The Bandit Camp

Ahead of her is the bandit camp, though calling it a camp feels a little generous. It looks like the bandits are still in the process of building the place, as they just have a few parts of a basic log palisade set up.

But the camp is a lot bigger than she expected. She can count twelve triangular tents inside the unfinished outer wall, along with a significantly larger and more rectangular one.

There also appear to be three watchtowers around the camp. Granted, that is her being pretty generous again, as they are little more than small platforms raised up behind the unfinished palisade. The important part is that all three watchtowers are manned: the platform far to her right has two bandits playing some sort of card game together, another bandit is holding a torch out and pacing back and forth on the one across the camp, and the third platform has a bandit seemingly asleep in a chair on it.

Hopefully that last bandit isn’t just pretending, as Krvavy is creeping her way towards his section of the wall. It is quite convenient, really, as not only is that section the closest to her, but it also looks like it is the least finished. Either that or the gap in the wall directly beside the platform is meant to be the entrance.

Sneaking her way into the camp undetected, Krvavy decides to begin her attack by finishing off the sleeping guard. How she handles the rest of the camp will depend on how that goes. While Krvavy is pretty confident that she could take the whole camp of weak bandits at once, she doesn’t need to take that risk. It’ll be a lot easier to just stealth kill as many as she can before the alarm gets raised.

And so, that is exactly what she does. Creeping up the few steps towards the back of the sleeping guard bandit, Krvavy raises her axe high above her head before swinging it down towards his collarbone.

Critical Hit! 419.2 damage dealt to [Sleeping Bandit Watchman]

[Sleeping Bandit Watchman] has been slain!
+175 Experience

The axe head digs deeply into the now deceased bandits torso, but rather than try to pull it free Krvavy instead reaches towards the candle beside him and snuffs it out. Hopefully if any other bandits look this way they’ll just see his silhouette and think he is sleeping.

She then hastily extracts her weapon from the corpse and gets back onto the ground. Krvavy sighs out in relief as she glances at the other two platforms. It doesn’t look like either of them noticed what she did.

Thinking for a moment, Krvavy decides to continue along the edge towards the pacing watchman. He’ll be easier to stealthily deal with than the two that are playing cards. She doesn’t head directly towards him though, as she has to pass by quite a few tents on the way there.

The tents are pretty basic, being little more than some sort of canvas slung over a wooden frame. And because of that it looks like someone could enter from both ends by simply lifting up the flaps. That is a good thing for Krvavy, as there are a few dying campfires lighting up the fronts of these tents.

The stale smell of sweat and **** hits Krvavy before she can even finish carefully lifting up the flap of the nearest tent. Inside she is met by the sleeping face of a rather ugly bandit. How convenient.

Critical Hit! 500 damage dealt to [Sleeping Bandit Drunkard]

[Sleeping Bandit Drunkard] has been slain!
+150 Experience

With the bandits head right there in front of her it took almost no effort at all to position her axe above his neck and press down, decapitating him with little noise. It is quite the dick move, killing a man in his sleep, but at least it was quick.

The next tent in her path has no one sleeping inside of it. But there does appear to be a little bit of loot inside it. More specifically, there is an open pouch of coins. Sadly, she’ll have to leave that where it is for now. Krvavy doesn’t really have anywhere to store the coins on her. But more importantly she doesn’t want the clinking sound to give her away.

Continuing on towards the pacing watchman, Krvavy checks out two more tents. Both tents had sleeping bandits in them, and both bandits were quickly killed.

[Sleeping Bandit A] has been slain!
+185 Experience

[Sleeping Bandit B] has been slain!
+170 Experience

Approaching the platform with the pacing watchman, Krvavy carefully raises her axe and gets ready to strike. It won’t be as clean a kill as the sleeping guard, but if she is quick–

Level Up! You have reached Level 5. As a Drakling blessed by a divine power, you have 5 attribute points to allocate and have gained +2 to Might & Toughness. If not allocated by the time you fall asleep it will be done automatically.

The level up notification startles Krvavy and messes up her swing. Instead of striking the back of the bandits neck like she intended, her axe crashes into his lightly armoured back.

Critical Hit! 238.15 damage dealt to [Pacing Bandit Watchman]

Krvavy’s strike forces the air from his lungs in a wheeze, preventing him from shouting out in alarm and giving her the chance to rush forwards to finish him off with her knife.

Critical Hit! 150 damage dealt to [Pacing Bandit Watchman]

[Pacing Bandit Watchman] has been slain!
+210 Experience

Pulling her knife from his throat, and her axe from his back, Krvavy lets the body fall to the ground as quietly as she can. There isn’t anything she can use to put the torch out, so she just drops it over the palisade wall onto some rocks before quickly getting back on the ground and into the shadows.

Looking at her notifications, it seems that her Stealth skill was what caused her to level up. A bit ironic that it almost ruined her attempt at being stealthy. But she doesn’t have time to dwell on that, or to allocate her attribute points, as she needs to be quick. If any bandit happens to look this way they’ll notice the missing guard right away.

That said, she doesn’t just rush straight towards the two card playing watchmen. Krvavy doubts that she will be able to kill them both without alarming the rest of the camp, so it would be best to continue thinning the bandits out. In other words, she continues going tent to tent killing the bandits in their sleep.

[Sleeping Bandit C] has been slain!
+165 Experience

Unfortunately, out of the four tents she looked inside only one had a bandit. But that isn’t too bad. Krvavy figures that, in the worst case scenario where she alerts the entire camp, she will only have to fight around five bandits. There could be more, as Krvavy has just been assuming that the big tent in the middle of the camp is housing the bandit chief, but there could be others inside there for all she knows.

Either way, it is time for her to take out the card players now. They are facing each other at an angle, and seem rather engrossed in their game, so there is a chance that she could catch one by surprise... Krvavy doesn’t need to keep being stealthy, but she is having fun. And with her combat focused build this might be the only chance she’ll get at this kind of thing.

The wooded step up the platform creaks under Krvavy’s weight, causing the left watchman to turn his head towards her. Deciding to act now, Krvavy swings her axe towards his face.

Critical Hit! 600 damage dealt to [Bandit Watchman, Left]

[Bandit Watchman, Left] has been slain!
+205 Experience

Her axe crashes directly into his eyes, cutting deeply into his skull. The other watchman makes a surprised noise as he jumps to his feet, knocking his chair back and off the platform before shouting out.

His shout doesn’t last for long though, as Krvavy jerks her axe free and swings it towards him in one motion, slamming the backside into his stomach.

36.81 damage dealt to [Bandit Watchman, Right]

The hit forces air from his lungs and abruptly cuts off his shout with a gasp. Staggering back from the ****, he trips on the uneven wood of the platform and falls off of it, landing onto the chair with a loud crash.

Krvavy doesn’t waste that opportunity, quickly jumping off the platform and landing beside him. She simply brings her bloodied axe down onto him as he struggles to get up.

Critical Hit! 400 damage dealt to [Bandit Watchman, Right]

[Bandit Watchman, Right] has been slain!
+195 Experience

With how much noise she just made Krvavy assumes that the ruse is up and there is no point in her continuing her stealth. That assumption is proven right as the flap of the nearest tent opening up and a groggy bandit pokes his head out.

Critical Hit! 500 damage dealt to [Groggy Bandit]

[Groggy Bandit] has been slain!
+155 Experience

Before the bandit could even comprehend what is happening, her axe was swinging towards his face. She quickly checks the next three tents for bandits, confirming that each one is empty. It looks like she has cleared the bandit camp, except for whoever is inside the big tent.

This last tent is quite different from the others. Where the rest were small triangular prisms just big enough to sleep inside, this one is a lot more house shaped, with a rectangular base and a triangular roof atop it. While Krvavy has to duck through the tent flap doorway, there is enough headroom for her to stand up straight. Provided that she remains near the middle under the peak, that is.

Her guard is immediately raised upon entering the tent, because there isn’t anyone in here. At least not in this part, as the back half seems to be sectioned off. To her left is a table covered in cutlery and plates with a lit lantern sitting atop it. To her right is a tall box shape covered by a sheet of rough fabric.

Unable to resist her curiosity, Krvavy reaches a hand toward the covered box and grabs onto the sheet. Quickly pulling it away uncovers a crude metal cage. A cage with a blonde girl wearing a dirtied yet rather fancy dress. The cage is too small for the girl to lie down in, so she has instead curled up into a ball with her knees pulled to her chest and is sitting back against the bars on the other side of the cage.

The blonde girl’s eyes open with fear, showing their beautiful light blue colour. Her expression quickly morphs to confusion as she looks Krvavy over, before hope fills her eyes and she begins to babble out to the barbarian.

Not wanting to alert the final bandit, as there surely is one, Krvavy brings a finger to her lips and quietly shushes the girl.

But the blonde captive doesn’t seem to care, as she waves a hand dismissively and gets a bit more frantic in her babbling.

Before Krvavy can respond she hears a loud click from behind her, which is accompanied by a gruff voice. Turning, Krvavy sees a bandit wearing a dull metal breastplate over his padded gambeson, along with some other pieces of metal armour that the other bandits didn’t have, including a crude barbute helmet. The armour isn’t what catches Krvavy’s attention though, as that would be the very large and heavy crossbow in his hands.

She barely has a moment to take that sight in before the bolt is loosed with a heavy thwack.

-121.6 Health
You have been inflicted with a Moderate Wound: Bleeding. You will lose 0.75 Health per minute as long as the bleeding continues.

A sharp stabbing pain erupts from her left shoulder. She can feel blood dripping down the front of her chest and down her back. The bolt is still inside of her and seems to have hit just beneath her collarbone.

For some reason, her mind focuses on the fact that the bolt is pretty close to where the Orc archer’s arrow hit her. That annoys her, as she has a rather large body so why is everyone aiming at that spot?! The fact that her heart lays nearby doesn’t even occur to Krvavy as rage fills her mind, blocking out any further thoughts on that matter.

With her vision blurring and going red, Krvavy doesn’t register the shock on the bandit chiefs face as he drops his crossbow and draws a sword. She simply charges him, swinging her axe in one hand horizontally at his left side.

141.8 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]

His sword is immediately shattered as he attempts to block her strike. A bright flash of blue energy bursts out as it breaks, but neither that nor the blade does enough to stop her axe from biting deep into his left bicep.

-60.8 Health
You have been inflicted with a Minor Wound: Light Bleeding. You will lose 0.25 Health per minute as long as the bleeding continues.

As she pulls her axe free from his now limp arm the bandit chief thrusts his broken sword forwards, stabbing her in the stomach and leaving it there. The broken blade quickly falls from her body, with its pommel and guard weighing it down.

Without any hesitation, the bandit chief pulls a short dagger from his belt and strikes out towards Krvavy.

-31.47 Health
-9.23 Health

Krvavy blocks the strike with her left arm, though the dagger still bites into her scaled flesh. Moving her arm like that causes a sharp pain to shoot from her back, as the bolt sticking out of her body cuts into her moving muscles.

Gritting her teeth from the pain, Krvavy lunges forwards and slams her horned head down into the bandit chiefs helmet.

-12.45 Health
44.8 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]

Dazed by the unexpected headbutt, the bandit chief is unable to react in time as she swings her axe up and to the left, directly into his knee.

168.2 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]

With a crunch and a pop, his knee bends at an unnatural angle and he falls to the ground. But as he falls he thrusts out with his dagger, stabbing it into her left thigh and dragging the blade down her leg.

-45.6 Health
-22.89 Health
You have been inflicted with a Moderate Wound: Bleeding. You will lose 0.75 Health per minute as long as the bleeding continues.

The bandit chief jerks his dagger from her flesh but loses grip on it as his body crashes into the ground. The pain brings Krvavy to her knees, which unfortunately for the bandit means that she slams down atop of his mangled legs.

-8.4 Health
26.9 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]

Letting go of her axe, Krvavy brings her right hand up to the bandits head and tears his helmet off. With her mind clouded by rage and pain, Krvavy once again pays no attention to the abject fear on the bandits face. She simply brings her head down and slams her upper horns into his face, again and again and again.

Critical Hit! 47.32 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]
Critical Hit! 62.79 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]
Critical Hit! 71.26 damage dealt to [Bandit Chief]

[Bandit Chief] has been slain!
+375 Experience

She slams her horns down into the bloody mush that was previously his face a few more times before a warning rings out through her mind: she has taken a lot of damage and is currently bleeding out.

That realization snaps her back into lucidity. Jerking her head to the side, glossing over the absolutely terrified captive blonde, Krvavy sees a wooden box filled with what appears to be rolls of bandages beneath the table near the tent entrance.

Scrambling over there, ignoring the sharp pain from her shoulder, Krvavy hastily begins to wrap her wounds in the bandages. She uses far more than she needed to, mostly because she doesn’t quite know what she is doing, but in just a matter of minutes she is able to wrap up her arm, thigh, and midsection, which just leaves the bolt beneath her shoulder.

-21.5 Health

Krvavy grits her teeth and ignores the pain of forcing the bolt through her body and out her back. With the metal no longer in her body, she quickly wraps the wound up in bandages, covering most of her shoulder and neck in the process.

It would seem that her hasty first aid was successful, as she is no longer losing health to the bleeding.

With a sigh she stands up and pulls out a chair, turning it slightly before sitting on it sideways and staring at the blonde in the cage. The girl seems to have gotten over the shock a bit, as she has begun frantically babbling at Krvavy again, though her voice sounds a bit shaky.

Krvavy doesn’t mind that though, as she just needs to take a bit of a breather. That was a very close fight, all because of that crossbow and the sword that she can only assume was enchanted. That is the only explanation she cares to think of for why it exploded into blue light.

Shaking her head dismissively, Krvavy leans back against the table and listens to the incomprehensible babbling of the captive in front of her. At least she is gaining progress towards a new language while taking a break.

Its a good thing that Krvavy went for a stealthy approach tonight, as she keeps forgetting how much damage things deal in this game...