Chuck was glad none of the bandits fought him with magic. From what the guild said though, if they were capable of attack magic then they wouldn’t need to be bandits in the first place. Evidently people with a high proficiency in magic were in high demand. He took another glance around and made his way to the shack’s door. There were no windows but the door was left partly open. He peeked inside but didn’t see any movement in the gloomy interior. There was a terrible smell though. Chuck wrinkled his nose and slowly opened the door. The light illuminated a single large room. His eyes immediately went to the source of the smell and he tried not to gag.

On top of a battered table were the remains of a bird person who had been partially eaten. Bones and detritus littered the floor around the table. Chuck didn’t know if it counted as cannibalism since they were separate species but it was still horrific. Along one wall were six sleeping mats with ratty blankets. Several boxes were stacked up in a corner. Near the table was a kitchen area where they seemed to butcher their catches and Chuck nearly gagged again. He went back outside to get some fresh air and decided to walk behind the shack. What he found made him want to throw up all over again. Hanging upside down from a tree was another dead bird person with its throat cut. It had several wounds on its body and the ground was covered in its blood. A large fire pit ringed with stones was nearby, with several blackened bones among the ashes. Chuck guessed they planned on cooking this one while they ate the other raw.

He used his hunting knife to cut the deceased down. Chuck didn’t have a shovel, so couldn’t bury them. Then he thought maybe he should take them back to the capital and turn them over to the guard. On the one hand their families wound probably want the bodies, but on the other he didn’t want to be blamed for their deaths. He decided to continue looking around for now. In the trees near the back of the shack he saw the remains of at least two wagons. They were torn apart and he guessed they had been used to build or repair the shack. There was a path through the trees that the bandits must have used to move the wagons. Chuck followed the path and came out on the other side of the roadblock. In the trees near the path was the first wagon he had spotted. It must have been the latest casualty and still had its cargo in the back. Since it was on this side of the fallen tree, it must have come from the capital. An axe was part of the cargo which gave him an idea, but he wasn’t looking forward to carrying it out.

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First he used his tow rope and chain to pull the tree off the road. Chuck tried removing the arrow from his door but the archer had put so much power behind it that he couldn’t budge it. To his dismay, he found the arrow had even shattered the window since it was rolled down at the time. He then grabbed the axe and drove the pickup along the path to the shack and shut it off. He carefully wrapped the dead birds in blankets from the shack and put them in the back of the pickup. They were a lot lighter than he was expecting. He grabbed the weapons and belongings from all the bodies and placed them in the back of the pickup next to the bodies. Now it was time for the icky part. The bandits had no identification, so to prove he had killed them and that they were responsible for killing the bird people, he methodically chopped their heads off with the axe. The one he shot in the face with a slug was unrecognizable so he left it. It was a lot more difficult than he imagined and he made quite the mess of his clothes by the time he was done. Luckily he brought a few sets of clothes with him and was able to wash himself off with the water skin. He used the rest of the blankets to wrap up the heads and put them next to the bird bodies. The bandit bodies he left were they lay.

Next he brought out the boxes, which seemed to be the bandit’s loot. After some rearranging, Chuck was able to fit it all in the undamaged wagon. He didn’t know the rules so figured he would just turn the boxes over to the guards along with the bodies and wagon. After he was done with the shack, he drove back to the road. He didn’t know what happened to the animals that pulled the wagons, but he saw no sign of them. The wagon seemed to be in good shape, so he decided to pull it with the pickup using the tow rope. He wouldn’t be able to go as fast but he didn’t have room for all the cargo otherwise. It was late in the afternoon by the time he was done but decided to get some miles behind him before it got too dark.