Aporeu chronicles Issue 90: Backstreet Beatdown
Stories from the adventurers
This week
Cleaning up the docs and some internal fighting.
Backstreet Beatdown by Manis
I have traveled all over the world, helping the ones in need. After I arrived in this beautiful town I decided to join the Adventurers Guild. That way I would be able to help the people in Arnheim more easily. I expect that the guild would be filled with noble people with hearts of gold… Apparently I was wrong. My first mission was to get rid of this group of thugs called the Backalley Bulldogs. They work with a powerful real estate mogul Jarvarax. This Jarvarax has been exploiting the people in Arnheim for a long time and will be brought to justice soon. Our job was to make sure that the Back alley Bulldogs would not be able to help him. Our mission giver was an imposing man called Denton. He told us that the thugs are led by a Dwarven woman named Mardeth “The Mauler”. It is always nice when the nickname of a thug is an alliteration of her first name. There is just a nice ring to it. Denton told us the hideout of the Back alley Bulldogs was at the docks. So our team of valiant heroes went to the docks. To understand my story it is important to know who was with me on this mission. We were a motley crew. First we had Whiltin, he is a very powerful gnome wizard. The Half-orc, which made a mess when he walked into the room, was called Kaaravic. The last two members of our crew were a goblin wizard called Booyagh and a weird human with fungus growing out of him called Harbinger. I might have to watch these last two. Oh wait, I did not introduce myself. My name is Manis, I am a protector of the weak. Our crew went to the docks to observe the hideout. We immediately saw that there were many guards with dogs patrolling around the compound. To make things even worse, behind the windows there were many guards holding crossbows. A head-on assault would be suicide. So we came up with a cunning plan. We had to sneak into the building and attack from the inside. Since we all could see in the dark, we waited until nightfall. At the back of the building there were no torches and there were windows on the second floor. We decided to try to get into the building that way. We could get to the back of the building via the water. First we decided to swim there, however we did miscalculate how cold the water was. So within seconds we were back on the shore, unfortunately not at the back of the building but at the place we went into the water. We thought of a new plan. We would get a dinghy and try to traverse the water that way. Getting the dinghy was more difficult than I anticipated because Booyagh got into a fight with the drunk owner of the Dinghy. Luckily Kaaravic convinced the drunkard we needed the boat to kill the Goblin. So everything worked out (after we got Booyagh back since he ran away).
When we got to the back of the building Kaaravic turned into a spider and carried us all one by one to the roof of the side room, which we could use to get to the second floor of the main building. The fight went surprisingly well. Of course it helped that we had a fire breathing spider (caused by a good cooperation between Kaaravic and Booyagh). It also helped that Whiltin was able to use a spiderweb to make sure our foes got stuck. Harbinger was also a very good fighter, he held his own making sure many thugs could not reach us. His molds and mushrooms are very effective. Unfortunately I got stuck on the roof with 2 thugs. When I even lost my 2 daggers I really thought I would not survive this mission. Luckily I could kill one and get away from the other. In the end our crew was too much for them. However we still didn’t find The Mauler. When we inspected the office we found a trap door leading to the cellar.
In the cellar we found more guards. We surprised them by rushing in and killing the first easily. Whiltin again used his spider web and grease around the door which made it an impermeable threshold for them. The Mauler spent most of the fight lying on the floor and getting stuck in the spider web while we killed her minions. Still, she was not easy to hurt. When we finally vanquished the Mauler there were only two guards alive. I convinced them to throw away their weapons and surrender. So the fight was won. We achieved victory and even captured the two guards. They could be valuable for our cause, who knows what information they hold. On top of that, we minimized the casualties. Unfortunately Harbinger had other ideas. He immediately killed the first unarmed guard. I could not tolerate such waste of life. So I confronted Harbinger and was able to persuade him into not killing the second guard. However while I was doing that Booyagh said something about how killing an unarmed man might be bad for our reputation. He then killed the second unarmed guard and muttered something about leaving no witnesses. So much for the noble people with a heart of gold.
When we returned to Denton he was pleased with our success. He rewarded us and thanked us for a job well done. Hopefully on my next mission I will work with less bloodthirsty people.
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