Chapter 25 - Bandit Eradication (Patreon)

Chapter 25

Salran Mountains, Starnor Imperial Border Territories

Bandit Camp

"What th-"

The bandit never had the time to finish her sentence as a steel tipped arrow lodged itself in her eye socket, killing her instantly.

Several bandits looked up from their tasks, some were mending their gear, others preparing food, but most were taking inventory of the loot they'd raided. They were thoroughly distracted…and it took them a few seconds to even realize something was wrong when the adventurers attacked. After all, their job wasn't to be ready for an attack at any time. Not only were they the one attacking people in the middle of the woods, not the other way around, but they had sentries for that !

Except that said sentries had their throat slit before they could hope to raise the alarm.

"To arms ! To arms !" Yelled out one of the bandits, who had been a town guard in another life as he scrambled for his sword.

He never managed to draw it, as death itself leapt out of the woods. His eyes just had the time to widen as the adventurer sprinted out of the bushes, and then her fist connected with his face, staving his skull in and reducing his brain to sludge.

Airah whirled around as the bandit fell, unleashing a roundhouse kick onto another bandit, pulverizing the woman's neck, before grabbing the mace a third brigand clumsily tried to swing at her, and driving the spiked head through his ribcage, leaving him to die messily on the ground as she swept into the enemy camp like a hurricane.

To their credits the bandits were quick to react, and most leapt onto their weapons and tried to form a coherent formation, or at least a semblance of coordination. Unfortunately for them, being peppered with arrows and firebolts by a ranger and a mage was hardly conductive to organizing a combat unit under the best of circumstances, let alone when surprised in the middle of their camp, with a raging maniac tearing into them, with two other armored combatants follow closely behind.

Airah grabbed the axe a bandit was swinging at her, and drove it through his forehead, before freezing. The remaining bandits were still in chaos, but a small squad had assembled…brandishing half a dozen muskets, pointed directly at her.

Airah was already throwing herself to the ground when she felt every hair on her body stand up, and an arc of energy leapt through the air, jumping from soldier to soldier.

The first few died without a sound, their clothes and hair instantly catching on fire as they fell, but the last three or so were less fortunate, screaming in agony as the lightning bolt burned its way through their flesh and set them alight, twitching wildly as their nerves misfired.

After that, the remaining bandits just dropped their weapons, and ran, as Airah got up and finished off the bandits still trashing on the ground.

Airah rebated pursuing the runners…before another arc of energy leapt into the woods, and the problem became moot.

"Well, that certainly was effective." She said aloud.

"Yep. That's magic for you." Said Reginald as he stepped to her side, cleaning his blade on what looked like a tunic ripped from one of the fallen bandits.

"Couldn't she have pretty much handled them all by herself ? That was very effective."

"Not really. Magic's powerful, but it takes it out of mages. After this ? It'll be a couple days at least before she can cast another lightning bolt. Even firebolts will be a chore. Mages have plenty of mana reserves, but replinishing them takes forever."

"I see…" Airah said as she contemplated the devastation. She was a beginner mage, and even she was fairly sure she could do better than this. But then again she was a stars damned dragon ! A young one, but a dragon nonetheless.

You know this reminds me a lot of the Nihallak problem. Mages could crush everyone…if they had enough energy to do so. Said Airah over the mind link.

Stellyra's avatar sat on the stolen cart, sighing.

If you're going to refer to old Earth litterature or in this case comics, could you at least please not use pornographic ones ?

Oh please, I read it for the plot !

Really ? I must have misremembered the fact that you ordered a bioengineered body to look like the fairies in it then !

Airah pursed her lips, but decline to rise to the bait.

Doesn't make my observation wrong though.

The AI sighed.

No, I guess not. She hopped off of the cart. Our -your, I guess- power recharges very fast, but that's probably because of the whole dragon thing. Given how few of them we've encountered, mages are probably rare as hell here, take forever to train, and can only perform so many feats before they have to rest for a while, especially if it takes days for them to replenish their mana !

They might not be that rare actually. Educated folks tend to gravitate to larger cities, and given the amount of reading and training for a single spell, even for us given that we have the advantages of our natural magical affinity, mages are by definition very educated. Plus, this is a frontier territory, did you see any schools to even teach anyone who might be able to cast spells ?

No, I suppose not, fair enough.

"So…" Said Reginald as he looked over the camp. "Let's go through the loot and see if the box our clients want is there ?"

"Right, sure." Said Airah, snapping out of her reverie, and following the adventurer towards the stacked boxes next to the cart.

Fortunately the bandits had been taking inventory, and although Airah was disinclined to trust them not have done some 'mistakes' to divert some of the loot from their leaders, the fanciest and most reinforced boxes had been set aside. Including a locked and literally armored one, almost like a portable safe, which had been forced open, revealing the glint of the mana crystals inside.

"Alright, we got the goods. Well, the primary ones." Reginald closed the box. "Is the cart movable ?"

Airah shrugged.

"Doubt they started taking it apart before they'd finished inventorying its contents, and I doubt they carried it all the way here on their shoulders. So yeah, probably. Do we have the horse to draw it though ? That's the big question."

"Push comes to shove, we can probably move it and pull it along. But you're right. Lily ! Find us a horse will you ? Must have been kept a bit from the camp, probably spooked to hell by all the fighting."

"Right away !"

"As for us…" Reginald sigh, and cracked his neck. "I guess it's time to reload this cart."

"Sure, but let's loot the camp afterwards." Reginald's eyebrows rose, and Airah shrugged. "Doubt this was their first score. Either there's some loot left, or they got some of the gold from the sale. For that matter, I have…arrangements with the baroness, she'd appreciate some intel on where they're selling their catches."

"Right. Sure."

It took only half an hour to load all of the boxes, which was pretty fast. Mostly because they didn't bother putting them back in any kind of actual order, and Airah could have literally lifted the entire cart and run around with it, so loading several boxes at a time was no problem for her. The only problem was Stellyra, who was yelling encouragements from the top of the cart, intersped with comments about staying in shape if she wanted to be at peek performance for 'bedside activities'.

Needless to say, a crate had 'slipped' and flown through the AI's hologram, although Airah had been careful to check what was in it -cloth, in that case, really fancy looking- wouldn't be damaged. The AI had only chuckled of course, but she'd gotten the message and kept mostly quiet afterwards.

"Alright. Now for the camp. Remember guys, first maxim, always."

"First maxim ?" Asked Yris, as Josh patted her on the back. The poor mage clearly wasn't near the same level of shape -or endurance- the others were, but she'd given a good account of herself nevertheless.

"The seventy maxims of the maximally effective mercenaries -its from a book-" Well, another old Earth comic. "And the first maxim is 'pillage, then burn'." She shrugged as the adventurers looked at her obliquely. "I know, not necessarily the most tactful given who we just took out, but I see it as poetic justice. After all, we're plundering the plunderers aren't we ?"

Reginald chuckled.

"I guess we are. I guess we are…Alright, let's get a move on !"

Plundering the bandit camp actually took longer than reloading the wagon, so much so that Lily had the time to bring back a horse, who'd apparently run out a fair distance, attached to the cart, and joined for a good portion of the systematic search.

Airah had to admit that she was impressed by the adventurers' thoroughness. Clearly this wasn't their first rodeo in looting places, and they found some stuff she would have missed -and she had an AI to help her !-, notably in some hiding spots she simply hadn't thought of.

They piled up the loot next to the wagon. The haul was…pretty good. Some of it was the patchwork weapons and armor she'd found on other bandits, but most of it was medium to frankly high quality, and a few appeared to be that world's equivalent of mil-spec, notably the muskets.

"So, how do we split it ?" Asked Airah, and Reginald shrugged.

"Our usual is we split it equally, with dibs for everyone's specialty. Lily gets first pick on bows, Yris magic stuff, ect."

"Sounds fair. Just so you know, I cast magic as well as do CQC combat."

"Spellsword, I see. Well, I don't think they'll have much in the way of magical artifacts, but there's always a chance."

A few minutes of arguing and outright haggling later, Airah whistled as she stuffed the loot in her bag of holding. Six pretty high quality swords, same for armor, a better bow than the one she'd used thus far, and most importantly, one of the muskets with its ammo and gunpowder. That one was going to prove very interesting, although since it was smoothbore -she'd checked down the barrel first thing after unloading the weapon- its accuracy would be…suspect, to say the least, even with Stellyra's assistance. Plus, of course, currency, in this case a few dozen copper and silver coins, plus thirty seven gold coins.

Pretty good haul, all things considered. Said the AI over the mind link.

Yep. The musket especially. Analyzing the weapon and the powder will tell us a lot.

They seem to be rare weapons for bandits, why are you so concerned ?

Because eventually we'll fight something other than bandits. Plus, if those guys had a fire team with those muskets, you can bet your ass the slavers or the bandit king will have more. Far more.

Fair enough.

Airah stretched after closing her bag, and looked at the other adventurers.

"So, back to the town ?"

"Yep !" Said Josh as he jumped up onto the cart, taking the reins, and helping Yris up by his side. "Wanna hop on in ?"

"Nah, I'll walk. Besides, I gotta keep in shape."

"Suit yourself. Yah !" He flicked the reins, and the horse began moving.

*****

"Nicely done." Said Isidoro as he handed Airah her share of the reward.

"Thanks, although I hardly did it alone."

"Nor would have I expected you to. Still, you brought everything back, and you didn't even, ah, 'sample' some of the good."

"Not my style. And unless I'm sorely mistaken, not theirs either." Said the dragon, nodding towards the adventuring party, who were busy talking to the merchant guild clerk, as she pocketed the gold. Truth be told the 95 gold was probably less than her share of loot from the bandit camp, but it was always something, and the job had been surprisingly informative.

"Indeed. Well, if you have need of magical artifacts of any nature, don't hesitate to come to me. I should be available for at least a week, maybe more, in the town, and for you I'll make sure to make a fair price."

Airah's eyebrows rose.

"I only did a single job for you."

"Yes, and you recovered a cargo whose loss would have been…painful. Very painful." He waved his hand. "Oh, it was insured, but the loss of profit would have been significant. Besides, you are a friend of Martin, and any friend of him is a friend of mine."

"Right. Where do you know him from by the way ?"

"Oh he didn't tell you ? Used to be at the magic academy together. I was in enchantment, but he was in evocation. We spent a fair amount of time together. We used to have a business together before I went home to start my own merchant endeavor and he moved away from the big cities."

"I see. Well, I was glad to be able to help you. And I'll most assuredly take you up on that fair price offer."

"Good, good ! Now, if you'll excuse me ?"

"Of course, Isidoro."

Airah watched the merchant walk off towards the wagon and its cargo, before turning back as she heard someone clear their throat behind her -not that she needed the reminder, Stellyra had detected the footsteps and pinged her-, finding Reginald and his party.

"Hello ?"

"Hey. I, uh…" Reginald sigh. "We worked well together back there. I was wondering if you'd be willing to accompany us ? We got another job, there's a bandit camp somewhere in these woods that the guild wants dead. You could help us get rid of it."

Airah looked at the party leader…and the unspoken invitation to join their party. She actually considered it. But…well, there were too many unknowns. She didn't know how they'd react to finding out she was a dragon, especially as she'd need to come back to her hoard if only to offload her valuables. Plus, well, not only was she pretty firmly committed in helping Lenna with her bandit problem, not only financially but also to obtain the baroness' favor and help, but she also had further objectives. After all, while she hadn't bothered with it since coming onto this world, focusing on building up her power and information, she wasn't there to get rich, she had a mission and an objective from G.

She smiled.

"I'd love to. Believe me, I do. Unfortunately, I have things to do." She chuckled. "Notably I need to get this stuff." She patted the bag. "Home. And I still have this contract with the baroness that needs fulfilling. Still, I appreciate the offer, I really do."

"Of course." Reginald bowed slightly, and Airah reciprocated, clearly at his surprise. "Well, until next time then."

"Until next time !"