"Get up, you dirty beast!" a threatening voice calls out in the darkness. 

Garik slowly awakens on the cold ground in a dark alley branching from the street he had been on before. His head pounds constantly, and he blinks rapidly in an attempt to clear the blurriness in his eyes. He is unable to stand on his own, so he struggles to get off of the ground using the wall behind him to get onto his feet and then leans on it to prevent himself from falling to the ground again. 

Looking out towards the other end of the alleyway, Garik eyes meet several masked men glaring back at him. Most of them are standing at the opposite end unarmed, presumably to cut off an escape attempt or just to look intimidating with their numbers. 

Three figures stand at around thirty feet from Garik, with two of them holding weapons. The dark-haired menacing figure in the middle of the two is empty-handed but wears equally dark clothing and a number of sheathed knives, identifying himself as a well-equipped rogue. 

Garik notes that they all appear to be humans who are no more than a few years older than him and recognizes that the person to his left must have been the one who initially attacked him. 

The man in the middle speaks. "Stand there and shut up if you know what's good for you. This is your only warning, you uncivilized creatures are not welcome. I'll cut off whatever you orcs are planning before it even starts. The laws in this town may permit you to live here, but I won't allow you to terrorize its people." 

Garik, still leaning on the wall for support, silently looks in confusion at the end of the leader's last statement. The leader goes on for a while before declaring, "We haven't forgotten our ancestors' effort to purge the world of monsters like you!" 

At the mention of the word that had hurt him so deeply before, Garik angrily starts to storm towards the masked man but before he can pull himself up, a knife zips past Garik’s head, embedding itself in the wall not an inch away from his neck. The half-orc stares in shock at the knife before returning his gaze back at the leader of the group. He casually walks towards Garik with a mischievous smirk on his face. 

"Now now, I didn't expect you to be so stupid to attack me in front of all of these people." 

Garik carefully watches the leader as he approaches. The leader reaches for the knife while putting his face inches away from Garik’s. 

He whispers, "Do not expect to get out alive if I see your face around here again." 

He shoves Garik into the wall and yanks the knife out, the blade slicing Garik's neck on the way and causing blood to burst out from him. Garik falls onto his knees, holding his neck in a desperate attempt to keep the blood from escaping his body.  He helplessly watches the gang leader walking back towards the other members who are panicking because of what they have just witnessed. He stops about halfway back to them. 

"Don't worry, he... probably won't die," he looks back at the half-orc bleeding out, "besides, no one's going to worry about a dead animal in an alley."