36 A bloody Pumpkin

Sneaking towards his first target, Jay quickly dispatched of the two bandits equipped with bows as he crawled to them behind their backs and stabbed them with his dagger and Wingblade.

Taking their bows and quivers Jay walked to the middle of the field he was on and began his hunt for red bandanas.

In the distance he could already see a big house and an even bigger barn next to it, as he had collected over twenty bandanas on his way through the fields.

By then his quivers had run dry and one of the bows snapped from his pulling force. The loot he got until now was not of much worth, as only a single hatchet looked worthy of collecting.

With his inventory still sealed he had no way of collecting the junk weapons and equipment anyways.

The farm was so close to the field he was on now that his next attack would have rung the alarm how ever he started it, so Jay went with a brute force tactic, casting a overcharged (Fireball) onto a group of three female bandits chatting with each other close to the farm's yard.

While the main target got consumed by flames, the two other got incinerated and threw themselves on the ground, rolling around to extinguish the fire.

Of course the screaming had alarmed the rest of the bandits and Jay gripped his sword and new hatchet tight.

Thirteen bandits rushed to the women's aid and from there towards Jay. As these bandits posed no too high threat to him, he wanted to skill up his sword a little.

And that he did.

As the sounds of fighting ceased, he stood on a pumpkin-field surrounded by bloody, dismembered bandits.

Not one of them died by a single wound like Jay did it normally.

He had used as many slashes as possible to reach another rank up and therefor targeted non vital areas. Most of his victims died by blood loss and not by fatal hits.

Having heard the noises die down, a tall man with long brown hair came out of the house. Unsheathing his knife he scanned the surrounding until his eyes met Jay's, who stood there smirking, within the bloody corpses of over a dozen bandits.

Bowing down he picked up two of the blood smeared pumpkins and flipped the one in his right hand as he stood back up.

At this moment the tall man dashed over to Jay from over fifty yards away.

When he had crossed half of the distance, his world suddenly turned upside down before he crashed face first into the mud on the field.

Jay had thrown the pumpkin aiming for the bandits face. Upon hitting the man made a beautiful backwards flip as his head went to the back while his feet shot up.

His inertia made him flip nearly 270 degree before his face crashed on the field and he slid three yards further.

After he had walked over, Jay stepped his foot on the bandits head and began to question him.

"How many are left and who is the leader here?" J.

As no answer but mumbling came, Jay simply put more pressure under his foot until a slight cracking sound came and the man ceased any movement.

Just after he pulled the corpse by a foot and saw the small crater the man had formed with his artistic landing, he thought that maybe he would have talked if Jay had pulled him out earlier. It seemed that the mumbling was him trying to talk but muffled by earth.

Shrugging his shoulders Jay went on to the farms yard pulling the now dead man behind him.

He had not even reached the center of the yard in front of the L shaped house as eight more bandits came out of the barn on the right, next to said house.

But the moment they saw the dead man, who had been a level 11 bandit called Morris as Jay saw with analyze, they all staggered slightly.

As if Jay would let such a chance slip he threw the remaining pumpkin in his left hand with full force to the first bandit.

The dent in leather armor and an exploding pumpkin showed the force behind this throwing attack. The rest of the bandits turned tail and fled back to the barn they came from, leaving the one who got thrown at lying on the ground.

With a wide grin and a new idea, Jay went over to some crates loaded on a wagon, next to the barn.

In there he had seen countless smaller pumpkins like the two he picked up before. They had only a diameter of around 7 inches and not all of them were shaped round.

Picking a crate and one big pumpkin he marched back to the barns door and positioned himself five yards in front of it.

The poor bandit that got downed by a pumpkin got shot by a (Arcane Missile) as Jay set down the crate.

Taking a step back Jay held the big pumpkin to the side with both hands.

After taking two fast steps as a start, he hurled the pumpkin towards the door, which shattered in a loud crash and splinters flying into the barn.

Two of the sorrowful bandits got wounded by the wooden shrapnels because they stood directly behind the door.

But that was only the beginning. While pulling the crate behind him Jay walked through the destroyed door and shouted "Have a bloody pumpkin!".

From then on it was mayham.

Jay threw the pumpkins with his throwing skill, blunting the poor bandits that ran through the barn while trying to dodge the bullet like pumpkins.

But even if they dodged, the wooden splinters and pumpkin shrapnels that resulted from the impacts got them. After the crate was empty and Jay had skilled up his (trowing), the barn war littered with bloody bits of pumpkin, bandits corpses and wooden parts that once made up the interior of this building.

Just as Jay walked out of the barn he heard a man yell out of one window at the big house.

"What the fuck is this ruckus!?! Huh, Morris? Morriiis!" ???

Looking out of the barn he saw a black haired man leaning out of the window. Seeing the dead Morris in the middle of the yard he began to shout and curse.

As the bare chested man retreated from the window, Jay rushed over to the big house the man was at.

Opening the door he found himself in a spacious living room. To his right he saw a staircase and in the back was a fireplace. Next to the stairs was a door leading to the next room, but before Jay could open it he heard someone running down the stairs.

The black haired man rushed from the stairs directly to the door leading outside.

Without even reaching the door he fell to the right, as his leg gave in.

Not wasting any time, Jay had thrown his dagger at the mans right leg.

Walking over, Jay turned the man holding his right leg around with his left foot, eyeing him top down. The man had hastily thrown over a shirt that now hung out of his only partially buttoned pants.

The War-axe he had been holding had slipped his hands as he fell down and was now out of reach for him.

Jay was about to finish the man he analyzed as Erlan Drudge, a level 12 bandit with a muscular build, as he heard someone coming from the upper floor.

With a 'light' kick to his head he knocked the bandit out for later interrogation.

Taking a step back and out of view from the edge of the stairs he waited.

"Erlan! ...What happened? ...Darling?" ???

Who came rushing down the stairs was a raven black haired woman in her early twenties.

She was really pretty and her slim but seductive figure showed through the night grown she was wearing.

It was still bright outside and them being upstairs together looked like they were comforting each other. While she knelt down next to the knocked out man, a wide and mean grin appeared on Jay's face.

"Hey there, beauty!" he greeted her, to which she hurled back up and faced him with a shocked expression.

Now that he saw her directly, he noticed her slim nose, dark golden eyes and slightly tanned skin.

However, her expression shifted to anger in no time as she stepped in front of Erlan who was still out cold.

"How dare you! Do you know who we are?" Thalia

Indeed he knew who she was. Jay had analyzed her the moment she knelt down there, next to Erlan and found out all that was necessary.

__________

Thalia Calderon - Bandit [lvl. 14]

(Human-Arathi)

HP 210/210 Mana 350/350

[Fire magic lvl.2]

[Silent cast lvl.2]

[Conjuration lvl.1]

__________

Nodding to himself, Jay watched Thalia cast a spell while she was furiously staring at him.

A small flame ignited in her hand as she concentrated and grew to a full size fireball, while she held a wooden staff in her other hand.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you..." J.

Ignoring him, she fired off her spell while Jay just stood there with his arms crossed. The moment the fireball bounced off and returned to Thalia she panicked.

Straining herself she cast a weak firewall to shield herself but still had to dodge her own spell in the end.

While she crashed onto the staircase, her fireball landed weakened on Erlan's legs and left heavy burns on them.

As Jay walked through the firewall as if it was nothing, Thalia shrank back and cowered before the wall, fearing for her live.

As he stood right next to her, he bent down to her and held out a hand.

"I had warned you! In exchange for your life, would you mind tell me about your little group of bandits?" J.

She looked at him utterly stupefied.

The man who seemingly singlehandedly erased her group of bandits, was now granting her a chance to survive, Jay knew she wouldn't believe such a bullshit.

At least he thought it would be this way.

As the woman took his hand while nodding she said in a meek voice "I'll talk. I'll do anything, if you promise to spare my life!".

That were the words he wanted to hear.

Pulling her up, he guided the woman to the table in the middle of the living room.

While the opportunistic woman had to sit down there, he went to Erlan and bound him up with a rope. Seating himself next to Thalia at the head of the table, he urged her to talk about the situation of this main base and the abduction of people.

"This Farm was taken over just recently, so there were only Morris, Erlan and me in charge of about forty men to guard the vicinity.

Even if there are survivors in the fields, I doubt they would come here after your display of power. I saw Morris and the destroyed barn from my room..." T.

"So no reinforcements. Then what about the people you abducted?" J.

"We were paid to deliver the slaves to either the Westfield County or eastwards. The payment was needed for weapons and supplying our troupes.

It came from a Slavetrader in Arathor, together with the schedule for the next deliveries. Without it we would long have ceased our resistance, not to speak about our latest efforts with the support from the cultists sent from the leaders hidden in other regions..." T.

"We?...tell me more! What is this little bandit group of yours trying to accomplish?" J.

"That's a little bit of a longer story... The Defiers of Arathor, that's what we call ourselves, is a group of former craftsmen or their descendants from the Capital.

They used to work for the royal family and their noble counselors.

But about two decades ago, after the valley of heroes construction had finished and the defense for the Arathor had become close to perfect, the royals refused to pay the ones who build that very city, or delivered the materials.

Without the payment many of the craftsmen had to leave their homes and search for new ways to live due to their owes.

A brave leader rose at that time and formed a group to get their revenge on the nobles that had robbed them of their homes.

That's the gist of it and pretty much all I know from the past.

Two years ago Erlan there asked me if I would join the Defiers of Arathor.

As the leader of this regions group, he promised to appoint me to the second in command from the beginning.

He wanted me by his side. We got to know each other at the great fire in the city, while I was studying at the mages quarter.

At that time he saved me, but I didn't know until recently that it was him and some men that lay that very fire!

Now he even has a bounty on his head..." T.

"You're quite opportunistic, selling your boyfriend while he's passed out, aren't you? Then, you got any information about this slavetrader?" J.

"Aren't you a little young to do the dirty work for the soldiers of Arathor?

I just take my chances.

Same way I did back in the capital to flee that old bastard my mother sent me to for learning.

No information on that Slavetrader though, it's always been Morris. Once he had his tongue slip as he mentioned this mistress so..." T.

Her words halted as Jay rose from his seat and walked over to the fireplace.

He had not lost interest in her words, but he felt the woman getting the talk to her pace too much.

It was time to correct that.

Picking one of the elongated shaped pumpkins that had been dried over the fire he walked back and sat down again.

As she watched his moves and her eyes stopped at the pumpkin placed on the table, he started to explain.

"You see, there's a little something I need from you...

And from what I've seen and heard until now, you don't seem to opposed to it...

Stand up! A little experimenting is on the table now" J.