After the brief meeting with the captain and going over the bare minimum regarding when and where they needed to meet up for the assault on the Rusted Daggers they were forced to wait and leave in a staggered pattern. One person or group that arrived together would be allowed to leave every five to ten minutes, and it was based on who arrived first. The reason behind it was to avoid any suspicion regarding the meeting from any spies, of which Captain Tasius suspected there to be many watching his every move from outside.
Since Arthur was one of the earliest to arrive at the meeting he was able to leave quickly and get back to his day, but not before asking those who did not accept the job. As it turned out they were still required to sign an oath of silence regarding what happened.
The first thing Arthur did upon leaving was go straight home and begin to brew as many offensive alchemical tools he could think of, from fire seeds to smoke bombs he did not hesitate to make as many as he could fit in his bag.
Arthur knew that people would die in this fight and there was no reason that the bandits wouldn’t have access to alchemical tools or some basic talismans in the hands of the high rankers. And since it was the hideout they were raiding, odds were there would be a lot, but Captain Tasius was more than willing to hand out some alchemical tools such as fire seeds, but also a handful of talismans to those without any magic skills.
But deep down Arthur was still scared, in fact he has been hiding his fear even from himself in these dangerous situations. The vampires and demon terrified the hell out of him but he pushed on out of pure instinct, like how he felt the vampire assassin watching him from a distance.
The feeling in question was very similar to a spider or multiple spiders climbing up and down his back, in fact that is exactly what he thought it was at first. But he did eventually feel a pull towards a seemingly random direction that got closer and disappeared when he arrived at the guild. He even felt it when the expedition found the demon, at the time he didn’t notice, but it was there.
And now that feeling was back, the fear running up and down his spine, but this time there was no pull leading him towards where the danger was. But it didn’t need to, wherever the bandits had their hideout was the source of the danger.
**********
A full week passed with the feeling of danger never leaving Arthur’s side, not even as he slept. He had to keep his feelings hidden from Calavia as he spent time with her making it the worst part of each of his days. He wished to tell her everything of what happened, to go into every detail. He even was forced to cancel Marcus’s training with the excuse of not feeling well due to being unable to concentrate on teaching.
‘I don’t understand. If it gets worse based on the danger then it should have been just as bad if not worse when I engaged the vampires on my own. I didn't even feel it after I killed the vampire assassin let alone the vampire lord.’ Thankfully the week passed and Arthur was able to make his way towards the meeting area to rally before the assault.
The guards at the gate recognized him and he gave the simple excuse of leaving to collect more ingredients for his alchemy. Since he was in his regular civilian clothes he was able to quickly pass through the gate. He instead kept his armor in his bag and put it on when he arrived at the rally point.
Arthur walked down the road towards the forest paying little attention to the sown fields that the farmers were spreading fertilizer upon.
The rally point was deep within the woods, taking him a good half hour to reach it without drawing any attention. But even when he arrived he would still need to wait as only about half had even arrived by that point to prevent any spies from getting suspicious of their activities. The explanation given by Captain Tasius was that they are all known as either members of the city guard or mercenaries employed by the city guard.
The rally point was empty aside from a small fire and a handful of cheap tents where everyone changed into their armor of whatever they wore to fight. Arthur entered the nearest one and switched to his armor as fast as he could.
But ultimately there was little point in being quick as another three hours passed before everyone had arrived and prepared themselves. Captain Tasius was the one who led the group to the western part of the forest and eventually to the small cave that Arthur had frequently passed on his trips into the forest. Suddenly the footprints in the dirt nearby had a far different meaning.
‘They were right there this whole time. Have they been watching me through some sort of surveillance and decided I wasn’t worth it? Or was I just lucky they never exited while I was around.’ Arthur followed the captain's lead as he thought about all the possible dangers that could have happened if he wasn’t so lucky.
As they approached the cave only a handful of the elite guards along with the captain entered initially to find the passage, and after about five minutes of searching the found it. It was a small hole just large enough for a fully grown human with armor to pass through and was hidden by a handful of boulders stacked against it.
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As a result of the small size of the passageway they had to enter in a single file with the captain at the front. The other side of the passage led out to a large room that clearly was made by people. The room was square and symmetrical and somewhat smoothed compared to the natural feeling passage they just came from.
The nearest doorway had no door allowing the raiding party to easily pass through into another much larger room with an assortment of crates, boxes, barrels, and bags. Some had been organized and stacked together, but most had just been left in a seemingly random place and many were half emptied. There were also some pillars of unmined stone that were left seemingly at random, the only possible use they had might be for defensive cover.
They were very wasteful with what they took, the contents of several on the boxes and crates could be found all over, from clothes to broken bottles, it painted a clear picture of how much the bandits valued the possessions they took. Very little.
Everyone took note of the mess within the room, especially Captain Tasius who scowled at the amount they wasted. It was the fruits of the hard labor of other people they had taken, and now they simply waste it. It was disgusting, and they needed to be stopped.
As they pressed further into the room they found the large throne carved from the stone wall on the far side of the room, as well as one person sitting upon it talking with several other well dressed people surrounded by what appeared to be cutthroat mercenaries.
The person on the throne was a human woman with brown hair and eyes wearing a set of heavy steel plate armor with some very expensive engravings that Captain Tasius recognized as an import for one of the nobles currently residing within the city. It was intended to be delivered to him prior to the captain’s promotion but never arrived, likely due to the caravan being ambushed by bandits.
Retrieving that armor would likely make that noble in question very thankful and get his support in regards to incorporating mages into the justice and legal system.
Captain Tasius informed his unit with a series of hand signs to the numbers and location of the enemies, they then shared the message with each other until everyone understood what was happening.
As quietly as they could, everyone found a better position with cover to attack the enemy in preparation for the captain to give the signal, the signal being him throwing a fire seed towards the bandits and drawing their attention.
Arthur along with Kavok and other unknown guard hid behind one of the closest pillars with their weapon of choice at the ready. For Arthur that was his magic and alchemical tools, and for Kavok and the guard it was their bows.
*********
Felix weary looked around at the other members of the gang as his lover and boss Diana smiled while sitting upon her throne like a queen. The other high ranking members were not happy with how things had progressed after the attack on Antium.
Things were intended to get easier with their biggest source of danger out of the way, but all that they seemed to achieve was to make things worse, because now instead of just the city guard hunting them now they had to deal with mages. And mages were far more dangerous than just simple guards.
While they might have received a few weeks of freedom from the law, now it was breathing down their necks and they had no way out. So why not force their leader to do something about it, they outnumbered her and Felix.
“Now now, fighting amongst ourselves won’t fix the issue. If we are going to survive against this threat we need to do it together.” Felix attempted to calm the angry bandits with little success.
“Things are worse than ever, and it's her fault!”
“Yeah! Why should we listen to either of you!?”
“And we do all the work while you just sit here all day!”
The majority of the bandits were not happy with how their situation was. More than a quarter of them had already been killed off by the city guard or the mercenaries they hired, the news of how many bandits had been killed in recent times also deterred any new recruits as joining them was more dangerous than hunting dragons.
And the bandits were more than happy to use violence against their former leader if they needed to, as no one in their line of business liked to take the fall on behalf of someone else especially when that would include the death penalty.
The amount of bandits that were publicly executed had been steadily increasing while scaring off anyone considering joining up.
But for some reason Diana was not scared, if anything based on her smile she was happy with such an outcome. This apparent happiness confused Felix as he knew they could easily be killed off within minutes at best if their former allies decided to.
“Such strong words, but such little physical strength to back them up. If you did not believe in my skills as a leader then none of you would be here, instead you all would have run as fast as you could while taking anything of value that could be carried.”
Diana smiled as she spoke down to her rebelling subordinates, they all knew without her they wouldn’t have anything close to the success they had previously, and Diana knew how to leverage that.
“Now if anyone here is willing to set up and face me for leadership then by all means, try it.” Diana stood up from her throne and gripped her two handed war hammer that gave off a small flame on the end, a clear sign of an enchanted weapon.
The bandits before her aside from Felix all subconsciously took a step back at her happy display of willingness to use violence against her own subordinates. For Felix this was a common occurrence that he had long since gotten used to.
With her subordinates now far more docile, Diana sat down upon her throne once again, but just as she was about to start giving out orders an explosion filled the room, taking out two bandits towards the back of the gathering and hurting the ears of several others.
With that fire seed explosion the rest of the guards and mercenaries opened fire with whatever ranged weapons they had on hand, whether that be magic or a bow it was being used.
A small barrage of arrows and basic spells assaulted the bandits, but only about half of the projectiles met their targets. The bandits leading the larger groups had some talismans on hand that allowed them to create large barriers to keep most of their subordinates alive.