Alice and Grimmy made their way out of Ruby City as Grimmy went over their last and final quest of the day.
“We are looking for bandit activity on the trade route between Ambar City and Ruby City, Alice. There have been sightings of bandits targeting trade wagons all along the route.”
“Yes, Grimmy, you said this already. Bandits along the trade route. Kick their ass. Bring back proof. Not a hard concept to grasp.”
“Well, pardon me for being thorough. The last time you went into a fight without complete information you almost lost an arm.”
“…Fine. Tell me the plan again,” said Alice, shaking off the jitters she got from remembering her missing forearm.
“That’s what I thought. As I was saying, we will hide in the first trade wagon we can find that heads toward Ambar City and wait inside to see if any bandits attack. If they do, we will get out of the wagon and attack them, and by we, I mean you.”
“Are they immune to necrotic wound or bleeding?”
“No, they are not, but they are capable of healing themselves. They are not monsters, so they will be able to strategize just like you and I do. That means they will be able to heal themselves either with spells or potions so your afflictions will not mean an instant win like with some creatures.”
“Okay… so what’s the plan?”
Grimmy proceeded to tell Alice the plan as they found and hopped into the back of the first wagon they saw heading to Ambar City.
After a couple of hours of being on the road, it happened. The wagon came to a full stop, and Alice began hearing someone yelling outside the wagon. The moment they stopped, Grimmy’s plan sprang into action.
There were 5 human male bandits surrounding the wagon. The leader of the five started to yell.
“Get off the wagon, if you want to live!”
“Yes of course, please don’t hurt me,” said the driver of the wagon.
The driver got off as instructed and was grabbed by one of the other bandits. The leader then walked around and made his way to the back of the wagon.
“Alright guys, keep a lookout. I’m gonna go see what kind of loot we have here,” said the leader as he lifted the veil to the back of the wagon and jumped in.
A few minutes passed, when another bandit yelled, “Hey boss, are you alright in there? Did you find anything good?”
No one answered.
“Boss?” said the bandit as he peeked his head into the back of the wagon. He kept his head in there but did not make any other moves.
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“Hey, what is it? Did we hit the jackpot or why aren’t you moving? Is the boss okay?” said another bandit nearby.
A few more seconds passed and the nearby bandit started to notice a black mark running down the bandit’s arm that had his head inside the wagon. He started to worry. “Hey guys, something is wrong here.”
As he lifted the veil covering the back of the covered wagon, he stopped. His hand holding the veil had a black mark beginning to grow across it.
The other two bandits moved in closer, Alice jumped out of the wagon and hit one of them with Surgical Strike, successfully inflicting the bleeding condition on him. She quickly shifted to the other bandit and before he could even react, Alice was already in front of him performing a cross slash against his torso. She managed to inflict both necrotic wound and bleeding on him. By the time Alice finished her cross slash, the other bandit was already healing his bleeding condition with a health potion. Alice did not wait for him to finish. As soon as he finished, but before he could react, Alice rushed towards him, slashing both his legs, making him unable to move. The bandit fell on his knees. She was not able to inflict any afflictions this time.
She turned around and saw the other bandit crawling away. “Finish him, quick!” said Grimmy as he floated out of the wagon.
Alice hesitated. She was about to kill her first human. A defenseless human. She stood over him, contemplating whether she was really able to take a life. A human life. She spent most of her life saving lives. It felt wrong being on the other end now. As she was deep in thought, battling with her morality, she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her back. The bandit she had crippled, had already healed himself and had shot an arrow that landed just behind her right shoulder.
The pain did not come close to when she lost a chunk of her forearm to that Den Mother, but it was still painful. Not only that, but the arrow had also been dipped in some sort of paralysis poison.
“Poison arrows? Really? Very cliché of you, man,” said Alice as she grabbed the arrow and pulled it out of her back.
Funnily enough, it was the same paralysis poison she had used on herself and used transfusion to take care of the first three bandits. Grimmy had instructed Alice to buy a few vials of that paralysis poison back in Ambar City. Grimmy had explained to Alice that even when paralyzed, she was able to cast transfusion since it didn’t require an incantation or hand movement to activate.
The first three bandits were hit with what Alice had named as her affliction trifecta: Paralysis, Necrotic Wound, and Bleeding. The only way they would be able to recover from that would be if they had a spell like Alice’s that would cure the paralysis without the need for an incantation or hand movement. Which, after Grimmy’s high-level identify, they found out the bandits did not have.
So, when Alice got hit with that arrow, it made things easier. First, she used transfusion to finally stop that persistent guy from using more health potions on himself. Then, she turned again to the crawling man that seemed to be on his way to a secret stash of potions they had hidden behind a tree. With everyone but the crawling man out of commission, she went right back into arguing with her morality to see if she would be able to kill the guy.
“Alice, just do it. They are bad people.”
“Give me a second, Grimmy. I can’t just kill a guy without having second thoughts. What would people say if they found out!”
“What people!?”
“I don’t know, what if someone writes a story about me and people read it? I want them to think that I hesitated you know, makes me more likeable as a character.”
“Character? What are you talking about, just kill him before he heals himself!”
They went back and forth until suddenly:
Lvl 9 Bandit Leader has been defeated.
The first bandit she had inflicted with her poison trifecta died from the afflictions.
“Damn, completely forgot about that guy. Well, what’s done is done, I guess. Plus, we did go back and forth for a while. That should be enough hesitation to make me look like I’m a good person.”
“Alice, you are making no sense!” yelled Grimmy desperately.
“Hey Grimmy, you sure they killed people, right?”
“Well, while I cannot guarantee that these five killed people, the reports did mention that bandits killed people.”
Alice was already swinging her sickle before Grimmy was even finished. “Good enough for me.”
Alice was a doctor; she was used to cutting people open and using force on human bodies. Obviously, she never tried to kill people when she did that, but still she was no stranger to what she was doing. The morality behind killing a human being did sting a little on her mind, but as mentioned before, she was used to death. This was something she could live with as long as the other guy deserved it, and Grimmy did say they deserved it.
One by one, the bandits started to die, and Alice went to check on the wagon driver to make sure he was okay. When the last one died, she got two notifications.
You have reached level 7. +5 Intelligence +3 Dexterity +2 Strength +5 Free points. You have five available free points.
New Quest. You have encountered a group of bandits and successfully dealt with them, but your job is not done. Investigate further and find the bandits’ headquarters so that you can eliminate the threat once and for all.
Eliminate the man behind the organization of bandits disrupting the trade route between Ruby City and Ambar City.
Reward. 100 gold coins. Deathwalker Boots.
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