Edge Cases

64 - Book 2: Chapter 1: Road to Elyra

[Alright. You know what to do. Don't screw this up.]

Xothok flicked his gaze one last time over the traveling caravan, slitted eyes narrowing slightly. There were indications that this was a diplomatic envoy the Guild emblem imprinted on the side was a telltale giveaway but this was a diplomatic envoy from the Adventurer's Guild, and so while it wasn't anything to be taken lightly, he had no reason to believe he and his troupe would fail to take them down. There were twenty of them, and there couldn't have been more than six people in the caravan. He was low Silver, and most of his men were at least mid-Bronze, if not higher.

His stomach growled, and he hissed low in displeasure.

They had food. Good food, too; maybe a diplomatic gift to Elyra, considering the trouble they'd had with food lately. But Elyra wasn't the only one having troubles with food, and Xothok wasn't inclined to care about the troubles of that bunch of stuck-up, pretentious assholes. It wasn't like the food would ever reach the mouths of the needy.

[Are you sure we can take them, boss?] one of his men questioned, messaging through the system, and he held back a sigh.

[I'm sure. Guild or not, they're not likely to have more than one rare class. They're about to make camp, so wait for them to split up and then target them one by one, like I said. Don't let them call for help. We have Silencing scrolls for a reason.] His tone would have been short and clipped, if he had been actually speaking instead of sending through the system these were all things his men should already have known but it seemed to satisfy them nonetheless.

He kept a close eye on the adventurers as they began to set up camp. There were four major threats that he could see; likely, the one in full armor was the one they needed to worry about the most. Clerics had next to no capability in combat. The rogue had a dagger, and so probably wasn't specialized against long-ranged attacks.

The entire party didn't really seem to be geared towards handling long-ranged attacks. Xothok smiled in a grim sort of satisfaction. Part of him felt sorry for them. A mage was the strongest counter to their troupe, and even then they had the scrolls needed to disable wizardry; they were expensive, though, and he preferred not to use them if he didn't have to. This was perfect for them.

[Bet that armor's gonna sell for shitloads of gold,] one of his men sent. [I call dibs.]

[I don't know what a dib is, but absolutely not,] Xothok replied bluntly, and he heard the man mumble something rude. He gave him the finger. [And don't fucking say anything out loud when we're preparing an ambush, idiot.]

Not that Xothok blamed him, really.

Banditry was, contrary to what some people expected, a good deal of... waiting. He trusted his men, but he knew full well that they didn't have the training to survive a fight with four battle-hardened adventurers; if they could, they would've become adventurers themselves. It paid better than this nonsense. That was part of the point of the Adventurer's Guild, he'd heard.

They'd tried to join, even, over in the Elyran branch of the Guild, but they'd been turned away. So here they were, and these adventurers were the unlucky sods that would suffer.

[They're splitting up, boss,] someone reported, and Xothok glanced up. The armored fellow was staying by the camp they'd set up, and the other three were heading off. In different directions, no less. The half-orc seemed to be heading towards the river, and the cleric and rogue looked to be gathering firewood.

[Follow them,] he ordered. An odd feeling of discomfort pooled in him, though. This felt too convenient. [But be careful.]

Xothok stayed at the camp. At low Silver, he was stronger than the majority of upstart adventurers out there. He wasn't stupid enough to think he could take what was obviously a rich adventurer decked out in enchanted armor on his own, but the group that fought him would need him to help.

And then he waited.

[Sneak], at least, was a common skill. He'd made every one of his men max out its grade for situations exactly like these ones where they needed to follow and wait until the group they were targeting was far enough apart that they couldn't just regroup. The way the skill worked, at max level, their odds of getting spotted were less than one percent per hour; with those odds, he wasn't worried about getting spotted.

Time passed.

The sun began to set, casting shade down on the forest. Purple-black wood began to stand out amongst the more vibrant reds that the leaves began to shift towards; the Sunlit Forest was precisely known for this particular phenomenon. Luminescent gold began to light up the central veins of each leaf, and the armored man below them looked up, as if admiring the slow change in color and then he glanced out at the rest of the woods, as if wondering where his friends were.

It was time. Xothok gave the signal.

[Go.]

Byrrhon smirked. He was hoping he'd get one of the easier marks and the way he saw it, the lizardkin mark was the easiest of them all. Five-on-one, the little fucker didn't stand a chance. Few rogues were equipped to handle crossbow bolts, let alone five of them, and all this one had was a little dagger. It was pathetic, really.

He was almost tempted to attack before Xothok's signal. If it weren't for the fact that the lizardman would probably kill him...

He licked his lips, ran his finger along his crossbow, then eyed the lizard below. He wanted the dagger, he thought. It looked like it had some fancy inscriptions on it. He'd keep it for himself, hide it when Xothok asked for the loot say the rogue had thrown it and it had gotten lost, or something. It wouldn't be too hard to lie, and none of the men in his team would dare contradict him.

The signal came. He and his men fired their arrows all at once, aimed directly at the rogue's back; he wouldn't even have the time to see it coming

the air rippled, and the bolts pinged off an invisible barrier in the air.

Byrrhon froze.

The rogue turned around, and Byrrhon found himself almost insulted. The lizardkin looked nervous. Nervous, but determined; he drew on his dagger, and began to cut a rune into the air.

Not a rogue, he realized. And it was worse than that the wizard had known they were coming. How had he known? They'd all been under [Stealth] the entire time; the odds of them being spotted were

He didn't have time to finish the thought. A wave of heat rolled over him, the sheer density of magic distorting the air. It wasn't a fireball, but the heat soaked into him, eating up his energy; he felt his consciousness practically being dragged away from him, and he fought it as best he could.

The last thing he saw was the ground rapidly approaching.

Two he didn't really have a name beyond 'two', being that he was Xothok's second-in-command and had been for as long as he could remember, which wasn't really very long crouched up in his tree and waited. He was patient. Xothok had taught him to be patient.

Below, the priest-cleric or whatever he was hummed to himself, gathering firewood and tucking them beneath an arm. Mostly, he was picking up loose branches and dry leaves; kindling to build into a bigger flame. Two remembered that from Xothok's teachings, too.

The people he had with him were used to his more reticent nature, and none of them grumbled about waiting, which he appreciated.

The signal came. Three of them fired crossbow bolts at the priest's back; two dropped silently to the ground, wielding their daggers. Closer to rusted knives, really. The priest seemed to jerk backwards at the sound of the crossbow, and Two allowed himself to feel a brief flicker of satisfaction. If he was reacting like that, then he wouldn't be prepared

but the crossbow bolts passed through him, and he seemed fine.

Two frowned.

He threw himself at the priest, together with the other man he had with him the long-ranged fighters would have trouble hitting him with them in the way, he knew, but crossbow bolts didn't seem to affect the man anyway? He would fight, then.

And then he realized what the problem was.

It wasn't that the bolts didn't do damage to him. They did. His knife was cutting into the man, too. But he either had far more health than anyone should have, or he was healing back from every hit dealt to him.

The worst part of it was his eyes.

The priest wasn't worried. He wasn't scared. He just seemed sad, and Two didn't particularly care for the look of pity he was giving him.

He was so distracted by the look in the priest's eyes that he didn't see the prepared spell in his hands. The flash of light was so bright it blinded him.

But even blinded, he couldn't stop himself from seeing those eyes.

Morkar's legs ached.

He hated waiting. He hated all of this, really, the fact that they'd been reduced to preying on random adventurers just to make sure they got the food they needed to keep going. He'd made an argument that they could just try to steal the food from the caravan and leave before anyone noticed, but Xothok had shot that down; trying that would get them noticed and hunted down.

If they took out the adventurers, they'd have time to leave before the Guild realized anything was wrong. And Xothok was right, at least as far as Morkar could tell he wasn't particularly strategically minded but he still hated it. And waiting to ambush someone didn't sit right with him.

Also, his legs were cramping, because he was crouching in a fucking tree. So that made him grumpy.

The orc or half-orc, Morkar really couldn't tell the difference was in the river washing some of her equipment, it seemed. Thankfully, the men he had with him refrained from making any disgusting comments. Gods forbid Byrrhon's people were here.

The signal came. Morkar dropped out of the tree with a grunt, his tail helping to counterbalance his weight as he fell. Three bolts shot out of the trees towards the half-orc

who vanished.

Morkar blinked once.

"Um," someone said. One of his men. Except there was someone else with him, too. The orc's hand was gripped firmly around the crossbow's firing mechanism, preventing the bolt from firing. Pressed against his throat was a faintly glowing sword.

No one moved. The orc grinned at them. "Sup," she said. "Wanna try fighting fair instead? Ambushes are for suckers."

Morkar paused.

And then despite himself, he grinned. He hefted his axe.

"If that's what ya want," he said.

Xothok didn't waste any time himself. His [Enhanced Hearing] caught the twang of crossbows as his men attacked all four adventurers at the same time, split as they were but even as the bolts shot towards the armored man, he leapt out of the tree he was perched in, using a [Charge] to give him some forward momentum. Xothok felt the skill take hold, carrying him forward at incredible speeds just behind the rain of bolts; if the adventurer survived the first wave, his sword would strike directly towards the gap between the helmet and his torso, straight into his neck for a critical strike

and it did.

The bolts struck the armor and scattered, deflecting off the dark metal like it was nothing; Xothok wasn't too surprised. Enchanted armor was often reinforced against basic attacks like that, but it didn't mean the attacks wouldn't carve off chunks of his health. He held a grim determination on his face as he kept his sword in the adventurer's neck, counting the seconds. The longer he held it there before the man moved away, the more health it would drain, and the more the pain would put him off-balance...

...except the man wasn't moving back.

"What are you doing?" the armored man asked him curiously. He talked like it was normal to be able to speak with a sword inside his throat. Xothok jerked his sword back like it was on fire and stared, trying to suppress the fear bubbling up in him. This man was a threat. He'd gravely underestimated his chosen marks. It was fight or flight now, and every bone in his body was screaming at him to run

A searing wave of heat flashed over his scales, coming from the direction the rogue had been wandering in.

A bright flash of light seared into his eyes from where the cleric had gone.

In the fighter's direction came a loud shout. It didn't sound like any of his men. It didn't sound like a shout of pain, either. It sounded like a shout of triumph.

Xothok stared at the armored man in front of him, staring at him with just mild curiosity instead of anything approaching anger, and swallowed.

"...I surrender?"