Defending the Resting Place

We waited to make our move until they were halfway to the resting place, leaving them right out in the open. An arrow from Lariss killed their guide right away and Feadr followed up with a fireball. It wasn't as big as the ones I've seen Vesta make but it did hit three of them.

Those attacks were followed closely by a Bolt of Holy Light from Cedric and a dagger from Thelora. While Cedric's attack hit its mark, Thelora's dagger bounced off an arcane shield. Her target was a middle aged man with brown hair and a thick beard that was carrying a staff.

Before we could launch another volley of ranged attacks the man Thelora attacked waved his arms outward and then thrust them upward. A wall of earth now separated us from them and the attacks our side sent out caused little damage to the wall. As Lariss pulled back another arrow and began to infuse it with a spell, Thelora put her hand on her shoulder and shook her head.

"Wait till they let their guard down a little more." Thelora said.

"Feadr is that your? I'd recognize that two-bit magic anywhere." The man called to us.

"Ah Gerbold, is that really you?" Feadr's voice trembled as he spoke.

"Sure is. So why don't you convince whoever's with you to lay down your arms and surrender." Gerbold yelled.

"We're in for it now. Gerbold's the second best mage among the bandits in the north and one of Torfredr's inner circle. If he wants to, he could level this island." Feadr said.

"From my intel he's barely at the sorcerer level. And he only has six other people with him now all below our level. We just need to wait for an opening." Thelora said.

"Forgive me but your intel hasn't exactly been top-notch since I started working with you." I said.

"Even if he is stronger than what I've been told, he's not going to risk destroying the island and losing the protections from the archmage Orvat that are here. He'll try to rush us or go around. Hrothgar, watch that side of the lake and Thorarinn that side. Lariss be ready if we see them going around. Wilmaer be ready to hold this side if they charge." Thelora said.

"Times up." Gerbold yelled.

Large rocks started flying towards us over his earthen wall. Feadr took the lead using Firebolts on them while Cedric destroyed what he could with his Bolts of Holy Light. Those that slipped past them were taken care of by my Moonlight Lightning Slash. The ones I destroyed were only a few feet above our heads, and showered us with smaller rocks.

When one finally got past our attacks, it sprouted arms and legs and charged towards the closest person. With shadows wrapping around her body and short sword, Thelora struck into it. With a few well aimed strikes it shattered.

"They're coming this way." Hrothgar pointed towards the far side of the lake. Two people could be seen a few feet from the shore.

"Uh I think I see them over here as well." Thorarinn yelled.

"Lariss you're up." Thelora said.

She fired three arrows in quick succession. They all landed in the water a few yards from the shore. Shortly after they entered the water they exploded. The shock waves sent the three eyed gators fleeing out of the lake and towards the bandits who were trying to get around us.

Lariss moved to the side Thorarinn was watching but didn't fire. "That's just a tree leaning against another."

I couldn't blame him too much, he was only at the beginning of the Novice stage of basic aura. His eye sight wouldn't be much more than a normal person and the sun was beginning to set. But I did snicker when I heard her.

As we focused back towards the earthen wall, small balls of light shot towards us. They exploded above us in brilliant multicolored lights and gave off deafening sounds. My eyes burned and my ears rang after they went off.

I readied myself as I felt my air wards next to the gates go off. My Osgar Lineage was circulating around my vital area as I felt an attack hit near my heart. Not only did the blade not pierce my skin but my Lightning Rebuke also activated and I heard the bandit scream over the ringing in my ears.

With my three auras circulating through me, my body repaired itself quickly. I first saw several blurs rushing towards us. Then a blur next to me covered in shadows. A dark shape came rushing towards my face as I held up my shield and was knocked backwards by the large stone.

By then the blurs started to take on enough shape for me to recognize ally from enemy. Thelora was moving among the bandits with her eyes closed, slashing as she went. She had other ways of knowing where her opponents were. Gerbold was in the rear firing off spells, injuring most of our side. I pushed aside one of the bandits and charged.

He launched another stone at me but I deflected with my Osgar infused shield. As other spells came at me I cut through them with my Moonlight Lightning Slash. The broken energy of the spells still burned my body as I ran through them. When I got up to him Gerbold's skin took on a rocky appearance. My blade barely cut into his skin as it made contact but his eyes widened at the damage I did.

"Curse you!" Gerbold yelled at me.

Jumping back he swung his staff in front of himself sending out an arc of acid. I took the brunt of the attack with my shield and used my water mote to reduce the burning where it did hit. As I closed the distance again I relentlessly pressed him. He tried to block my attacks with his staff but the energy from my Lydos Lineage was still hitting him. Eventually his Rock Skin Armor spell collapsed and my strike tore open his chest.

He fell to the ground and with his dying breath he started laughing as he said, "He already knows you're here. Once I don't report back in, he'll come in force and kill you all."

The other bandits that were with him were killed off easily. Our side took a few decent wounds in the exchange and Cedric used what little healing magic he had on us before some used potions. As night set in we began to discuss how we were going to handle our new predicament.

"Maybe we need to just head back and inform the Bandit Queen, hell even just informing Wassa should cause him trouble." Hrothgar said.

"We don't know how much support he has. If it's large enough he might just excelerate his plans and we'd have an all out bandit war on our hands." I countered. While this might be overall beneficial to me I still didn't want to risk Torfredr coming out on top. The more I learned about him, the more I knew he would be devastating to the north if he had power.

"Agreed. We're here so we need to take care of it. With the right tactics we should be able to deal with a larger force. There's only around 20 in the center of the marsh and six of them are alchemists that shouldn't be much help in a fight." Thelora said.

"Yeah but how do we do it? Even if there are six alchemists that can't fight, which we don't actually know that they can't, that means we have around sixteen fighters to deal with. And we don't know if he has any other mages. Also the old guys back at that shitstain of a village will no doubt make they're way here meaning we'll be flanked on both sides. Staying in the marsh will be suicide." Cedric said.

"I'm going to have to agree with Cedric. We barely handled this small group and that's because we had the element of surprise. Leaving him in the marsh will be our best option." Feadr said.

"All we need are plans, not excuses. Twice now we've used the monsters of the swamp to our advantage. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to do that again." Thelora said. I could tell it was important for her to take care of this right now, but the others were making good points. The plans I came up with in my head either wouldn't give the results we needed or would take too long to set up. What we really needed was more time, but each side of the safe path only took about a day to travel so that's what we had. Or did we?

"Lariss, how well do you know the markers?" I asked.

"I know the ones leading out very well but I only know the ones leading towards the middle based on the description the guide here told me. But it shouldn't be too hard to follow them." She replied.

"Damn it man, you're not thinking of going on the offensive, are you? I'm not dying for this." Cedric said.

"No but I have an idea." I went over to the guide that was still bound in the tent. "I have some questions for you." He gave me a nod and I started to rotate my psychic mote to see if he would lie.

"Without the path markers, how hard would it be for you or any of the guides to keep to the safe path?" I asked.

"We'd be able to find our way eventually but it would take a few hours." He replied.

"How easy would it be to realize you were on a false path heading off the safe path?"

"Oh that's hard to say but I get what you're getting at. I've been doing this long enough that I wouldn't be fooled easily but Karlom, he's the one that's currently in the center to guide them out when needed, he's a little newer so he is a little easier to fool." He said with a smile.

"This could not only buy us some time to make traps closer to here but if they wander off far enough their numbers could be thinned by monsters." Thelora said.

"Ah, like I said I've been here awhile, and as such I know where a few of the nastier beasties are. I might be willing to help you if you let me live." He said.