8 Big scheme

Bartos city

there's more to this than meets the eye, according to elfs the city is merely trade centre for criminals and has population of about 120,000 people including slaves but that wasn't the whole truth. The terrain around the city was rich with resources like high quality mines but the problem were the monsters subsiding in the area. Savage land was usually home for monsters but due to the shattered power balance, other races barged in and monsters became more aggressive.

So the slaves which were to be captured were assigned for the dangerous jobs like mining,in the mines crawling with monsters.

Many big kingdoms were backing the city for the share of the resources that the criminals plunder from such dangerous area. Black marketing, smuggling and kidnapping were common features of the city.

A large mansion can be seen in the middle of the city, it was like rich aristocrate's mansion.

A fat ugly man was sitting in his chair taking the sip of his cup,and spoke angrily

"Has the men returned from yesterday's plundering? ",

A puny weak looking man holding the documents was next to the ugly man,spoke up

"no, my lord".

Hearing the reply made ugly man berserk and he thrashed his cup into wall,

"what are those bastards thinking making me wait, the lord of this city wait? ".

The ugly man was the current lord of the city and known as "Hugo Herrera". He was the one who assigns the tasks to the bandits and criminals living in the city. Any man who wants to live in Bartos has to become subordinate of Hugo, just like his ugly face, he have an ugly history of plundering and mass murdering.

"How's that girl doing?"

"She doesn't ate anything since her capture , my lord",

Hugo aggressively spoke up,

"force her to eat, you bastards,You don't know how big of the jackpot she is "

"if everything goes according to plan, I will be racking up tons of profits from it".

In an elongated building, there was a dark room with door and a tiny window which was the only light source. A woman of about 26 years in damaged leather armour was staring at the window weakly, her whole body was covered with bandages and bruises and she was murmuring something ,

"somebody, please help"

The voice was too weak that it doesn't even reach the end of the room.

Village was in pinch again, due to the destruction, their food supply which they have storing was all destroyed. Hunger, it is the worst torturing method one can use. Small children were waiting for the food to be served, adults can't even face their innocent faces. Ebina who was preparing a group of people to hunt the monsters as most of the monster were addible as those boars and stinger rabbits. Group comprised of elders and some teenagers as all the adults were rebuilding the houses and the group wanted to help too.

Magnus who was watching the scene from above the cliff, jumped and glided towards Ebina.

"Are you really sending them for hunting?",

Ebina replied in hopeless tune,

"we really doesn't have any choice".

Without realising, Magnus pat on her head and spoke up,

"leave the hunt to me".

As Magnus touched Ebina's head she pushed him back and her face was all red,

"what the hell are you doing, treating me like child?"

Magnus had no knowledge in the field of woman, he was a dense type of person . Magnus was totally clueless but he doesn't gave much thought to it and gave out the orders to dead army to hunt the monsters. As soon as Magnus gave out orders, the troops who were standing like statues or guarding the village immediately rushed into the forest.

With the time, Ebina and Magnus had became quite close as comrades. And all the people who were suspicious of Magnus started seeing him as an good person. As troops were heading into the forest, Ebina asked,

"what kind of sorcery is this?".

In Arcadia, there were titles rather than classes so the native people of Arcadia were unknown to the subject of necromancy,which made explaining easier for Magnus. He introduced his skills as puppetry rather than necromancy.

After about an hour, some troops returned carrying some boars and later more troops returned with food . Seeing the boars lighten up the pale complexions of villagers. Everybody started preparation for their feast, as they were cooking the meat, dusk came over. The meal was enough to fill everyone's stomach to fullest.

Even though Magnus doesn't have any need for food but he can't refuse the kind gesture of villagers and joined the feast, they also started drinking the special alcohol that villagers brewed themselves.

While drinking, discussion started, Magnus asked,

"what are you gonna do now, are you going to get revenge?"

Ebina sighed,

"even if we want, we don't have strength"

"what if I help?"

Ebina took Magnus's suggestion as joke,

"Even if we gather all the warriors in village and your troops, we don't even cross the number over thousand and bandits are in number of hundred thousands".

An oldman who was quietly drinking while hearing the conversation of everyone, jumped into conversation,

"these troops aren't as weak as they look, 100 of them can wipe out thousands without even breaking sweat ".

The oldman was veteran warrior and an strategist who retired due to the problems that come with age and was one of the prisoners from camp.

"I can feel the aura around them as that of elites "

Oldman's answer made Magnus interested in him, so he questioned Oldman,

"so can I really pull the feat, elder".

Taking sip from his cup, oldman replied with a pause,

"I think you can do it but only if you can summon the thick fog as before"

"don't worry about fog".

Seeing the serious face of oldman, Magnus put an offer before him,

" you wanna join, if we succeeded the village will get better and safe environment and if not you won't be losing anything, how's this sound to you".

Oldman lifted one of his eyebrow and took another sip of the drink,

"I can't make this decision, why don't you ask our chief".

Both shifted their sight towards Ebina, who was now in tight spot, in a calm tune she spoke up,

"well, making decision on seizing the city will be crazy as the whole idea of seizing a big city with this low number of soldiers is absurd but since we won't be losing anything in return, I can make an exception".

Hearing Ebina's reply, made Magnus somehow excited and with the help of Oldman's brain they started formulating the strategy the next day and on the other hand, Ebina was made to convince the elf soldiers and villagers about the absurd idea they were planing .