you cheated... ouch!

It could have been a good day, if only Rune had found any better opponent.

Those guys were definitely not good at playing cards.

That day Rune went to her usual tavern, as she did almost every day in the two weeks she spent in that city. It was a good place to train her skills. Cheating at cards, telling and spotting lies while talking with the customers, sometimes she even stole something. It was like being at a fairground to her.

Rune was a spy, and she was a werewolf. Half werewolf, to tell the truth. Her father was a werewolf himself, while her mother was a human.

Being half something sucks. As a half werewolf Rune could not shift into wolf shape. She was quicker and stronger than humans, she also had a better sense of smell, but not as much as if she was a full werewolf.

Anyway, it was better than being fully human.

That day the girl couldn't find any good challenge, and she ended up playing cards with those three guys... well, two of them looked like two idiots, and the boss wasn't that good neither.

She usually started winning after the first four or five hands, and she always started winning few coins before starting playing seriously, but that day... playing with those guys was really boring, that's why Rune decided she would have cut it out, winning everything at the fourth hand

"Looks like I won!" Rune said collecting the coins

"You won my foot!" The boss couldn't understand what happened. It looked like that young woman won like four hands, leaving him and his two fellows with nothing more to bet.

The first hand he thought he was distracted by the woman. She wasn't really that kind of woman he could lose his head for, not the most beautiful woman in town surely, but she was kind of pretty. She wasn't really sexy, but her dark red long shirt had a very interesting neckline. And the first hand was lost

The second hand he thought his fellows were distracted. They were both young, and they would have been surely be attracted by that young woman. He caught one of them while he was clearly looking at the strange features that woman had instead of his cards. He obviously hit the guy to bring him back to the game, but he looked almost hypnotized by her wild brown eyes. And the second hand was lost.

The third hand… it took just one angry look and his fellows came back to the game without further distractions. They cheated as much as they could, but it looked like that brunette was way too lucky that hand. And the third hand was lost.

But the fourth hand…there was no way they could lose that too… unless that woman was cheating too… it took four hands to him to understand what was going on, but he finally got it. The wolf woman was cheating. And the fourth hand was lost, unless…

The boss looked very angry, he even slammed his hand to the table... yeah, really scary... Rune took a look at him, then she kept collecting the coins

"You cheated" yeah, like he didn't...

"Did I? I assume you can prove it..." Rune kept cool... there was no danger after all, if they ended up into a fight she had no doubt she would have an easy win.

"There's no need to prove it! I know you cheated!"

"So... you cheated and you lost, so I must have cheated, right?"

"You're rig... ouch!" One of the two idiots tried to talk, but the boss beat and stopped him

"All right, let me explain it better... you are a bad cheater and you lost, how is that my fault?" Rune asked

The idiot number one (the one who spoke before, the other one still couldn't understand what was going on) was puzzled, so he looked at the boss, hoping he would have explained "how is that her fault?"

"Are you stupid or what?" The boss wasn't sure if he was angrier because of the girl or because of the idiots...

"What? Oh, right..." looked like the first idiot finally got it... "you cheated!"

The three of them finally got up and looked at Rune with a threatening look... or at least it was a threatening look in their mind...

"Seriously?" Rune looked at the barman "what do you say?" She liked the barman, and she didn't wanted to disappoint him. He left her do her stuff in that tavern for days, so it seemed a nice idea to ask his permission before she started any serious trouble.

"You know what I say" he raised his hand and waved in the door way "troubles outside"

"All right..." Rune got up, she got her purse with her income... and she started running.

She ran outside, through the alleys, she knew she was way faster, but she also knew the guys knew the city way better than her.

She actually thought about stopping and fight, but those three idiots were not too bad... I mean... they were totally bad at playing cards, but they didn't seemed bad people to Rune, she could smell that.

That's why she decided not to kill them, at least for now... running would have been enough.

Unless the bumped into something which could stopped her, of course... something like... I don't know, a little drow kid? Yeah, a little drow kid, of course! So... you know what happened, they crashed, they drop their purse, they got it back and they both start running again.

So Rune was still running, until she reached a sewer... no bridges on the left nor on the right for a while, and keep running alongside the sewer would have been a little too open, so the young woman just jumped into the sewer.

She swam to the other side and she climbed up.

The first thing she saw was a large pair of boots. The second thing was a large orc. She saw several orcs in her life, but this one was... weird... he was offering her a hand... like he wanted to help her getting up... an orc...

She couldn't expect something similar from a human, how could she expect that from an orc? She was still unsure about what to do when the orc grabbed her from the back of her clothes and lifted her

"Hey no, wait..." She tried to say

"Stay here" the orc answered bluntly and dropped the girl behind some barrel

From her hiding Rune could barely see what was going on, but she definitely heard the dialogue the orc had with the three guys.

"Orc! Hey you, orc!"

"What!" The orc sounded irritated... those guys were really stupid, they should know you should never talk to an orc that way...

"Ehr... Sorry if I bother you, Mr. Orc. Did you see a girl running this way, by any chance?" That sounded better... Rune watched over the barrels and she saw the guys bowing while they spoke to the orc... well, two of them were bowing, the third one looked like he didn't get what was happening...

"Why are you looking for her?" The orc seemed a little too interested in Rune's stuff...

"She cheat... ouch!" Idiot number one tried to speak, but probably the boss beat him, Rune couldn't see them, but the boss used to beat the others a lot

"She's a friend of ours... we... ehr... want to buy her a drink... or something like that..." this one was the boss... he was the only one who could at least try to lie... anyway it was too unconvincing, even for an orc... or at least Rune hoped it was

"Stupid humans..." the orc definitely spotted the lie, and he was clearly irritated by that "yeah, I saw her, she went that way" for a second Rune was seriously worried... then she saw the orc pointing at some random direction, and the guys running away. The orc helped her, after all... not that she needed help, but she definitely appreciated it.

"Hey, thanks!" She said getting up

"So... you cheated?"

The orc was definitely too interested in Rune's stuff... but he seemed a nice guy, so there was no need to lie to him... plus, lying to an orc was too easy, and definitely not funny

"Of course I cheated! Same as them!" Rune thought for a second "no, actually I cheated way better, since I won"

The orc sighed "I guess I'll never understand you humans..."

"Hey, hey! I'm not human! I'm a werewolf!" Well, half werewolf, but there was no need to say that

"Bah, you pinkskins all look the same to me..."

Pinkskins? Was it like an offence? It didn't sounded like that, so Rune just smiled

"Well, thanks for your help anyway... I'm Rune" she said shaking the orc's hand

"I'm Viktor, and it was a pleasure... by the way...have you seen a drow kid?"

Yeah, that kid... She definitely saw him... too late to avoid the crash... "I did actually. He went that way, but he's surely far away by now..."

"S**t..."

Why was the orc looking for the boy? Anyway Rune couldn't smell any bad intent, and the orc helped her, so she thought it would have been nice to help him back

"Hey, maybe I can trace his smell..."

"Can you do that?"

"Well... at least I can try..." well, that was half a lie... She could definitely trace the kid, she had no doubt. But since she had no idea about why the orc was looking for him she wanted to be sure she could change her mind if it turned out the orc was not as good as he seemed.

She started sniffing and they both headed towards where the kid would have probably been...