> “A vagabond? They send a NAMELESS VAGABOND against ME?!”

* King Zarconius the Mad, before being stabbed to death by Haymitch Steeleye, famed and of Nok.

The first day of travel took them through hills and valleys along the road, clanking along in their cart. They commiserated, they honed their crafts as they could, they ate and drank at mealtimes, and sometimes they simply sat in a kind of contented silence.

That night, as they camped, Zara decided to take first watch, and the rest settled down by the roadside in their bedrolls around the fire and fairly quickly drifted off to sleep.

Zara’s keen ears picked up a loud crunch in the leaves two hours in. Warily, she drew her blade and stepped towards the sound, trying to identify who or what could have made that sound from the weight of the step.

She relaxed as a fox scuttled out of the trees.

That’s when an arrow went into her leg.

Without missing a beat, she roared like a bear, charging at the assailent.

Coll and Helena shot into wakefulness at the sound and scrambled to get a read on the situation, and Bim and Greg stirred groggily.

Zara slammed into a archer bandit, bowling them over to the ground, and said, a kind of channeled wrath flowing through her: “You are under arrest for assault and attempted murder. You are found summarily guilt. Under the law of the Hills, I sentence you to twenty years of hard labor, as per Article 17, Statute 12 of the Drumlin Constitution. For the present moment, you will remain here, or face my judgement.” The entire speech, after all the trawling through legal texts and studying past judicial rulings, flowed out of her smoothly, as if practiced.

Level 26!

Talent — earned!

Meanwhile, back at the caravan, Helena had drawn her bow, and tried to find a target. Coll cleared his throat, and then said, precisely and firmly: “

Unconsciously, Helena dropped her bow and brought her hands together, before breaking out of it and grabbing her bow from the ground. Greg’s hands twitched, but nothing else, and Bim clapped before a few seconds before regaining control of himself. Meanwhile, scattered clapping could in the forest to their left and behind them off to the right.

Immediately, Helena took aim and fired at the nearest one she could hear. Her arrow flew true, and the obscured archer screamed in pain. Meanwhile, Greg closed his eyes. “. . !” In the distant forest, one man was covered in a pile of flowers so high he couldn’t move.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Is that all of you?” Coll called. Zara emerged from the forest, towing her archer with her, limping from the arrow wound she’d taken. Bim looked worried, and swiftly went over as soon as she could sit and started treating the wound. The captured archer was restrained by Greg while Helena kept an eye on the perimeter. After thirty seconds of silence, a voice called from in front of the wagon. A man stood, perhaps twenty paces back, in the dead of night, holding a torch in one hand and a shortsword in the other.

“I’m Jonny John Jonathan the Tenth, in these parts. You’ve just taken out three of my finest archers-- old Tobey’s been towed off for healin’ by a couple o’ my boys, and I’ve got the camp cook diggin’ through flowers for Chesepeake. You five are some right dangerous folk, I can respect that.” He grinned a grin with glimmering eyes to match. “I figure you’ve outmatched me, so here’s the deal. I don’t wantta rob you for all ye have, but we gotta keep our bellies full. Gimme ten Rooks, and I’ll let you go without a fuss.”

Helena scoffed, training her bow on him. “You just said all of your men are out of commission. Why would we give you anything?”

“Because, .” The air seemed to warp around him, something changing, shadows whispering around the edges of everyone’s vision.

Coll laughed an uproarious, almost overzealous laugh. “Bullshit. Zara, tell em.”

Zara looked at him in confusion. “Tell him what?”

The shadows at the edges of their vision, illuminatd in the moonlight, seemed to be solidifying, weapons made from smoke appearing in their hands. “I’m a . Every one of my men swears an to serve through life and after death, until their souls themselves are extinguishd. Try an’ beat that.”

Coll looked at Zara again. “Nothing?”

She shrugged, looking bewildered.

Ire began to leak into Coll’s tone. “He’s fragrantly ignoring the Veil, polluting the line between life and death. These souls should rest, not swear fealty to some petty fool for all eternity. That’s one of the oldest duties of the , to set wandering souls to rest. Do your damn job!”

She rose uncertainly, holding her sword up high. “I am Zara, . I have , and . Under my authority as protector and adjudicator of the laws of this land, I demand that you all disperse.” Nothing happened.

The shadows grew closer, seeming to leer at the group. One lunged forward to stab at Bim, crossing five paces in a heartbeat, and Zara reached down and grabbed its arm. Her eyes flared with something beyond just one woman. “You don’t seem to understand. I demand that you disperse, for the good of all.”

Her voice boomed look a shockwave. The shadows dispersed into wisps of smoke that soon dissipated, and Jonny John Jonathan the Tenth fell to his knees, knife clattering to the ground and torch tumbling out of his hands, where it promptly spluttered in the dirt and went out.

In the man’s head, notifications rang.

Class revoked. Class downgraded.

🠊 Level 15!

“How?” He gasped in the darkness, face only barely illuminated by the low flames of the team’s fire.

“I’m not entirely certain, but I know one thing: justice has been done.” Zara walked forward, and began restraining the man. “We’ll get them processed by the courts at Lakeside once we arrive.”

“What about the other bandits, the ones we haven’t captured?” Bim asked.

“We’ll leave them be. They’ll dissolve without the leader, and head to the nearest hamlet and try to find honest work.”

Helena looked askance at her. “That’s a hell of an assumption. How do you know?”

Zara tapped her nose. “.”