Cursed Heroine - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Battle and spoils

“Lilia, how do you want to confront the mage? He has several stage two guards by him, will you be able to get close?”~Sophia

“We won’t immediately attack him. Just intercept his spells with your own to start with. Focus on conserving your mana. You can use water blast to safely redirect his fireballs, shatter his ice spears with fireball, earth spike with wind blade and so on. Remember what you were taught about element affinities and use the most efficient method to reduce his impact on the battle.”~me

“What will you be doing in the meantime?”~Sophia

“I will bide my time for him to exhaust himself or an opportunity to present itself. I’ll use stage two strength to defend you while trying to minimize our side’s casualties.”~me

*BANG*

WTF! Some idiot on the bandit side just decided to start things off by fireballing the freaking goods. That’s your prospective spoils you…oh, he just got decapitated by an angry boss.

“FIRE!”~Arkin

That was not called to put out the fire on the carriage of goods. With that command, the mages start casting air cushion around members of our side and our range weapon users start barraging the bandits with arrows and crossbow bolts. The mages start lobbing their own offense spells over as well. Whenever I’m waiting for my crossbow to reload, I’ll send a blessing or heal to whoever needs it most.

“Hurry and kill that priestess!”~bandit

“No, capture her. That’s a fine woman even if I can’t see her face.”~another bandit

“Someone deal with that mage behind the priestess, she keeps intercepting my spells.”~elite bandit mage

Woah! We just became the targets for like a third of the bandits.

“Mistress, have Arkin bring a few groups to support us from the side. Once we are set, we will start retreating to draw them in and use quake to throw them all off balance. We can then finish off the lot of them with minimal risk.”~me

Sophia agrees and conveys my plan to Arkin who makes the arrangements. As soon as we are set, we begin. Very soon we have slaughtered about half the bandit forces at minimal losses to our own side and begin to push our advantage. Sophia starts directing spells directly at the mage and I kill off his protectors when they are busy avoiding her magic. A fireball explodes directly in front of him, sending his last two protectors flying to the sides and knocking him on his rear. Exploding forth with my stage three agility and double speed from my trait, I’m next to him faster than he’s able to regain his footing. I sink my dagger into his heart before he’s able to start casting a spell and swiftly retreat as my sense danger skill starts blaring in my mind, narrowly avoiding a sword strike that likely would have severed my arm.

“You weren’t supposed to have any elites in your group. I’m going to rip your limbs off and impale you to pay for killing my mage.”~bandit leader

I assume he’s the leader due to the speed of his attack earlier which clearly surpasses stage two. I’ve been suspecting for a while now that there was at least one other elite in this bandit group due to the fact that the mage was only referred to as being a member, not the leader. An elite mage of that level would not be willing to subordinate himself to a stage two cultivator.

“This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, but I can still make a fortune by capturing the two of you for my client. Just obediently surrender and you can keep your limbs, you’ve already exhausted yourself fighting by now.”~bandit leader

Evildoers never fail to amaze me by how stupid they truly are, revealing their motives in such an arrogant manner whenever they feel superior. Hey, I’m not really complaining, it’s convenient for me to have them willingly reveal their sinister plans without expending any effort. Oh, he’s attacking again. I fire off the wind blade spells I had readied during his rant and slice off his limbs, thus resulting in him falling on his face and tumbling forward a few times. Karma’s a bitch, named Lilia in this case. Using a few fire spells to seal the wounds, I then help the rest of the group deal with what remains of the bandits.

“Lilia, why did you leave that man alive?”~Sophia

“He seems to be the bandits’ leader and said some interesting things I need to clarify.”~me

“Arkin, we finished up over on our side, taking their leader captive. Need any help with the cleanup?”~Sophia

“The leader huh, wasn’t that mage the leader? I guess that explains why the remaining bandits started to flee a minute ago. You two worked hard, go ahead and retreat to the rear. Can I trouble the little lass to see to the wounded though?”~Arkin

I nod my head and get to work on the wounded. After we’ve tidied up the bandit remnants, we count our casualties. We lost twelve from our side of less than one hundred and have many more wounded, but managed to defend against a bandit force of nearly two hundred. The spoils are divided up and our companions buried. We torch the bodies of the bandits, not caring enough to bury so many.

From interrogating the leader, we found out that they are sponsored by several rich nobles throughout the region. The stolen goods are fenced through the merchants under the nobles at a good price and the bandits don’t target them, also doing the occasional job for them. We were meant to be one of those jobs. One such noble had passed on a request for our capture when he had seen our appearance entering the city of Rork. We advise everyone to keep quiet about the nobles’ involvement. There is no proof and they would probably be silenced by such people if they started any rumors about them.

By the time we are done with the cleanup, it is already beginning to get dark, so we set up camp for the night. I leave Sophia at the camp and stalk off into the woods, following the traces the fleeing bandits left. Soon enough I found what I was looking for, the bandits’ base camp. After waiting in the woods a few more hours, letting my energies recover a bit before making my move. Utilizing my shadowmeld skill, I assassinate the patrols and guards. Then I make my way through the new leaders and eventually down to the grunts. By the time the sun begins to peak over the horizon, every bandit in the camp has a slit throat and I’ve emptied out their treasuries. There were several hidden caches, but my dragon’s perception found them all. Energy from crystals gave them away. Inventory stuffed to the brim with gold, jewels and many other luxury items, I make my way back to the camp as the sun breaks past the horizon.

“Mistress, I’m on my way back. Would you let the others know that there are some women and goods here for them to collect. I took the good stuff for us, but the merchants can definitely make a profit on the stuff that I’ve left behind.”~me

“You intentionally left something for the rest? More likely it didn’t fit in your inventory, right? I’ll let Arkin know once you’ve returned, I don’t want to hint that we can somehow communicate over a distance. Get anything good?”~Sophia

“Lots! They had a big pile of crystals, including more than enough of the spirit variety to get us both to stage three. There were no skills though, probably used them all if they had any.”~me

It doesn’t take me too long to get back to the caravan, then Sophia leads me over to talk to Arkin.

“Arkin, you have a minute to talk?”~Sophia

“I see the little miss is back. Does this talk include an explanation for where she disappeared to last night by chance?”~Arkin

“So you noticed that she left. It does indeed concern her activities last night. She scouted out the bandits’ base camp. The goods they have stored there would help make up for your losses and give the rest a nice bonus. From what she has told me, you won’t really face any opposition and there are nearly three dozen women that need to be rescued.”~Sophia

“I only noticed she was gone after she vanished from the camp. Little miss snuck out without any of the night watch seeing her leave. Since she already scouted them out, I see no reason we shouldn’t follow up. Give me a few minutes to round up a group to clear them out.”~Arkin

A short time later we’ve trekked through the woods and arrived at the bandit camp. We pile up the dead bodies and hitch up a few carriages the bandits had pilfered. The women are arranged into some of the carriages while the salvageable goods are piled into others. Along the way back, I overhear a conversation between some of our companions.

*whistle* “Remind me to never piss off that little lass.”~rogue-type

“Why’s that? I know not to mess with her friend because she’s an elite mage, but why that little girl? Isn’t she only a stage two rogue like you, why be so fearful?”~ignoramus

“Fool! There were absolutely no signs of struggle. That little girl as you call her, slaughtered that entire camp without them being able to even fight back, by herself! Although I’m certain that some of the bandits from earlier never returned there. However, there were still nearly forty that did return.”~ranger-type

“Perhaps we should give her the biggest share of the spoils from the camp. She did most of the work after all. We just helped her carry it all away, It wouldn’t feel right to take too much.”~fighter-type

This comment was followed by majority agreement and discussion of nicknames to be used for me. Sophia had to agree when the subject was brought up for the sake of not revealing my inventory that was already hoarding the best of the loot, but managed to argue down the amount we received and even promised most of the rest of it to the female victims we had rescued. We then sold what remained to Arkin at a fair price.