Hardware

Sometimes it can be tough being an apprentice in a trade.  A few fellow apprentices I know have wound up on numerous occasions working for really rude and arrogant trainers who are more interested in bossing someone around than training them. I had a nightmare trainer once too. He spoke to me like I was nothing but a bit of worthless dirt. He’d constantly put me down and boss me around. I remember once he told me to go to the hardware store. Bentleigh has a few hardware store locations but my trainer refused to tell me which location he wanted me to go to. Apparently, if I was smart I would ‘figure it out’. Usually, I’d give someone a piece of my mind, but I chose to take the high road and go to each store searching for this one item that he wanted me to buy. No doubt he’d take issue with whatever I brought back for him, so I knew to get the process over and done with fast.

After spending twenty minutes in the shop, I found the item he wanted me to purchase and went back to the site. Turns out I had bought the right item but from the wrong shop. He told him that he didn’t specify what shop he’d like me to purchase the tools from. He was adamant that he told me to buy electrical supplies in the Cheltenham area. The whole scenario was absolutely ludicrous as he didn’t say a word about Cheltenham. He only mentioned Bentleigh, and that’s where I went. It was after that day that I knew I had to quit and find another trainer. I was unemployed for about two months. I remember my TAFE being super mad at me and garnishing me as a dropout. Obviously, my teachers were given incorrect information by my boss. The upside of this incident was that I wound up finding someone who appreciated me and my work.

It turns out that the Hardware Bandits are far worse than we had even imagined. I was pretty hesitant to go along with Eleanor’s crazy plan, but she insisted that it would work and everybody else agreed. I play the party’s legal advisor in our Hardware Shop Bonanza role-playing game, so naturally, I had to oppose, but nobody ever listens to me. I argued that it was a bad idea to fight our enemies with violence, as that would only make things worse, and that’s exactly what happened. The Hardware Bandits took it as an excuse to retaliate, burning down our hardware shop. In Cheltenham, the fantasy town where our shop was, people rely on us for hardware. Now we can’t help them, because we lost everything in this attack.

The worst part is that we can’t prove their involvement. Technically, it could have been anybody who destroyed our hardware shop. Obviously, we know it was the Hardware Bandits, but we can’t prove anything. So they’re going to get away with it. We need to come up with a legal but effective plan for revenge. If we start breaking laws, we’ll be no better than them. And yet the rest of the group is talking about how we should shoot fireballs at the opposing hardware store. That’s a terrible idea!

My plan is that we send Franklin into their store while wearing a disguise. He will have a small video camera on his hat and will ask the store owner if this is the best place to buy plumbing supplies around Cheltenham. Franklin will then have a nice conversation with the manager, landing himself a job at the store. Through Franklin, we’ll get some footage of the Hardware Bandits’ meetings, proving their corruption. Everyone will know how dodgy they are, and when we rebuild our hardware shop, they will be desperate to come back and be our customers. Perfectly legal, but effective nonetheless.

– Harry