Vanguard was walking along the road with her packmule, unarmored. She'd taken the opportunity to offload her gear onto the beast, since she had a monster hangover. Typically after this much alcohol she spent some time drinking water or herbal tea, infusing her liver so it would burn through the liquor she drank. She'd been too far gone to remember the previous night, and now she was paying for it.

I should have slept in. I should have stayed another day, she thought. They'd probably just booze her up again though.

Hangover aside, she was eager to see what the crystals she'd collected would fetch. She was aiming to get some Sharp essence for her Bronze-rank Tempering, and she had hopes she'd be able to find some in Layowich.

She drank another sip from her waterskin, then watched with dismay as several figures came out of the forest. The one in front was clearly the leader, wearing a chain mail shirt with a coif for the head and neck.

She flipped on her Aether sight, wincing at the bright colors. She hadn't had it on for a while for that reason. The chain was infused, meaning he was a Copper-rank. This was probably trouble. He had also infused his axe. The two behind him wore boiled leather, one with metal studs in it. The studded one had a heavy maul with a wooden handle, and the other had a longsword. They were both clearly Lead-rank.

I'm never traveling unarmored again, she thought grimly.

She stopped her mule and laid a hand on her longsword hilt, hanging sheathed from the animal. She began infusing her clothing. It wouldn't offer much more protection, but anything would help.

"Who are you and what are your intentions?" She called out. They had stopped several paces away, weapons drawn and blocking the road.

"We want your coin!" Cried the maul weilder.

"And a mite more," longsword man said with a leer.

The leader was frowning, and she knew he could see her aura now.

"It's a bit unwise to go waylaying people who kill monsters for a living," Vanguard said dryly.

She spotted something out of the corner of her eye and realized there was another Lead-ranker in the trees, the cool blue aura of an uninfused longbow in his hands. Rapidly sweeping the treeline she saw another with a crossbow.

The leader seemed to shake off his unease. "Well, we can get those crystals of yours too. You're not wearing your fancy armor, and we outnumber you."

"I'm always outnumbered." Vanguard said coolly, drawing her sword and ducking down under the arrow that hissed above her. She reached out to the man on the tree and pulled at his longbow using Aether-infused air. He didn't let it go. She didn't wait to hear the sickening snap of bone or his high-pitched screams.

She turned to the crossbowman, who was still lining up his shot. She did the same trick, pulling his weapon. He learned fast, letting go of it, still loaded. That was fine with her - now he was an unarmed man in a tree - hardly a threat to her.

She took the crossbow in her off hand and took a step to the left, angling for the lead man who was starting to run toward her. She fired, and he twisted out of the way with Aether, but the man behind him didn't. The bolt hit his gut. Without a healing potion, that would be lethal, not to mention painful.

Vanguard had bigger problems though. The leader was almost on her, the longsword one behind. The maul one was on his knees, puking blood.

She needed a way to face one at a time. Then something sharp hit her in the side. It was a throwing knife. The crossbowman hadn't been completely unarmed after all.

The leader came in with a huge swing of his two-handed axe. Her sword in two hands, she diverted it from splitting her in two, just barely. She had to infuse a lot of Aether just to do that. He was a fair bit stronger than her, and she estimated his Cladding was for strength over all. That should mean she had the edge in speed and Aether manipulation.

She looked down, and saw that he hadn't infused his boots. Her father had hammered that lesson in early on. When fighting another Aether user, you could prevent them from grabbing your clothes or weapon by attuning them. It may seem like a waste of Aether for a straight fight, but Vanguard was planning to fight dirty.

She retreated a step, and the leader stepped forward with a massive diagonal uppercut. She ducked down and to the right, sweeping her left leg at his lead foot. At the same time she infused the air around his boot, holding it in place. He tried to jump, but his boot was laced tightly, and kept him in place. She released the boot right before she hit.

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It was like hitting a tree trunk, he was solid. However his abortive jump had unbalanced him, and Vanguard continued her sweep into a spinning kick to his chest. He fell heavily, and just in time. The Lead-ranker was on her. He swung his sword horizontally at her, which she blocked forcefully out to her left. That left her blade on the inside of his guard, so she wound it around for a stab.

He guarded against the stab with the vertical Crown guard, a purely defensive move. She channeled Aether and rotated her wrists, swinging the sword around in a Crosswise strike that came at him horizontally from the other side. The blade bit into his neck, and she stepped left around him, drawing her blade down in a cut that positioned her weapon between his. The man fell just as the leader rose.

She grabbed her weapon by the blade, reversing it into a club with the quillions as pick ends. This form was known as the death strike, and it was definitely easier with gloves. Infusing her strike, she swung down at the leader. Rising, he caught the swing on the haft of his axe. He pivoted, bringing the edge toward her. She lifted her weapon, his weight driving her weapon down as she smashed the end blade of her weapon into his side.

He stumbled back, swinging his axe blindly in front of him. Vanguard pressed him, swinging the pommel from up high left into a horizontal swing. The hit connected solidly, sending the man stumbling another step to the side. He still got his own swing in, but Vanguard had positioned her weapon to deflect it. Her weapon rang at the force, and she was sent back a step.

The other man wasn't fast, but he was sturdy. Even with the blunt force of her pommel she wasn't sure if he was even bruised. Just one swipe of his weapon would leave her in bad shape. She decided to break out her secret weapon. It would set back her progress to Bronze by a month or more, but she didn't want to know what would happen if she lost this fight.

She had absorbed Mass essence as part of her intended Tempering, Sharpness and Mass, a combination known as the Wedge. Using the Mass essence now would use it up instead of it getting Tempered into her Aura, helping her progress to Bronze. When she reached that, she could infuse those concepts as freely.

She launched a punch at the bandits face. He guarded the strike high, which she took advantage of by grabbing his haft. He lifted her up into the air, and she kicked out with both feet into his chest, and she infused her feet with Mass. Her body suddenly weighed several more times than it had, and all of it was directed into his chest. Some of the links in his chain shirt crunched, and she launched off him with his weapon in hand. She rolled to her feet, tossing the axe behind her and coming to a ready stance.

For his part, the man seemed rather surprised. He looked down at the boot prints impressed on his chest, then started backing up. Vanguard leaped at him, smashing down with the pommel of her sword, infusing it with Mass. He guarded it with his wrist, which cracked audibly under the immense pressure.

She pressed forward, jabbing at his face. It came within a hair of his nose as he pulled his head back. He retreated further, towards the gut-shot man with the maul. He blocked another hit with his injured arm, while he bent down and fumbled for the weapon blindly.

Just as he gripped the maul, Vangaurd smashed her weapon into the side of his head. Like a war pick, the cross guard penetrated the chain mail. Shattered links blew from the impact. He lurched backward, and Vanguard hissed as the blade she was gripping sliced her hands as it came free.

The man stumbled to his feet, gripping the two-handed weapon easily in on hand. He tried to remove the sword from his head ineffectually with his ruined hand. Vanguard stepped back, now unarmed and unarmored. She wasn't out of Aether or essence yet though. She cast about for a suitable rock, and grasped it with air.

As the man lurched forward, just as he put weight on his front foot, a Mass-infused rock slammed into the side of his knee with the force of a meteor. It bent from the blow with a squelched pop. The man went back down.

Vanguard kicked his weapon aside and kneeled down on his good arm. She drew out the knife that was still sticking out of her.

She saw the fear in his eyes now as she forced the knife down towards his face. There would be no prisoners out here - the man was far too dangerous to take alive. She thought of the village she'd been in, that nice tavernkeeper trying to take his wares down this road and being accosted.

The man's one bad arm was almost a match for her two good ones, both infusing so much Aether the air practically sparked.

"Please, I'll go straight," the man begged. Angrily, Vanguard infused the last of her Mass into the dagger, and it parted the jelly of his eye and into his brain, thudding against the back of his skull.

Carefully, Vanguard gripped her sword by the hilt. She had to plant her boot on his head and infuse Aether into her limbs to get it back out.

She could hear the disarmed crossbowman running through the trees. She felt tired. She could let him get away. But...

Her will hardened. He had made his choice. He was no better than the man she'd just executed.

She grabbed an Aether potion and drank it as she ran after him. It was trivial for her infused body to catch up to him, and she pulled on one of his boots to make him stumble. Her blade went right through his prone heart.

She went back to the road, where her packmule was placidly standing. She stripped down and bandaged her wounds, changing into her bodysuit and armor. Then she went a bit past the bodies, to where the men had come out. She tried not to look at them. Fighting humans and monsters felt similar in the moment, but the aftermath was different.

She found a concealed path through the forest. The path led to a camp, where a cold firepit was ringed by several tents. It was obvious which one was the leader's, being the largest.

She searched the tents, finding little but bedrolls and dried deer meat in the smaller ones. In the big tent was a scuffed wooden chest. It was locked, but Vanguard infused the metal of the lock and manipulated it open easily. Her stomach sank when she opened it. There were a number of essence crystals in here. They'd ambushed her kind before. There were also a number of coins. She took the lot. Maybe they would offset what she'd used in the fight.

She went back to the road. The bandits' gear wasn't worth salvaging, except for the leader's axe. She strapped it onto the packmule, and began the long walk to Layowich.