After prying the discussion away from the topic of cannibalism, Al persuaded the group to help him drag their assailants' remains off to the side of the roadway. Luckily, only Al and Gruntle had been injured at all. In the interest of saving time, they each drank down one of the manor's health-restoring potions to stop the bleeding. The thick, alchemically-processed drink had a good sweet-and-sour flavor, and a pleasant warmth spread from Al's belly to the rest of his body in seconds. The cuts he'd sustained immediately stopped bleeding and mostly closed up, leaving them looking as though they'd healed naturally for several days. Gruntle's more substantial wounds closed up as well, but were still clearly visible and scabbed over.

Once this was done, they went about the messy process of confiscating any useful material possessions from the bandits. Al looked with disappointment at what they managed to gather.

Six sets of cobbled-together and poorly-maintained leather outfits that might charitably be considered "armor". Six different small straight or curved swords, tolerably sharpened but with signs of rust and abuse. Eight small knives in similarly bad shape - each bandit had been carrying one, but one of them had an additional mismatched pair that seemed to be somewhat balanced for throwing. Five badly worn but still functioning small crossbows, and a total of fifteen crossbow bolts. Various coinpurses and pockets turned out to have held a total of thirty-three copper coins, twelve silver coins, and two gold coins, all with the Monarchy of Casusia's mint-mark. A plain silver ring and a silver necklace-chain had also been in the leader's coinpurse.

There was also the clothing and boots, but the smell of them was enough to dissuade any thoughts of taking them off of the bandits - it had been unpleasant enough just searching them for pockets and hidden objects. They decided the "armor" was in the same state and wouldn't be kept either. Cursing himself for not remembering to buy paper, he turned to the end of his wizardry-book and began a ledger starting backwards from the back page. He dutifully recorded everything they were keeping. He sighed.

"Well, probably only a few hundred or so more encounters like this and we'll have paid back Notamimic Manor," he announced sarcastically. "Well, maybe the weaponry can be sold for some coin. It's not in great shape but it ought to be worth something."

"I imagine they must have a camp or hideout somewhere. They likely have more there. Of course, there may also be more of them there, and we probably do not want to spend the time to look for it now," Bote reasoned.

Al agreed.

"Yes, we need to get back on the road, this interruption has taken up too much time already. Wikwocket, could you...no, wait."

Al looked at Gruntle, and decided he needed to try trusting him eventually.

"Gruntle, could you scout around and find us a place to dump these bodies in the woods where nobody's going to find them too easily?"

Gruntle nodded and gave a grunt, then loped quietly off into the trees. Al lost sight of him quickly. He and the others sat down upwind of the dead bandits' bodies to rest while they waited.

Gruntle emerged from the treeline further down the road a little while later, his muzzle stained with blood. Noticing this, Al stood quickly and took out his mace, looking and listening into the forest. Wikwocket and Bote similarly prepared themselves.

"Did you run into more bandits in there?" Al asked urgently.

"Nah," Gruntle answered.

"You've got blood on your face!"

"Rabbit. I'm hungry."

Al relaxed, feeling annoyed.

"Did you find somewhere to put these bodies?"

"Hole under a big tree, not far that way." Gruntle pointed into the woods behind where he'd come out. "Think they'll all fit in there."

"Okay. Give me a little while to do some, uh, shaman stuff." Al said. He consulted his book of wizardry notes again and meditated over it while Bote tended to what remained of Gruntle's injuries. Then, following a process he'd carefully documented in his notes, he gouged a circular arcane pattern in the snow as he chanted quietly. It took some time to write out all of the symbols and complete the invocation, but in the end the circular pattern seemed to lift itself out of the snow. It hovered in the air like a blurry round glass tabletop.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I think this should hold about three of the bodies at a time, pile some on and lead me to what you found."

Gruntle led them to a mostly-uprooted oak tree. It was a much larger, older tree than the others around it. It leaned to the side at a sharp angle as though it had been blown over by an intense storm. About three-quarters of the tree's roots had pulled up, leaving a wide, gouged-out patch of earth beneath. The remaining roots appeared to have held and the tree still lived, its newest branches bending to grow straight upwards from the tilted trunk and the still-embedded roots well dug in. The space between the tree's pulled-up roots and the hole that remained beneath had plenty of room for six human bodies. It took two trips, but they shuttled the dead bandits to it and shoved all of them into the space under the tree. Bote gave a brief prayer to Indicina, asking that the appropriate deities be informed of six souls that needed to be sent where they belonged.

Finally, they returned to the road and began gathering things up to leave.

Al didn't enjoy the all-too-frequent discussion that followed of why they couldn't just magic up some convenience to carry their things. He started trying to explain why what Wikwocket called the "magic invisible cart" spell would only last long enough to perform some chores and would naturally fade out and dump everything on the ground long before they reached Henhaven. After a few minutes, he gave up and just said that actually carrying things was good for everyone's health and magic shouldn't just be used for laziness.

"Besides that, having to stop to re-establish the magical effect several times before we arrive would actually take longer than just walking and carrying everything, and I wouldn't be able to keep it going the whole way to Henhaven even if I tried right now," he finished, as he tied two of the crossbows to the outside of his pack.

The sun was getting low in the sky as they continued on their way. They still had a few hours of walking to do. Al muttered silently to himself as they marched tediously along.

'Magic invisible cart'. Nobody appreciates how complex this stuff is. Sure, it's well-documented and simple for wizardry but the pattern holds a very specific amount of intent. Do they think I could just, what, shove more 'magic' into it to make it last longer? I mean, the whole pattern would have to be altered. Hmm, I suppose if one just...

The academic challenge kept Al's mind occupied for quite a while, until he stumbled over a stone in the road and nearly fell. Night had properly fallen as he had pondered. Al could barely see the surface of the road and the rest of his group around him in the dim moonlight peeking between the clouds. The others continued to march along confidently.

Al sighed. "I'm the only one who can't see in this, aren't I," he stated.

"My ancestors have preferred the underground for our entire existence. We're used to less brightly-lit spaces," said Bote.

"There's plenty of moonlight," added Wikwocket.

Gruntle noticed everyone looking at him. He shrugged and kept walking.

Al silently looked up, beseeching the heavens for mercy. He couldn't see anyone up there, but he assumed that, like apparently everyone but him, they'd have no trouble seeing him pleading down there in the dark.

"And before you ask," Al said, "no, I don't have a way to magic my eyes. Stop for a moment and I can light a torch. I'll do that with magic if you want."

Gruntle stopped. The others stopped to see why.

Gruntle turned to regard Al, who could only really see the faint amber glow of Gruntle's eyes reflecting the dim moonlight above him. They stared at each other for several uncomfortable seconds. Finally, Al saw Gruntle's eyes widen.

"Oh," Gruntle said, or at least that's how Al interpreted the quiet guttural sound, "Strategy. Shaman holds bright light, draws all the attention. Powerful magic protects him. While all the enemy attention is on shaman, we ambush and kill the enemy."

Gruntle lowered his head slightly in a sort of bow.

Al took off his pack and fished a torch out of it, feeling he was unavoidably committed now. For the sake of theatrics, he added some flourish to his gestures as he abused a tiny bit of arcane power, commanding the torch to burst into flame.

That might actually be a pretty good strategy if I actually had powerful magic to protect me. Al thought to himself. What have I gotten myself into?

They set off again, Gruntle stalking eagerly ahead, just beyond the range of the torchlight. He seemed disappointed when nothing attacked them before they reached the poorly-lit village of Henhaven.