The Guards knew the time the bandits all returned to base for the ‘gathering call’ so they waited till all the bandits should be in the base and started moving. Mark told them the base could be on high alert, so they decided to move in from a single direction, with Mark and the other of two Lieutenants stationed in the town, Carrey, leading the way looking for the bandit’s lookouts, planning to take them down so they can’t alert the camp.
Then they would station archers around the ravine, making sure to watch out for the hidden archer stations in the ravine. With the archers’ support fire, the assault team, led by Torrento would head in and slaughter their way in, clearing the place cave by cave, if the system was more complicated they would station people near the entrances and head further in.
Mark was free to do as he wished, the same went to Carrey. Mark suspected Carrey would compete with him when it came to taking out their leader, so he not only had to track down and kill Vesthia, he had to compete with another skilled rogue on the way. Fortunately, he concluded that Carrey didn’t possess Forest Stride during their infiltration, there were a couple of times when the rogues were alarmed of his presence and were it not for Mark, could have reported their presence. So while Carrey tangled with the subordinates Mark could head directly for the boss.
Minutes passed and the Guards were finally in positions around the ravine, ready to start the assault. Silently, Torrento nodded to the leader of the archers, which happened to be Sergeant Sarah. She was wielding an enormous war bow, it was entirely made of metal and was a work of blacksmithing Mark didn’t expect to see after all his time in this world. The metal was also strange, way more flexible than it should be for metal.
Sarah gathered her archers with a couple of gestures, and they crept up on the ledge. Without a sound, the first volley fell into the ravine. Screams of pain and shock sounded out, the attack so sudden the bandits didn’t manage to raise the alarm before the second volley was already upon them.
Mark crept up to the ledge himself and saw pure chaos, the bandits who were all gathered in the middle of the gulf were all running around screaming, grabbing their weapons, a few archers tried to fire back, but it was a futile attempt.
At the head of the bunch, he saw a woman in a dark suit of leather armor, that hugged her figure enchantingly and wearing a face mask with golden filigree tracing mysterious patterns along its surface. Her hair was hidden underneath a hood, Mark knew that trick from his female subordinates who insisted on keeping long hair, it made it harder to grab the woman and made it impossible to fly in the wind, not hampering the woman's perception.
She was surrounded by a dozen other women, dressed in similar attires. She was currently calmly judging the attacking force at the top, her eyes glowing golden as she assessed the threat.
She seemed to be intending on fighting this one out. She started shouting commands at her men, at first they were very chaotic and didn’t listen. She drew her daggers and slashed the throats of one, two, three men. With this, the bandits finally quieted down and started organizing. Mark walked over to the secret entrance he found the last time he came here. Slipping in he started slowly sliding down with his head to the bottom, checking for any traps along the way.
Sure enough, he found fifteen traps set up in the little tunnel. Spike traps on triggers, daggers set up in specific positions, making it so you would impale yourself, were you to just carelessly slide down, parts of the rope with shards of glass sticking out of it, a couple of poison vials intended to smash into a wall, probably transforming into gas on contact with air, all in all, it was very well defended.
Finally sliding to the floor, he found it was also riddled with tripwires going into the walls, gently landing, he went into stealth and carefully made his way through the maze of wires toward the only door leading out of the room.
Bending down he looked at the room beyond through the crack underneath the doors. The room looked empty, but he could already tell a presence beyond the doors. He was not able to use Forest Stride inside the cave, but his experience and instincts were just as good an indicator. He started looking for any hiding spots the person could be utilizing.
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Slowly analyzing the room Mark decided to use the trick he saw two people use already, he had enough confidence in his Stamina Control to pull it off. He gathered the energy and gently sent it to his eyes. In the beginning, nothing happened, the energy laying inert, thinking of it, Mark decided to make it move, creating two small vortexes of energy, making the Stamina spin slowly.
Gradually, he could feel his eyesight dramatically improve, he could see through the darkness beyond with a much higher quality than any noctovision goggles could ever produce. The energy coursed a little more, when Mark felt a click in his head, suddenly he no longer had to manually control the flow and the energy swirled easily with just his thought.
The room suddenly hid nothing before him. There were a couple of tables with many chairs strewn about, a couple of cupboards near the walls, and a few closed chests set up along the wall in the far back it looked empty, but on the walls, he saw many support beams holding up other beams along the ceiling, which to an untrained eye could seem normal in an underground living space, but to him, it presented the perfect space to hide.
He knew where he would hide given such an environment and now he was almost certain, whoever was inside hid somewhere along the ceiling of the room. This was tricky, there was almost no way to open these doors without them noticing. With that, he could only do one thing, charge in, disappear, and make sure the person couldn’t alert anyone, meaning he had to take care of them before they could realize what was happening.
He unslung his bow from his back, took a deep breath, and kicked at the lock of the doors. The doors banged open, no doubt alerting anyone who would be close, he lunged into the room, in seconds landing under one of the tables in the room, once again engaging his stealth and increasing the speed of the energy in his eyes he peeked out. looking at the rafters going along the ceiling.
He instantly saw her, a woman, who just seconds ago was lazily hanging out, was now alarmed, taking out a small crossbow from her back, looking for whoever intruded their base, when she was about to scream to alert her sisters in the other room, she saw them, to glowing ice blue orbs, looking directly at her from the room below.
Before she could utter a sound a green arrow lodged itself in her throat, she stiffened, dropping the crossbow, she clawed at the arrow, futilely trying to stem the blood from flowing out and killing her. Not long after she dropped powerlessly on the ground with a loud thump.
Mark didn’t wait any longer, the noise surely attracted the attention of others outside, with one motion and some help from Quick Step he launched himself to the beams up top, positioning himself above the other doors leading out of the room. waiting.
He barely got into position when the doors opened. Slowly inching inwards, with no one pushing them. Three taps in a distinct rhythm sounded out in the room, must be a signal to check on the guardian or warn him of friendlies. Without waiting for them to realize no response would ever come, Mark jumped down, releasing an arrow straight at the person situated on the other side with her crossbow raised.
Two projectiles, flew through the air, passing each other and landing at their targets.
Mark’s arrow stuck out of the rogue’s head while he managed to catch the released bolt on the shaft of his bow. The bow broke, sending splinters in all directions, but he remained unharmed. He crouched low and jumped through the doors, appearing on top of another woman ready to shoot her bolt.
Before she could blink the point of the dagger appeared in her vision, about to take her life. With an inhuman show of reactions, she managed to twist her body just enough to avoid getting stabbed, daggers appearing in her own hands, intending to take the opportunity after her attacker missed to strike back.
What she didn’t see was the hand changing the grip on the dagger into an icepick and drawing back, impaling her throat from the side. Her eyes widened, and with the strength left in her, she stabbed at Mark, who was now close and with one hand occupied.
Mark calmly retreated with Quick Step, there was no reason to fight a dying person in their last throes. He walked over to the first woman, took her crossbow and bolts, and after making sure they were all properly dead moved along. There were multiple doors leading out of this room, which looked like a bedroom, with multiple beds set along the walls, with bits and pieces of women’s clothes strewn about.
Behind one of the doors, Mark heard faint shouting and a clash of metal, it would seem that was the way to the ravine’s landing zone, he decided to move this way and look for Vesthia, she was organizing her men to fight, but she could just make them fight for her and try to run, he had to be sure she couldn’t escape.
Looking through the gap under the doors, on the other side there was only an empty corridor, pocketed with sparse patches of light coming off of the few candles set up along the way. Walking out he once again entered stealth and slowly approached the fighting.