Aporeu chronicles Issue 11: Unrest in Wentel
Stories from the adventurers
This week
A story from the cutest kobold in the guild.Unrest in Wentel
I get to the Guild hall to meet the people that'll be going with me on this quest to find out what's going on in Wentel.Something about raids and robberies at night. The first report came in 3 days ago, and there's been 1 report every day since then of another robbery. I find my buddy Quen inside. He's talking with a Halfling, whose name is 'Diederik-Robin de Schattigen'. But I can call him 'DR'. Which is a lot quicker to say.
The Dwarf Ruzak joins the group as well, as we hear about how to get to Wentel. It's about half a day's travel to get there. The report says they stole some wool and tools. We also learn that we can earn between 5 and 20 gp for this quest, depending on how much and how good the info we bring back is.
Good enough reason to do a good job! As we start to take off, Elveira and Brynjar join up with us, as they're on this quest as well. Oh well, the more people there are around, the less people are looking at me.
So I'm perfectly fine with more people joining in on this.
We take a dirt road to this lovely little farm town, to the Northwest. It's small, with lots of farmland. There's a small town square with a small chapel, a pub apparently just named 'Pub', and some houses.
As we walk into the pub, we see a small establishment that can house maybe 12 people at a time. We have some ale and a meal, and I get myself a bottle of ale to take home. We talk with the woman running and/or owning the pub, and tell her why we came to Wentel. She tells us that the cattle farmers closest to the forest to the South have been robbed these last couple days.
Alpein Salmond was the first one that got raided. He usually comes in on weekends to have a drink. She doesn't know the names of the others, and tells us we need to ask the guards that are stationed across the way about that. After we finish our very late lunch, we head over to the guardhouse, and find that there's 2 guards for the whole town. Considering there probably isn't a lot of trouble usually, that seems plenty.
It's a pretty small guardhouse as well. Again, makes perfect sense considering the rather calm village we're in right now. The old man that's the 'guard captain' for the town tells us that Alpein lost some bags of wool and some tools. George Kenu lost 2 live pigs and some tools. Liam Penn was robbed of a cow, and a full milk can.
Ed Vandaal got raided for some chickens, eggs, and a bag of down feathers. Ed was alerted by the clucking of the chickens, and managed to spot about 2 or 3 small humanoid figures fleeing into his grain fields. During the talking, I slip over to the table where the 2 had been playing cards, and had some copper pieces laying out in the open. DR 'accidentally' knocks over one of the spears, and I use the distraction to swipe some coins.
It was mostly to check how perceptive these guards are. Turns out: Not very.
As we'll leave, I give the old man one of his own copper pieces for his trouble, and he immediately bets it on the hand of cards he was playing. As we get outside, DR nudges me, and I give him 1 of the copper pieces as his cut of the take. We learned that Alpein's farm is about 45 minutes to the Southwest, George's farm is about 45 minutes to the South, Liam's farm is about 75 minutes to the South, and Ed's farm is about 2 hours to the South.
The next farm from there is "La Vache", at about 3 hours to the South of here, which might be the next one to get hit in the night. We decide to go over to Ed's farm, since he was the latest victim so far.
Elveira and myself head over to the 'Boerentroupe', where the smithy is, as we were informed that he should have a cart we might be able to use to get over to the farms.
Considering it's a long trip, and most of us have fairly short legs. We explain why we'd like to borrow his cart. He talks about how he needs the cart, so I toss him a gold coin to pay for 'rent' on it and the horse.
He has Elveira and myself sign a contract that we'll return his cart and horse to him. He also says something about filing compensation for the horse with the Guild if it gets killed. We set out for the farms, and catch up to the rest that had already started walking after a little bit. Brynjar takes the reigns, and we set out at a fairly good pace.
It takes about 90 minutes to get to Ed's farm. We made some pretty good time. It's starting to get later into the day, though. Some of us hear some hammering sounds coming from a barn.
We knock on the door to the main house, and Ed's wife tells us that Ed's in the barn, working. She offers to let us join them for dinner, but we tell her that we had a late lunch, so we're fine.
Ed is in the barn, working on getting his shelves back to where they should be, as the thieves tore them off the walls when they came in to rob him. DR is out back, checking the grain field, and finds the trail the thieves left the night before. He confirms that it's smaller humanoids that did the robbing here.
We all head into the grain, following DR's lead as he's got their 'scent', as it were. Quen sends up his flying cat to keep watch from overhead. We follow the tracks into the woods, and as we get there, DR seems to be in his element. After some more tracking, DR can tell us that there were 6 robbers that passed though there, about 18 hours before.
As we're traveling, we notice that it's very quiet around us. I nimbly dodge out of the way of a web dropping from overhead, and we find a massive spider in a web that was apparently waiting in ambush, right above us.
It drops down from the web, and we make quick work of it. 3 smaller ones come out, but they can't seem to get any good purchase with their bites thanks to a spell Quen cast before he did what he does in fights: Get the heck out of the way and let the fighters do the fighting. Can't fault a man for knowing his strengths and weaknesses, and acting accordingly. I jump onto the big one, and manage to barely hang on as it tries to buck me off. They kill it, and I ride it down to the forest floor.
After that, I hop off and make quick work of the small spider that tried to hurt me before. Once the big one was down, the smaller ones went splat very quickly after. DR climbs up into the trees and cuts down a cocoon that was hanging in the webbing. I step out of the way as it drops, and cut it open. There was a humanoid inside, but they've mostly been turned to an acidic sorta goop.
I poke around in there a bit, and manage to pull out a coin purse before. I do a quick inventory of the contents, but decide to split the profits when we get back safely instead of here in the forest. We travel a bit further, until DR stops us because he hears the faint sounds of a burning campfire. DR, Quen's flying cat, and myself sneak closer, and we spot some tripwires. We avoid them as we try to get closer.
We find a Goblin campsite with about 4 Goblins visible, as well as 4 wolves that are tied up to some trees nearby. Sadly, we lose the element of surprise as Brynjar face plants into the ground and makes a big ruckus with his chain mail.
I try to take out the Goblin by the wolves, to see if we can avoid those being set loose on us, but I miss. After that, the fight turned into a bit of a fustercluck.
In the ensuing chaos, I manage to escape some Goblins, shoot 1 of the wolves in the throat and lodge the arrow in the brush behind it, while it drops to the ground lifelessly.
I sneak up to a brush that's just beside one of the barriers the Goblins set up as defensive measures. When another wolf tries to walk past my brush and make a snack out of Brynjar, I quickly jab a blade into its jugular artery and windpipe, and it drops to the ground as well. Sadly, that revealed my position to the archers nearby, but Brynjar didn't have to worry about this big mutt trying to chow down on him. Lucky for me, both of the Goblin arches can't hit me.
I grab the arrow that didn't get ruined hitting the brush I was hiding in, and take a shot at the Leader that did a number on me. He grabbed the sleeping Goblin in front of him to block my shot..
But I think he was pretty scared when I noticed the arrow went through that Goblin and almost hit him in the face regardless. I make my way back to the other side of the barrier after calling the Leader a coward for using a meat shield like that, and then I shoot the Goblin that was harassing Ruzak in the back. That one won't be bothering anybody anymore.
After that one went down, I took care of the other one that was bothering him, clearing out that side of the camp. At that point, it was just the Leader and the 2 archers left, so they decided discretion was the better part of valor, and got the heck outta there real quick, fast, and in a hurry. We loot the bodies, I collect my spent arrows, and refill my quiver with some of the arrows I manage to recover that had been shot at the rest. I ask the rest if they want the armors or the scimitars, but they say I can have those.
I'll try to sell them when we get back to Arnheim, but I don't think I'll get too much money for them, since the blades are kinda rusty and the armor is about what you'd expect a Goblin to wear.
The others find a note that Quen deciphers, and tells us that someone named Daknek ordered the Goblins to steal supplies and tools to make a nest here. Hopefully that big Goblin bully got scared enough to talk this Daknek out of such a plan.
But I don't think we're gonna be quite that lucky. As it's around midnight by now, and we found the calf, pigs, and chickens already dead, we decide to spend the night out here, using the campfire to roast some of the animals to have a late supper, before turning in for the night.
Come morning, we bring everything we can carry back to Ed's farm, and return all the stolen goods, minus the animals, to the farms they were taken from. We got some copper pieces in thanks. I think Elveira gave them all some coin as compensation for the trouble and stuff they had to replace because we couldn't bring it back.
We also report to the guardhouse about our findings, and then head back to Arnheim to report everything to the Guild, so they can make a plan on how to proceed from here.
We each get 15 gold pieces for the info we're able to provide the guild. Which is a pretty good haul. I share the coin that I found in the cocoon, as well as the coin we got from the farmers, all in 1 go. Seemed easier to do it that way.
Elveira shares some of the money she found at the Goblin camp the night before as well. And that's how we took out the Goblin camp that was forming in the forests south of Wentel. Signed, Q.
It drops down from the web, and we make quick work of it. 3 smaller ones come out, but they can't seem to get any good purchase with their bites thanks to a spell Quen cast before he did what he does in fights: Get the heck out of the way and let the fighters do the fighting. Can't fault a man for knowing his strengths and weaknesses, and acting accordingly. I jump onto the big one, and manage to barely hang on as it tries to buck me off. They kill it, and I ride it down to the forest floor.
After that, I hop off and make quick work of the small spider that tried to hurt me before. Once the big one was down, the smaller ones went splat very quickly after. DR climbs up into the trees and cuts down a cocoon that was hanging in the webbing. I step out of the way as it drops, and cut it open. There was a humanoid inside, but they've mostly been turned to an acidic sorta goop.
I poke around in there a bit, and manage to pull out a coin purse before. I do a quick inventory of the contents, but decide to split the profits when we get back safely instead of here in the forest. We travel a bit further, until DR stops us because he hears the faint sounds of a burning campfire. DR, Quen's flying cat, and myself sneak closer, and we spot some tripwires. We avoid them as we try to get closer.
We find a Goblin campsite with about 4 Goblins visible, as well as 4 wolves that are tied up to some trees nearby. Sadly, we lose the element of surprise as Brynjar face plants into the ground and makes a big ruckus with his chain mail.
I try to take out the Goblin by the wolves, to see if we can avoid those being set loose on us, but I miss. After that, the fight turned into a bit of a fustercluck.
In the ensuing chaos, I manage to escape some Goblins, shoot 1 of the wolves in the throat and lodge the arrow in the brush behind it, while it drops to the ground lifelessly.
I sneak up to a brush that's just beside one of the barriers the Goblins set up as defensive measures. When another wolf tries to walk past my brush and make a snack out of Brynjar, I quickly jab a blade into its jugular artery and windpipe, and it drops to the ground as well. Sadly, that revealed my position to the archers nearby, but Brynjar didn't have to worry about this big mutt trying to chow down on him. Lucky for me, both of the Goblin arches can't hit me.
I grab the arrow that didn't get ruined hitting the brush I was hiding in, and take a shot at the Leader that did a number on me. He grabbed the sleeping Goblin in front of him to block my shot..
But I think he was pretty scared when I noticed the arrow went through that Goblin and almost hit him in the face regardless. I make my way back to the other side of the barrier after calling the Leader a coward for using a meat shield like that, and then I shoot the Goblin that was harassing Ruzak in the back. That one won't be bothering anybody anymore.
After that one went down, I took care of the other one that was bothering him, clearing out that side of the camp. At that point, it was just the Leader and the 2 archers left, so they decided discretion was the better part of valor, and got the heck outta there real quick, fast, and in a hurry. We loot the bodies, I collect my spent arrows, and refill my quiver with some of the arrows I manage to recover that had been shot at the rest. I ask the rest if they want the armors or the scimitars, but they say I can have those.
I'll try to sell them when we get back to Arnheim, but I don't think I'll get too much money for them, since the blades are kinda rusty and the armor is about what you'd expect a Goblin to wear.
The others find a note that Quen deciphers, and tells us that someone named Daknek ordered the Goblins to steal supplies and tools to make a nest here. Hopefully that big Goblin bully got scared enough to talk this Daknek out of such a plan.
But I don't think we're gonna be quite that lucky. As it's around midnight by now, and we found the calf, pigs, and chickens already dead, we decide to spend the night out here, using the campfire to roast some of the animals to have a late supper, before turning in for the night.
Come morning, we bring everything we can carry back to Ed's farm, and return all the stolen goods, minus the animals, to the farms they were taken from. We got some copper pieces in thanks. I think Elveira gave them all some coin as compensation for the trouble and stuff they had to replace because we couldn't bring it back.
We also report to the guardhouse about our findings, and then head back to Arnheim to report everything to the Guild, so they can make a plan on how to proceed from here.
We each get 15 gold pieces for the info we're able to provide the guild. Which is a pretty good haul. I share the coin that I found in the cocoon, as well as the coin we got from the farmers, all in 1 go. Seemed easier to do it that way.
Elveira shares some of the money she found at the Goblin camp the night before as well. And that's how we took out the Goblin camp that was forming in the forests south of Wentel. Signed, Q.
Comments