The dusty floor of the abandoned arena shook with each thunderous cheer as Kael’s opponent hit the spikes below. Blood spattered the wooden barriers of the kill pit, and the Crocmores roared their approval from the ramshackle stands they’d built into the arena’s crumbling stone walls.
“Next!” Caesar Croc’s voice boomed from his ridiculous throne atop Fort Caesar, the wooden fortress that dominated the far end of the arena. Yellow and red banners fluttered in the smoky air around him, and his tooth-encrusted belt caught the firelight as he leaned forward with interest.
Kael wiped sweat and grime from his brow, his sword still dripping. Beside the pit, his companions—Mira with her twin daggers and Thorne clutching his war hammer—had proven themselves equally capable. The Crocmores appreciated a good show, and three dead opponents in the span of an hour had certainly provided that.
“Impressive!” Caesar Croc descended from his throne, his belly jiggling with each step down the precarious bridge that spanned the spike pit. Up close, his cowardice was more apparent—he stayed well back from the blood-stained arena floor, flanked by six heavily armed gang members. “You fight like you’ve got real teeth. I might have work for people like you.”
Mira sheathed her daggers, eyeing the gang leader with barely concealed disgust. “Depends on the work.”
“Three of my boys went missing last week,” Croc spat into the dust. “Traitors, the lot of them. Joined up with those Butcher scum, then turned on their own brothers in a fight near the meat hall. Left good Crocmores bleeding in the street before they ran like the cowards they are.”
Thorne hefted his hammer. “You want them brought back?”
“I want them brought to justice,” Croc’s eyes gleamed with malicious satisfaction. “Dead or alive, doesn’t matter to me. But they need to answer for their betrayal. A hundred gold pieces for all three heads—or proof they’re breathing their last in my dungeons.”
The three adventurers exchanged glances. It was more money than they’d seen in months, and the rough part of town was expensive for outsiders trying to lay low.
“Deal,” Kael said, extending a blood-stained hand.
Finding the missing Crocmores proved more difficult than expected. The gang members—Jorik, Senna, and old Willem—had covered their tracks well. After two days of asking careful questions in taverns, following false leads through twisted alleys, and dodging suspicious constables, the trio finally caught a break.
“Saw ‘em heading toward the old cooper’s shop on Tanners’ Row,” whispered a nervous woman at the Sirloin tavern. “Three days back, maybe four. Had packs like they were traveling.”
The cooper’s shop sat wedged between a failing bakery and a boarding house that had seen better decades. Kael pressed his ear to the warped wooden door while Mira crept around to check the back alley. Voices drifted through the thin walls—low, urgent conversation.
“They’re in there,” Mira reported, rejoining them. “Three voices, matches the descriptions. But Kael…” She hesitated, glancing back toward the building. “They don’t sound like hardened criminals planning their next score. They sound scared.”
Thorne frowned. “Scared of what? Caesar’s not that intimidating.”
“Only one way to find out,” Kael said, drawing his sword. “Stay ready, but let me do the talking first.”
He kicked in the door.
The three people inside sprang to their feet—a grizzled older man with calloused hands, a young woman with a fresh scar across her cheek, and a lanky youth who couldn’t be more than sixteen. They were indeed Jorik, Senna, and Willem, but they looked nothing like the vicious gang members Caesar had described.
“Please!” The woman—Senna—held up her hands. “We’re not looking for trouble!”
“Neither are we,” Kael said, though he kept his sword raised. “Caesar Croc sent us to bring you back. Says you betrayed the gang, joined up with the Butchers.”
Old Willem laughed bitterly. “Joined the Butchers? Is that what he told you?” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing ugly purple bruises and what looked like bite marks. “This is what Caesar does to anyone who questions his orders. Senna got that scar because she wouldn’t help him shake down a family with sick children.”
The young man, Jorik, spoke up with a trembling voice. “We never joined the Butchers. We just… we couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t hurt innocent people just because Caesar wanted to look tough.”
“The fight he mentioned?” Senna’s eyes blazed with anger. “That was Caesar’s own gang attacking us when we tried to leave. We defended ourselves, nothing more.”
Mira lowered her daggers slightly. “If that’s true, why run? Why not go to the constables?”
Willem snorted. “You think the constables care what happens to Crocmores? As far as they’re concerned, we’re all criminals. Better we kill each other off and save them the trouble.”
A commotion outside cut short their conversation. Heavy boots on cobblestones, the jangle of weapons, rough voices calling orders.
“Shit,” Thorne peered through the grimy window. “Crocmores. At least eight of them, surrounding the building.”
Caesar Croc’s voice carried through the door: “I know you’re in there! All of you! Come out peaceful-like and maybe I won’t burn the place down!”
Kael cursed under his breath. They’d been followed—or more likely, Caesar had sent multiple groups to track down his missing gang members. The Crocmore leader wasn’t taking any chances.
“Well?” Senna looked directly at Kael. “What’s it going to be? You going to hand us over to that monster, or are you going to help us?”
It was a moment of choice that would define everything that followed. Kael looked at his companions, saw the uncertainty in their faces. The money was good—more than good. But the terror in these people’s eyes was real, and nothing about Caesar Croc had inspired confidence in his version of events.
“How many ways out of this building?” Kael asked.
Willem’s weathered face broke into a grin. “Back window leads to the alley. From there, we can reach the sewers if we’re quick.”
“The sewers connect to the Thieves’ Den,” Jorik added. “Scarrow Eck’s no friend to Caesar. If we can reach the Slink…”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Mira said, her daggers already back in her hands.
The back window proved just wide enough for them to squeeze through one at a time. Senna went first, dropping silently into the refuse-strewn alley. Willem followed, then Jorik. As Thorne squeezed his bulk through the narrow opening, shouts erupted from the front of the building.
“They’re not here!” someone yelled. “Search the surrounding buildings!”
Kael dropped last, landing hard on the broken cobblestones. His ankle twisted, sending a spike of pain up his leg, but there was no time to assess the damage. The six of them ran through the maze of back alleys, following Willem’s lead toward the old storm drains that would take them to the underground networks beneath the city.
Behind them, Caesar’s voice rose to a roar: “Find them! I want those traitors’ heads, and I want the bounty hunters who helped them!”
They reached the sewer entrance just as the first Crocmores rounded the corner behind them. Crossbow bolts whistled past Kael’s ear as he helped Senna down into the tunnel. Thorne turned and hurled his hammer, catching one pursuer in the chest and buying them precious seconds.
“This way!” Willem called from the darkness below. “The current’s strong, but there’s a walkway!”
The sewers beneath the rough part of town were a world unto themselves. Ancient stonework gave way to newer brick, and the sound of their footsteps echoed strangely in the damp air. Somewhere ahead, lamplight flickered—the Thieves’ Den and whatever sanctuary it might provide.
“You know,” Mira panted as they hurried through the tunnels, “Caesar’s going to consider this a declaration of war.”
Kael managed a grim smile. “Then we’d better make sure we choose the right side.”
As they emerged into the underground trading floor of the Slink, Scarrow Eck looked up from a table covered in stolen goods and smiled his thin, calculating smile.
“Well, well,” the Thief Lord said, his cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Looks like Caesar Croc has made some new enemies. That could be very profitable for all of us.”
Outside, in the abandoned arena, Caesar Croc raged at his empty throne while his remaining gang members exchanged nervous glances. The neighborhood war he’d been trying to avoid had just begun, and he’d started it himself through his own cruelty and pride.
In the depths below, six unlikely allies planned their next move, knowing there was no going back to the way things were.
This short story was created by Claude.AI, using the one page dungeon named “Gangs on the Run” in The Rough Part of Town as the training set. This is an experiment to see if the Heartwizard Games roleplaying supplements can be used as source material to generate stories. Hopefully you liked it!
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