Aporeu chronicles Issue 10: Old man Katan and the incredible mushroom band
Stories from the adventurers
This week
A farmers first adventure and the druid that got hit by friendly fire tell their story.Old man Katan and the incredible mushroom band, by a man named Bob.
It was a cold day, and I had just finished my work preparing for a well deserved round at the Lone Wanderer inn when a man wandered into my work space. His attire simple, his speech patterns nothing to be thought much of, but somehow he managed to captivate his audience with an almost childish charm. “Hello mister reporter sir?”, he says to me as he stands in front of me. “My name is Bob, and I heard about this newspaper reporting about all the adventures and such. I can’t read or write, but I’d like to at least do my part to help those who can find out what we are doing. Can you help me?”
As it was then, I figured it’d be a 5 minute talk before a long cold drink, so foolishly, I sat myself down and started my report. What came next, will probably boggle the mind of those who do not believe. But I can assure you, that I certified what this simple common man hero said as truth, albeit shaded by his own perceptions. What comes next, is true, factual knowledge as experienced by a man named Bob.
Now please allow me to explain to you. Bob used to be a farmer. He looks the part, talks the part, and when he came to see me he certainly smelled the part. Bob looked at me, and said “Can I sit down while talking? Do you mind if I smoke in here?” I tell him I don’t mind, and he lights up what can only be described as the worlds most aromatic, nose piercing fat mother of all cigars. Subduing what seems to be a cough, Bob begins his story.
”It all began 2 days ago in the morning. We were at the portal. There were 6 of us. There was Karim, a brown fighter human, A wee little Kobold called Q, A wood elf called Tamior, a Cat folk (It’s called cat folk right?) named River, which was remarkably appropriate you’ll find later, and a black elf called Quen. River read the mission for me, So I knew what we were supposed to do. We were to go through the portal to a new world. It was still unknown and we needed to find out what was there, and scout the area, then report back with our findings. We received squiggly lines, which in turn was like the magical address of the world. If you put in the wrong lines you might end up somewhere else, but I don’t know exactly how that works. I get the lines on a piece of paper and we all introduce ourselves. I kinda told that part of the story in the wrong order, didn’t I?”
Though it may not translate on paper, this man has a strange way of speaking. It appeals to me, but it certainly isn’t a trained skill. He seems to be naturally willful and talkative. “So where was I,” Bob continues:”Oh right, so we go through the portal. First thing we find out, is we’re ankle deep in swamp water, Q is knee deep. We wade through it and manage to get onto a patch of dry land with a few gnarled swamp trees and some grassy patches. Everything here looks different. The trees are blue, the water isn’t just brown, it has green colors, and the grass is mostly green blue…ish. Anyhow, our mission is to explore this place and so we discuss who can make a map. Karim says he can make maps, and Q says he can see lots of things when he climbs a tree. So he goes off to scout our surroundings. The agile little kobold made it up a tree before I could even admire his speed, and found out there was a fire nearby. With little knowledge of this area, any civilization might guide us into knowing what this world is like. This is what adventuring is supposed to be like. People helping each other doing amazing things.
Everybody agreed that the best course of action for us now would be to travel to the smoke. It takes a little time, but we make it to a swamp cottage where a man is taking a bath and he’s singing. That’s not weird, but there is an entire choir of mushrooms, purple ones with yellow spores, singing with them. Then the mushrooms steal the old man’s clothes. He quickly grabs his towel and gives chase. This is all very odd to me, but we as a group figure we might as well introduce ourselves.
I think the man was a little scared by us, because he fled inside and grabbed a crossbow. He thought we were assassins. Thankfully, I’m a farmer, and most of us didn’t look like assassins. And the one who does look like one, Q, is really tiny and adorable if he acts like it. The man explains he is a fisherman, and that assassins were after him, so he fled. He says his name is Katan, and that these mushrooms have been badgering him for a long time. Thankfully, it seems we have developed enough trust with him that he invites us inside to have dinner and a place to rest. Now allow me to explain something about myself before continuing the story. I get nightmares and headaches, and sometimes that causes magic to erupt. Which could cause a fire, or an explosion, or lightning. So I prefer sleeping alone in an abandoned barn, or in a tent or something like that. Safest for everybody. Anyhow, I was talking about Katan. Katan says the mushrooms are smart enough to understand him and they try to sing with him. I listen to him, but I’m thinking about something else. I figure it’s better to ask than to not know. So I ask him why a fisherman is targeted by assassins.
It seems Katan was a cattle farmer before. But as always, someone wants to push over the little guy, and he got fleeced by a person of high standing. Katan didn’t take it lightly, and in a kerfuffle the fleecer unfortunately perished in the heat of the moment, which I can understand perfectly. He killed the blackmailing person, and then found out he was important to others. So he fled through the portal and ended up here.
In this time, Quen and River manage to learn mushroom language. I don’t know how that works exactly, but they tell us the mushrooms are worried about mosquitoes. It’s getting a bit late though, so we have to prepare for sleep. Katan tells us this is Lichkemy swamp, and that it has a fancy elven name, but I can’t really pronounce it. It sounded like a pig when you feed it something you like but a bit less piggy and a bit more like a nice lady who is also a pig. I guess I am terrible at explaining elf language. Sorry Elves. Anyways, Katan tells me he’s been raising a boat. He had it since it was a little boat, and now it’s a rowboat. I don’t know much about the lifespan or growth cycle of boats in this world, but since we can talk to mushrooms, I don’t see why a living boat is impossible. It seems the boat hasn’t got a name yet, and I think every sentient creature should get a name. So I pet the boat, and I whisper and talk to it a little. To me it looks female, so I figure Belinda would be a good name for a boat. Now I have learned from my mother you can’t just barge into a lady. You have to treat her right.
So I give her a little rub, she’s a bit sticky, but I think that’s because she likes me. So I ask her if it’s ok if I sleep inside her for the night, and there’s a little bit of a creaky noise. I don’t know exactly what it means, but I feel like it’s ok for me to enter the boat and have a sleep.
In the morning, I wake up, and I help Katan with his fishing tackle. As he finishes up filling up the boat, we are assaulted by a massive crocodile. The crocodile chomps at Katan, but he misses and eats a mushroom instead. The mushroom dies and emits spores in his death throes. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel sad. I always ate my vegetables and now suddenly the vegetables can talk, but I also eat cows, and they’re sentient. So I figured it’s the circle of life. Right? Anyways, I’m terrified as I’m standing next to this giant beast, and Belinda is in danger too! So I throw out my magic, and fire a bolt of chaotic fire at it. Turns out to be a bright blue flame that shot out this time. It hit the croc, and it hurt him bad. The rest of our group are hitting it real hard too. The cat tells him he’s a handbag, and it seems to actually hurt him. Never saw that before, but then again, with talking mushrooms and living boats, insulting crocodiles to death doesn’t seem like a far stretch anymore. Well my friends, the freakiness did not end there. You’d think me being able to shoot fire with my brains was weird. But no. My wood elf companion turns into a bear. An actual live bear. What’s even more crazy is our kobold. He shoots arrows at accuracies I have never seen before. To top it all off, our human has insane instincts. He slashes at a crocodile, then slides to the ground to give Q a clear shot. I have never seen such grace and fluidity in combat before. It was a sight I tell you. As the crocodile dies, I check up on Belinda. She’s unharmed and I sigh a sigh of relief.
I see Katan is shaken and taken aback. He had not been this close to crocodiles before. As he is recovering from his shock, he lights up a big cigar. Quen reveals the mushrooms believe the crocodile fled from mosqs. Mosqs are mosquitoes, except…not uitoes. They are not small. They’re huge. So the crocodile fled. Quen then tells us the mushrooms like it when Katan smokes, because it scares away the mosqs. Katan tells us he wants these mosqs sorted, and Quen wants to get paid. I don’t know why we wouldn’t help the man, but I figure maybe we can make something work for the both of us. He knows the area, and we need to map it. So he promises to help us map the area, if we sort out the Mosq problem. We will get to use Belinda to traverse the swamps. He also asks us to keep an eye out for his cat. Finally we get some of his cigars to use on the mosqs if we need it.
So, off to my new lady friend we go. As everybody gets in the boat, I see it’s getting a little full. I don’t want to overburden a friend, so I volunteer to guide the boat from the water. It goes pretty well, but after a little while, something tingles on my leg. Then it starts to hurt. Now everybody is a really cool adventurer here, but I’ll be honest, I’m just a farmer who suddenly became magical. I was genuinely scared, and under prepared. I shot at the tingle, to see what it was. Instead, I shot my own leg and burnt it, and the tingle just went to my other leg. Then it started to hurt again. I’m not the brightest of the bunch, but I won’t do the same mistake twice. So though the boat is crowded, I hope Belinda doesn’t mind me getting on for an emergency. And an emergency it was. A massive, giant, huge, humongous, enormous, great, colossal, mammoth, monumental, towering, oversized, ginormous leech is hanging from my leg, sucking at my blood. Q helps me get it off my leg, and River and Tamior bandage my legs up. I’m a bit shaken, but thankfully Karim offers to take over for a bit. After another bit of a travel, a strange sound followed by a rustle in the brush signified a fleeing animal.
Then a humming noise started rising in the air.
The mosqs are near. I use my fire bolts to snipe a few from the distance, but there is just a massive amount of them. I figure my best bet is to run back and keep shooting, while the cool people stay calm and collected. Q snipes one instantly. Tamior turns into a bear and starts mauling them. River stays true to his name, and dives under the boat to attack then go back under, and Karim fights the bugs tooth and nail. I don’t know what Quen is doing exactly, but I think he’s more of a brainy kinda guy, not much of a fighter. Well… This is where it all went a little bit pear shaped.
You see, I kinda just got scared. There was so many of them, I couldn’t even count em. So I shot fire at them as best I could, but the fear just took over, and I missed. I didn’t just miss though. I shot straight at Tamior, burning his flesh with a searing firebolt. It’s not pretty. I try to regain my composure, but it seems like I’m not able to channel my magic as well as I think I could. Probably because of all this stress and the entire new situation. The insects start eating and sucking the front line. Our elf, Tamior, returns to his elf form, and this turns out to be important. Our cat folk friend, does magic too, and many insects fall asleep with his magical spells. So looking at the bravery of our party, I see an insect about to attack Tamior. So I fire. But….Tamior turns back into a bear, and the mosq flies up to avoid the transformation. And I hit him again. I can’t even begin to describe the shame I feel at knowing I hit him twice. Thankfully, Karim is amazing at elbow combat as well as swords. The mosqs are swarming so heavily he had to drop his weapon to fight them effectively…I think. Thanks to the efforts of the others, we manage to kill the beasts. I try to hurt some, and I run in to make sure I miss the bear, but the damage has been done. We do manage to win the fight.
I walk up to Tamior, when I get distracted by a cat. That’s probably the Cat of Katan, so I lure it with a here kitty kitty. So, now I learn that Wood elf bear-people can talk to animals too. I think I might not be that weird in these surroundings, and oddly enough I find it both comforting and disturbing. The kitty tells us something is controlling the mosqs, and he’s willing to guide us to the creature…If we get it a fish.
We try to figure out if anyone can fish, But Katan isn’t with us. So I take a stab at it. I already told I can do magic, but one of my magics is electrical shocking magic. So I put my hands in the water, and I let the magic flow. It hurts a little, but it doesn’t do me any significant damage, while there are a bunch of fish that float above water. I quickly take my prizes and give a fish to both our Cat folk and our cat. I also offer my other fish to Tamior. He didn’t want my money, which was all I had, and so I hope food might placate his anger. It doesn’t but I figure it might be a good enough start.
As we get into the boat, we find that Belinda was a bit hungry. She ate some of our rations. I reckon she’s a growing lady, so I give her some food. Karim does the same. I ask her if she wants some more, and if she does she should make a knocking sound. And she does. So I give her some more. We use Katan’s cat to go to the Mosq Overlord…thing.
On the way we find some weird skeleton graveyard. They’re like really big insects that are dead, and wore armor. I’m not surprised anymore, but it certainly is in my top 20 of oddities I didn’t expect to have happen to me. Maybe this adventuring will get a little less bewildering in time. Q takes some stuff off these things, but I don’t really see the point, so I leave the dead in peace.
Eventually we make it. And, well… Turns out the overlord is swarming with mosqs. We decide to create a massive smoke cloud by smoking the cigars. I had never smoked before, but lighting that baby up was like an angel came down from heaven, and breathed fire and life into my lungs before leaving me with a burning sensation of wanting more. Wow… That was a really long sentence that sounded smart when I said it. (Yes, he actually said that EDITOR). The Mosqs would have nothing of it though, and they flee from our smoke. Which is good, because these were even more than the first time, and I don’t think I could afford to miss anything anymore.
So we approach a large pile of sticks and moss. I ask if I should put a bonfire on it, to burn away the mossy bits, and talk to the thing underneath, and Karim says that’s a good plan. But it wasn’t a good plan. I hurt the pile of sticks, and it talks. So …well, when something talks, you talk back right. I mean, if it’s not meaning to hurt you, I reckon it’s better to try and find common grounds. So we talk a bit, and the pile of sticks tells me the mosqs suddenly started growing big. I ask from where, and he shows me a special mosq pool. In it, another one of those skeletons is lying. And Q fishes out a bunch of potions. I can’t read it, but that’s because I can’t read. Thankfully Quen and River can. So they tell us there is a potion of growth that is broken, 2 healing potions, and a potion called Fairly Dragon Coffee. I don’t know why a coffee would be fairly dragon, or what that means. Maybe the dragon roasted the coffee and was paid fairly. I don’t wanna overthink it though. I kinda figure I didn’t quite help out our group enough, so I don’t claim any of that. Afterwards, I talk to the Pile of sticks, and I ask him, I think he sounded like a him, what his name was. He says he doesn’t have one. I think that’s sad. He’s smart enough, he deserves to be given a name. So I call him Sid.
Sid asks me where the animals are, and I explain that the mosqs ate them. I convince Sid we should send the mosqs to the city across the ocean. Q told me they were across the ocean, so that sounds like a plan. I didn’t know about the city, but that’s ok. But Sid is worried. He has no friends anymore. This cannot stand, and I have a plan. So I sort of ask him, if he would like to be friends with Katan. We all go back together, and Katan gets a little flustered by Sid, but after some explaining, and a little bit of thinking out of the box, he agrees that it might be nice to have a swamp monster that can help you defend yourself against assassins that come to hurt you. Katan does say his house is not accessible for Sid. So I explain that to Sid and how he can still contact Katan.
Katan keeps his word, and tells us about the swamp and helps us make a map. Sid helps as well, and tells Tamior where the wood elves are. Also that there’s deadly lights and treasures there. So that all sounds pretty nice. But I’m tired, and our mission here seems to be a success thanks to the others. I don’t feel like I did enough. But maybe next time I’ll do better. This was my first time at being an adventurer after all. I ask Katan if I can have some more of his cigars. He gives me 5 of them.
Before we go, I talk to Belinda again. Well. I talk, she sort of just listens. I give her a little bit more food, and I feel sad I have to go. I look at my squiggly lines, for the portal, and mine are all wet. So I rely on the other ones, but I pay real good attention and make a new note. Now I could perhaps go back. We report our mission back in, and we get 20 gold pieces. I give 15 of mine to Tamior, because I kind of feel guilty I almost killed him…accidentally. I spend some of my money to buy new food, and the rest of it goes to the local orphanage. I don’t need it anyways, and this way the little ones get to eat properly. I always have my stay anywhere where the people aren’t sleeping. And I eat with my folk. They think I’m a hero. I don’t want to disappoint.
…Right, that’s all mister reporter. I guess I made you work really long. I think you probably wanted to have a drink. What’s your name anyways?
A literal report, of an unusual man. But here you have it. Even the most common of men, can become heroes at the adventurers guild. Here’s to Bob, who may be a bigger hero, by being a small one.
Old man Katan and the incredible mushroom band, by a man named Thamior.
While Thamior was walking over to the gate, he thought about what was probably going to happen. The notice said something about a swamp so he was probably again going to get some issues with his circle. Even though he was looking forward to going on this scouting mission. He would be able to talk his way out of any trouble probably if he was going to explain that he was only starting of slow to get to know people.When Thamior went through the gate he stepped into the swamp. The smell of the swamp reminded him of home and after some moments, the kobold Q climbed a nearby tree to see if there was some place the group could go to. In the distance there was smoke from a campfire and the group started walking towards it. At moments the swamp had some dry spots on which the group walked, but most of the time, they needed to go through some water.
At the location of the campfire we didn’t find a campfire, but a wooden cabin and an outside bathtub in which an older man was bathing and trying to sing something. It seemed the sounds sounded a lot better to some kind of moving and talking mushrooms, because they were coming out of the woods around the cabin to try to join the old man with the singing. Thamior didn’t know the song, but apparently the two bards, which had gone with them on this mission, did know it. At least, they started to sing something remotely the same as what the man was singing. As soon as my two companions started singing, the old man jumped out of the bathtub and headed indoors with a towel around his middle. Apparently the man, which we get to know as Katan, was haunted by some merchants and was suspecting us of assassins. We quickly talked him out of that idea and were invited to join in dinner.
After dinner the mushrooms got back and were trying to get Katan to do something. Our bards casted a spell with which they could understand the mushrooms and that was the moment we found are main activity at this side of the gate. The mushrooms were afraid of some kind of mosquitoes. Katan didn’t understand them and thought they wanted him to lite some kind of homemade cigars. After lighting one Thamior understood why the mushrooms were pushing Katan so much and stopped as soon as he lit a cigar. The smell of those things would be enough to knock at least a dozen mosquitoes out at the first puff of smoke from these things.
The next morning Katan was packing his boat to go fishing when he was attacked by a crocodile. It was a big one, but it seemed to be starving for the last few weeks. After Katan was pushed out of the way by some mushrooms, Bob (a magically exploding hazard) and Thamior confronted the crocodile. Bob as person, Thamior as a mighty brown bear. From the back they were supported by the two bards and Karim and Q (the kobold) tried some ranged attacking. Karim wasn’t very effective but the kobold finally shot the crocodile in the eye which killed the beast,
Katan was then happy to lend us the boat for our quest on finishing the mosquitoes. But not before asking for some help. His cat escaped on one of his fishing hunts and he asked us to bring it back to him.
So we left by boat. Although the boat looked small, it fitted 5 people. The magical hazard would guide the boat through the water. At least, until the magical hazard was attacked by some blood sucking leeched in the water. After that Karim offered to walk outside the boat.
After some hours, we heard some buzzing noises and got ourselves on a patch of dry swamp to fight the buzzing sounds off. The things we saw coming for us were no ordinary mosquitoes. They were huge. After trying to kill some with a cold spell, Thamior again decided it was best to try to fight them off in the form of a mighty brown bear. The Tabaxi bard was definitely frightened as well, because he jumped in the water, to hide beneath the boat, something I had never expected to see a tabaxi do. The rest of my companions got back and let Thamior take the first blow. While Thamior, in the form of a brown bear, was trying to kill as much mosquitoes as he could, when he felt some soaring pain from behind. After which the magical hazard called out an apology. Thamior as busy trying to kill all the mosquitoes (from which some had fallen asleep by a spell of the Tabaxi), so he didn’t pay it much attention. Sometimes spells can get a little wrong. After again killing some mosquitoes, the soaring pain returned in his hind legs and again it was followed by an apologetic cry from the magical hazard. This time Thamior decided he needed to talk to him. After killing all mosquitoes.
When the last mosquitoes died, the brown bear disappeared and Thamior was planning to go for the magical hazard, but heard something mewing. Thinking about the quest Katan given the group, Thamior approached the bushing from which the mewing came and found a big cat. The group decided to rest some time at the location and Thamior spend some time to be able to talk to the cat. It told Thamior the mosquitoes were being ordered by a large pile of twigs, about three hours running from their current position and Thamior negotiated a trade. The cat would bring us to these twigs if we payed it a fish. So the magical hazard got into the water and electrocuted some fish as payment. At the same time he caught two more fish as apology for trying to set the brown bear on fire.
When we got close to the pile of twigs there were a lot of mosquitoes flying around it, so three of the cigars we got from Katan were lit to scare them off. Our magical hazard created a bonfire beneath the pile of twigs (which was in fact a shambling mound), which jumped aside. After a short conversation between our magical hazard and the shambling mound it was clear it was only looking for some friends. It was brought to its attention that most of its friends had left him because of the mosquitoes and it would be best of they were to be send away to a city at the other side of the ocean. All layed eggs were destroyed and the source of the enormity of the mosquitoes was found in an eroded bottle with a potion of growth.
In the end the mosquito problem was solved and shambling mound was taken to Katan to become friends. It would fend off any assassins send to him, so he accepted.
Thamior Dwin'anddare
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