) out of thin air. Cutbastra’s neck was environed in different daggers, of steel and bronze, rusted or not.

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“Listen, gentlemen and lady: I am an immortal, your weapons cannot hurt me. So, please, desist of this bother before I rip your dicks out and make a bouquet out of them.”

“What of me?” asked the masked woman.

“Fallopian tubes, dear, make perfect bows for a cock bouquet.” Cutbastra smiled softly.

One of the thieves pressed the dagger further into the immortal’s flesh, or at least tried to, until the metal gave in and the point of the blade broke, shooting through the air, landing on the back of a fellow patron that, for the thief’s fortune, had just been murdered moments prior.

“Dude! That was my working tool!” The thief complained. “I am going to sue!”

“Yeah, foreigner, not fucking cool, Liberto has a family to feed,” another chided.

“Yeah, do you have an idea of how many children I have?”

“Orphans, if you keep bothering me,” Cutbastra said with a killing glare, and one of the thieves, the weakest of the bunch, fell victim to it, grabbing his chest while grimacing from pain, just to then fall as he died from a heart attack.

“Well, to admit it, neither do I have idea of how many children I have” Liberto admitted and began walking away. The rest of the group followed, insulting Cutbastra’s insensitiveness the whole time, not caring about their dead member.

“Tell me about the rest of the patrons, what about that table?” Cutbastra pointed at a table where a tall, short haired woman in leather armor was talking to a man who had decided ‘perfectly square’ was the ultimate male body shape.

“That’s Tilko, Local Rapist with Dwarfism, and the woman is Jaidana, Local Female Rapist.”

Cutbastra, in a desperate attempt to find humanity in that den of disgrace, pointed at another table. “No names, just occupations. I can find out names myself.”

“Local Sleepy Rapist, Local Weekend rapist, and Local Unionized Rapist.”

And he pointed at another table, and there were the Local Pool-table-cleaning Rapist, Local Blacksmith Rapist (he had the workshop inside another tavern), and Local Weekday Rapist.

“Is there anyone here in this bar that isn’t a rapist?”

The bartender pointed a table where three men in suits stared fixedly at a coffee cup placed in the center of the table. “Those are known as the Victimized Stoics, the establishment namesakes. They compete to see which one stands getting raped more times a week without breaking.”

“Excuse me?” Cutbastra asked, eyes and fingers twitching. “They do what?”

“Yeah, not your kind of people, then?” The bartender then pointed at a lonely, lanky man that quivered alone in a corner. “That one surely ain’t a rapist, maybe you can meet him. Of course, I am not, either: no time to commit heinous crimes when you are a bartender.”

Cutbastra asked for two drinks, specifically the ones whose taste was the furthest away from deer piss —which wasn’t much different from drinking urine, not in a grimdark town— and advanced towards the little, scared figure.

“Hello, wanna have a drink and talk a bit?”

“Will you drug me and rob me?” he asked, dejectedly. It was clear this poor man, only in his 20’s, had suffered more than many.

“No.” Cutbastra said, laughing.

The man began sniffing and unbuckling his belt.

“Woah woah woah! I am not like them; I am foreigner in search of peace of mind.”

The man buckled his belt back up. “Fine, I believe you. Worst case scenario, you are like them and the result is the same as always. Why are you searching for peace of mind?”

“I did something horrible in self-defense. Caused the death of many innocents in the process.”

“Having a consciousness won’t help you in this town, buddy. But I am glad I am not the last good person around. “

Cutbastra passed the man a bubbling drink and, leaving the other upon the table, shook the man’s hand.

“Name’s Cutbastra. Pleased to meet you, Mister…”

“An exotic name, Cutbastra,” said the man, smiling for the first time in a long, long while. “Call me Local.”

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“So… did you plan on burning a whole town after finding out the name of the only good man in it, or was it all just improvisation?” Oracle joked as he and Cutbastra watched the lazy flames sway and lick about the valley down below.

“I burned no town, as I never visited a place called Backnife, because it doesn’t exist, and whoever puts it on a map is on my hit list, Oracle.” Cutbastra said, left eye still twitching.