Just outside the tree line Arthur stood in his full plate armor with his longsword at his hip. He looked through his dimensional bag to be sure that he packed everything that he intended to bring including the handful of throwable revolting stench potions that can be used to make an escape.
Soon from just a few meters away Titia the stone elf appeared, dropping her invisibility spell. “Why hello again Mr. Arthur. It's nice to see you again.” Titia smiled and walked around him while he sorted through his bag.
“It's good to see you as well, corporal. I trust you know of the situation here.” Titia frowned. He was using her rank while addressing her showing he was being very professional at the moment. A shame because she liked talking to him.
“Of course, Captain Pelagius filled me in on the situation here. Captain Tasius is having difficulty with the bandits who have dug their ground under his predecessor's command.”
“Good. So you also know just how invaluable your invisibility spells will be to move undetected.” Arthur finished looking through his bag and turned to face Titia. “I hope you can maintain an invisibility spell on more than one person because it may be vital to the plan I have.”
“I can but we can’t run while under its effects or I may end up losing my concentration on it, and I won’t be able to cast any other spells so the sound from your armor will stand out.”
“That is a problem, but this is a stealth mission so I think I can live without the armor for now.” Arthur ducted behind a wall of stone he conjured while he changed into his normal alchemist clothes.
“That's an interesting outfit you have. I expected you to wear something more… simple.” Titia remarked at his choice of clothes.
“After I became an apprentice my master picked these out for me. I did end up paying for them but they are quite nice for everyday use.”
“Anyways, what exactly is your plan? I hope it doesn’t involve just waltzing up to bandits on guard and asking to speak with their leader.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be doing that. While under the cover of night I want you to cast an invisibility spell on us so we may pass through all resistance without issue and sneak into the leaders quarters where I will use hydromancy to fill his mouth with water and extract the false tooth filled with poison before we interrogate him.”
“That's it? It is rather simple don’t you think, and the risk of being caught is quite high even if we go at night.” Titia didn’t like how simple the plan was, there were too many details that went accounted for. Such as if the leader wasn’t alone, what would they do then?
“I know, but a simple plan is also an adaptive plan. If something comes up that we did not anticipate we can adapt and come up with a solution, whereas if we had a complex and elaborate plan we likely wouldn’t be able to do that.”
Titia paused, he had a good point. She recalled when she spoke while invisible and stabbed the vampire in the back to distract him to save Arthur. That wasn’t planned out, she reacted to the situation and everything turned out quite well because the plan was able to be adapted to fit the situation.
“Alright, you do have a point. Where exactly is the camp and when are we going to infiltrate it?”
“It is just six or so kilometers into the forest south of us. I don’t know the layout yet but when we get there we will decide when enough bandits are asleep to enact our plan.”
********
Arthur and Titia crept up to a vantage point on a small hill that gave them a good view of the layout of the small bandit camp. The camp had simple wooden walls fashioned from tree trunks with all the branches stripped off and a two meter opening that acted as an entrance.
They counted twenty or so tents each housing at least two bandits each leaving them with an estimated forty bandits plus the leader.
“This is what they call a small camp. I can only imagine what they call a big one.” Titia said while she looked at the layout through a small cylinder shaped object with glass on each end.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Thankfully our objective is just to interrogate the leader and leave. We don’t need to deal with all this rabble.” Arthur was more than ready to begin the infiltration.
“Yes but we cannot guarantee that complications will not occur. We should have a plan for the case of being discovered.”
“I do have a back up plan. It's this little unassuming potion.” To demonstrate his point he removed the lid for just a moment. That one moment of the contents being exposed to the outside air was more than enough to make Titia gag.
“That is the worst smell I have ever smelt. Even horse shit doesn’t smell that bad.” Titia glared at Arthur after barely managing to keep her lunch down.
“If you think this is bad you should smell the ones made by Master Calvus. The first time I smelt one of his I didn’t eat for two whole days.”
“So do you think now is a good time to infiltrate the camp?” Titia asked, changing the conversation.
“Not yet, we should wait for nightfall at least. By then it should be dark and quiet enough to move through undetected.”
*********
Several hours passed and soon night descended upon the forest. The herbivores took to their burrows or packs to keep safe from the predators, and a majority of the bandits took to their tents to sleep the night away. Only a handful of bandits remained awake, including two that were at the small entrance.
“Do you think we can pass them while hidden?” Arthur looked to Tatia who was hiding behind a small bush less than a meter from the one he hid behind.
“As long as neither of us have anything that will make noise while we walk we can. So you might want to put away your sword for now and only take it out when we are inside.”
“I can live with that.” Arthur followed Titia’s advice and placed his sword in his dimensional bag. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah I am. Just give me a second to cast the spell and stay close to me. If you move too far from me I wont be able to keep the spell active over you.” Titia performed a few hand signs and muttered a few words that Arthur did not understand. Then suddenly a small translucent dome that slightly distorted everything outside it appeared around the two.
Arthur looked at the dome in awe, he hadn't seen anything like it before. “Stay within a meter of me at all times or you will stray outside the spell's area of effect.” Titia gave Arthur one final warning before she began walking towards the entrance while trying to make as little noise as possible.
Arthur could see the bandits slowly becoming closer and bigger as they slowly walked. When they were only five meters away he almost expected one of them to turn and ask what they were doing, but they did no such thing. When they were passing by he could see just how tired they looked. Despite the menacing looking weapons they did not look like they had the energy to properly use them.
‘The only way these two would find any use would be as an alarm.’ Arthur noticed a small contraption on the left side just through the entrance that when pulled out light a fire and presumably alert everyone of an intruder. ‘It looks rather crude but if it works, it works.’
Each of the smaller tents for the common rabble the duo passed were only large enough for two people at most to sleep in, and even then it would not be very comfortable. They would almost need to lay side by side to fit inside. The goal of the duo was to check the largest tent that was placed atop a small hill within the camp's wall.
They did not encounter any patrols on their way, the entire camp aside from the two at the entrance and a couple standing in makeshift towers were asleep. “I can’t believe how sloppy these bandits are. They don’t even have any patrols within their own camp.” Titia whispered to Arthur when they got within ten meters of the large tent.
“I'm not exactly expecting bandits to be all that well disciplined unless they were either former military or deserters. From what I can tell this camp is full of fresh meat or bodies the leader of all these bandits intends to use to swarm the enemy with little regard for whether they live or die.”
“They wouldn’t. That sounds like something that Zar'Nakth or his followers would do rather than some weak and cowardly bandits.” Titia was appalled by that possibility. Even if bandits did evil by robbing and killing there were certain actions she thought even they wouldn’t do.
“If you are having any doubts I suppose we can just ask the leader of this fine bandit camp.” Arthur said as he drew his sword from his bag and readied himself to strike.
“Fine. Just let me cast an air dome that will keep any noise from getting out.” With a series of hand signs and some incomprehensible words a dome of air covered the entire tent but still allowed for air, light, and solid objects to flow through.
“Hey, once we are done with this you gotta teach me how to do that.”
The duo entered the tent with Arthur going first with his blade extended out ready to face any threat it passed. Thankfully it was not needed as the first room in the tent appeared to just be a simple dining area. Albeit simple it did show that this was very likely the leader as only the leader would be able to take such valuables for himself without causing problems.
There were two other rooms, one on the left and another on the right. A quick peep to the left showed a room dedicated to a storage space that was about half full of a few boxes. The other room on the other hand was most definitely a bedroom with a proper bed unlike what any of the other bandits would receive.
And the most important part, there was someone sleeping on that bed, a dwarven woman to be exact. And she was quite loud when she snored, reminding Arthur of the carpenters when he walked through the various craftshalls when he was picking up the glassware from Ice Wares Glass Smiths.