Report: The Blackwater Hideout
General Summary
Stiks can be heard rabbling in the Gravesend Tavern, a few drinks deep weaving a tale of his recent exploits out of town. His story isn’t particularly elegant, and those gathered around him listen more due to their proximity than peeked interest.
“SO I WOKE UP early, and did my usual routine, tooooons of pushups and pull-ups. Then I kinda dead hang for like 20 minutes, its kinda my meditation, Old man V used to give me shit about it all the time.”
He laughs entirely on his own.
“Anywho I swung by the tavern bar early and saw these guys heading out, looked like they were on a mission. So I was like, ‘Hey you guys need some muscle!’ And they were like, ‘Oh wow you look strong we could totally use your help for sure!’ So I was like ‘yeah I was a pretty big deal back in Malastar.’ And this dude Ryth,”
he turns to the man sitting next to him and talks at him
“You know Ryth? Awesome guy, real smart.”
He turns back to the tavern at large, “He was like ‘Hey I’m from Malaster’ and I’m like ‘oh sweet you must have heard of me, they call me Stiks.’ He totally heard of me. SO WE SET OFF! We borrowed Pop’s gal Madeline cause we had this GREAT plan to find these bandits. We was gonna play-tend we were rich folk and get ourselves jumped by some bandits, then we’d obviously whip there butts and get em to tell us where their hideout was. But the wimps never bit, so we wandered down towards Blackwater. Figured ‘hey, these BLACKWATER Bandits, might be near Blackwater.’ Totally tracks. We ran into this dude Garth and his snively friend Brona. Poor chap totally got murdered later…”
Stiks pauses for a moment, sullen.
“But he led us right before! Ol’ hunter Garth ran us round back the town and good thing cause place had be sacked! Boss ran ahead to check out the scene with Garth, Boss is mad sneaky, and I went over to check out an ol’ fishing hut that looked suspicious.”
Stiks squints his eyes and pans around the room to demonstrate his suspicion.
“SO we get up to this house and the little pip squeak Brona was like ‘Oh no, really really old people live here, what if they are in trouble!’ Now I wasn’t about to let some elderly folk get hurt, so I ran up to the door and KICKED IT IN”
Stiks demonstrates by kicking a bar stool across the room. He crouches in a fighting stance an acts out the scene.
“Now I knew this might be risky, what if there were bandits in there? But I couldn’t wait, those old folks needed savin’. Sad thing is they were super dead. Two bandit twerps got the jump on me cause of my selflessness and one of em took a swipe at me”
Stiks points to one of many long scars on his chest.
“But I took it, like a man! Then the real snively one in the back SHOT ME! No worries though, I clobbered em while the other guys got in the side door and took swings at the other one. He took off running he was so scared, but I’m real quick on my feet and I smashed his head in before he got away.”
Stiks sits back on his stool and takes a swig of his ale. Whipping his mouth he continues, “Thats about when Boss man Ryth got back with some bad news. Garth got captured and there were a TON of bandits in the town with cart loads of prisoners. And get this, Luthor Bryson was there! Wild right? Haven’t seen that guy since Malaster, no idea what he’s doing around here. Anyways we got the idea we’d follow these carts, they’d have to lead us to their base and that’s all we needed for our money. So we hunker down and wait. Not long after 4 guys come wondering’ down with torches like ‘okie dokie lets burn this place down cause we shits, haha right’ Little shits. We clobbered em all. But the little piss ants cried for back up like the little shits they were an ‘fore we knew it we had arrows raining down on us from the cliffs! Basically hundreds, so we ain’t idiots, we took cover and headed into the woods. Plan stood, we’d take cover and wait to follow those carriages. A mangey dog jumps outa know where and I had to kick it!”
Stiks kicks his own stool this time. He pauses when he realizes he no longer has a seat but shrugs and leans against the bar.
“Now get this, dude Russel, was taggin’ along with us. Gets some weird idea to bandage up this pup. Did NOT do a great job, let me tell ya, but then slings em onto the donkeys and takes him WITH US! WHY? No clue, freakin’ stupid. Now we got this unconscious dog with us. We find some great cover south along the road and get some rest. Just waiting for the carriages to wander by so we can nice and easy slip along and follow em. Piece a Pie. Boss even set up an alarm duhickey so we knew when they were comin’. So, finally these carts come rolling down with about 20 bandits and we’re suuuuper quiet, no worries.”
Suddenly Stiks jumps up from his lean at the bar, startling a patron beside him who nearly loses their seat.
“THEN outa nowhere the dumb dog busts out on ta the road AND RUSSEL follows em! He’d put on some lame disguise as a bandit, but it ain’t like they were gonna buy that. So Luther see’s him and says this cool line ‘when does the red blah blah fly?’ pretty sure he was talking about some bird or sumpin’ they all had red bird tattoos, kinda cool… Anyhow Russel has no idea what to say, and shit went to shit. Russel shot off some MAD loud thunder spell, which again, stealth hello? And yeah, wasn’t great. Now I made a mad dash towards the flank of this caravan, figuring alright if this is gonna be how it goes, I gotta get around back. I’m thinking’ maybe I can free the prisoners ya know? But Luther was out back and he’s a little shit, but he’s tough, we had some words but I wasn’t about to fight his whole caravan, I ain’t stupid. So we all manage to recover from that and hide again. The bandits turned back and heading’ south obviously disrupted by our attacks. But now we are EXHAUSTED. And obviously they know we are out here so we ain’t got the element of surprise no more. But, we’re on a mission. So we track em. Carts full of people leave some pretty deep ruts I tell ya. We tracked em all the way up to…”
He pauses, thinking.
“Somewhere up north past Acorn Farm. Its obviously where the bandits are setup. Capn’ Armstrong agrees, set out herself to check it out.”
Stiks sits back, obviously proud of himself. His bravado shrinks however when he notices few are listening, and he sniffs, turns and orders another mug of ale.
Orated by Stiks
Adventuring Party: Ryth Venali, Patrick Smith, Stiks, Russel, Malorious
Date: 20JUL21
Report Date
20 Jul 2021
Primary Location
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