Of course she's the princess. Why would she NOT be?

I glance at Sam and she subtly shakes her head.

Well what the fuck are we supposed to do? Do you even have a plan?

"Come on now, git on out herr," the man just out of view shouts. When no one moves, one of the crossbowmen reaches in, grabs the lady-in-waiting (I still don't know her name) by the collar and flings her out of the carriage. She makes a solid thud on the ground as I hear the wheeze of her breath knocked out of her.

"STOP!" Princess Liz shouts standing abruptly. "I'll come peacefully, just...don't hurt her."

Well, points for caring about your subject I guess. Why didn't I study the human kingdoms? I don't even know who the king of where ever we are is. Actually, I didn't study that stuff at all. Not how to be a noble, not the maps, not even who the royalty is. Guess I don't need to study who they are if they're going to introduce themselves in life-or-death situations though.

She steps out of the carriage and one of the hands grabs her collar and throws her to the ground as well. Sam and I each take our turns of attempting to cautiously exit the carriage only the to grabbed and thrown to the dirt where we're immediately pounced upon and hog-tied with rope. I'm left on my side and can see the leader of the group, clearly delineated by being the only man with a magic item.

An eyepatch-lens? It's shaped like an eyepatch, but see through like sunglasses lens. Neat. I wonder what it does.

Without being able to turn my head and see the other side of me, I can at least discern that, aside from us four, the bandits are the only ones to survive the battle. The bodies of the guards and even of the traveling traders litter the ground around us.

Would bandits even kill the traders? Wouldn't they want them to stay alive so they can participate in another raid like this once they recoup their losses? For that matter, wouldn't the bandits be a little more...rambunctious? Actually, this is my first time encountering roadside bandits but they still seem a bit too...organized.

Not a word is spoken as they go about their practiced tasks. They loot a body and then drag it over to a pile in the center of the road and start in on the next one. All of their findings get put into a single communal chest that sits on the back of a wagon at the front of the entire caravan.

Finally it seems the Princess has had enough of watching this casual horror play out. "My father will find us! None of you are going to get away with this!" she shouts. "When the captain of the guard co-"

One of the bandits kicks her in the stomach and she wretches from the force of it. The bandit just next to him slaps him on the back of the head, mimes putting something in his mouth, then points to her. He dutifully pulls out a rag from his pocket and fashions a gag for her.

They're mute! Are all of them mute? Well, not the man with the eyepatch, but still...why? Hmm...let's shelf the why for now. Not sure it could help us right now. All of them being mute presents both pros and cons to any escape attempt. Pro: they can't alert others and can't scream out in pain. Con: They won't be able to be mass distracted by making merry like in the movies and will all be listening more intently just because of the increased silence.

The scene continues to play out, void of interruption now that the princess has been gagged. Eventually our carriage has hatchets taken to it and dismantled along with a few other carts, all piled on top of the bodies. Oil is poured liberally to the makeshift pyre and set to blaze just before the four of us are dumped unceremoniously into the back of an uncovered wagon and it takes off into the woods, off of the road that was cutting through the trees, the sounds of several other carriages and wagons traveling both in front of and behind us.

The sun begins to set in the direction we're traveling casting long shadows. West? Unless this planet spins opposite of Earth. I'm really finding the gaps in my education on this trip. Suddenly an arrow thwick's into the throat of the driver of the wagon followed by the sound of trees bending and groaning in the middle of a storm - emanating from the roots sprouting out of the crossbowman's chest and crawling back into his mouth and eye sockets.

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Sam rolls over, instantly untied, and reaches around me cutting my ropes. As she does so she whispers, "Elves. They don't take human prisoners. Get your dagger out and be ready to run but stay down for now." She scooches over to our fellow captives and releases them as well while I'm reaching up my dress to draw the mithril dagger strapped to my thigh. It worked for women on movies, figured the same thing would work for me here. I activate only the invisibility for it and wait for Sam to give the word. It's not full invisibility, I'm bending the light particles around the blade. People can see the space there warped, but can't see the blade itself. That coupled with the molecular divider that I can increase and decrease the length of at will makes a scarily formidable weapon.

"Run!" Sam hush-yells, her rapier back in her hand as she begins to stand in the back of the wagon. Seriously, where do all of you hide these giant weapons you lug around?

The three of us scramble out of the back of the wagon and begin running back the way the caravan had cut through the woods. I make it a whole ten steps before face planting, having tripped on my stupid dress. I cut the bottom off of it, get back on my feet, and take to running once again, quickly catching up to the princess and her lady-in-waiting. I can hear the twang's of Sam's rapier from behind me which motivates us to pick up the pace as we pass by numerous wagons; each only had a single driver, but all had succumbed to the ambush just the same as our own wagon's hosts.

The lady-in-waiting yelps and falls hard into the dirt, and arrow sticking out of the back of her leg. Liz and I each put one of her arms around our shoulders and continue running as best we can. I could probably pull the arrow out and heal it...not fast though. Besides, I would rather not give myself away to the elves...or the coincidental royalty. Am I cursed? I feel like if I had a luck stat it would be NaN.

We keep running, getting further and further from the noise of the fighting. I have no idea how Sam is holding her own against that many elves. Wait, how many was it? I didn't see a single one! They managed to take out probably two dozen bandits, so I'm assuming it was at least half that many. The element of surprise can account for lots of manpower.

We finally make it back to the pyre of burning bodies in the center of the road. Great. Where to? Follow the road in the direction we were already traveling? Liz turns to walk in that very direction, not asking or even consulting either of us. Sure, why not. I certainly don't know where we are. We'd run out of steam for running long ago and are now just walking along the dark road, the sun having well and truly set long ago. We should probably find a place to hunker down for the night, but definitely not next to that bonfire of charred human snacks for monsters.

After a few more hours, the moon now peeking through the gap above us and bathing the road in a silvery light, we finally get to a place that might work for shelter: a patch of boulders among the trees. Less comfortable to sleep on certainly, but likely more protection against tree-wielding knife-ears than sleeping on the forest floor. You know the ground...with roots.

All three of us climb onto the largest boulder. The lady-in-waiting nearly collapses looking deathly pale. We finally take a look at the arrow protruding from the back of her thigh. Almost the entire bottom portion of her dress is wet from her blood. We probably should have checked on it sooner, but none of us are certain that we've actually escaped.

I cut away the dress from the wound, wad the wet material up, and stuff it in the lady-in-waiting's mouth.

"Bite down on this. It's probably going to hurt," I tell her.

"Have you done this before?" Liz asks me.

"Nope. Have you?"

She vigorously shakes her head. And then I do what they did in the movies! I break back half of the arrow off and shove the whole thing through the front. The woman lying prone on the rock grunts with the initial movements and then whimpers for a bit after. I use a small bit of healing magic to mend the worst of the damage. It still takes quite a bit out of me and I'm already almost wiped.

I gotta find some alternative to healing magic. This sucks.

I start cutting the driest portion of the bottom of her dress into one long strip to wrap her leg in.

"You had healing magic this whole time?" Liz asks looking like I'd betrayed her.

"No, I-" a yawn interrupts me as I attempt to retort, though my hands continue working in wrapping up the leg. "Rebecca doesn't have healing magic. Rebecca doesn't have magic at all. See?" I indicate towards the now wrapped leg, blood seeping into the bandaging, "Still bleeding."

Liz narrows her eyes at me but says nothing more as I flop down onto the rock.

"That said, I'm pretty terrible at it and just a small amount will render me unconscious for a bit, so I-" another rude yawn interrupting us, "-I do hope you'll forgive me if I nod...offff...."