The crowd, uneasy, took stock and warily dusted themselves off, frightened murmuring rustling through the bar as the men who’d been knocked over drug themselves to their feet, or lay groaning. That brown-haired dwarf Constans glimpsed just earlier, the one who had taken it upon himself to occupy the rest of the men he had inadvertently angered, took a knee in the center of the room with blood on his face; Constans could only assume that he’d fared better against the magical attack by simple virtue of his natural Dwarven resistance to magic. The blast seemed to have scared more than a few men sober; the fighting stopped momentarily, confusion abounding, but the crowd’s interest was piqued now. An elven girl snaked her way into the center of the room to whisper to the vulnerable dwarf, almost unnoticed as voices began to grow louder and more belligerent around its edges.
“There’s a mage in here!” someone brayed angrily above the rest of the confused voices, met with a chorus of affirmative grunts and shouts.
“Find him before he burns the place down!” demanded another local, met with an even greater roar of enthusiasm from the mob of men at his heels who had only a moment ago been happily battering one-another.
Constans spotted two familiar blondes in the crowd, moving in opposite directions; first Rhocanth, the other Enchanter Thais disappearing with great haste up the stairs to the relative safety of the lodgings above. This fact broke through to Constans, seemed pertinent in the circumstances. The Enchanter did not appear to have been wearing her Circle-sanctioned robes, but if the crowd directed their wrath toward mages she might yet be in danger of discovery.
Surely the Warden must be able to do something to stop this. Constans’ mild, even voice increased in volume (very possibly for the first time in several years) to cut through the crowd’s rising chatter, calling out for Rhocanth. “Warden, my brother and I are here. Thais has gone upstairs. What shall we do?”