I slowly lowered the bleeding corpse of the elven woman onto the platform as I was heavily breathing. This elven bandit managed to put up quite a good fight despite the fact that she was drunk enough to have difficulty walking, I even felt a bruise or two on my face where she was wildly flinging her fists trying to escape from me.
Thankfully I managed to keep my left hand over her mouth and kept her from screaming or shouting anything. If that had happened I likely would be fighting against the whole camp and I was fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to do that without lots of preparation.
When my heart slowed down and the pain from where the elven bandit had struck me had lessened I started going through her things as well. The first item was the bow and arrows which looked to be around the same quality as the ones from the first watchtower bandit. However upon looking through her pockets I found she didn’t have any money at all, not even a single copper piece. I double and triple checked every pocket she had and I did not find even one coin on her.
At this sudden discovery I was both annoyed and bewildered by the fact that somebody could have no money to their name and still have a perfect means to feed themselves. With that bow the elven woman could have been a hunter and fed herself that way while also selling any trophies or animal hides she took. Instead she chose to be a bandit and die a silent and terrifying death by my hands.
Looking over at the bandit on the last watchtower I considered just casting a spell and killing him from a distance just to ease myself from the pain that was sneaking up behind people. But since that still left many opportunities for him to shout to give away the fact that he was injured I chose to swallow my feelings and descend from the ladder and make my way towards the third and last watchtower.
I decided that I would continue following the wall until I was close enough to the leader's little section towards the top left section of the camp. When I was there I changed my direction and started walking towards the first entrance I stumbled across and I prepared to deal with the bandits standing guard.
When I stood just ten or so meters away I started to cast the Tri Earth Bolt spell twice and quickly ended up with six bots, three for each of my targets. Funnily enough these two seemed to be the only sober bandits within the entire camp, I didn’t see any empty bottles by their feet, they were standing straight, and they were even talking fine.
“You think the boss is getting lazy recently? I think she is, and I think her attitude is rubbing off onto all the other lads as well.” The bandit on the right said to the second bandit who was standing just a meter or so away from him.
“Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed a change with her. Since we joined up with those Rusted Dagger fellows things have been changing and not for the better. I reckon that this alliance will bring the camp down around us with all the booze and that swamp grass crap. Honestly why do the lads even smoke that stuff, it smells like cat piss.” The second bandit started going on a short rant regarding the ‘swamp grass’ which I quickly realized was the swamp weed that started getting sold by the Black Eye gang after the purge of the criminal elements of Antium.
As much as I wanted to just kill the two and be done with it, the second bandit was making some good points that I did agree with. However when he was done there wasn’t anything stopping me from dealing with them both without hesitation.
“The price of the stuff is the worst part about it, the merchant fellow that we do business with says the markets at the moment are doing quite terribly at the moment and that is why he needs to charge us more. But he has been saying that since-” The bandit coughed up blood alongside his friend as they were both struck in the back of the neck and back. They dropped their weapons to the ground and fell to their knees while they desperately reached back behind themselves trying to grab at whatever was harming them.
I just stood back and watched as they slowly died from their injuries with a look of indifference evident for anyone to see if they were not black out drunk.
When they stopped moving I took their weapons which were two iron short swords and I rifled through their pockets for any coin they might have. Funny enough the little rant the second bandit went on was the likely reason I found ten copper coins on each of them resulting in twenty copper pieces which was equal to a whole silver coin.
/- - - - - -\
+ 50 Exp X 2 (100)
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Finally I followed the wall to the last watchtower and climbed up with a conjured dagger in my hand, carefully positioning myself behind him and took the first opportunity to strike. I plunged the blade into his neck and covered his mouth with my hand. He tried struggling but soon the blood reduced his strength and he fell to the ground where I stabbed him a second time just to be certain. I took his bow and arrows before looking through his pockets and discovering that he had a nice seven copper coins in his pockets which I added to my own.
With nothing to stop or even look at me I stood at the edge of the platform and looked over at the inside of the camp, this place was filled with nothing but evil and fools who care nothing aside from drinking and killing. Though unlike before when I came here at the request of the city guard to capture the leader of this place I was here because I wanted to be here, and now I had a golden opportunity to ride the world of this evil and acquire some money to further my studies and help defeat the wannabe vampire lord and the criminal underworld he collude with.
/- - - - - -\
+ 50 Exp
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Slowly I descended from the watchtower and made my way towards the leader's large tent. I didn’t bother trying to be stealthy as I walked since there wasn’t anybody who could notice me at the moment. When I arrived I found it looked a little different than when I last saw it, it was in a better condition likely given how it would accumulate damage over time and their entire operation being exposed drastically reduced the amount of money she had following in to make things like repairs. ‘Too bad that is going to change on this fateful day.’
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Unlike with the previous watchtowers and guards I slowly drew my sword on the off chance that she was awake and able to fight back. While I was swift with my magic it would be quicker to block with a weapon I already had on hand than something I conjured up.
Pushing through the drape with my sword first I peeked inside before I fully entered. The first thing to pop out was all the valuables the dwarf had laying about. I saw a table with an assortment of silver rings and necklaces, there were many pouches just filled to the top with copper and silver coins, it was a dramatic change from what I saw when I was here with the stone elf Titia.
But for the moment I left the money and the valuables alone. First I needed to find the leader and kill her, preferably as quickly as possible. I already knew the layout so I slowly made my way towards the bedroom area with a slight twitch in my hands and my step.
Looking through the archway of the tent I saw the dwarven woman sleeping soundly with an assortment of large pillows and empty bottles on the floor. There were several more bottles that looked to still be full of whatever alcohol they continued on a nearby and small table. While being as careful as possible I stepped into the room with my sword pointed towards her, I moved closer until my sword was just an inch away from her drooling face.
I could hear her snoring as I took a deep breath and prepared to plunge the blade into her neck. Just looking at her face angered me for a reason I couldn’t understand, I knew she was evil and a murderer from before but for some reason it was like being around her was making me sick, like it was making me ill just being around and looking at evil.
To try and ease this ill feeling I closed my eyes while the blade was kept exactly where it was, for a moment I remained like that, like a statue frozen in time. Then I thrusted the blade forwards into her neck with as much strength as I could put into it.
I heard a sudden choking and coughing sound as the dwarven bandit tried to breath, then I felt her moving around as she tried to get away from me. Still my eyes remained closed. It wasn’t until she stopped moving and the choking died out did I open my eyes. All I saw before me was a pathetic corpse of a pathetic woman. Oddly enough the sight brought a small amount of joy to me before I suddenly realized that I had never felt that way before.
I looked down at my hands as a sickening feeling slowly rose out from my stomach. “Am I becoming like them?” I wondered aloud as I looked at the face of the dwarf I just killed.
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+ 75 Exp
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In what was almost a panic I grabbed my sword and sheathed it before I left the room and picked up anything and everything I could find that was of any value. Everything from the piles of jewelry to the pouches of money was dumped into my dimensional bag with little delicacy for anything in particular, at the moment I just wanted to leave, but I came for a purpose and that was to steal from these monsters.
By the time I emptied the tent I easily had stolen several gold coins worth of money and valuables, most of the valuables were rings or other apparel items but there was also a small silver statuette of Solarius mixed in as well. The statuette stood at around a third of a foot tall and fit well within my hands, the statuette itself depicted Solarius as a humanoid being wearing a set of plate armor and a cape holding a large two handed sword with the tip pointed towards the ground. There was a sort of elegance to the pose that was chosen that I couldn't explain.
‘I’ll need to return this to the circle of fire or one of the temples under their leadership. I would bet they would have an easy time figuring out who sold this statuette with their truth telling magic, though they likely wouldn’t try and punish me. It would be better to avoid the hassle and danger that might come with it. Who knows, this might even help convince the paladins to listen to me when they hear I returned their statuette showing myself to be an ally.’
I placed the statuette into my bag with a little more care than anything else I found within the tent, and with that I had taken everything of value within the tent and I exited through the front flap. Looking out towards the rest of the tents all placed side by side I noticed that nobody had noticed that any of the guards were missing from their posts let alone those on the watchtowers. Once again I was filled with disgust by the sight, the sheer laziness of these people and I intended to do something permanent about it.
I stepped out to the tents sitting side by side in somewhat neat rows, I watched and listened for any sign of movement but I found none. In total I counted thirty five tents which equated to thirty five bandits excluding the leader, subtracting those on the watchtowers and at the two entrances that left just twenty eight bandits still breathing.
With a cold face I stepped towards the right most tent and opened it before poking my sword through the flap to see inside. There I saw a scruffy looking human sleeping soundly on what was basically a thick carpet made from an animal hide. I stepped inside with my sword pointed towards his neck and stabbed downwards with no hesitation. I didn’t blink, I didn’t flinch, I was stone cold and the little bastard at my feet didn’t have a chance in the abyss.
All he managed to get out was a few coughs of blood before he died and I started looking through his things. I found a cheap iron shortsword, cheaper than what the guards had but good enough for someone sleeping on a carpet, and his savings were quite pitiful with only three copper pieces to his name.
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+ 50 Exp
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I moved onto the next tent and did the same, I took the bastard's weapon and his money after stabbing him in the throat before moving on all the same. I did the same with each and every bandit I found in those tents despite the small morsel of sadness curled up in my soul. By the time I was done my sword was soaked with blood and a trail was leading from one tent to the next. I barely even felt like a person at that point, I was more like a machine doing what needed to be done without any messy emotions getting in the way. When I was eventually done I just stood back and looked at what I had done.
/- - - - - -\
+ 50 Exp X 26 (1,300)
Level 13, 11,675 Exp
Next at 13,400
+ Sneaking Level 6
+ Sneaking Level 7
+ Assassination Level 1
+ Assassination Level 2
+ Assassination Level 3
+ Assassination Level 4
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I noticed the HUD showing my progress but I paid it little attention. I just looked upon the carnage I left and conjured up a small amount of fire which I tossed to the tents and the walls engulfing the dry wood and fabric as I left back for the city.