There are elves in this world!
I haven’t been so excited in a long time! She looks exactly like how you would imagine an elf, long blonde hair, green clothes with gold stitching and detail work, clear blue eyes and an ornate bow slung on her back.
And she was beautiful.
Venessa is also a beauty in my eyes, but just the concept of it being an elf is enough to influence my thoughts greatly.
How pitiful.
“Hey, I owe you my life now right? Do you need another person for whatever you’re doing?”
“I wouldn’t want to get you involved. We’re in a bit of trouble with some people near here. We’re going to be in the woods for a long time. I can’t tell you how long it’ll be until we can go back.”
I really want her to come with us.
“I’m an elf remember? What kind of an elf would I be if I can’t even live in a forest?”
“Then I can’t lie, we could use an archer in our party. I would be happy for you to join us.”
Looking over at Venessa, an almost unnoticeably small look of frustration was present on her face, but as soon as I noticed it, it was gone. Replaced by a smile as she greeted the newest member of our party.
———————
After talking for a while longer, we arrive at the campsite where I stayed when I first came to this world. And as you might also expect, we weren’t so lucky as to peacefully arrive without any trouble.
Sitting at our old site was a quite frankly terrifying group of bandits sitting around a fire as they prepared food. Twenty or so of these bandits sat around the fire or lounged around the site near their tents.
“Can we take them?”
“I bet we could. It might get a little hairy if they catch on first though.”
“Then should we surround them? Can we do that without alerting them?”
In the end, we decided to form a long, thin line of skeletons that would try to wrap its edges around the bandits like a net. My command skill isn’t high enough yet to be able to issue such complex orders as marching them in from all the sides at once.
Soon the line was done and one hundred and thirty skeletons stood roughly three ranks deep.
From there, we waited. Soon the food was done, and the bandits were enjoying a meal by their fire.
“Nows our chance guys.”
The rest of us formed up behind the skeleton and I gave the order.
“Kill all the bandits.”
The creepy thing about the skeletons is their silence. They never make a sound save for the slight slinking of their bones, no war cry, no growl, no screams if they were cut down.
Even though I’m the one who summoned them, it’s easy to think why people would be afraid of these things.
The skeletons hobble run forward and soon breakthrough into the clearing, the laughs of the bandits immediately turn to shouts of surprise as they turn to draw or find their weapons.
The first cries of the bandits reach my ears as some of the bandits unlucky enough to not have a weapon on them were immediately cut down, but all good things come to an end, and a rough line of defenders was forming to hold back the wave.
As we watched and time went on, my plan came to fruition.
The skeletons weren’t yet smart enough to fully understand and execute strategies themselves, so instead of bothering with that, I tried to play to their nature.
I spread them out and gave them a simple order of killing the bunched up enemies, naturally, the ones that were furthest from combat turned and joined the fray. Eventually causing them to spread out and encircle the bandit defenders.
I took the time to count them out. Twenty six remain standing in an ever tightening formation. Shining blades of air and other flashy skills rain down on my skeletons, cutting them down almost as fast as they show up.
But the imbalance of their gang is showing. A force designed only for quick raids and slaughter. No mages, few tanks, and an extremely high proportion of high damage output, but low stamina offensive members.
Soon they began to tire, and the skills use began to slow down.
“Kyara. Would you be willing to help?”
A second tier mage would could help break the deadlock. And I had an idea how.
“If you need me to I guess.”
“Do you have any qualms with killing people?”
“I don’t like it. But bandits are another story. They hurt so many people around here that nobody with their salt would show them mercy.”
“Then can you use your explosion magic on the far side of their group?”
After a nod of agreement, she turned and climbed up a neighboring tree with a view of the battlefield and started casting her spell.
A small orb about the size of a baseball flew over the skeletons and over the first line of the “O” of defenders before slamming into the exposed back of one of the men on the opposite side.
“Boom”
The man who was hit and his comrades on both sides were blown forward into the skeletons and a hole was opened in the enemy line.
Skeletons pushed through the gap and the weight of the battle quickly swung dramatically to our side as confusion set in and the bandits were attacked from behind.
A man with a massive axe in both hands stepped into the middle of the defenders and released skills from both of the weapons. The blades of light cut through the skeletons like butter and the man was making swift progress in clearing out the center of his formation.
That must be the leader.
“We might need to do something about that guy.”
“I’ll handle him.”
“Be careful Ven.”
The rest of us watched as she approached the battle.
“Who is in charge here? Come out to fight me!”
As the man cleared up the last of the skeletons in the ring he turned to walk toward her.
———————
Venessa called out to the leader, and he soon approached her. Pushing aside both his comrades and the skeletons nearby.
“You aren’t in charge of these skeletons, are you? Where is the leader?”
The man was a mountain, mussels stretched and flexed as he walked and swung his axes. He wore a metal helmet, armor and leather straps covered his chest.
“That isn’t for you to know. Fight me.”
“That’s a bit confrontational, isn’t it missey.”
The man’s smile stretched wide and he laughed deeply.
“So be it. Maybe after I deal with you I’ll finally get to crush your leader and end this thing. It won’t be a slow death.”
“That assumes you can get past me.”
Vanessa quickly changed her stance and sprung to the right, using all of the speed available to her class to gain an advantage against the slow moving opponent, the man’s smile only grew wider as he swing his axe to meet her. Diving out of the path of the axe, she quickly regained her balance and swung low at the man’s leg.
The dagger slashed through the leather greaves but made only a small cut in his thigh.
In response the man heaved and brought both axes over his head and slammed them down on Vanessa, causing her to once again dive and roll away.
“You are going to need more than that if you want to get past me little one.”
Even as the man took the cut, his smile was only growing wider.
Vanessa pulled out a second dagger as she rolled and used her momentum to spring back to her feet as she activated one of her own skills.
Rapid strike.
She swiftly brought her daggers up and swung them rapidly at the leader of the bandits, blades of light flew from the slashes and the man quickly crossed his axes in front of himself to stem the flow of attacks.
As she swung her blades, she walked closer to the man and closed the distance between them, as soon as his skill ran out, she dove between the man’s legs and slashed at both of them on her way through.
A grunt of pain came from the man before he did something she didn’t expect, with a heave, the hulking man jumped backward and landed over her, with both axes raised over her.
The axes were about to come down when an arrow sprouted from the man’s arm, causing the strike to fail as the exes fell into an uncontrolled ark.
A second arrow flew and hit his opposite arm, causing the man to scream in anger,
“Come out and fight me or leave us be you meddling rat!”
He was promptly ignored as another arrow flew into his exposed arm.
Meanwhile, Venessa recovered and used her speed again, maneuvering behind the leader while he was distracted.
“This is your end.”
Vanessa brought two daggers down into the gap between helmet and chestplate, and the man slumped as he croaked in surprise, then crumpled to the ground.
With the enemies’ biggest asset dead, the morale of the bandits dropped, and their stamina ran dry. The lines collapsed and the battle was over.
——————-
“Thank you for saving me.”
“It’s no problem. We’re in the same party now right?”
“Still, it’s good to know that we have each other’s backs.”
“It was no problem, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Noel and Vanessa are thankfully getting along well. I was afraid that they might not like each other for this or that reason but for now, at least on the surface, all is well.
“Now let’s check out what we got guys. Start gathering the loot!”
It feels a bit weird to be taking things from bandits, almost like being bandits of bandits, but they had it coming. I don’t think there’s anyone who would object after we did a public good like this.
Everyone started to gather supplies and strip armor and weapons from the bandits.
“Let’s leave at least some of the tents up ok? It will be a lot better than just sleeping bags or a stick shelter if it rains.”
“Alright!”
Looking around at the damages, only about thirty skeletons are left. It would have been even worse if the leader wasn’t dealt with as he was, though he did take out at least twenty or thirty of them by himself.
“Krieg, you might want to see this.”
Vanessa was holding the flap of a tent open, and a faint light shone from inside.
As I arrived at the tent and stood next to her I saw, illuminated by candlelight, people, people in cages shrinking back against the sides.
They must have seen the skeletons. Through some hole quickly cut within reach of the bars of the cage, there was a hole with the fading daylight streaming in.
From their perspective, I was an incredibly powerful necromancer who was able to destroy their captors but at a terrible price. Their logical deduction was that they would soon be killed to add to my ranks.
“I promise we won’t hurt you, ok? Let’s get you out of these cages.”
Looking around for a bit, on a neighboring table, a key was strewn on the surface.
I picked it up and walked to them, unlocking the doors.
“Ven, could you check for others like this? Explain my powers to them also, I really don’t want to have to go through all this twice in one day.”
“As you wish.”
As I wish? Did we have that kind of relationship? Whatever. I need to focus. I still need to upgrade my tier to three and take care of the loot.
Ahh. This new life is so tiring.
