Arcanum 193 Bandits in the woods

"Lucky for us, I see only four crossbows men, two with swords, one unarmed in a suit he must be Nicolas and one more robed figure so he or she could be anything," Grace said as a band of humans came into view barely lit up by the four small lanterns on each corner of the caravan.

"Morgana, do you sense anyone hidden in the trees?" Helen questioned.

"I've felt the presence of two individuals moving through my spores behind us," Morgana answered.

"So how is this gonna go down? do we try and impersonate those who attacked us earlier?" Jay questioned.

"No point they most likely notice the voice difference or even already suspect something just by seeing my bow and Helen's staff," Grace said still leading the way towards them.

"I'll take on the rear two, Morgana look after the others," Helen ordered sounding extremely serious.

"As you wish," Morgana replied calmly without an ounce of hesitation.

"Sure you can handle them by yourself?" I asked a little worried.

"Don't worry about me." She replied.

"I'll rush down a crossbowman quickly before he can do anything," Daisy added.

"Okay the rest of us try and deal with the other crossbowmen," Grace ordered.

"Hey! did everything go well?" A Nicholas shouted out to us.

"Well the jig is up I guess," Jay said to all of us.

"Yeah I was hoping to get a little closer before we blow our cover," Grace replied.

"Yeah.. smoothly." Jay hesitantly shouted back causing all the men to stop and stand on guard reaching for their weapons.

"Let's do it!" Grace said pulling out her bow quickly firing an arrow into a man with an unloaded crossbow.

"What the hell?!" Nicolas shouted seeing the arrow hit the man in the arm with deadly precision.

Undoing my bonds and pulling out my wand Jay and I launched a firebolt into the same crossbowman. "It's an ambush!" Nicolas yelled and began to run away towards the caravan, the crossbowman rolled behind a nearby tree making our spell miss him completely.

"Protect them!" Helen ordered as she ran back towards the two bandits behind us followed with the sound of heavy foot stomps and a low guttural growl.

The robed figure pulled out a wand pointing it back at us as fire began to coalesce at the tip of his wand releasing a large cone of fire expanding as it travelled towards us.

"Behind me!" Morgana ordered pulling Jay and me behind her and standing in front of us as Daisy and Morgana took the brunt of the spell.

"Morgana!" I instinctively screamed shielding myself from the heat and the flame that blew past Morgana and Daisy burning my arm slightly. The sound of mechanical clicks followed with the sound of two dull thuds came from Morgana's body.

"Noo!" I yelled using my wand raising a small wall of earth in front of us to hide behind and pulling Morgana down to me. "Morgana?! are you okay?!" I asked in shock taking a good look at her.

"I'm alright." she smiled pulling out the two crossbow bolts that barely punctured past her skin and dusting off the ash and burnt residue off her fungus covered skin.

"Get the Crossbowmen!" Daisy ordered unfazed by the fire spell charging towards the robed figure her maul drawn readying for an attack. Before even one of the men with a sword could react to, Daisy landed a large baseball swing to his side followed with her iconic bolts of divine energy. His body contorted with the maul before being sent flying to the side tumbling on the floor lifeless.

The one remaining swordsman took a quick glance at Daisy's heavily armoured body, using the opening he ran past Daisy running straight to Jennifer his sword drawn ready to plunge it deep into her torso. "Look out!" Morgana yelled barely being able to pull Jennifer back and intercepting the thrust with her bare hand. The sword pierced through her hand a few inches deep dripping some sort of black ichor. "You're gonna regret that!" Morgana responded by coughing up her deadly concoction of spores straight into his face making a very hideous sound of dissolving flesh.

The bandit recoiled in pain pulling out the sword staggering backwards, the sounds of two more mechanical clicks echoed from behind two trees as two more crossbow bolts flew towards Morgana. "Damnit we need to get rid of the crossbows!" Jennifer yelled pointing her wand forward making a strong gust of wind blow skyward in front of Morgana while pulling her back down behind cover making the bolts narrowly miss her.

"You alright?" Jay asked looking at her hand as the sound of two more bolts cut across the air shooting over our cover making us duck lower.

"I'm fine just watch yourselves." She answered unfazed by her hand bleeding black thick gooey ichor.

"Where are they Grace, mark one for me!" Jay ordered sounding extremely angry.

Grace nodded looking up and shooting an arrow quickly exchanging shots with the crossbowmen "Behind a tree I marked it with an arrow." Grace informed him quickly.

"Screw this!" Jay cursed popping up pointing his wand, "IgnMaximus!" He yelled as he shot a large blue fireball that illuminated the darkness followed with the sound of a large explosion and the sounds of cracking of a falling tree. "That's probably one down," Jay said ducking back down.

"We need to flush them out their cover!" Grace ordered us as more bolts screamed over our heads. "Now! she ordered drawing her bow looking over the cover.

"Orbis-Igna!" I yelled popping out creating a flame sphere at the location where I saw the end of a reloading crossbow. He quickly fell backwards in shock attempting to get away from the sphere leaving him in the wide open. Grace let loose an arrow straight into his neck and long with a blue firebolt from Jay hitting him directly.

Morgana held out a hand whispering something making it crackle with static electricity releasing a jolt of lightning into the bandit earlier with the sword making him scream and seize up in pain. Jennifer yelled the words to a spell I've never heard before blasting the same bandit Morgana hit with some invisible force impacting his body strongly sending him flying past Daisy engaging in combat with the robed figure.

The robbed figure quickly glanced around at everyone, taking a quick step back his body began to crackle with blue electricity, with a resounding deafening boom a circular blue wave erupted from his body with enough force to send Daisy flying back to us and destroying my makeshift cover and blasting us on our backs

"What was that?!" I yelled my ears ringing from the spell like I was just struck with a flashbang.

Jay yanked at Morgana pointing at the robed figure fleeing towards the caravan. Morgana and Grace quickly shot a spell and arrow entangling him with a dens thick mess of sharp thorny vines. Out of nowhere the robbed figure erupted with a smaller fiery black and red explosion incinerating the vines to ash and jumped on the caravan and began fleeing the scene.

"He's getting away!" Jay shouted standing up about to give chase when a crossbow bolt impaled itself into his shoulder and another one narrowly missing him.

"There's still two more!" Jennifer pulled down Jay making him a smaller target and pointing at the bandits hiding behind the debris of fallen trees.

You guys finish off the rest, I'm gonna check on Helen." Daisy said getting up and running back to support Helen.

"Let's finish this!" Jennifer yelled pointing her wand shooting out a ball of what looked like a ball of condensed fast-spinning wind obliterating the tree trunk one of the remaining crossbowmen was hiding behind.

Knowing the fight was lost the two remaining bandits dropped their crossbows seemingly surrendering. "We surrender." They both yelled holding their hands up walking out into the open.

"Well.. that was simple," Jay said standing up.

Morgana quickly supposed some more grasping vines pulling them both to the floor restraining them in place.

Chapter end