42 Retaliation Massacre

Galahad kept his sword sheathed until the last second, not wanting to create any glints in the moonlight. He needed to kill the guards without anyone noticing, or at least not noticing long enough for him to steal whatever orbs he could find.

The timing of one man looking back at the crowd couldn't have been better timed for Galahad. He shocked the first man by charging from the side and decapitated him before he could let out any noise. The second man turned back around just as the sword continued on its swing and slid through his throat.

Galahad watched them tumble while the sounds of drunken songs were piercing the air. The first man's headless body fell on its back and the second on its stomach. Galahad was about to start moving the bodies into the tallgrass, but stopped when he spotted something on the second guy's back.

The man's armor plate on his back was engrave with a enchanted circle of runes the size of a hand. It was composed of three rings of runes located behind the heart, a singular helix was drawn in the center. Galahad swore at himself before sprinting straight into the camp and into a tent with no light inside, assuming it was vacant.

Sure enough, Galahad made the right move as someone started screaming over the collaborative songs in an urgent tone. Soon the singing died and people were yelling commands to find an intruder. Galahad's attack on the camp had been discovered.

'Damn enchanter, your magic circles just made my job a whole lot more difficult.' Galahad clearly agitated, but not deterred from stealing from the bandits. He actually considered himself somewhat lucky for his upbringing in this case.

If not for Galahad's mother being an enchanter, he wouldn't have recognized the helix shape was the hourglass symbol in a Stasis Detection array. A universal magic circle that could be used to detect if something wasn't maintaining a certain action in time. Galahad assumed that because it was located behind their hearts, it was meant to detect if the heartbeat stopped. Something that happens only when the guards were dead from an intruder.

'Should have waited till they swapped out or only knocked them unconscious. Who knows how many people have these runes on them.'

Galahad knew now, that he was in the presence of bandit camp that wasn't as incompetent as he first thought. He sprung the very first trap they set and now he cornered himself in a empty tent, waiting to be found. Well, he thought the tent was empty.

A bandit inside the dark tent was sound asleep until he awoke to the screams of serious commands being issued to his comrades. He was one of the few magician classes in the camp, so he easily lit a candle with a flame on his finger and put on his circular spectacles. Once he sat up from his mattress, he realized the enemy intrusion was directly in front of his tent flaps.

He was about to scream out for help and unleash flaming magic on the enemy, but Galahad took a step forward before the man could even draw air into his lungs. Galahad took the hilt of his new sword and hit the magician in the temple. He slumped over unconscious knocking out the candle as Galahad did his best not to disturb the walls of the tent.

Galahad wasn't going to forget he got himself trapped because of his rash killing, he didn't wanna alert any other arrays that might be installed on this bandit. Nonlethal became his style of fighting for the next few minutes.

Galahad sighed in relief as no one came rushing in, now he needed to change the situation he was in. He thought briefly about his options before running out of any beneficial ideas.

'I can't come out fighting full force; the red flames will draw every single bandit to me and I can barely handle five of them at the most, and that's if they don't have more magicians among the fighting classes.

I still can't let these guys get away with only the gods know how many orbs, not when they are so close.' Galahad felt the hunger grow inside him once again, always wanting to consume and level up.

Galahad sat down in the back of the tent in defeat, not sure how to solve his hunger, using the unconscious magician's bag as a seat. He planned to sit in comfort, but his ass ended up painfully hitting something stiff and made of hollow metal.

"Ow, what the shit is this guy carrying?" Galahad turned the bag over and dumped the contents onto the floor.

Nothing inside was special for a magician; only a few mana crystals, a cheap novel, and a broken pen. Galahad had to shake the bag a few times before the giant metal object forcibly came out.

When the object hit the floor, Galahad found himself staring at his reflection along a silver dome of a helmet. The helmet was a shiny silver Bascinet with ornate engravings along the front grill and sides. The helmet was completely enclosed with only the eyes partially exposed in the slits.

Galahad turned to look at the unconscious magician laying next to him, the man's glasses were cracked where his face had landed just a moment ago.

"I hope you wear this often, otherwise its pointless to try and disguise as you if you didn't." He smirked to himself as he grabbed the magician's coat and took on the role of a magician bandit.

*****

Galahad was walking briskly through the gaps of tents, pretending to look for an intruder. No one seemed to notice him thanks to the brown leather coat and the bascinet helmet. He was concerned at first that he'd stand out until he saw a few men and women running around half clothed and half armored. A swordsman even ran around with only his pajama shirt and gauntlets, his pants appeared to missing while the rushed chaos ensued.

Someone shouted that it was a swordsman that cleanly cut off the sentries heads, so Galahad tried seem as unbattle-class-like as possible. He focused intently on making Fury and Fyre burn in his palm to really sell that he looked like the unconscious mage, and it seemed to work. He just couldn't let anyone see the orange cracks on his hand, otherwise he wouldn't seem like the guy he was pretending to be.

As Galahad dodge between the tents, he encountered a few drunks in complete stupor and the occasional loner looking for the intruder. A little while passed before a very twisted idea sparked in Galahad's head. A mischievous smile grew beneath the helmet.

*****

Symora was the lead enchanter for the Fangs of Nyt, she was capable of weaving two or three magical enchantments into the bandit camp's gear everyday; mainly the clothes, tents, beer barrels, and armor.

Until one day she was asked by their leader Dante for a specific request. He wanted her to connect all the bandits armor to herself with a detection array, so she'd know instantly if and when an attack began.

She was adamant at first, knowing how any of the forty people around her would die in an instant was not a pleasant task. Connecting herself would also bind her to their lives and feel death take over each one of them in their dying moments. It wasn't until Dante elaborated that he just wanted it among the camp borders for better alertness, that she finally agreed.

Now she was regretting her choice with each passing second. The moment the first two guards died, she felt ice rip across her heart and soul as she sat quietly in her tent. She cried out in anguish and yelled for everyone to start looking for an intruder, knowing the men were decapitated by a man with high battle prowess. Her escort team followed her as they began alerting everyone else.

She searched alongside everyone until more icy pain ripped across her soul. Symora felt as though her neck was snapped in her sleep. While crying on the ground, she told the other what she felt and they went off the direction she told them about.

Soon after it happened again, and again, and again.

Symora was losing her mind as the kill count went up into double digits, each death was tearing her apart. She couldn't keep going after feeling herself dying inevitably over and over again.

She collapsed unconscious in front of her escort with bloody foam emitting from her mouth. She bit off her tongue in hopes to black out in pain, hoping to escape the lashes on her soul.

*****

'Let's hope that keeps them occupied.' Galahad thought as he snapped another lone searcher's neck.

Galahad had waited for every opportunity to quietly kill the passed out drunks or others without them noticing his deceit. He had a few close calls, but he managed to kill over a dozen in random spots across the camp. Each kill drew the groups of bandits to the body, but Galahad was searching for a new target by the time he arrived.

The killings didn't stop until Galahad noticed no one was coming for the bodies anymore. He had no idea that Symora had made herself black out, but he took it as a sign to continue searching.

Galahad continued for five more minutes between the darkness of the tents, trying to see if the mana orbs were stored inside any one of them, but to no avail. He was about to call it quits and try to escape, but then he turned to see a much larger tent than the rest. He found what he was looking for and briskly walked to it in the open area in front of entrance. Then a new obstacle presented itself.

"Oi Demeatri, where the hell ya goin? Everyones' sayin the intruder came from this direction." Said a short and balding man with an arching dagger pointing in the opposite direction of where Galahad was going.

Galahad whipped around to face the man. The bald guy seemed confused as to why 'Demeatri' was going the wrong way and he was clearly a bit slow on the uptake. It didn't even occur to him that his buddy the magician was producing red flames instead of a pale yellow and was four inches taller than before.

"Why are you heading to the boss's tent? Did you see someone g-ahh." Before he could finish his next question, the short bald man's mouth was covered and he was yanked into the darkness between two tents and was silenced by the Demeatri impostor.

*****

Galahad opened up the large tent flap and found himself grinning at the discovery he just made. Inside the large pavilion style tent was a candle chandelier lighting everything up with a soft yellow. A massive wooden table was in the center of the room with half eaten food and ale still scattered across it.

The part that made Galahad smile was the crates and barrels of stolen goods and priceless items behind the table. Yet the only thing he was drawn to was a mound of mana orbs sitting in one of the back corner barrels.

Galahad took off the bascinet and pulled the sword out of the folds inside the coat. He made his way to the mana orbs and grabbed a handful of mana orbs from the barrel. His mind racing at the idea of consuming all of them. The pouch he carried was nowhere near the sized or variety he was intently staring at now.

[ Do you wish to devour the mana orbs? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]

As soon as Galahad confirmed yes, he was blinded by a near endless list of monster names and levels. The highest ranging up in the fifties and each orb seemed to be a different monster. Galahad went to work on finding the orbs he could consume at his current level.

He was so busy looking for level nines and below, he didn't notice the shadow moving across the canvas wall in front of him.

Galahad felt an alarm go off in his head a microsecond after blue lightning shot through the tent wall and slammed him fifteen feet away, stopping into the giant dining table. Every muscle and joint was uncontrollably shivering in Galahad's body, he had to fight the aftershocks to stay conscious.

He rolled himself off the now bent section of the table and managed to pick himself up from the pain. Galahad watched as the hole burnt through the tent grew in a ring of flames and large bear resembling man stepped inside. In his hands was a massive Claymore with a sky blue colored blade aimed at him.

The leader of the Fangs of Nyt stepped inside the tent hole, wielding a magic weapon with a still face, but rage burning in his eyes. Galahad slumped himself against the table again and gave the burly man a greeting smile and wave.

"Hey boss." He said as nonchalantly as a recently tazed intruder could, "Its me Demeatri, how's the search going?"