presents

Uncivil Servantstarring Belkar Bitterleaf ™

by Rich Burlew

©2016 Giant in the Playground. All rights reserved. THE ORDER OF THE STICK, OOTS, BELKAR BITTERLEAF, GIANT IN THE PLAYGROUND, as well as all characters featured in this work, the distinctive likenesses thereof and related elements, are trademarks of Giant in the Playground. Thanks to all the Kickstarter backers who made this possible, and special thanks to the backer who requested this story. Original publication: February 2013

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Yeah, OK,I get it."Rumble."

Knock itoff, I know

you're—

—hungry.

rumble.

rumble!

RUMBLE!!

RUMBLE!!

RUMBLE!!RUMBLE!!RUMBLE!!

Hey!Back off,Wormy! I was

stealing thesesquashes first!Find your ownagriculturalsurplus!

Crap! Crap!

SNAP!!

KRNNTCH!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik! clik!

bonk!

bonk

!

clik!

clik!

OK, lessof a squash-eater,more of a squash-

eater-eater!

Come on!Give me a break!I haven't eaten

in days!

I betthere are sometender cornfed

gnomes around heresomewhere, go

eat them!

HA!

Suck mybutternuts,

clik-face! Thisshort loin is off

the menu!!

Now Ijust need to

wait here untilhe gets boredand decidesto leave.

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!clik!

clik!

clik!clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!SNAP!!

I can finallyrub this in the face

of that smug cobblerand his magical shoe-

making elves!

I don't knowhow many of myregular customers

will want 90,000 gpBoots of Eldritch

Supremacy.

Shhhhhhh!There's an enchantedleprechaun doing my

work for me!

Shouldn'tyou have started

by now?

Uggh!They call that

a blueberry muffinin this town?

I mightas well just throw

that directly in thecrapper and save my

digestive systemthe grief.

HA! Nobugs!

Well, exceptfor the fleas, butstill—a big decrease

in total bugvolume.

scrtch!scrtch!

I thinkmaybe I should

stay away from thesquash fields,

though.That's OK,

I can use myelite ranger

survival skills toscavenge for

food.

Who taughtthis guy to bake?

A troglodyte?

Baking is acomplex chemical

process, you know.You can't just throw abunch of ingredients

in a pan.

Hmmm.Maybe I'll do a

few loaves of breadfor the road...

...

We couldmake them into

sandals?

WHAM!

Come on!You expect meto believe that,

Jarnson?

??

I'm sureyou have a few

gold pieces tuckedaway for special

occasions.

No, Ireally—

Let's cut to the chase. You

live here, in my town—under my protection,

right?

And hereI am, asking you

for just a few goldpieces to make things

easier for theboys.

Would thatreally be sucha burden for asuccessful shop

owner likeyourself?

I-I guessnot...

Brint! Youknow the rules.We divided this

town fair and square,and his shop is in

my territory!

His houseis in mine,

Shart.

He doesn'tearn money fromhis house. If he'scoughing it up toanyone, it'll be

to me.

After all,I distinctly

remember nothingburning down in yourneighborhood this

past year.

I amso sick of you

interfering in mycollection efforts,

Shart.

Yeah? Afterwe kick your ass tomorrow, thatwon't be a concern

anymore.

Please, please!Just leave me be!Here, I have a few

gold—take it!

Who areyou giving it to,

me or him?

Does itmatter?

Of courseit matters!

Don't youwant to thankme for that?

*gulp*I don't want tobe in the middle

of this.

Sloppy, buta good shakedown.And it's nice to seethat this town has

a competitivemarketplace.

But theyreally shouldn't

be bickering by theside of the road

like that.

That's thesort of rookiemistake that'll

really come back tobite them in the

ass later.

R-Right,Brint.

What the—?

clik! clik!

clik!

Whoa...Shart, did you

just see—Fine, fine!

You want a pieceof me?

clik!

clik!clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

clik!

HA! Inyour face!

scrthnk!

clik!

clik!

Literally,because the knife

is actually inyour face.

CLIK!!

Oh, therags? Yeah, I

just escaped fromlike seven monthsof slavery, so...

Geez,that sounds

terrible!

Actually,I was pretty

impressed with theirbusiness model.

I mean,sure, their executionneeded some work—particularly the part

where theyenslaved me.

But as aproof-of-concept?

Really solid.

And, uh,what happened to

the slavers?

I helpedthem with their

executions.

See? Monsterswith skin like a

bageutte shouldn'tmess with a manholding a bread

knife!

WHUMPF!

Hey, thatwas prettyimpressive.

Eh. It'd bemore impressive

if I didn't have towash the knife before

I could finish mybreakfast.

Looks likeyou've fallen

on hard times,friend.

I saw.

Oh, comeon! That was hoursago! Don't you havebug stuff to do?

Damn it!The ankheg!

I watchedyou against that

monster, and I sawthat you're a man

with a uniquetalent.

Hey,wait up!

A talentI need on my

side tomorrowafternoon.

I've gottena squad togetherto take down this

loser Brint.I think

my chances arepretty good, but

with you on my team,it'll be a sure

thing.

I can't reallytake much money

away from the boys,but...I can offer

you 5 gp.

I canoffer you 10 gpto be on myside instead.

Back off,Brint! I got to

him first!

Gentlemen,I'm sure we can

come to some sortof arrangement.

Normally,I would suggest

pitting you againstone another in a bloodydeathmatch, but thatseems sorta redundant

in this case.

Hmmm. What doyou—

Damn, Shart!It's the deputy

mayor!

I can't getcaught talkingto you. I'll be

in touch.

Hey, wait!Goddamn it!

Hey, you!Halfling!

Thanks forchasing away two

perfectly good offers.I thought local governmentwas supposed to support

small business.

*huff!* *huff!*

Did youkill theankheg?

What's inthat, the Beer of

Eternal Life?

I've killeda lot of kegs

over the years, butI don't remember anyof them having an

ankh on them.

No, theankheg is thatbig acid-spittingbug laying dead

over there.

Why don'tyou just call it

Big Acid-SpittingBug, then?

Becausesadly, that's not

specific enough forthis region.

If youkilled it, I'm

going to need youto come see the

mayor.

Crap, wasit his pet orsomething?

What? No.Why would the

mayor of a smalltown have a giant

bug as a pet?

I would’vethought that

the applications ofa tunneling death

machine to regionalpolitics would be

self-evident.

Really?I can't think

of any.

Guess that'swhy you're thedeputy mayor,sweetheart.

Me too.

Yeah? What'sin it for me? And

the answer to thatshould be shiny andyellow and rhyme

with "old".And notbe Yellow

Mold.

OK...Igive up. What's

the catch?

There's nocatch. The money

is yours.

You're justgiving me asack of gold

coins?

You earnedit! You killed that

pesky ankheg that'sbeen tearing upfields all year.

The mayorhere put a 25 gp

bounty on its headafter it nearlyswallowed theJohnson boy.

See, the king's soldiers

protect us frominvasion, and the

police keep us safefrom petty

crime—

—but neithergroup is particularlyadept at fighting

monsters, or cultists,or roving bands of

brigands.

That'swhy I established

the Emergency Fund:to place bountieson threats to our

community, soadventurers likeyou will get rid

of them.

Wait,"adventurer"? Noway am I investing

this money on somerisky start-up!

No, no,you're thinkingof a venturecapitalist. And who

needs them,now that there'scrowdfunding?

I'm notsure I qualify,

then. But theseadventurer people—they get paid for

killing?

Oh, certainly!Thousands of gold

pieces, sometimes—though our fund onlyhas a few hundredat the moment.

Usually,they find out

about a bountybefore killing the

monster, but you'restill entitled to

the money.

We haveseveral other

bounties available,if you're interestedin helping protect

the town—

Yep, that'sme, town protector.

I'm very civic-minded.

But I thinkI get the idea, soif you'll excuse me,

I'm gonna go stimulateyour local economyso hard it screams

my name.

Wait—whatis your name, brave

adventurer?

So whatthe hell is anadventurer?

Well, youare, aren't you?You killed that

monster!

Basically,an adventurer

is an armed vagrantwho solves moreproblems thanthey cause.

That's enoughfor a bath, a new set

of clothes, new daggers,some decent food, and

maybe even a half-and-half!

I mean,twenty-five

gold!

Does thegentleman like

the style?

Sure,especially ifshe's goodwith her—

I meantthe style of the

clothing, sir.

Yeah, Ilike the cloak. Itsays I'm a badass

ranger.As opposed

to the dirty rags,which made me look

like a brokeassranger.

Mostbecoming,

sir.

I don'tknow about the

color, though. Don'tyou have anything

in green?

I'm sorry,sir. We only have49 shades of grey

here. We're importinga fiftieth, but it'scurrently tied up

in customs.

Well, Isuppose I can dye

them once I get toa color page. Can't

stay a prequel storyforever, right?

Hey, isthere a store

with paper and quillsand stuff around

here? There's astationary storeat the end of the

block, sir.

...Aren'tall stores

stationary?

Not thepeddler,

sir.

What doeshe sell?

The tailoringis completed,

sir.

Great!I've got bigplans fortonight.

What shouldI do with the

gentleman's oldclothes?

Burnthem!

One moreset for the heap,

dear.

A few morerags-to-riches

makeovers, godswilling, and we'll getthrough the coming

winter yet!

Bicycles,mostly.

So...ifthat mayor is

willing to pay me totake down some bigbug that's trashing

the place...

...imaginewhat he'll pay

if I take down somereal threats to the

peace and quiet of hislittle white picket

fences.

I just needsome supplies...

and maybe amessage boy.

Verygood, sir. If

you could juststand still, I'll

finish up.

Oh!

Are yousure about this,

Boss?

You wantto beat Shartand his guystomorrow?

I knowit's a little...

unorthodox...tohire an outsider

like this. But it'll befine. No harm

done.

Yeah, butBoss, wouldn't

it be better for themoney you're paying

to go right intothe—

You! Whatare you doing

here?!? Did youfollow us?

Me? Whatare you doing

here?

A messengershowed up with anote from that

halfling, saying tomeet him here and

he'd join myteam.

What? Hesent me one too,saying the exact

same thing.

...I don'tget it.

You know,Brint...this is

ridiculous. Whatare we doing?

Skulkingaround in a fieldtrying to hire a

random halfling justso we can beat the

other guy?

Now thatyou mention it,

it is prettysilly.

I think thiswhole "feud" has

gotten way out ofhand. This isn't why

I got into thisjob.

I thinkyou're right. I've

been so busy thinkingabout this, the rest of

my work has beensuffering.

Huh. I wasreally hoping luring

both sides here wouldend with you killing

each other.

I guessI'm no ToshiroMifune after

all.

Looks likeit's up to me,

then!

What areyou doing?!?

Killing youboth, obviously.Well, the "both"part will be more

apparent in amoment.

You stupidbastard!!

Geez, youthink you'd bemore grateful. I

made you top thiefin this town for

30 seconds.

Well, like18, but still.

BRINT!!!

SHTHNK!SHTHNK!

Yeah, but—

Whereare they?

This is supposedto begin in a few

minutes!

I don't know,sir. We can't findeither of them

anywhere.Well, send

someone to lookagain!

Hey heyhey. How'sit hanging,mayorfolk?

I stoppedby Town Hall,

but your secretarysaid you guys were

out here.

Oh, it's you,Fakenamington.

I'm sorry, we can'ttalk, we're waitingfor some friends

who are late.

Not aproblem, I happento have some late

friends righthere.

"Hey there,Mr. Mayor! It's

me, LowlifeThug #1!"

AHHH!!!

Oh mygods! Brint!

"Don't forgetabout me backhere—LowlifeThug #2!"

The wayI saw it, these two

scuzzbuckets shakingdown your townspeoplein broad daylight was

more of a problem thanan insect, right?

So, as anadventurer, I

killed them bothfor you. Problem

solved.

You—you horriblemonster!!

Huh?

I thinkI'm going to

be sick.

OK, nowI'm just

confused.

Is it becausethey're humans andnot bugs? Becausethat's straight up

racist, man.

No, it's not—just stop talking,

you vile littlepsychopath!

HlllrrrrkkK!

I think50 gp each soundslike a reasonable

price to me.

Geez, Itake it upon myself

to clean up your meanstreets for you,and this is thethanks I get?

Just forthat, I'm going

to have to chargeyou 75 gp a

head.

Clean up ourstreets? Do you

have any idea whothey were??

Yeah, acouple of lowdownextortionists who

each tried to recruitme into their gang

of thugs.

They weren't—they don't—

LOOK!!

Shart?!?What—what is

happening?

"Gosh, whatdid you do?"

"Yes, answerthe nice lady's

question."

I'll tell youwhat I did, Severed

Heads—I solvedtheir problem

for them.

What didyou do??

So...thesetwo dudes

were...The chief

of police andthe town fire

warden!

And whenthey said they

wanted someonewith my skill...theywere talking about

my verticaljump?

Huh.

And themoney they

were asking thatguy for?

OK, fine,25 gp for the

pair, then.

Finaloffer.

Pledges! Forthe orphanage!

We're notgoing to pay youfor killing them,

you idiot!

What?How is THAT

fair?

It's fairbecause wedidn't wantthem dead!

Well youshould have

thought of thatbefore I killed

them!

Not onlyare we not paying

you, but you're goingto jail for murder! Deputies...

those would bethe 3 slack-jaweddudes following the

police guy?If so,

I've got greatnews about yourmunicipal budgetfor the coming

tax year.

What? No!

Look, just...just go. We're not

paying you, so pleasejust leave town.

You've done enoughdamage.

Like I'd want tostay in a town that

can't even complete asimple transaction

like—

No problem,Dough Boy.

...

A town...

Services like,say, stopping

the town fromburning down.

...that isshamefully

understaffedfor basic civil

services.

You know,this "adventurer"thing worked outpretty well. Maybe

I'll try it againsomeday.

Nah. That'dbe stupid....

This isall my fault...

I divided the townup for them to

canvas...

I thoughta little friendlycompetition... I'll get the

deputies.