It was a cloudy summer night, rather warm with slight wind blowing. The small village near the river was silent, days activities having come to an end. Moon was barely visable and so the approaching ships were not seen. On each of the ships some twenty men sat, armed with swords, shields and some light leather armor, ready to disembark on a moments notice. they had to be stealthy, less the vilagers notice their arival before the desired time.
The village was scouted, and deemed appropriate target, not too big nor too small, Even if they were all slaughtered, it would take time for the ruling lords to catch a wiff of the situation, and the crew would be far away with their haul. It was quite the easy pickings- raid a small village, slaughter the men, and take children and women to be sold as slaves. It was always easy sell, just travel upwards the river to the kingdom of Sveith or keep drifting along the stream for a few days and the same could be achieved in the States of Zharr. No noble would care for a village of a few dozen families and no strategic value on a such a small river tributarie as this.
Among the rugged, middle aged men was sitting a rather young man around the age of sixteen, wearing even more worn out clothing and leather armor that seemed more like scraps of leather haphazardly stiched together than an actual protective gear. The glint in his eyes gave of a sense of amusement and intrigue, rather that greed and lust that was aparent in the eyes of his compatriots. His build was neither too muscular nor lean, but he gave off a silent and dangerous aura. Just like the rest, he silently waited for the ships to reach the coast so they can disembark. While aproaching, he was thinking over the time he spent in the forest hunting for beasts fighting monsters to grow stronger. It all seemed rather murky in his memory as if it had been done half asleep rather than conscious with all the more asured him that this must be quite the lucid dream. And while the last week, that he spent together with this group of, as their leader so eloquently put, free spirited and country unbound group of mercenaries, was quite vivid and real-like it still felt like a dream.
If u have aquired controll of yourself in a dream, who wouldnt try something the mundane and ordinary life of the twenty first century man couldnt provide. Medieval fantasy style raid on a village as the bad guy? Sign me up the young man thought.
"Rex!" Whispered the man next to the youngster. "Boss wants you next to him when we dissembark. He wants to see that monster strenght of yours in proper man on man action when we raid. Dont hold yourslef back when we begin. Affter all the more they fear us the less of them we will have to cut down. Its always better to just bow down and live another day than to rot in a ditch somewhere. he he". the man spoke.
Rex noded and stayed silent waiting for the start of the raid. In a few minutes boats finaly reached shores and the leader of the group stood up and waved a hand signaling for the raid to comence. Rex rose up and waited untll the boss was out of the boat and and jumped some six meters to land right next to him. In a practiced manner the band of men thined out in groups and sneaked to the better looking houses, taking postions near doors so they cant be noticed quite so easily. Boss stood in the middle of the village in a trenchcoat looking garb that concieled his weapon rather well. Rex stood near him, positioned betweeen boss and the houses. Once all men were in places the leader picked up a bell of sorts and started to ring it. Such bells were often used by merchants once they had arived in villages to inform the residents of merchants presence, to speed up the spreading of word of their arrival.
Traveling merchants didnt have much of a determinated schedule after all and time was of the essence, so, while it was not a regular occurance, merchants arriving in villages at nights and in their greed waking the village up did happen from time to time and for small villages every merchant was a blessing no matter how irritating they may be. The bell did its job and villagers, started to ruslte around in their homes, some dissatisfied voices could be heard, grumbling about haste and what not. The band stood in their places, waiting for the villagers to assemble closer to Rex and their leader.
An armed guard next to a merchant was nothing new, and since the guard was no hulk of a man it rose no suspicions in the half asleep villagers, though the rather battered armor should have.
"Greetings" said the boss in a rather loud voice to the villagers, signaling to his men to prepare while distracting villagers with his boisterous voice "We have come here for quite the bargain. For us that is." And a huge smirk appeared on the leaders face as he pulled out a cutlass from his trench coat and roared "Get em, boys!".
Quite soon the villagers realized the danger and tried to dart to their homes for whatever weapons and tools they could get their hands on to resist the bandits, however the hiding men had sneaked out of shadows and were between villagers and their homes, effectively surrounding them and cutting off their paths. Some villagers, who, purely out of habit, paranoia or profesion, had tucked a knife behind their belts tried to lunge for the leader, thinking that, if the leader died, even if their families were taken, the infighting for controll
would cull the bandits and give them a chance to escape.
it was then that Rex, who was standing idly by the leaders side, moved with speed that defied reason. Not a single villager could react as Rex was in front of them and in a single swing cut several of the lunging men in half. the boss stood and watched as Rex, seemingly effortlesly, cut the men apart bringing the rest of the villagers to knees with disbelief. Right after Rex took a torch for the leader of bandits and in doing so his eyes came into the light. The sclera of the eys was pure black, so dark it seemed to suck in the light coming from the torch that was iluminating them, irises and pupils were the same bright yellow color making them indistiguishable.
"Forsaken" one of the vilagers exclaimed in terror. The unusual eyes- the mark of a percieved curse from the gods, that manifested upon birth. Such children were ussually brought to forests and left for gods to reclaim, or as was asumed by the villagers that were still capable of not only shivering in fear but some rational though, believed that bandits came across one such case and raised in hopes of gaining a demon on a leash to strenghten their band. Powerfull no doubt, but a ticking time bomb for it was believed that such people would eventually sucumb to the curse, loose
all reason and go berserk killing any being coming in their way untill exaustion takes them. While all this was happening the bandits at the back seeing Rex's brutal display went in the houses to round up women and children remaining inside. A few unlucky ones determined before raid remained outside and started to tie up the helpless and terrified crowd.
Rex stood there seeing no movements from the deflated villagers and waited for further orders from the boss. Previously made plan has been executed rather splendidly, villagers had shown far less caution than expected resulting in a much faster seizing of initiative and suppresion of any resistance. Rex was rather dissapointed in the fast culmination and ending of the slaughter part. Why cant such an interesting dream offer more action, more resistance, more color. Its so much better than most games ever could be.
'Ow well, guess ill take what i can get' Rex thought as he was looking around for something more to do to make the experience more vivid.While nowhere near as fast paced or filled with adrenaline as a few recolections of fights with monsters in an earlyer part of the dream- the growing up part- this felt more real, as odly as it seemed for a dream. 'Guess thats what killing people does. Makes things more personal, less detached' thought Rex, waiting for both groups to finish their asigned jobs- tying up the people out here and herding the ones hiding in houses out here. Boss had said that according to how fast and efficient we could finish up some preferential treatment would be seen.
In less than ten minutes houses were emptied of residents and and villagers were tied up nice and clean. Rexd looked at boss who was smiling like glutton in an all you can eat buffet. "Rex! You are a gold mine!" exclaimed the bandit leader, smiling ear to ear.
"Never have we had our raid end so fast and easy. And im a Forsaken too. What did they feed you growing up? your parents i mean?" leader asked and sclera of one of his eyes suddenly darkened to light blue color and iris in that eye went bloood red."Cant hide it yet?" asked leader raising and eyebrow "comes with time boy. Anyways, time to test the merchandise boys!" yelled leader and walked to the rounded up villagers. "U get to pick one first Rex, as I'm feeling reaal good right now!" laughed the leader, acknowledging nods from the rest of the crew "but dont break her too bad with that monstrous strenght of yours, gotta still be able to sell them you know." boss laughed and grabed a girl with brown hair tied in a single braid. The girl who was decently good looking but not too endowed sobbed as she was pulled to one of the houses.Pulling the girl behind him the boss reached out a hand and grabbed a spear like pole with sand clock like object at the top,
showed it in the ground , fliped the clock so it starts dripping and said "30 minutes boys. Be quick, we have loot to sell." and pulled the girl with him in the house.
"He does like them flat" one of the bandits quietly snickered and eyed the remaing women to pick one.
'When in Rome....' thought Rex, approached the round up girls and picked one rather well endowed, and from what his eyes showed, probably a mother of some kids, and pulled her to a nearby home. For the next thirty minutes villagers heard screams and crying from the houses as the bandits were testing out the goods. Rather pleased and sweaty, they brought villagers and the loot to boats, loaded them up and prepeared for a few days of travel, to peddle the wares and freshly aquired slaves off in Zharr. The extra two ships that were brought along for that exact purpose were loaded to the brim with slaves and what other goods they could scrounge up.