[u][b]Akio[/b][/u] It was rather shocking to see someone so ill-mannered as to kick an apparently defenseless barmaid in front of so many. He thought he wasn't so sheltered after spending so much time on the road, away from his family, but maybe he's still a bit lacking in that regard. In any case, while he was addled by the possibility that this wasn't particularly abnormal for a patron of a raucous tavern, it didn't occur to him to step up in the good lady's defense. He'd left behind the stifling calculus of [i]honor[/i] and was used to having to look the other way so as to avoid a diplomatic incident. His first thought was that the ornery Dwarf would simply be banned from the tavern and that would be that, but then their cleric walked up to the man to ask him what he was doing, and Akio couldn't help but wonder why he wasn't the one doing that. To put it less charitably, he sat there like an idiot while the cleric and the hunter both beat him to the punch. Still, he wasn't prepared to start a bar fight for fear of troubling the tavern more until the Dwarf and his thuggish compatriot both openly announced their intention to attack their healer based on his race. So, an irreconcilable conflict, then. Well, so much for sparing the tavern keeper the trouble. Akio quietly casts Mage Armor on himself as he readies his dagger. (Initiative Roll: 15)