47 Ch. 32- Bandits at the Border

Not all was lost though, as Brutus had been able to sense and then shadow travel quick enough to snatch up some wild animals for dinner. We had a variety now in my storage of foxes, squirrels, and a family of brown rabbits speckled with little dots of white throughout their bodies.

We'd have to set up a roasting spit around the campfire to take care of all of this meat, but I was looking forward to it already, especially since I got a variety of herbs to add to the taste. Nothing was worse than food cooked plainly, and if I could avoid it, I would.

The scenery was nice enough even though it got gradually more marshlike as we continued on. The going was slow due to the carriages being pulled by normal horses, rich merchants were usually able to acquire summons perfect for carrying heavy loads across long distances.

Any summon remotely suitable for pulling a carriage would be better than a regular animal, after all any summon has at least above average attributes compared to their normal counterparts. It seemed like Jerimiah wasn't lucky enough to start out with a summon suitable for his trade, nor was he rich enough to get someone to help him acquire one. He didn't seem like a fighter, which is likely why he hired us.

It's interesting that despite every person of age having a summon, most who weren't a summoner as a profession either didn't use their summon at all or had such a weak summon that they wouldn't be able to advance in life by fighting. These are the type of people who take the mundane jobs, it was mostly a matter of chance or luck that determined which type a person would become.

It was a lot easier to become a summoner by starting out with a stronger summon, and even then, those with money or connections can have others help them hunt for more summons. This was an uncommon thing to happen, but enough that it was worth mentioning.

I had nothing against those who weren't summoners, after all, they are the ones that work hard to provide for us all the amenities and supplies that kept us alive and safe. It was a co-dependent relationship and while those not fighting earned less usually, the fighters were being compensated for risking their life, all in all, it was a system that worked fairly well so far.

"Hey Thomas, what are you staring out at the woods about?" (Alexis)

"What, you mean you have the capability of actually thinking. Say it isn't so, I think hell just froze over." (Alexis)

"Well so much for me being honest, laugh it up while you can." (Thomas)

I kept throwing barbs at Alexis as she did the same, it was fun for me at least because I know that she didn't mean it. If anyone had tried to say something like that to me, I doubt I would be feeling the same way.

I guess this just further proves how much I like her, the only problem is I have no idea if she feels the same. If I confessed to her there would likely be two possible reactions, either we began to date due to us liking the other, or our partnership would end here. It would be far too awkward for me to continue to work with and see her if she rejected me.

If I was going to do something about this, I should do it soon before we get too invested in working with each other, like buying a guild headquarters. My other sad but possible option would be to not confess and take a wait and see approach, which would probably suck.

.....

Eventually, we reached a decent clearing right around dusk, and so we quickly set off to build our camp before all light was lost. Alexis was in charge of building a fire and gathering more firewood for the night.

The other caravan members aside from Jerimiah set up a large canopy-like tarp near but not over the fire, which was to keep off any rain and to prevent trapping any smoke or burning the tarp.

I set up near the fire pit that we had made by piling rocks around in a loose circle, any underbrush or leaves had been swept away to prevent a forest fire. I laid out a plank I had taken from one of the carriages to process the meat for tonight's dinner.

Skinning the animals was pretty easy and I made quick work of all the excess parts like guts and skin. I kept the skins since I might be able to sell them for a few credits, and now all I was left with was some creatures all processed and ready to put on a spit.

I decided to work on the spit in the meantime as I waited for the fire to be ready, it was a simple contraption with two branches on either side of the fire to hold the spit pole, it just had to be turned manually since I wasn't a fancy engineer.

It was nearly night by the time the fire was roaring and I was finally able to start preparing our food. I made sure to rub them in some salt, pepper, and paprika, and stuffed their cavities with some thyme I had found while we were riding and stopped to pick up.

There wasn't much else to do for the small animals, so I got my twine and secured the bodies to the pole and hoisted them just over the fire. The turning of the spit was a pain, luckily we took shifts to give everyone a rest while we waited on dinner to arrive.

The night had turned into a dark blanket blocking out most other senses, and all that I could recognize was the mouth-watering aroma of rabbit and other juicy game being roasted over a fire. The smell was pervasive and everyone seemed rather eager for dinner, bread had been taken out and doled into portions to eat alongside the meat.

About 30 minutes later the meat was finally ready and sizzling could be heard from the grease of the game dropping into the fire. I barely focused on that though since the smell and sight of these roasted animals was all I could think about.

I didn't realize how hungry I was, but a snack of bread and jerky while on the move didn't exactly fill someone up. We each got our own animal to dig into, of course, I chose the fat rabbit I had Brutus catch earlier.

It was delicious, and the dark meat had a wonderfully mild yet present gaminess in the meat, which was only complimented by the spices and herbs I had cooked it with. Unfortunately, the meal had to come to an end, which had all made us tired because of how stuffed we were.

Deciding to sleep, we set one person on watch, and I had Brutus out patrolling the camp. Alexis had done the same with Holly which was her harpy, all in all, we were fairly safe and could fall asleep without too much worry.

.....

3 more days passed like this, and we had finally entered into the South American territory. We were surrounded by hilly planes, and far away in the distance was the desert we would soon have to cross.

That night was fairly normal, and camp had been set up just fine, which led to yet another roasting of animals and leftover bread for dinner. I was getting pretty sick of it at this point, but I was infinitely glad I had decided to bring some spices, the meals were at least bearable to us instead of bland and nearly inedible.

Nothing was out of the ordinary and we had set up our normal watch rotation with Alexis and I sending out one summon each to patrol the camp. It wasn't until a few hours later that something went wrong, it was right before dawn when I was woken up by the jingle of metal and the warning that Brutus had sent to me.

I bolted awake after realizing what this probably meant, I shouted for everyone to wake up and grab a weapon. In the meantime, as I was giving directions, I was pulling on my armor and secured my sword to my hip for ready use.

Deciding reinforcements couldn't hurt even if the attackers are just bandits, I brought out Jareth who had only his mace in one hand. He looked excited at being taken out to smack someone or something down, I pointed him over towards where the bandits were coming from.

From what Brutus had told me, behind the hill to the north were bandits lying in wait and a bunch of them too. Sure enough, I was proven right as around 20 bandits and a few summons charged down towards us.

"Everyone, get behind us by the carriages, stay out of the way and you should be fine." (Thomas)

Knowing we would be outnumbered, I had Brutus hide in the shadows near where the enemy would pass while charging and ordered him to take down as many as he could while they're backs were turned.

He slunk away and disappeared into wisps of dark smoke, presumably towards the enemy. I ran off towards Jareth who was at the edge of camp near Alexis who was out with Hemlock and Holly.

Seeing that it was just us against the 28 enemies, we began to charge the bandits. We ignored any arrows shot our way since the armor wouldn't even be scratched after being hit, and just forward rushed into the fray.

Bodies went flying and almost nothing stood in our way until the bandit leader interfered in our fun with a tier 4 Sasquatch that had muscles on muscles underneath its' brown scraggly fur. It moved in front of Jareth to prevent my ogre from killing yet another bandit and instead began engaging Jareth in a contest of brute strength.

If it weren't for his extra arms, Jareth likely would have been pushed back by the burly human-like gorilla. Disrupting the sasquatch's sense of balance by dragging its head under and sweeping it legs with a kick, the creature was brought down for a short while.

It would have been put down for good if it hadn't recovered so quickly and put an arm in the way of Jareth's mace. The arm was now broken, but at least its' face wasn't smashed in. It countered back in a fit of range and used a rock on the ground as its' own weapon, it was obliterated upon contact with Jareth's thick hide, but damage definitely had been done beneath the skin.

At the very least there would be bruising later on if not a fractured bone or torn muscles, but knowing how strong Jareth's constitution was I didn't worry all that much. The fighting between our groups had stopped in lieu of watching the battle between the two bipedal behemoths.

I used this moment to try and speak with the leader from across the little battlefield, "Why did you bandit's attack us, and are you the leader of this group?"

The grizzled man sneers at me through his oily black hair and replies, "Because you have money obviously and yes I am the leader of these bandits. My name is Ricardo Luz, perhaps you've heard of me."

All anyone could hear was the sound of crickets chirping as an awkward silence descended after I didn't recognize the guy's name. I didn't know how to break it to him that I had never heard of him and his group, I just let silence prevail until crashes could be heard from the fight going on near me.

The four-armed ogre was systematically destroying the sasquatch despite being at the same tier and it wouldn't be long before the fight was concluded.

"Why didn't you become a summoner with a summon like that instead of turning to banditry?"

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I was expecting a sob story of sorts, but was pleasantly/unpleasant;y surprised when the grizzled man laughed and told me, "Why would I waste my time fighting monsters when I can kill much weaker humans and earn way more money." He finished off with an evil smile full of yellowed teeth.

I actually felt reassured by how vile he was because now I wouldn't have to waste any time regretting killing him. No more words were needed and the fights continued once again with most of the bandits and summons being occupied by Hemlock and her deadly poison.

All were wary to get close to the drake and they had completely halted their charge, instead opting for a slow and cautious walk forward. By the end of the fight, none of the bandits had even touched the carriages, and there was nearly no damage to our party.

Luckily they were only weak bandits aside from their leader and they relied on their own strength instead of their summons. As a result, they didn't have the strength necessary to even get close to breaking through my armor or take any of our summons down.

We took the time to pick through their belongings and take their watches for storage retrieval later at one of the Guild buildings. This was of course only between Alexis and me, since we were the only ones who fought. Jerimiah looked like he wanted to take some of the loot, but refrained from his desire after looking at our summons.

Seeing that there was nothing left to do and it was a little early to begin travel, we stoked the fire and began to make and eat breakfast. We had some wild mushrooms and a few eggs to make a few scrambled eggs bowls before we got back on the road.