Aporeu chronicles Issue 339: Colosseum: Survival Game 7, the Green Tide
Stories from the adventurers
This issue
The adventurers are called on to mercilessly slaughter a group of prisoners of war for our amusement. Some might raise questions about whether or not it is morally justified to put humanoids to death for the entertainment of a crowd, but fans of the colosseum have no such reservations!Colosseum: Survival Game 7, the Green Tide
Greetings champions!After the city guard heroically beat back an attempted raid from the wastelands, they took a bunch of prisoners, leaving the colosseum with a surplus of orcs, goblins, and other ugly buggers. This wasteland scum is basically bursting through the bars, so we need your help to thin them out a little.
Come, enter the arena, and show this vermin that Arnheim is not to be messed with!
Ashley
Hey everybody! It’s another story from Ashley. I know, pretty shortly after the last one. But I was able to make the first version of my special armor and I just had to try it out! And good thing I did too, because this kinda testing you can’t really do on a training ground. Anyway, I’m waiting in the Colosseum lobby, practicing my punches a bit when Altum strolls in, calm as ever. We have a little chat as Zuus the Half-Orc comes in. I ask him if he’s okay with fighting Goblins and Orcs and stuff, and he says that stuff like that happens sometimes. Keldri the Halfling is next, in a pretty dress that turns into an armored dress. Florence the Human and his horse Ferian are next to arrive. And last but not least is Adeia the Half-Elf. Keldri made some cookies for us, that “have some pep” to them, apparently. Adeia’s a bit of a hugger, which is kinda nice. Zuus says that he’s a druid of wildfire, and his buddy Ryu can teleport people short distances. He made good use of that, but the rest of us not so much. Then we meet Ruzak Rumblebringer, a Duergar that is the announcer for the arena, and he explains how this arena thing works. Basically, we’re gonna go in and try to survive as long as we can, and when we feel we can’t go any further, we surrender. At which point the fighting will stop and medics will come and attend to our wounded so they don’t die. There've been deaths in the arena, but Ruzak (and the rest of us) would prefer if we don’t add to that. After being brought to the waiting room, we chat a little bit, and I get excited. When the doors open, the arena is massive, and looks like we’re in a field, standing in front of a war camp. As we enter, Ruzak is up high, and announces us with the names we’ve submitted. Florence is “The Bolt”, Adeia is “The Frozen Fury”, Altum is “The Tempest of Time”, Keldri is “The Star-Crossed Maiden”, Zuus didn’t give a name, and I’m Ashley “The Guardian Angel”. And it’s indeed a Goblin War Camp, and we gotta try and capture it if we can. And of course, they’re not gonna make it easy for us. And I agree. Where would be the fun if they did? The first volley of arrows misses horribly. Altum does some magic that makes me feel a bit quicker on my feet, and between Keldri, Florence, and myself… 3 of the 4 Goblins up on the watchtowers are gone as quickly as they appeared. Sadly, Zuus and Ryu can’t really get a good angle. At least the Goblins that show up to replace the ones we killed seem properly shaken by what they just saw happen to their friends. I tell the others to take out the ropes that appear to be holding up the drawbridge keeping us from getting inside easily. Florence darts around adding more Gobbo’s to his lance, and Zuus climbs up to spot a Gobbo boss as I try, and fail, to hit the fairly thin rope. I need to increase my aiming precision, because this is just abysmal. Keldri continues harassing the tower she picked, Florence tries climbing up onto the wall but somehow manages to fall into his saddle. I’m not sure if he was just showing off for the crowd… He did say he spotted a Gobbo jester on the other side, though. That’s something, I suppose. Adeia listened and weakens the ropes, while Zuus gets up on the wall and gets slashed in the face for his troubles. Yeah, we really need this thing down. So, I set my suit to aim at the weakened ropes with pinpoint precision and snap both ropes at once, lowering the drawbridge. I wish I could do that trick more often, but it takes up a considerable amount of my limited resources to do. Keldri puts the jester and another Gobbo to sleep, as Florence charges in to get their boss, who’s barking orders. We do see one of the magic circles that both Altum and Ruzak mentioned. And thanks to Altum doing some research, we know we should get as many people onto those as possible when we trigger them. For now, there’s just WAY too many Gobbo’s in this place. A problem we tried to solve, but can’t really get a handle on because there’s just too damn many. Not helping matters is the boss grabbing a Gobbo to use as a meatshield when I try punching him in the face. Uncool, bro! Sadly, it seems my rushing in messed up Adeia’s plans and she calls out for me to move. But before I can do that, Altum makes a big gust of wind that blows Florence off his horse, and makes it really difficult for us to properly aim our attacks. All in all, I think that move hurt us more than it helped us. As evidenced by Zuus being able to just kill a Gobbo that’s nowhere near the wind. As the wind dissipates, Florence is laughing because of something the jester did and can’t stop. I worry and punch a Gobbo into the floor, and can just catch the tail end of Keldri smashing in the jester’s head. Which has Florence stop laughing. Guessing it did some magic or something. Zuus is off on his own somewhat, currently torching the wolves in their pen before they can be released. He does quite well with it, but can’t prevent them from being set free. At least it gave me an idea, and I lightly singed Ferian as I unleashed my flamethrower to take out the Gobbo boss, a Gobbo, a wolf, and seriously hurt the last Gobbo in the area. Then, I head to the nearby magic circle after calling out for the others to come join me as I trigger it. And I get a view as the Gobbo in the tower starts acting like the jester did. Well, it seems killing that jester doesn’t really work, and the others had the same idea, because they leave it be as well. Keldri kills some more things, Adeia joins me on the circle after killing the last wolves (and Ryu, which she felt bad about), we get to watch MORE Gobbo’s pour out of those tents. In hindsight, maybe we should’ve torched those tents too. And the Jester casts something that has Florence acting really strangely for a bit. At least until he smacks a Gobbo with his bow and snaps out of it. The magic circle is quite helpful, and I use a bit of the power I gained from it to torch 2 Bugbears and a Gobbo. Not quite as effective as the first one, and that one was a bit weak. I’m gonna have to look into that. See? Information you can’t really collect in just trials. Sadly, this point in the fight is the beginning of the end, as Keldri goes down. Which becomes a bit of a theme going forward, but let’s not rush to the conclusion! Altum checks on Keldri, who gets back up. Only to get knocked out again.
The next bit is a bit confusing as I think I was turned into a sheep for a bit by a robed Gobbo, and watched another robed Gobbo hit his friend with fire. I turn back into myself after getting hit. At least I can try and live up to my chosen moniker now, and send some of Razia’s protection to Keldri so the Gobbo’s can’t target her so easily. And because I’m kinda pissed at being turned into a sheep, I use the Bugbear’s thigh to get some height, and I end up splattering the poor Gobbo I hit with my punch. At least the 2 other Gobbo’s next to me seem properly mortified by seeing that happen. One of them even runs off into a tent to hide.
Altum triggered a magic circle on her way to check on Zuus when he went down. And I go down when I try to get to that circle. Razia’s protection failed me, sadly. Though I manage to see Keldri go down again. This leaves Florence in the unenviable position of having to pick between 2 allies to try and save. He gets me up on Ferian and rides off to the circle so I can benefit from its magics.
Altum grows really large after something a robed Gobbo did, Zuus effs up a Gobbo real bad as he gets up, and I float the suggestion that it might be time to consider tapping out as a bunch of Orcs and a Warchief come out. One of which rushes over to drop Altum. I get back some power from the circle and use it immediately to heal Altum. I just hope the audience appreciates how Razia’s blessing manifests for these things.
We fight valiantly, and even manage to turn the tide for a moment as Keldri ends a Bugbear before getting attacked by an angry bear. Because one of those robed Gobbo’s turned the Warchief into a fricken bear. At least another of the robed ones fries himself with lightning. Zuus patches up Adeia a bit, and while I’m glad most of our group is on their feet, I do tell them that we should consider surrender in order to ensure our survival.
Altum kills the Gobbo I was lining up to strike, as Florence continues the trend of most attacks missing him. A whole slew of arrows this time. I figure out I really need to practice my CQC because most of my punches so far have missed. Though the few that didn’t simply erased the poor Gobbo that got hit by it. I need to increase that hit rate to be a proper fighter.
I’m not sure what Adeia did, but she suddenly has a beard of feathers, and screams. I can imagine why. It doesn’t suit her at all! Keldri uses a circle and manages to quickly get up into one of the towers, and Florence steals the kill I was lining up! I bet he’s pissy because I hurt his horse a little bit. It’s FINE, barely even singed any of its coat.
Ryu gets the downed Zuus out of harm’s way. The bear mauls the robed Gobbo that shot it in the ass with magic, and turns it back into the Warchief as the Gobbo dies. As Florence finally goes down, we surrender when the only real target left is Ferian, who got dragged into this by his master, and we don’t want it to get killed.
And that’s the story of my first time fighting in the arena! It was pretty exciting, I learned some things I need to look at or improve about my armor. And I learned that I’ve forgotten WAY too much about my CQC training that I need to freshen up on. I’m sure a big city like Arnheim has someone that can help me do that.
Written by: Ashley Eisenhardt, “Guardian Angel” in training.
It was a beautiful day, I had my cookies baked with those perfect goodberries. I was a little bit late as the tasty cookies make you wait for them. It was a perfect day for a new mission as the last mission went perfect. I got my first experience with working together and fighting bad guys. So I joined this colosseum quest to fully test my capabilities as a cleric of the Death domain. However Death would visit a little bit too often into my life. I arrived at this amazing colosseum, very lovely. I arrived a little bit later but I luckily was not last, I would have been quite ashamed by that. You cannot make people wait for too long, that is not very kind. There were so many new faces who could taste my cookies. But for my own pleasure there was one familiar face from before. Zuus the gentle druid with his cute and adorable little monkey. They are so cute together on their adventure to see the world. There was also Florence, an elegant and handsome young gentleman with his stunning horse. A powerful and tough looking lady named Ashley. A mysterious and icy woman named Adeia who is not that cold when you meet her as she loves hugging and who doesn’t hahaha. Also a silent but effective lady named Altum. This story won’t go into many details as I do not remember them all hahaha. Sometimes my memories will fade away when I get a little too excited, oopsie. We as this powerful group got announced. I, the Star-Crossed Maiden. With my Battle maiden armor which is very beautiful and useful as I have to be clean and ready to help my comrades. The fight starts and I see the battle unfold. Tiny horrible looking goblins trying to shoot us down. Yet we fought back and I used my powers which still feel a bit weird, to be honest. Everytime I use an ability I lose a bit of clarity like I am looking at someone else, hahaha. So I don’t know how it happened but the goblins that I was looking at were falling to the ground. I mean I tried to help my companions but I think sometimes I do nothing. My spiritual weapon, a gravestone, was so daunting as it was on top of these goblins. Hihihi I don’t know what it was doing. Then the gate opened and we could look inside. A camp full of goblins showed up. A strange goblin got my attention as he was laughing very strangely, the bugger. As I used my sleeping spell they fell asleep, making it easier for Florence and his beauty Ferian to rampage through the camp. After a few rounds the goblins saw that one was sleeping and tried to wake it up and when we finally killed it, a bit later it was showing up again. How did he do it!? Has this creature taken over another entity, almost how I.. Nevermind. And then there were these scary dogs barking. However Zuus, my love, went to roast these scary creatures. And then it began. I died. Well not literally but these fiends of the green would hit me over and over again, and these courageous members of my group would help me up. In these times I started to realise what death really was. I saw my god, or the energy, so many times. The connection got stronger with death. I am not that kind of person. I really like life. However, something is pulling me towards death. Maybe these awful powers want me to show what it really is. I could only get a glimpse of the monsters from this moment on. I believe there was a wizard goblin, a hairy goblin and some orcs that would rush into the arena. I think I defeated one but death was taking over my body. I can also remember running into a tower to hide. But all these memories are fading. As I am writing this, I cling onto these memories with all my power but they are so hard, hihi. The last thing I can remember is a horse almost being stabbed and everyone stopped fighting. This was something I will remember that it happened however I cannot remember what exactly happened through the fight. Hopefully I did not look too scary, hihi.
Keldri
Keldri’s fight with Death. Survival game 7, the green tide.It was a beautiful day, I had my cookies baked with those perfect goodberries. I was a little bit late as the tasty cookies make you wait for them. It was a perfect day for a new mission as the last mission went perfect. I got my first experience with working together and fighting bad guys. So I joined this colosseum quest to fully test my capabilities as a cleric of the Death domain. However Death would visit a little bit too often into my life. I arrived at this amazing colosseum, very lovely. I arrived a little bit later but I luckily was not last, I would have been quite ashamed by that. You cannot make people wait for too long, that is not very kind. There were so many new faces who could taste my cookies. But for my own pleasure there was one familiar face from before. Zuus the gentle druid with his cute and adorable little monkey. They are so cute together on their adventure to see the world. There was also Florence, an elegant and handsome young gentleman with his stunning horse. A powerful and tough looking lady named Ashley. A mysterious and icy woman named Adeia who is not that cold when you meet her as she loves hugging and who doesn’t hahaha. Also a silent but effective lady named Altum. This story won’t go into many details as I do not remember them all hahaha. Sometimes my memories will fade away when I get a little too excited, oopsie. We as this powerful group got announced. I, the Star-Crossed Maiden. With my Battle maiden armor which is very beautiful and useful as I have to be clean and ready to help my comrades. The fight starts and I see the battle unfold. Tiny horrible looking goblins trying to shoot us down. Yet we fought back and I used my powers which still feel a bit weird, to be honest. Everytime I use an ability I lose a bit of clarity like I am looking at someone else, hahaha. So I don’t know how it happened but the goblins that I was looking at were falling to the ground. I mean I tried to help my companions but I think sometimes I do nothing. My spiritual weapon, a gravestone, was so daunting as it was on top of these goblins. Hihihi I don’t know what it was doing. Then the gate opened and we could look inside. A camp full of goblins showed up. A strange goblin got my attention as he was laughing very strangely, the bugger. As I used my sleeping spell they fell asleep, making it easier for Florence and his beauty Ferian to rampage through the camp. After a few rounds the goblins saw that one was sleeping and tried to wake it up and when we finally killed it, a bit later it was showing up again. How did he do it!? Has this creature taken over another entity, almost how I.. Nevermind. And then there were these scary dogs barking. However Zuus, my love, went to roast these scary creatures. And then it began. I died. Well not literally but these fiends of the green would hit me over and over again, and these courageous members of my group would help me up. In these times I started to realise what death really was. I saw my god, or the energy, so many times. The connection got stronger with death. I am not that kind of person. I really like life. However, something is pulling me towards death. Maybe these awful powers want me to show what it really is. I could only get a glimpse of the monsters from this moment on. I believe there was a wizard goblin, a hairy goblin and some orcs that would rush into the arena. I think I defeated one but death was taking over my body. I can also remember running into a tower to hide. But all these memories are fading. As I am writing this, I cling onto these memories with all my power but they are so hard, hihi. The last thing I can remember is a horse almost being stabbed and everyone stopped fighting. This was something I will remember that it happened however I cannot remember what exactly happened through the fight. Hopefully I did not look too scary, hihi.
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