A meeting that can't be forgotten

Close to the tower the main road forked. On way went straight towards the east towards the next settlement.

The way to the south led through the woods until it ended on the big Alborea River, also called Eldrin River, dividing the similarly named Forest.

On this road Jay was walking after he left the tower even before breakfast. He had taken some leftover meat from the day before and had traveled for an hour until he found himself a nice place to rest.

Leaning on a tree he ate his makeshift breakfast.

From the maps he had seen he knew the way he had to walk today was about the same distance as form Gold Creek to the tower. Taking into account he had to search for the dock he had started his day early as to not have to camp outside on the way.

After finishing his meal he made his way further down the road. It took him over four hours more to reach the vicinity of the Alborea River.

It was a vast stream at least a hundred yards wide.

The current was impressive for its size.

Following the road to the left he saw a wooden building with a pier at the riverbank in the distance.

He wasn't sure about the size an he had no relation. Soon he could make out the first person near the house, showing the size to be of a small storage house with twenty yards in each direction.

A boat or ferry was no where to be seen.

As he could see the people at the dock now, the same applied to them. The first pair of bandits masked as dock workers walked in Jay's direction.

Only his knowledge about this locations background and their barely hidden weapons revealed them to him. As the pair had walked over to him and stood directly before him they began to talk.

"Hey young'un! How ya got 'ere? Dis' place 's far off da road..." 1st Bandit

"Hehe, yeah yeah,... da boss's gonna be happy bout a new pet like dis' sweetie..." 2nd Bandit

Those where their last words.

With a (Slash) the right one got bisected from the crotch to the head while the left simply fell back after a dagger was stuck under his chin.

Retrieving the dagger Jay walked on towards the dock.

His impression on bandits was one of the worst, ever since his fateful encounter with the two female bandits Aidra and Katja.

But in the last days Jay had simply come to hate and loathe bandits. After what he had witnessed in the camp he cleaned out with Alexis he simply had the wish to get rid of every bandit in this region before he left, though this was simply impossible.

His shifted impression had also been the reason he could take out his revenge on Aidra like he did. Before he would never have tortured or mishandled one of those people simply because he could, but by now they had no worth and rights in his eyes.

With this mindset he went on towards the dock house.

There were three more bandits stationed at the entrance which rushed over to him the moment he was in sight. This time there was no conversation as they brandished their axes and sword to engage in combat.

A chain lightning from the quick-slots ended their efforts and even stunned two of them while the third swung his old hatchet aiming for Jay's neck. Back-stepping out of reach, he let the hatchet pass by and with a step forward pierced his Wingblade into the armpit facing him.

With this only two guards remained.

Even before the last one regained control over his boy, Jay had beheaded the other bandit, equipped with a small one handed axe, using a (Slash). Just as he had passed the last enemy from this group, he stabbed his dagger backwards gripped into the bandits neck. As the three bandits lay dead on the ground, he didn't spare them a glance and walked over to the pier.

A female bandit with a bow had started shooting at him the moment he had defeated the group of three before.

Her aim was not that good as he rushed towards her.

The moment he reached the pier, she had retreated towards the water with the aim to keep him on distance.

Bandits were not known to be genius, but her action was pretty dumb.

At least this was what Jay thought as he closed in on the middle aged woman when she reached the end of the pier and stood on the edge.

"Can you swim?" J.

"N-no, why?" Bandit

Grinning wide, Jay turned on his right heel and kicked the woman with a spin kick.

Hurling through the air the female bandit splashed into the water more than five yards away, thanks to the height of the pier.

As her head resurfaced she was already over thirty yards downstream.

Her demise was prolonged, but certain.

Jay only saw her floating away over his shoulder and made his way to the storage house.

Peeking inside through the big sliding door, he got a picture of the interior.

There were no windows inside other than some upper windows facing to the north.

Five bandits sat together at a table in the right corner from where a staircase led up to a small office with a window overlooking the warehouse. They were playing cards an didn't notice Jay as he snuck in.

On the other side were cages and crates piled up, while two younger looking bandits worked on cleaning one cage that looked blood smeared.

Two coffins were leaned against the backside wall to the right.

With quick steps Jay crossed the room and back-stabbed the first bandit cleaning the cage.

The second was yelping and about to call alarm when Jay hurled his dagger through the cage towards him.

The blade piercing his windpipe wasn't enough to totally silence the bandit but it muted him for sure.

With now enough time to circle the cage Jay arrived before the young man and with a swift swing of his blade split the mans sternum opening the whole torso.

This much noise was of course enough to alarm the rest of the group playing cards and they rushed over.

But now that Jay knew there were no hostages, he could start making a ruckus.

Casting his fireball he inflamed the first bandit to arrive while the second got a fireball from the quick-slots.

Re-summoning his Wingblade from the assigned quick-slot he killed the third with a (Slash) and got ready for the last pair to arrive.

Parrying the swing of the faster to arrive one Jay ducked down for the wide swing of the second.

As the bandits had seen their comrades getting slaughtered, they threw in all they had, even if it meant risking friendly fire.

And the result was just that.

The swung heavy axe hit the torso of the other bandit, hurling him backwards while Jay closed in on the second bandit, close to the ground.

Using his sword in this position, he hit the left leg and cut through.

With one bandit laying on the ground missing a leg and the other one having a heavy axe sticking in his torso Jay was surprised how smooth his attack went.

Stabbing down his sword to their throats he ended the two pitiful lives.

Just as he was about to leave the warehouse he heard muffled screams from the office.

The fire from the two burned bandits had already started to spread over the wooden floor through the building.

Not minding that fire caused by himself much, Jay went back and upwards the stairs to the office.

Kicking in the door he regretted not having simply turned to leave.

A bulky bearded man was holding his big hand to the neck of another, much smaller one while standing behind him.

That much was only a display of a culprit holding a hostage.

But the skinny hostage was nude. With his tiny thing pointing towards Jay while the big bandit behind him also had his trousers down on the ground.

"Oh, you're even better!" Big Bandit

Without minding the situation the burly bandit put strength in his right hand holding the other guys neck, breaking it without much effort.

As he opened his hand again the skinny guy fell dead to the side sliding off the burly bandits manhood.

Jay had hought about just closing the door and leaving the bandit to burn down with the dock house.

But as the guy had simply killed his hostage and walked over to him without even pulling up his pants, Jay came back to from his stupor and reacted.

Taking to swift steps froward, he planted his left foot firmly on the ground and repeated his first attack he ever did in this world.

This time his target was no simple and weak skeever.

Hurling his shin forward, he made contact with two even smaller and more delicate objects.

The heavy leather boot he wore crushed whatever lay in its path and transmitted its force to the big bandit who then got hurled to the wooden ceiling.

With his head sticking into said ceiling, while his limbs dangling motionless down, he hung in the middle of the room.

The bandits sullied manhood had receded before Jay grabbed the mans left boot and pulled him down.

Turning around, he got down the stairs and through the now fiercely burning warehouse until he was back in the open.

All the time he was pulling the big bandit by the leg, not minding his head hitting every stair or his arms getting a little burned here and there.

Reaching a distance of about fifty yards from the dock, Jay forcefully woke up the bandit by slapping him.

"W-who are you?" were the first words the big man asked with a remarkably higher voice and pain filled expression, while fearfully looking at Jay.

He just stood over the bandit lying flat on the ground and before answering him stomped his left foot down on the remnants of this mans groin.

"I am asking the questions, got it" J.

Whimpering, the bandit grabbed his crotch after he nodded repeatedly, not daring to talk. Jay had lifted his foot to his victims nodding and stepped to the side.

"I take it you are the dockmaster here?

Two questions. That's all I need answered. First one: Where is your hideout? I bet you know the exact location..." J.

"Y-Yeas, I am... I-it's th-the Brackwell's Farm. W-We took it over weeks ago..." Dockmaster

"Oh, fine then. Mind telling me the exact location?" J.

"Tsk, don't know their pumpkin-farm? ...o-okay, it's to the north-east from here, about five miles. Can't really miss it as their fields are massive." Dockmaster

Jay had to lift his left foot indicating where he would stomp it down again if the still wailing Dockmaster wouldn't go on with talking.

It was obvious that every single word he spoke was true and hurt him not only physically.

"Thanks. Now to the second question: What happened to the people you abducted?" J.

"I guess you're talking 'bout our slaves? They go to different locations as per the ferries schedule. Big guys to the west, the few women and beastkin go to the east..." Dockmaster

"So then, can you show me the schedule? And what about the rest of the people?" J.

"The schedule is in my pants pocket... A-and th-the remaining slaves... the weak of them die in the attacks and s-some women always had been kept by the groups. They had been instructed to spare the fresh and good ones. ...as for the few weak guys, I kept them to myself..." Dockmaster

With a concentrated short distance volley of (Stone shards) Jay perforated the remaining mangled meat on the bandits crotch.

His hands, which he used to hold his still hurting, crushed member got blown off together with everything they guarded.

Before the seeping tide of blood could destroy it, Jay picked the small piece of paper that peeked out of the bandits trousers right pocket.

Though there were no locations mentioned for the ships route, the timing and directions were written down for the next tree weeks. This should give some leads to the bandits locations even if they weren't mentioned.

After the warehouse with the whole dock was set to burn down after Jay's fireball had incinerated the interior and the fire was spreading, he was sure this incident wouldn't stay unnoticed.

Especially considering what he was going to do from now on as he finally knew the location of this regions main base.

Just as Jay had read through the sheet with the schedule while walking about 200 yards in the direction for the Brackwell's farm he got the notification of a kill.

He was a little stunned that the dockmaster had died so fast but as he checked the notification in his log, he saw it had been the female bandit from the pier.

She had held on quite long but drowned in the end.

Only a few steps later Jay finally received the notification that the dockmaster had bled out.

Picking up his pace he rushed to the farm in less than forty minutes.

The forest was lush but he had spotted a small beaten path going into the direction he was pointed to. With a light jog, at least for his stats, it was no hard work to go there fast.

Even at the furthest fields of the farm he could see bandits patrolling the vicinity.

The only difference from until now was, they were mostly level nine and wore a red bandana hiding their lower face.