; Well Enough

You feel your new persona would be more of a thinker and a planner...conjuring up subtle distractions, developing plots beneath plots, and keeping herself away from direct harm. However, she was also very practical. They only had three lightly armed guards and you had a decent team of heavily armed and armored skeletal warriors, competent skeletal archers, and you yourself were a competent spellcaster. Why go through all the hassle? It was night time so you didn't have to worry about protection from the sun, and they didn't seem to have a holy man about them, though you wouldn't exactly know what one looked like anyways if they didn't make it obvious.

With that in mind, it seemed the best form of action was to just take them over by storm and hoped you could overwhelm them quickly enough to not cause resistance. If done right and luck was on your side, you could have all six without even having to engage in combat. Surely the sight of a skeletal army would give many pause for thought that you could take advantage of.

********************************************

The first thing that signaled the merchant and his crew off that they were attacked was the sounds of arrows sinking into the flesh of their horse and the fireball bashing the side of their caravan and setting it alight. With you were only two of your skeletal archers and half of your regiment of Crypt Guards, they would be enough.

Considering their mode of transportation was dead and their carriage was on fire, everyone moved away from it, including the merchant and woman who were inside. With them out and the guards alerted, you and your forces advanced upon them to capture them. The three noncombatants were too frightened to move away as the three guards try to work up the nerve to defend themselves.

One of the guards tried to run away rather than fight. Remembering a command you gave them on this venture, one of the skeletal archers took aim and fired, crippling the guard before using the opportunity to finish him off. It was better to have an enemy casualty on this quest of capturing than let a single soul escape and let word of their existence.

The other two engaged with your Crypt Guards. As they did, you went to the three non-combatants and held them at knife point. Not at all resisting you, you had your two archers move up and kept their bows trained on them to make them comply. With that, you went about chaining them up so they wouldn't escape. You then looked over to how your Crypt Guards were doing and sighed in disappointment.

One of the guards was cut down in the chaos of battle, making you lose two of your potential six. However, well horrified by both the undead and his allies falling, the last guard screwed up and was bashed by the shield of one of your guards. So you went from a potential of six captives, to four. That was still over half of what you could have gotten, so you consider this a victory.