Brothers

We all sat around the tree trying to catch our breath. Me and Balgroff were already on the up. While Salis the wizard was still wheezing like a bellows.

It was awkward. By now we were all just looking at each other. These 2 guys were still strangers. Not to mention they were also in the warehouse, which almost definitely meant they were brigands.

I then remembered that I hadn't even inspected them yet. However, due to them being at a higher level, I wasn't able to see much.

[ Balgroff Gregor - lvl 48 - age 34 ]

[ Salis - lvl 41 - age 18 - Firemancer ]

I could see Salis's main class, but Balgroff was simply too high-level for me to see his. It also surprised me that Balgroff had a last name implying that he was a noble of some kind.

After seeing their levels I became wary. It would have been impossible for me to win a fight. Worse thing of all is that I had a bag full of loot, while I knew they were brigands. technically they should have no idea that I was carrying so much, but I was paranoid and didn't want to take a chance. I was ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

Balgroff was the first to speak by saying "Sorry that we messed up your Heist." Salis immediately broke in with "What are you talking about he's the one that messed ours up!" Balgroff shot back with "Well we could have both just robbed the place if someone didn't yell like a complete amateur!" Salis went silent after that. Although he looked like he still wanted to argue.

I couldn't help but find both of them humorous and endearing in a way. I finally answered, "It's fine I only just got there too." I told them a half-lie. Although I only robbed about half the warehouse I had already robbed the mayor's house.

As we were talking I could tell Salis was staring at me. I already knew what the stare was. It was the type of stare I got from everyone I ever met. He was staring at my scars. I learned to ignore it at some point, but deep down it always made me slightly annoyed and angry.

I stared him back straight in the eyes and said "They're burn scars, not a curse or disease." He flinched and replied, "Uh sorry I didn't mean to stare."

After that, there was an awkward silence. All of us weren't sure what to say. Until Balgroff finally asked

"So you are a thief right?"

"Yeah. I'm a thief."

"Well as you can already tell I'm a tank while my friend here is a wizard. That makes it easier when it comes to fighting. It leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to stealing and stealth."

"Your implying I join you 2 in your merry little band."

"Sure put it like that. We will split the loot evenly between the 3 of us. Plus, me and salis here could teach you how to use magic. I'm guessing you don't know how to use any cause I have yet to see you use it."

I stopped and thought. I always wanted to learn magic. The extra protection also wouldn't hurt. Then the biggest reason of them all. I would never admit it to anyone, but I had been lonely for a long time. I never really had a family. Hell, the most I interact with other people is when I'm haggling with a fence. I made up my mind.

"Sure, I guess I'll join you"

"Perfect!"

From that day on I became an official brigand after joining them. We went from village to village. Our plan was simple. We would first sneak in and try to remain undetected while taking whatever was valuable. If we were caught then with the help of Salis and Balgroff we would fight or escape. after each village, we got closer and closer until we considered ourselves brothers. We were the only family we had.

We would sell off the stolen loot and live off it for a while until we needed more money. We were living well and continuing to level up and get stronger.

Things continued like that for a while until I just turned 19.

— 5 years later —

I was level 53 and had a new main class. After learning magic I had to pick a type of magic to specialize in. Almost all magicians chose to specialize in only one or a couple of fields of magic.

Salis tested me and said that I didn't have a talent for any specific magic. So it meant that I could pick about anything. Balgroff was the same while Salis had a talent for fire.

It took me a while to choose. One day while deciding I remembered the funny trick Salis did when we were escaping from that one village. I found it so funny that it inspired me to choose the illusion specialty.

That day on I learned about illusions. First I gained the class [ Illusionist ]. Then I gained a more advanced class related to illusions called [ Jester ].

We were currently in a little mudbrick house. Salis made the house with earth magic. We were currently in a little room lounging on stone furniture.

Me and Salis were lying around on stone couches. While Balgroff was reading a book in a stone chair with tiny reading glasses. Due to our stats being so high the stone furniture was actually pretty comfortable.

"You know." Salis began "We have become a lot stronger. We are all above level 50 now. So reasonably speaking we no longer need to sneak around anymore." He said while making hand gestures about redundant he thought it was.

"What are you implying," I said.

"I'm saying why don't we just walk straight into the village? If someone tries to stop us then we just fight and get it over with. We're strong enough that there's no need to sneak."

He was right. We were strong enough that we no longer needed to sneak around anymore. Doing it this way would have made things far simpler and easier. But it would also require us to kill the sentinel of every village we visit.

Sentinels were no slouches. They were all powerful and had versatile skill sets. And as strong as we were, going easy on them or trying to be non-lethal was not an option. All it would take was just one sentinel to use a trump card at the right time for one of us to die.

I began to think about other things. If we killed the sentinel then the village would likely be wiped out by something else like monsters or more ruthless brigands.

"Hmmm" Balgroff hummed.

In the end, I was indifferent. With my new main class fighting wasn't a problem. It would also make things a lot easier and simpler. The bad part of it was I didn't particularly like how many people we would be killing.

Me and Salis both waited for Balgroff to answer. Although I and Salis called him our brother, we both thought of him more as a father. To me and Salis, he was the closest thing we ever had to a father.

"Let's try it and see how it goes."

A few days later, we were running low on money so we made our way to the next village.

We first scouted the place. It was about medium size as far as villages went. It was situated in the middle of a valley. We planned to walk in, fight the sentinel, and take everything in the warehouse.

Before we got started Salis pulled me to the side and said "We're gonna be in front of a bunch of people, and I know how mad you get when people stare at your scars. So here"

He handed me a skull mask. It was black, and with a hood would cover the entire head. I knew he wasn't being rude when he gave me it. He got used to my scars already. He was being completely sincere. Plus I had to say the mask looked pretty cool. I put on the mask, pulled my hood up, and asked "How do I look?"

Salis answered "You look cool as hell. Damn, I wish I got another one for myself."

Balgroff looked at me and said, "A bit flashy, but it is intimidating."

It was a bit stuffy having my entire head covered, but I got used to it fast.

With that taken care of we then walked out from the forest and onto the main road. it was the middle of the day in spring. We continued to walk right into the village. People began to stare. Some began to run. People could tell we had a high level and bad intentions.

"stop right there."

Out came a man in light silver armor and an intricate rapier in his hand. Inspecting him I could see he was level 50. He was the sentinel of the village.

[ Trevor - lvl 50 - age 28 - Duelist ]

[ stats:

Strength

45

Dexterity

87

Endurance

56

Intelligence

28

Perception

26

Charisma

12

]

Balgroff answered him with "If you just ignore us we will only take what is in your warehouse. We won't hurt anyone."

"Really now, and taking our harvest and letting us starve in the winter is considered not hurting us." The sentinel replied.

It was obvious how this was going to go down. we all pulled out our weapons. Salis was holding a staff, Balgroff a mace and tower shield, and I only a curved short sword.

Although we were all higher level than him, It would probably only take one of us. We were all going to attack together to guarantee victory. If he had a special skill or magic device it could make things tricky.

Salis was the first to act by beginning to chant. Trevor shot forward kicking dirt up behind him. Balgroff ran In front of Salis blocking Trevor's stab. Trevor then pulled back into a stance where he did multiple stabs in quick succession. Each of them created sparks as they skidded across Balgroff's shield.

Salis finished his spell. He held out his hand where flames began to shoot out of it. They traveled about 3 meters before hitting the ground. Trevor jumped back, but not before catching on fire. The flames stuck to the leather bits of his armor. Then one of the villagers ran out with a bucket of water and dumped it onto Trevor.

Trevor and the 2 men were back to being a distance from each other. They glared at each other. "Wait a minute. Wasn't there 3 of them."

At that very moment, a curved short sword plunged through his back and out the front. He turned back to look at me. He saw me as I slowly reappeared from my invisibility.

[ Fatal Hit ]

He attempted to push away, but could not. I had dealt a fatal hit to him. I pulled my sword out and whispered to him "I'm sorry."

He fell to the ground dropping his rapier. He looked out to the villagers as his last moments faded into darkness.

[ slain - human - Duelist - lvl 50 ]

[ 4750 exp ]

I never enjoyed killing, but I thought it was necessary for my survival.

The villagers around us began to cry and weep. Now that their only protector was dead they had no hope.

I looked around at them. It began to remind me of a distant memory. A memory where my village was burning. Brigands running rampant. People crying and screaming. I remembered the brigand that killed my family. I can no longer remember what his face looked like, but I imagined it must have looked just like mine.

My line of thought was broken by a hand on my shoulder. I looked to see Balgroff staring me straight in the eyes. "Let's go. We can't back out now."

He was right. I stopped my imagination and focused back on what we came here to do.

We then went down to the warehouse. Balgroff smashed the lock, and the doors swung wide open. There was not much inside. Just some food and a couple of silver coins.

At the time we were running low on money and food, so we had to take all of it. We moved the things from the warehouse and into our dimensional storage bags. It only took a couple of minutes, and it didn't even fill all our bags. it was a rather disappointing haul.

We walked out of the warehouse, each of us holding multiple bags. Looking around I could see the villagers were no longer even paying attention to us. They had a dead look in their eyes. The look a person gets when they lose all hope.

We walked down the road back to the forest. When we had just gotten out of the village I felt a rock hit me in the back of my head. Although it barely even hurt.

I turned around to see a kid with watery eyes. He had another rock. He prepared to throw it but then stopped. He dropped the rock, looked down, and walked away. I could only turn back around, continue walking, and do my best to forget it all.

That was a painful day. I could no longer fully enjoy the loot we got. The worst thing of all was how easy it all was.

We continued doing raids like that. Leaving defenseless villages in our wake. One time in particular. We were at this large village. The sentinel was around our level, but the villagers also attacked along with a group of guards.

It was got dangerous very fast. So out of fear, we didn't hold back at all. By the time we were done, we had killed half the village. Their warehouse had barely anything in it too. We killed so many people for so little.

On the same day later that night when I fell asleep I was in for a rude surprise. Most of the time my dreams were meaningless drivel, but this time it was very different.

I stood alone on a dirt road. The sky was pure black, yet I could see just fine. There was a little crumbled stone wall along the road. The land around me was barren with only desolate and lifeless dirt.

I looked around and saw something on the horizon. I could tell something was coming my way, but I wasn't sure what. Soon I heard a noise coming from it. It sounded like wails and shrieks. Eventually, I could make out what it was. It was a stampede of people coming straight for me. They began to pick up speed. I could see that they all looked mutilated in some way.

Some of them were missing limbs, while some had holes or long cuts on them. They got closer and the wailing got louder. They began to run over one another with little regard for each other. They continued being completely fixated on me.

I spotted one of them. He was Trevor the sentinel that I killed before. He still had a hole in his chest. He was sprinting towards me, with his hands flailing about.

after getting another look I began to recognize more of them. They were all the people that I had killed. I could recognize some of them while many of them I could not remember.

They were getting closer and closer until they were now only 50 meters away. I turned around and ran. As I ran I didn't look back yet I could hear the wailing get louder and louder. Then I could hear them running right behind me. Soon I felt one of them grab my leg.

I fell forward hitting my face on the ground. I turned to look at the one that grabbed me. It was a woman who was missing an eye and arm. She crawled onto me bleeding all over. I crawled away from her only for the rest of the stampede to jump on me. They began to claw and rip at me. Tearing off meat and breaking bones.

Then bam, I was back awake. I was panting and was covered in sweat. That was the worst dream of my whole life. I was thankful it was finally over. Little did I know that from that day on, whenever I slept it was the only thing I would dream of. A nightmare I could never escape.