Aporeu chronicles Issue 74: Champions of the Colosseum
Stories from the adventurers
This week
Another day, another fallen adventurer. Svæin, the big hulking beast of a man, fell in the Arena. He did have a smile on his face though... So, if nothing else, it does seem he died a happy man.Champions of the Colosseum by Q
This mission isn't really a Guild thing, so we're meeting at the Colosseum. There's Mr. Cor, Mr. Svæin, Ms. Effie, Mr. Styx, and myself. The Nightstalker. There you have it. I'm the Nightstalker that Doc V was talking about. We're greeted by Mr. Ruzak Rumblebringer, a grey Dwarf with white hair. He asks us what 'stage name' we'd like to be announced with. Mr. Styx says he's "Styx, the Soulthirster", Mr. Svæin is "The Mountain Made Flesh", and I'm "Q, The Nightstalker". And Mr. Cor and Ms. Effie didn't have a name yet, so they'll hear what they've come up with when we start our fight! I'm curious to learn what they'll think of for the both of them. We go into a waiting room, and discuss some of our abilities for those that might not have fought together before. Mr. Cor's all green today, and he says that he can do something cool. I just need to give him a signal and he'll try his best to get ME to move with magic instead of himself. I'm curious what that'll be like. As we're lifted up into the arena for our first fight, there's some rocky platforms around us, and a few stalagmites. Then, after we've gotten our bearings. They bring in a Chimera. Which is a sorta cool, sorta ugly critter with the body of a lion, hooves of a goat, and wings of a dragon. And the heads of all 3. As the fight begins, Mr. Svæin runs up and pokes it with a lance, Mr. Cor shoots it with fire, Ms. Effie chucks a ball of... sound? at it, and Mr. Styx does some spooky magic that grabs it by 2 of the throats. I'm just patiently waiting for the thing to get distracted by someone being real close to it before I shoot it. Then the damned thing flies up overhead and tries to roast Mr. Cor and myself! I was alright, but Mr. Cor fell down. It must've hurt him real bad. It all happened really quick, too. I make sure to feed Mr. Cor a potion so he stops sleeping on the job, though. Then, as the first one is looking pretty badly hurt, they bring in ANOTHER ONE. Figuring we should deal with the one that we've been hurting a bunch first, I rush up from my little hiding spot of sorts behind the rocks, jump onto the thing's back, and pull out my metal whip. First time I got to use it in a fight, and it didn't disappoint me! I manage to wrap the chain around the lion head's neck, and using some quick thinking to make sure it doesn't get free too easily. Then Mr. Svæin figures he'll give everybody a good show as well, and he grabs the goat's horns, pulls back, and headbutts the thing so hard the horns break off. And the thing slumps to the ground. That was... pretty easy. Then it's time to take out the second one. Ms. Effie and Mr. Styx go to work on that one as Mr. Svæin and myself untangle ourselves from the slain one. And somehow manage to COMPLETELY AVOID the firebreath. That was awesome, and I think the crowd loved it. I run off to hide again, shooting at it from my little hiding spot. Mr. Svæin thinks its flying is annoying, so he tries to grab it and drag it down, but my shooting it makes it recoil just enough that he can't reach. Sorry! Ms. Effie singes it with some fire, and Mr. Styx jumps up and just slashes it with his massive axe. It's come down to the ground again, Mr. Svæin gets it in a headlock and drags it away from the others. I signal Mr. Cor to do that magic thing of his. I prepare my strike, and Mr. Cor helpfully poofs me a bit above the creature so I have time to adjust my angle of attack. With a perfect landing, I sink my blade into the dragon neck, and punch the goat head, while Mr. Svæin is choking out the lion head. And this one falls to our combined might as well. We go downstairs, and meet with Dr. Vincent. Who takes a look at everybody that got hurt, and patches everybody up quite handily. And without magic. I might have to see if he'd be willing to train me on how to do that. I'm sure mom and dad would be proud if I could learn that stuff. It takes about an hour for them to set up the next round, and we're told that the fight will begin as soon as we're raised up into the arena. It seems we're the beasts being brought in for others to fight, this round. I can live with that. As we come up, there's a jungle-like environment there, with 'savage lizardmen'. There's a few with shields, a big guy with a nasty lookin club with black shards in it, and 2 small ones with bows. I know who I'm going after first. I break away from the group and hide in a brush, take aim at the small one on a watchtower of sorts, and fire my Walloping Arrow at it. I know the tricks of hiding and then shooting arrows. Poor guy thought he was safe up there. He went flying with the impact and was dead before he hit the ground. Or floor. Whatever. Then Mr. Cor goes up to 2 of them with shields, and I worry for a moment... But then he disappears, with a thunderous boom, and reappears where the tiny thing had been just a second ago. And he shoots the shield guys from the top of that watchtower with some fire. Then Ms. Effie runs in and stabs one with an ornate looking dagger that leaves a pretty nasty gash. Mr. Svæin rushes to the other group and punches the club-wielding one, grabs him, and drags him to the floor. And Mr. Styx just goes ham with that big ol' axe of his. Ms. Effie gets knocked on her butt and assaulted by some of their nasty weapons. As if things weren't bad enough already with these things here. There's some kinda shaman that comes out of the hut behind me. He does some magic that makes a big tidal wave across Mr. Svæin and Mr. Styx, and then a colossal lizardman comes out of the water on their side, too. While I'm distracted watching that big bastard, a crocodile snuck up behind me from the water next to the brush I was in, and bites me! Being the small thing I am, I'm stuck in that mouth. But then I remember the potion I got from the Chronicles, and chuck it down this thing's throat. And he shrinks down, spitting me out in the process. I get away from the smaller croc, but it wasn't done with me yet. Meanwhile, Mr. Styx comes up to Ms. Effie and helps her out. By knocking one of the shield guys on their ass like they did to Ms. Effie, and then burying his axe in the thing's chest. The other small archer tries to hide like I usually do, but he just can't seem to find his mark. Little guy tried, but wound up breaking his bow and just trying to use a sword. Not that it helped him any. I go up to help Ms. Effie and Mr. Styx out with their little fight. Ms. Effie's dagger clearly isn't meant for fights like this, as she's having trouble landing more hits with it. Then she's knocked on her butt again, and looks pretty hurt. I don't really get a good look at what happens next, because that fricken croc won't leave me alone! It grabs me and drags me into the water. So I wiggle out of its mouth, get ashore, and hide in the brushes. Meanwhile, Ms. Effie has burned the 2 that were trying to kill her to death. Including the little guy that managed to be of absolutely no help to his friends. Mr. Cor's been busy making sure that Shaman of theirs didn't try too much stuff, and finishes off one of the guys that's been smashing at Mr. Svæin for a while. The croc can't find me, so he goes after Ms. Effie. Who takes care of him real easy. That Colossus figures Mr. Svæin's taken care of, and goes for Mr. Cor. So I distract the big guy by shooting him in the neck, and Mr. Cor's able to get out of there alright. Ish. He gets up on top of that watchtower thing, and finishes off the Colossus after I shoot it in the back to distract it again, and then hiding in the other bush again. It's not very flashy or glamorous, but it works, and I can't worry about my showmanship right now. Mr. Svæin's been on his back for way too long. Then Ms. Effie shoots the shaman that'd been hiding in the water and doing some more magic stuff. And after being hit in the face like his big friend, he starts floating like a fish. That took care of the last of the lizardmen, and we go over to check on Mr. Svæin. Mr. Cor comes over with a potion, but I stop him from wasting it. Mr. Svæin, "The Mountain Made Flesh", sadly passed away. I hope anybody reading this and thinking of joining the Arena for glory... Please don't let your desire for a 'grand show' stop you from taking any of the fights seriously. As you've seen, they can end with death if you're not careful. At least he died doing what he loved: Fighting in front of a grand audience, and showing off what a tough bastard he was. After the fight, Mr. Ruzak asks if we're feeling up for the last round. Which would be against another group that's been fighting for glory. We discuss among ourselves for a bit, we figure we'd be honoring Mr. Svæin the best by going out there and kicking ass. Winning glory. We meet up with the people we're gonna be fighting. There's Mr. Elric, a human that thinks he came from a fairy tale or something. Ms. Bronma, a Dwarf with a big ol' hammer. Ms. Raina, a human that's more than a little bit off her rocker. And Mr. Dax. To be fair, I totally forgot about him until I saw him there. Mr. Dax asks if we're with the Guild, and says that he wants to thank the Guild for giving him a second chance. We brought him in as a prisoner, and Mr. Elric bailed him out. And showed him there was a better way of making money than what he'd been doing before. I have to say, I'm glad that it worked out for him. He seemed happier than he was when I first met him. Though I don't think he recognized me. Then again, he never even saw me the first time we fought. Come to think of it, I think he barely saw me this time we fought, either.
Mr. Ruzak explains the rules of the upcoming fight to the whole group:
No killing, or finishing off downed opponents.
If you get knocked out, you're out of the fight. Even if you get healed.
No looting people. (Guess that means I shouldn't pilfer things while they're not knocked out, either.)
We also get to pick the terrain for our side of the arena, while their team does the same for their side. We pick some watchtowers with poles and a rope between them for me to use, some strips of brush I can hide in, and a brush so I can move from one end of the arena to the other without being tracked too easily.
If that sounds like a lot of things in my favor. I don't know why they let me pick all the stuff, either. Mr. Cor asked for the watchtowers, and I asked for the lines after he asked for those.
I also went out during the hour for preparation to get a hand crossbow and some bolts. I made pretty good use of it, I'd say. Though it's definitely not on par with my normal skill just yet.
I'm gonna take care of that after we're done with this whole mess.
As we walk into our side of the arena, there's a magical barrier in between the halves, so we have a tiny bit of time to get into position for what we wanna do.
I get on top of the middle pole, so I can move as I need to, and prepare to shoot that crazy lady with my crossbow when the barrier goes down.
Sadly, their side had a big stone tower on it, and she got behind that before I got a chance to shoot her. As I zip across to the right, I spot something moving around a bit of sand to the left, but don't think too hard on it.
Mr. Noaz showed up instead of Mr. Styx for this fight, and he shows down with Mr. Elric. Who does some kinda magic and his sword begins to glow.
Mr. Cor tries some ice magic but it doesn't really work, Ms. Effie runs in and hurt 'em bad with more of that burning magic she does. I shot Ms. Raina, and she is so upset that she explodes a fireball!
Not sure if that's cheating or not. I didn't hear anybody say it was, so I guess it was okay. If it had been cheating, it was really bad, because she hurt Mr. Elric way worse than any of us.
My next shot at her misses because she's arguing with Mr. Elric and moving around a bunch, and I don't have the time to carefully line up my shot with this new weapon.
So I hop off the watchtower with a little flourish, it's still in front of an audience after all, and disappear into the bushes they set up at my request.
Mr. Elric sets his already glowing sword on fire, because of course he does. Mr. Noaz does something similar and hits Mr. Dax pretty hard, and the flames even hurt Ms. Bronma. That's a neat trick.
Though Mr. Dax is a Red Dragonborn, so the fire doesn't really bother him all that much. The hits Mr. Noaz deals him after that hurt him plenty, though.
Mr. Bronma does some magic and all 3 of their weapons start to glow. If Mr. Elric's sword could even glow any more.
I use the fact that Ms. Raina is distracted by Mr. Cor on the far side of her tower and shooting magic at him to scamper up the side of the stone like it's a ladder, and stab her in the ankle.
They said I wasn't allowed to kill people, so I'm just gonna be a pain in the neck. Or shoulder. Or ankle, as it turns out.
Mr. Noaz sounds angry, so I peek over the wall a bit, just in time to see Mr. Dax go down to his blade. And then Ms. Effie stabs Mr. Elric in the back of the knee, giving him a little kiss on the cheek, and then punching his lights out.
Not sure if the knee-stabbing or the kiss were necessary, but she seemed to think so. Then she's hit with a tomato from the audience as she's drinking one of the potions I gave her.
Seems like she got some in her eye, because she's screaming and running away, flailing her arms. That's... not as graceful as I thought she'd be. Seems to get a laugh from the crowd though.
Ms. Raina proves she's nuts by jumping OFF that tower, and hiding behind a pillar. Then muttering something up at us. Of course, she shouldn't have peeked out, because I manage to hit her in the other shoulder.
And she is so shocked that I managed to hit her that precisely that she goes down. As I slip down the tower as well to make sure Ms. Raina's okay, I spot Mr. Noaz telling Ms. Bronma that she should surrender, as there's no way she's gonna win against all of us.
He gets to keep the potion he was gonna give to Mr. Elric to make sure he was okay, because Ms. Bronma does some magic I think Doc knew. That makes it so people don't bleed out.
It wasn't until after that I learned that Mr. Cor had accidentally hit Ms. Effie with another ice spell and knocked her out. Or again.
I think Ms. Bronma hit her pretty hard and she went down, then healed Ms. Effie like a good sport.
After the match is over, and I hope everybody can still be friends, even though we sorta tried to kill each other, there's a big feast in honor of everybody that fought.
And especially Mr. Svæin, who came to fight there a lot, and who will be greatly missed. I bet he was feasting in the halls of Valhalla.
That's where someone like Mr. Svæin goes when they die, right?
-Q, The Nightstalker-
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