Aporeu chronicles Issue 85: A Dragon's Ire

Stories from the adventurers

This week

Almost fell of my chair laughing from that ending.

A Dragon's Ire by Barruk

A Dragon’s Ire
This was the second quest with the same people. This time it was less confusing
(I knew who to kill) I like that better than our last quest. The group consisted of the same people:
The dumpster Queen (Blanche): I like her, she healed me after a fight and she makes sure our foes do not move too much which makes it easier to kill them. Furthermore she can be very scary. She summoned a swarm of Spiders which killed many of our foes. Suddenly I like spiders a lot more after today.
The melee wizard (Pinker): He understands how to fight, he keeps up close and personal. Although he does insist on using small knives. He killed foes with it. However he did almost die in this fight. Next time I see him I will give him my small battle axe.
The fireman (Whiltin): he really is handy. He put out all the fires around us and kept the whole block from burning. In a fight he is less useful. He was standing behind me most of the fight. He was there every time I killed another foe with my newly found skill of my greataxe. It was so strange, often when I hit a foe he was hurt badly but only died a couple of seconds later from acid damage. I did not know my greataxe could do that (note of the editor: I have been told that Barruk does not have a greataxe that does acid damage. Whiltin on the other hand does have a spell using acid).
The agent of Chaos (Errus): A fight with him is never dull. This time he killed a lot of people. I am amazed how many spells he does. However the strangest things happen when he does a spell. Suddenly he got the ability to disappear and appear somewhere else. In another fight after one of his spells, suddenly more than 10 people disappeared. It made it that much harder to kill them.
Now that I introduced our group let me get back to our quest. Before we got to the Quest giver (Olivia Vanderburgh) we made a stop at the City guard. Errus started talking to that strong fighter we met last time, his name is Denton. I did not fully understand what happened. It looked like Errus tried to get us thrown in jail. He kept on telling Denton how we broke the law last time we saw him. But apparently he had a plan because after they talked for some time Denton decided to join our quest on his day off, to try and collect evidence.
We were tasked by Olivia Vanderburgh to help her get the incriminating evidence against Jarvarax (which we gave her last time) to the merchant guild. Apparently Jarvarax hired the thieves guild to steal from the merchant guild, or something. I am not sure, it was a complicated story….. Jarvarax provided them with the blueprint of the building. And………. Ok I stopped Listening at that point. Our assignment was to get get Olivia to the merchant guild, preferably alive. When we were deciding what to do we were ambushed in Olivia’s office. There were many foes, but we all fought heroically (well most of us did). Yes the whole block almost burned down, but it didn’t and I think that is most important to keep in mind. I did have some trouble with hitting our foes, but my newfound acid powers killed enough of them. All the while Whiltin was standing behind me like a coward (Editor’s note: Again, Barruk does not have acid powers).
For people as strong as me the fight was not difficult. Yes Denton and me got hit a lot, but that is expected from such heroic warriors facing their foes head on. Maybe the other members of the squad also killed some of our foes. To the untrained eye it might have looked like I was little more than a meat shield while the others did all the damage, and I could not hit the side of a barn (actually the side of a barn was maybe the only thing I hit). But that would only show that you have an untrained eye. For some reason my companions decided that I could not kill one of our foes. They took him prisoner because they wanted to ask him questions. After that we got away in a carriage. The group decided that we should leave immediately and not rest even though many of us had used many spells. I am sure that does not come back to haunt us.
We traveled through the city in the carriage, but our scouts were not paying much attention because we got ambushed again. This time the foes were led by an assassin named Lazlow “the Magician”. He did not seem that magical to me when he died after stabbing a Tiefling. That is such a rookie mistake, everybody knows that you cut off the head of a Tiefling when you want to kill them. This fight was more difficult than the first one. Pinker almost died, and there were many many foes. This was the fight where the little spiders of Blanche were really useful. They killed many many foes. I did not know Spiders could kill so easily. Maybe I should get a pet spider, I must talk to Blanche about that.
The fight was pretty straightforward. We hit them and they died. And every now and then they got in a lucky strike. After the fight we went to the merchant guild and had no more complications. Once there, Olivia talked to a half-elf named Farrus Hemmingsworth. He also seemed convinced that this evidence could be problematic to Jarvarax. Denton also promised to continue his investigation into Jarvarax. After I threatened to kill the thief we captured, he told us he was part of a gang called the Back alley Bulldogs. I must look into them, although after the amount of people we killed I am not sure if there are any members left in the gang. Olivia was very grateful and I am sure Jarvarax will soon meet his end. Maybe we will be a part of that, or maybe other guild members will have the honor. Either way I am sure Jarvarax will not be a problem much longer.

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A Dragon's Ire by Pinker

(Editor’s note: That elderly gnome who always writes many pages about his wife throughout his stories came back again. This time I was quite busy and I informed him he had to rewrite, leaving out the stories about his wife, and he complied! After handing over the revision and receiving his reward he did spend another hour telling me about how his wife would not have liked how rude I treated him. I think next time I’d rather do the edits.)
Through the adventurer’s guild we received a message that miss Vanderburgh, who we had promised to protect last week was in trouble, therefore we assembled and decided to go to help her. First however, Errus wanted to go by the city watch.
When he outright told Sergeant Denton that he had been keeping evidence from the watch last week I decided to go for a walk and had a nice chat with a guard outside the station, such a lovely young man, and such a great listener! Eventually my fellows Blanche, Errus, Whiltin and Barruk came out, accompanied by sergeant Denton out of his uniform! I figured he had been fired on letting us go last week!
However, eventually I learned that Errus had told him everything, including how Miss Vanderburgh was being blackmailed by Jarvarax, and the connection between Jarvarax and the thieves’ guild. While the watch could not immediately intervene, so the sergeant took a day off work to come with us.
We made our way to the office of Miss Vanderburgh, who told us that she had contacts in the merchant’s guild. The blueprint we had recovered turned out to be of a building in use by the merchant’s guild but owned by Jarvarax, which explains how he came to have the blueprint. Miss Vanderburgh wanted to take the evidence to the merchant’s guild, but she has been under attack which is where we came in.
As we were discussing whether to stay at her office or immediately go to the merchant’s guild Errus noticed a suspicious figure outside the window. We decided to try to escape, but then there was a whistle coming from outside, and more men showed themselves. As they started throwing oil and torches into the building it became clear we had to move, and we made our way outside, some through the front, some through the back.
I followed Mr. Denton to the front door where he faced a huge mountain of a man. Waving my wand a little I took him down in size a bit, allowing Mr. Denton to defeat him easier. He had received some heavy hits so I gave him one of the potions of healing the chronicles had given me for earlier stories. Outside there were more thugs with crossbows but they were taken out as we went to the stable.
As Mr. Denton and one of miss Vanderburgh’s guards were hitching the wagons (I had to find a book in my store, Between the Pages, to find out what the proper term was to put them in front of the wagon!) another big thug came in through the back of the stables! I ran forward and threw my dagger at him, giving it a boost with my magic, but he ducked out of the way. I ducked into one of the stables, and he accosted the wagon with Miss Vanderburgh, so the guards had the wagon drive off, leaving me behind with this big thug in front of me, who did not like me shooting my crossbow at his back.
When he turned on me I decided to pull out a red pepper and after chewing on it for a few moments I felt this incredible need to belch. When I gave in to that need a huge gout of fire came rushing out of my mouth, burning the man in front of me quite badly, and setting the stables on fire! However he still kept coming, and as I felt the feeling of having to belch vanish again I just pulled out my trusted daggers, sticking one into his belly, then I jumped up, sticking the other one down behind his collarbone, hanging from it for a while as he sank down to the ground. I like my newfound magic but I keep being surprised at the effectiveness of my daggers!
Eventually when all became calmer Whiltin helped me to douse the fires in the stables, and then we could get on our way. A prisoner, Errus, Miss Vanderburgh, her two guards and Mr. Denton in the wagon, Whiltin on one of the horses, Blanche and Barruk walking up ahead, and I took place on the roof of the wagon.
However, along the way we encountered an ambush, Blanche tried to warn us but then we were already getting attacked. Several men with crossbows were placed on roofs around us, and from several sides other thugs came running up. As I was preparing to shoot at one of the crossbowmen another thug came running up, climbing on top of the wagon with me so I had to switch to him. While I got some good hits in I somehow lost consciousness until I woke up, seeing Whiltin over me saying something about me owing him a potion of healing. Of course I gave him my last potion before getting back into the fight.
After the fight was over, with some weird magic happening, including most of the group and the remaining enemies turning invisible, we were victorious and continued on to the merchant’s guild.
As we arrived and met with Farrus Hemmingworth, Miss Vanderburgh handed over the blueprint, and we spoke at length about what we knew about Jarvarax’s involvement with the thieves’ guild, with the blueprint and with plans to break in. An interrogation of the prisoner further helped to solidify the case and Mr. Denton said he would take it up with the guard captain.
We were thanked for our help, and rewarded handsomely as well. Such a pleasure to work for people who value our work, unlike Jarvarax!
When I was nearly back at my shop I remembered I forgot to tell Farrus that the book about venereal diseases he ordered had arrived, so if you read this please do come by the store! If you do not, I will do my best to bring it around.

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On the next issue:

The Show Must Go On