Many hours have passed since the group left Dismas and the sun was now starting to set. The trip has been uneventful up to this point, and they became careless. It was to the point that if somebody decided to ambush right now, they would be caught with their pants down. Alas, nothing of the sort happened, and the group decided to take a short break to grab something to eat before continuing on their way.

They all sat around a small campfire, munching on some local game, drinking water and overall just relaxing physically and mentally preparing themselves for the rest of the journey. They ended up sitting there for anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour, chatting away about whether the dwarf was kicked out or not.

About an Hour later…

Drazdan and the others were advancing on the dirt road towards the abandoned caravan, and as they kept going, they noticed a fork in the road. They knew that they had to go to the right at the fork, but the turn was quite sharp and the trees and foliage blocked their view of the road ahead.

They mentally prepared themselves for something to pop up ahead of them. Marcus and Drazdan put a palm on their swords just in case, and Xandarr held his staff just a bit tighter than before.

As they proceeded to take the turn, the road became clearer and clearer until they saw the long windy road. They also saw an old woman walking towards them, a walking stick in hand and a moderately big bag over her shoulders.

The trio dropped their guard for a few seconds after seeing the old lady, before they could realize she had already seen them and struck up a conversation.

"Oh three brave young, how quaint. Would any of you dears wish to escort me to Dismas? I'm afraid that in my old age I've grown too weak for these long trips." She said to the trio.

The 3 men were caught off guard by her request and exchanged surprised looks before turning back to the old lady.

"I apologize elder, but we are already on a commission to retrieve a caravan a few days' travel from here… We don't have freedom to escort you back, since we’ll miss our jobs' deadline if we turn back now… I sincerely apologize." Marcus explains.

"Oh, is that so… That's too bad, sonny, but I'm afraid you won't be able to continue down this road. You see, there's been rumours of bandits and wild beasts in the area. We should all go back to the village and then you younguns can come back with more people, no? Surely you can't explain that to your employer?" The old lady insists.

The moment Marcus heard the word bandits, he instantly cast Detect Evil on the surrounding area. His face showed no hint of what he’d found as he kept a friendly smile up. The only signal that he gave was a slow roll of his shoulders before loosening up his bag and letting them slide down a little bit.

Seeing Marcus’ subconscious preparations, Drazdan and Xandarr started getting ready for a fight, Xandarr dropped his pack first. Subtlety obviously wasn’t one of his strong suits, as he created a loud thud by dropping his bag. The old lady looked up at him, alarmed by his reaction, and she started to straighten her posture until she was barely leaning on her stick. The noise made by the bag also alerted the bandits hiding in the forest on both sides of the old lady.

“The jig is u…” the old lady started before getting cut off by Drazdan, who near instantly appeared behind her. He not only disarmed her, but also managed to taker her hostage by blocking the movement of her arms and putting his rusty dagger to her neck.

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“Don’t make any sudden movements. I’d hate to cut you, also tell your buddies to stand down. I can assure you that y’all won’t be winning this fight.” Drazdan says as he tries to persuade the bandits to stand down.

“Hah! You think we’d stand down that easily, boy? Rip 'em to shreds, boys!” she responds before screaming out an ordering her men.

Upon hearing the order 4 men jump out from the forest to attack the group. One of these guys was sitting in a tree above Xandarr and once he heard the signal, he jumped down onto the druid to take him out swiftly. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t nearly as subtle as he would’ve liked, and before he could even land on the ground, Xandarr stepped back and slapped him on the thigh with hands visibly covered in lighting. The sound of thunder was nearly deafening and the would be assassin went flying back towards the forest, visibly charred from the Thunderclap.

Meanwhile…

Marcus had unsheathed his greatsword and charged at the nearest bandit, his first strike was quickly parried by the bandit who followed it up with a kick to Marcus’ chest. The aforementioned Thunderclap gave a split second for Marcus to regain his guard as the bandits were distracted by their buddy flying past them.

“Kenny!” one of the bandits screamed out.

“You’ll pay for that!” another screamed.

“Bastard!” the last one yelled, before charging at Xandarr.

Drazdan, still holding the old lady hostage, has once again failed to convince her to stand down, so he was just about to end her with the dagger. But before he could, the old lady used magic to shield her neck blocking the dagger, then she follows it up by breaking out of the arm lock and using magic to attempt to charm Drazdan. She fails to charm Drazdan by flinching at a sudden sharp pain above her collarbone. The rusty dagger had stabbed her, although not very deep, it was still quite painful and certainly very surprising.

When she had broken out of the arm lock, she had forgotten to keep up the shield near her neck, her rash actions had twisted the dagger out of Drazdans’ hands, it then got caught on her robe. As her movements got to a sudden stop, the dagger flung back from her robes collar into her lower neck region, successfully striking home.

She didn’t miss Drazdan’s little snicker as he watched her suffer from her own actions. She was about to use a spell to roast him, but as she started preparing her spell, Drazdan had already disappeared from her view as he hopped over to her, leaping about 2 feet above her head. The old lady watches the bunny getting closer and closer, and he falls towards her, she quickly casts her shield spell once again to block his swing. Drazdans’ first swing comes around, and it gets blocked by the shield spell. But as he keeps spinning midair, he brings his second saber around and this one cleaves straight through the magic shield, and he manages to decapitate the old lady. Her head flying far into the forest, and he lands safely on the ground behind her body.

Meanwhile, with Xandarr…

The bandit came charging at Xandarr with his short sword raised over his head. He was simply running at him mindlessly, hoping to avenge his brother. As Xandarr watched him coming, he wasted no time and created a small camp fire using magic on the right side of the road next to him. The bandit didn’t even realize that the Druid cast a spell during his charge, and he felt confident in his victory. As he went to slash at the druid, he became stunned when he saw the druid dodge him by side stepping to his left. Not wasting time, Xandarr kicked the bandit in the side, pushing him into the campfire.

The bandit was incapable of recovering from his position and fell sideways into the small campfire. His screams were haunting as the flames started covering his clothes and burning his skin. When he went to try to get back up, he got hit by the druids staff, pushing him back into the fire. This went on for a few rounds before the bandit passed out from the pain and found his final resting place on the magical campfire.

There were only 2 bandits left, their leader was beheaded, their assassin grilled and one of the fighters burning to a crisp on a campfire. As one of the two bandits was busy in combat, he had no idea that they were losing so handily. Well that was the case mostly because the strongest looking member of the group was barely managing to get any hits on him with his greatsword.

But the other bandit was acutely aware about how bad the situation was. As the man turned tail to try to run away, he heard the sound of rushing feet behind him. He looked back for a split second only to see a rabbit covered in blood gaining on him. The sight was so terrifying that he trip on his own feet and tumbling over himself. Once he tried to stand back up, he barely got a glimpse of a blade speeding towards his neck before his head flew off as well.

When Drazdan looked back at his party, he saw Marcus giving the finishing blow to the last bandit, then his head shot up looking for more targets, before long he realized that the fight was over. His nose instantly scrunched up once he got a whiff of the infernal smell coming from the burning bandit.

They quickly put out the fire, looted and then buried the bodies before moving on to find a better spot to rest and cook themselves a meal.