The job instructed them to appear the next morning at the guards barracks with enough supplies for a week in the forest. Around the three of them were small groups of more experienced adventurers, including a tall woman Krim recognised as the one he slimed.

Thankfully she opted for giving him a dirty look instead of causing a scene, He'd had quite a few of those in the last couple of days and was growing tired of them.

Krim fingered the freshly cleaned spearheads attached to his belt at the waist. He'd spent most of the previous evening hammering them straight and sharpening them against an old stone his mother kept in the kitchen.

He now had six decent spear heads and a few more deformed back-ups in his bag. He'd excitedly explained his plan of using them with his tentacles acting as the shafts to his friends after he'd bought them and after some practice in his bedroom, couldn't wait to try it out in a fight.

Each group was handed a rough map of the forest and nearby hills with a section marked for each of them. Their group was to head north to the less forested hills where several caravans had been robbed by a small group of elusive bandits.

There was a rough description of the boons the surviving merchants had seen but only one of them seemed useful in a fight. “Bone spears? Sounds almost as bad as tentacles.” Bargus said as they double checked their equipment and supplies.

Fredd had managed to pick up a few different types of seeds at the market, one of which he was sure he could grow into a thorny bramble to trap people with. Krim and Bargus gave him funny looks as their mild mannered friend described what he planned to do with it. “That's worse than tentacles or bone spears.” Krim said finally satisfied he had everything he needed in his pack.

The powerfully built guard captain who'd given them their map came by to check on them again. “You all good to go?” he asked and received a trio of nods. “Good, now remember what I said. They'll be watching the road so your best bet is to keep off it until after you're passed Hadens Ford. A caravan left yesterday but you should be able to catch up, just make sure you stay out of sight.”

Krim shook his hand and thanked him for the advice. The other groups had already left the training yard in front of the barracks and the three of them did the same.

The road north went all the way to Triton and was kept in excellent condition even this far away from the city. Krim stifled a sigh as they left the easy to walk on road and started through the rough forest. There were no monsters this close to Krief but Krim decided to take out his tentacles and equip his spear heads anyway, the potential danger of monsters was an easy excuse to indulge his excitement at having new weapons.

After a day of walking and no monster attacks they decided to camp at the edge of Hadens Ford instead of entering it. There was a chance the the bandits would have people in the village and none of them wanted to ruin their chances of catching the bandits by surprise.

“Its weird how few monsters there are here compared to to the western road.” Fredd said. He was currently setting up a circle of brambles around them just in case anything came across them in the night. The bushes he created where made up of inch thick vines that had long hooked thorns growing all along their lengths.

“Really hope I don't need to pee in the night.” Krim said eyeing the dark red thorns.

Fredd made a few vines wriggle their way towards him while Krim raised his spear heads and the shield on his arm.

“Enough you two, we need to keep a low profile.” Bargus said putting an end to the battle before it could begin.

The night passed quickly after that with only a few common boar snuffling around the edge of their thorny wall before backing off. There were dark clouds in the sky when they woke up. Promising a wet and miserable day of slogging through the woods and they decided to start early before it got too bad.

'At least this rain should slow down the caravan.' Krim mused as he tore his boot from the sucking mud. They had cleared the thickest part of the forest and the ground was becoming increasingly hilly, the rain made climbing the hills a chore and coming down them was more of a controlled slide than anything else.

Krims tentacles were a huge advantage that let him slide down without much fear. Bargus had taken to baking the ground in front of him so he could step carefully down the slopes. He laughed as Fredd slid down on his back covered in mud. After trying and failing to get the wet grass to hold him he'd given up and decided to embrace the mud.

Hours of marching through the mud later they lay at the top of a hill with a clear view of the road. The caravan was ahead and at a stand still. The road had turned to mud and it seemed a wagon ahad broken a wheel. some men had the wagon on its side fitting a spare but the rain was slowing them down. Closer to the three of them however was a small group of six laying on a hill top watching the caravan.

“That has to be them.” Bargus said squinting to get a better look through the falling sheets of rain. Krim nodded but was quickly coming to grips with the fact they'd be fighting men, he had known that's what they were going to do but the reality that he was about to kill people had some how snuck up on him.

He looked at Fredd expecting him to have similar misgivings but his face was set with determination. Krim tried to calm himself and focus on the fact that the bandits were murderers and would kill the merchants if he didn't stop them. 'This is what it means to be an adventurer.' he told himself.

The bandits made a move before they did however and disappeared over the crest of the hill. The three of them sprung up and all Krims hesitations were left behind. They stumbled over the hill the bandits had just left and saw them confronting the merchants and two guards with weapons drawn.

Even in the rain it was easy to spot the pale spear of bone held by the shortest member of the bandits.

The rain muffled their charge until Krim was almost stabbing them in the back. The spear wielder spun and stabbed in one fluid motion.

They stumbled when their spear met thin air, stabbing passed the agile tentacles. Krim jabbed forward from every direction, not giving them any chance to dodge. The spear blocked one and they swatted away another with a hand but two glistening spear tips stabbed into the meat of the bandits legs and a third slashed across their face.

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While Krim followed up with his two unarmed tentacles to subdue the short bandit he tossed a handfull of seeds at the feet of the others, letting Fredd do his part.

As soon as the seeds touched ground Fredd sent his power surging through them. Roots plunged into the ground and drained the ground dry of nutrients as Fredd accelerated their growth. In moments thick thorny whips were lashing at the four stunned bandits.

One was wrapped up quickly with his arms being painfully pinned to his sides. Fredd caught another by the throat and before he could think twice he stabbed his short sword into the man's chest. Feeling the sword cut into the body and grate against bone shook him out of his battle fugue. He dropped the sword and lost control of the vine, letting the bandit fall to the ground.

The three remaining bandits ran for their lives. Seeing three of their mates be cut up while wrapped in tentacles and vines was too much for them. One of the caravan guards killed one with a well placed crossbow bolt but the remaining two looked to be getting away until Bargus entered the fight.

Now that there was no danger of catching the caravan in his blasts he vented his anger on the fleeing men. The ground dried and cracked in a straight line before him, the rain all around turned to steam and the men burned. They screamed for an instant before inhaling the superheated, It scotched their lungs and they collapsed. Bargus caught himself before he fell and shut down the stream of heat. His boon took a lot out of him when channelled and the wet air had worked against him.

The two guards helped drag the two burnt bandits and the one with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his ribs back to the caravan, while Krim wrapped the first victim of Fredd in his numbing tentacles. When Fredd had lost control the man had struggle free but the second guard had clubbed him over the head before the bandit could stand up.

The bone spear wielder was likewise unconscious, wrapped in tentacles and laying in a shallow mixture of slimy, bloody water. In the rain Krims slime acted like oil and swirled in pools around them all. At his urging the closest merchant had moved his horses and caravan a little further down the road.

The rain started to lessen and faint rays of light began to break through brightening up the messy scene before them. Fredd felt sick to his stomach and had to have one of the caravan guards pull his sword out of the bandit for him. The man offered a few words of encouragement and thanks but Fredd barely heard them.

Bargus had already begun stripping the dead, not even giving them a chance to go cold. The two he had cooked alive were almost a total write off. Their armour if a thick mostly burnt jacket could be called armour was ruined. Only their weapons were worth anything so he put them aside and searched them for coins but they were as poor as their ragged clothes suggested.

The crossbowmen stripped his bandit and stowed everything the man had on him onto one of the wagons. Bargus stripped the final corpse for Fredd but it was more of the same, though the man had a better sword than the bent one Fredd had used so they swapped it and put the old one with the pile of looted weapons. The two Krim held onto kept their clothes but their swords were also taken.

What looked like the lead merchant approached Krim to shake his hand and to make an offer. They sold the extra weapons and clothes to the man who gave them a generous price for saving them. The merchant also wrote them a quick note and signed his name.

The message was for the guards stationed at Hadens Ford, being adventurers they most likely wouldn't have any problems, even while dragging two unconscious people behind them but the note would help if the bandits had friends in the village.

Glad for the small break in the weather the merchants fixed their wheel and set off quickly tying to make up for lost time. Leaving the three adventurers and their two captives.

Krim sat down next to Fredd, he could see the war of emotions going on inside his head and wanted to be there if he needed it. Bargus was pacing back and forth still full of adrenaline. Krim could see that despite his earlier bravado Bargus was reeling from killing the men.

Fredd finally came to a decision, stood up and picked up his new sword, the sword of the man he'd killed and stuck it through the loop on his belt.

"You good?" Krim asked Fredd who was staring down at the dead man.

“I didn't think it would be that easy.” he said softly. He couldn't stop thinking of the way his sword just slid into the man.

Krim agreed with that, the bandits had fallen in only a few minutes and no one else had been hurt. “It was luck mostly. Lucky the rain let us get close and lucky we caught them in the act.”

Krim felt a tug on his tentacles and turned to see the spear wielder struggling. Her hood fell back as she tried and failed to spit through numb lips.

“Helpff me.” she mumbled.

Krim watched her as her head slowly cleared and she took in the dead bodies around her. “No, no no no.” she glared at Krim with fear. “What did you do!” she shouted. Her speech improving as feeling came back to her mouth. “Let me go. I need to get back.” She struggled weakly against the tight hold he had her in. her hair and face was plastered in mud so he couldn't be sure but she looked about his age rather than the older bandits that layabout them

“We're taking you back to Krief. The guards..”

“No! They have my brother, I'm not leaving without him.” her struggles grew more frantic and before he could stop her a spear of bone grew out of her palm and she stabbed one of his tentacles.

Krim shouted in pain and quickly wrapped her hand up, squeezing hard to make her drop the spear.

“I'm an adventurer!” she shouted as he crushed her hand. “I had to cooperate.” she screamed and he stopped crushing her.

The three of them surrounded her now all ready to use their boons at a moments notice.

“Explain.” Bargus demanded.

She quickly told them about how she and her brother got jumped on the road, her brother apparently had a valuable Boon and could heal injuries. The bandits had captured him on the road after he'd healed people in Hadens Ford and threatend each of them with the death of the other so they would cooperate.

The three of them huddled together away from her and kept their voices quiet. “Do you believe her?” Krim asked. Fredd nodded immediately.

“It could be a trap.” Bargus warned them but Krim wasn't sure about that.

“She'd have to be a great actor to make all that up after just being stabbed and knocked unconscious.”

“We should help her." Fred urged "At the least we should find their camp and tell the guards.”

They talked it over until Krim and Bargus agreed to get the location of the bandit camp and if it looked too dangerous they'd go back and get the guard. “You can lead us to the camp?” Krim asked and let the tentacles around her fall away after she agreed.

“Don't make another spear.” he warned and motioned for her to get up. Krim almost forgot he had a second prisoner tied up but a closer look at him showed that was unnecessary. The wound on his head had continued to bleed and he had died at some point after the fight. He had nothing worth taking on him so Krim dropped his body at the side of the road with the others.

Raising a spear tipped tentacle to the girl he waved her forward. “Lead the way.”