“Damn boss. Thought it was just the one?” Jakob said as they laid flat on top of a hill overlooking a camp.

“So did I. Still only eight of em. They ain’t got much on numbers over us if we can each take one out ‘fore they know we’re here…” Teddy said quietly as they watched. Down below them sat a small encampment with eight men and ten horses with a small grouping of tents. Most of the men were sitting around a fire at the center while a couple wandered or were digging through a wagon with two horses still attached to it. There was no organization that Will could see, so the element of surprise could go a long ways but they were still outnumbered. For that they needed a plan.

“What about just shootin’ ‘em from up here.? I got my long gun and so does Will, can take em out by twos ‘fore they can even get halfway to us,” Skunk offered.

“No, they’ve got rifles too. We got the high ground but I see three long guns. They got any more than that and they we got problems,” Teddy said.

“Plus what fool’s gonna run towards us while we shoot at ‘em. Soon as we get to shootin’ they’ll scatter and either run or try to hit is from all sides,” Jakob added. “What about you Will? You’re a military man, any ideas?”

Will blanked initially. He was used to confined spaces of a station or ship, not wide open wilds. Used to being so heavily armored that all but the most prepared had no chance, now he was wearing a shirt. He was also use to having anything from his fire team to his squad, to his entire damn company storming the breach with him. Now? Three rural lawmen with ancient weapons. He stared at the camp and shook his head. There was only one thing he could think of but it wasn’t much of a plan.

He might have been used to a different battlefield but if he looked at it as the entire battlespace it made it easier. Need to take out a group of pirates or smugglers but don’t want them running or taking shots at your back? You don’t go for them first, you trap them. Disable or destroy their ships before they have a chance to even get in them. Then kill them all.

“Me and Skunk spread out a bit to find a decent spot to shoot from, maybe get a little closer. Meanwhile, Jakob and you Sheriff take your Bakarna around the side of the hill. We’ll wait till you get in place, say five minutes. Once it’s up, Skunk and I will shoot the horses tied up first. They can’t run or mount up if their horses are dead or dying. Two rounds each, two horses each. If we have any luck the couple that are just standing there will run for it, leaving a few more on foot. But as soon as we shoot, you get ready because some of them might make a run for that hill. We all go for the ones that make it to the horses first then we can just ride down any that make it out on foot,” Will said. A little disappointed in himself but he had to work with what he had. They didn’t have flashbangs, sonic charges, breaching pods or drop pods to put them right in the middle of the camp… no fleet support.

“Well damn boss… Think we should go with his idea. Mine was just say fuck it and start shootin’,” Jakob praised but Sheriff Teddy was already scooting back down the side of the hill towards the baraknas.

“Skunk, Will… You hear a whistle, take your shots. Should draw their attention long enough for you to get another horse in sight apiece. Should keep them in the open and we can ride out from there... And if you’ve got a choice between shooting someone running to the horizon on horse or someone going for a long gun? Go for the bastard with the gun. Shame bout the horses but I’m not getting shot,” Teddy said as Jakob started scooting backward too.

“Wait, what about the bounty? They said they want the guy alive?” Will suddenly realized a problem with his own plan.

“They killed Lemar. Best we can give them is the horse. Just don’t be shootin’ the chestnut with socks,” Jakob smacked Will’s leg then got up to a crouch to head towards their own mounts.

Will looked around and watched them quietly head off leaving him and Skunk on the hill. He got back into it and looked around for a place that gave him cover that he could reach without exposing himself and ruining the entire plan, quickly deciding on a rock a third of the way down the hill. There was a line of thick brush leading up to it that should make his approach more or less invisible.

“Think I’m heading down there,” Will informed Skunk as the man laid on his back and checked his rifle. He didn’t even look to where Will was indicating.

“Thinkin’ I’ll head down the ridge to those rocks and see if I can find my way down a bit… Like your plan but see those horses on the wagon. Don’t shoot em. If they don’t run I’ll take out one on my second shot, the one left ain’t pullin’ no wagon with a dead horse hanging off it,” Skunk smiled and rolled back over.

“Alright, I’ll go for the three tied up by the tent on the right,” Will called his shots and slung his rifle over his back to begin his crawl. It was only 30 meters and downhill. He’d just have to be careful not to send anything tumbling down.

Will high crawled down the slope, sliding slightly as he went head first but it didn’t take long for him to cut a chunk out of the distance he’d have to engage from. Rather than poke his head over the top he lay in the brush and took up a prone position with enough room to roll behind the rock if they started shooting at him.

“They’ve got goblins down there…” he whispered to himself when he noticed a small group of green skinned humanoids that were tied up beside one of the tents. They couldn’t see them from his earlier position and only when he shifted slightly to the right did he get the chance. He watched them for a moment, wondering what it was about but his heart nearly stopped.

A couple of the goblins were sniffing the air and he felt the breeze coming from behind him. To make matters worse, one was sitting there staring at him with a bundle in it’s arms. He couldn’t be sure but-

*PFFFFFFFT!*

The issue with the goblins was gone and Will quickly shifted his aim to the three horses lined up. The men in the camp looked towards the hill as he squeezed the trigger and dropped the first animal. Feeling a bit strange about not challenging them first, he yelled out as he lined up his next shot.

“Silverstead Sheriff’s Department! Drop your weapons!”

Meanwhile, a report from a different rifle rang out somewhere to his left. He didn’t look to see if Skunk got his target but Will was forced to quickly switch targets when he noticed which one he was aiming at. It was the chestnut and also obscured the third horse, forcing him to shift entirely. When he did he noticed the wagon moving fast behind two spooked horses, a second shot rang out and he added his second when Skunk fired his third.

“Good enough,” Will said to himself. He’d downed two while Skunk had dropped three. Two more were running, and two couldn’t be fired upon. He squeezed the trigger and watched as the horse reared up from the shot to its chest. It was the last one he could shoot.

Will took aim at one of the men sprinting towards the last two horses in camp but shifted fire once he spotted one with a long gun. He missed his first and it looked like a glancing shot on the second. He quickly rolled behind the boulder and laid on his back to reload. He cocked the rifle, sending his last round in, and quickly loaded five more. He’d started off with six total including one in the chamber.

He rolled over just in time to see the chestnut with a rider on top heading towards the hill. The other horse a paint was mounted and heading out into the plain. A moment later the man on top fell off with a shot from Skunk. Will got lined up onto his next and fired five rounds in quick succession. Hitting four and killing two. He rolled back to cover in order to reload again but when he rolled back out… it was over. A trio of bleeding men sat in the middle of the camp, they’d tossed their weapons down and held their hands in the air. Around them sat the group of goblins, untouched, and six human corpses with just as many dead horses.

“Hah! Boss got em!” Skunk yelled out from his position. Will rose up a bit and looked to the side of the hill but stood when he saw what was coming around it. Jakob was riding the chestnut 20 yards away from Sheriff Teddy who was leading his Bakarna while his revolver was pointed at a man’s back ahead of him. The guy was limping heavily with his hands in the air as he moved to join his other wounded comrades.

As soon as he joined them he knelt slowly to join them in a sitting position-

Three more shots rang out followed by three more a moment later. Will watched the three men shot by their own horse thief slump over with their killer joining them when all three lawmen fired. Will had kept his trigger discipline.

Secondary Class leveled! Vigilant Bounty Hunter Level 3

Dexterity +3

Perception +2

Strength +2

Vitality +2

Secondary Class leveled! Vigilant Bounty Hunter Level 4

Skill Learned: [Marksmanship] Knowledge based

Skill Learned: [Steady Aim] Active

Will cringed slightly as his new knowledge took effect. Once again though it wasn’t much that he didn’t already know. He then took half moment to look at his skills before blinking away the screens. Returning to the present.

“Did the system know he was going to do that? Why’d it wait till he killed them to level me up?” the question was to no one in particular but he still wondered. He guess it was possible that if the system tracked everything it might have known the thief was about to betray his fellow bandits or at a minimum knew he was still armed. Will kept his weapon ready as he approached, which Teddy studied for a moment then nodded and turned his eyes to Skunk. Will did the same and saw the deputy making his way down the hill with his rifle over his shoulders, no worse for wear. The only one that wasn’t there was Jakob but Will could see him in the distance heading off the runaway wagon on the chestnut.

“That went better than expected! What’d we get boss?” Skunk called out.

“Fuckin’ trouble,” the Sheriff muttered. It probably wasn’t loud enough for Skunk to hear but Will did. “Skunk, go get Mischief and Void if they ain’t goin’ for round two. The big boy should follow you up here. Keep ‘em away from the bodies. They can eat the horses after we have a chance to go through their saddlebags and salvage their tack.”

Skunk watched his boss for a second but quickly shrugged and turned to make his way back up the hill.

“What’s wrong? The goblins?” Will turned to look at the seven small beings huddle together. Eight including the infant.

“Nope,” Teddy said succinctly. “That’s one of the Landry boys.”

He pointed at one of the bodies, Will recognized him as the one that had gone for the rifle he’d winged.

“Dey were gonna blame us!” one of the goblins spoke out as Will walked in their direction but his intent was originally the dead man. That changed.

“What was that?” Teddy asked and turned to the goblins.

“Dey’d said dey were gonna blame us. Kill human, make us run away. Other humans dink it us. Dey hunt US! We no hurt human,” She said.

“You raided his farm, stole his livestock,” Teddy stated.

“Ya, we take but we no hurt. We had hob. If want to hurt, we hurt,” she retorted.

“Then why didn’t they release you at the ranch so we could follow your tracks?” Will asked. He’d checked for goblin prints and didn’t see any. Only a single set of horse tracks.

“Dat one. Landry. Start fire. Others, Dey late with us. Too much time. Humans in village see fire, come. Dey get mad, change mind. Gonna say dey hunt us. Dey kill us. Make eat cloth so humans think we eat human. Say dey gonna cut open belly to show. Make look like we take,” she explained. Her accent and cadence was confusing like someone that almost solely spoke a much different language but she got her point across. At the end she indicated a pile of stuff sitting near the goblins.

Will walked over and looked at it. It was a bunch of junk but there was a small pile of money, eggs, a half-eaten chicken, random bits of clothing, leather straps, knives… It all could have belonged to Lemar.

“Leave it and start pulling the kit off one of those horses before one of ours starts eating the dead,” Teddy shook his head and took off his hat.

Will got to work, it wasn’t something he’d done before but after looking the straps over it looked easy to take off. Just undo everything.

He was soon joined by Jakob who had walked back from tying up the three horses a hundred meters away. The fourth surviving horse was long gone, running through the valley somewhere. By the second one, Skunk had returned with their last two mounts, who he led over to the horse that was without kit and furthest away from a human body. The two love birds very quickly and brutally dug in. Will tried not to watch but instead pulled a body away from the second horse for Jakob and Teddy’s bakarnas.

“Holy shit. Boss! That’s-” Jakob yelled.

“I know…” Teddy responded causing Skunk to take a look and both junior lawmen to start swearing.

“Well, what’re we gonna do? Landrys’ll think we killed one of theirs, they’ll burn down the jail!” Jakob yelled again.

“With us inside,” Skunk added solemnly like he was already attending his own funeral.

“I know… we got time though. We can work this,” Teddy answered.

“How?” They both said in unison.

“They ain’t gonna attack right away and we make sure they don’t. We tell folk what happened here. Tell ‘em we hunted down the outlaws responsible for Mister Lemar’s death. Tell ‘em a Landry boy was here but we’re not sure why. We’re investigating.

“And It’ll be the truth, we don’t know why he was here but I wanna know… They’ll hit us but with that they’ll play nice and be sendin’ Kate to try to convince me her cousin wasn’t an outlaw first. Get me to clear his name. Might even send Margret to have a word” Teddy nodded to the others with clear resolve on his face, “We ain’t gonna cover it up though. Boy was running with outlaws and thanks to Mister Tempest we can even say under a truth skill or spell that he was told who we was ‘fore he fired on Skunk. He’s just another low life but don’t gotta worry about a trial. So, we can bide our time, he ain’t getting any deader.”

“Bide our time for what?” Skunk asked.

“Victor’s already headin’ to the Marshall to let em know we’re gonna have trouble comin’. Just gonna send someone else to catch up and let the Marshall know bout this,” Teddy said and turned to Will. “I can’t be sending my last two deputies away at a time like this. Feel like headin’ to Fairpoint?”

Fairpoint? He didn’t know the way and he didn’t remember seeing it on the map. It could have been on the part that had been burned away.

“Ah, I don’t know the way,” Will admitted.

“It ain’t far, hundred miles or so. Can make it in two or three days with a good bakarna… watch out for the stables there, they’ll charge you something fierce if you wanna stable anything but a horse,” Jakob supplied but completely forgot to mention where the city was.

“Follow the road outta Silverstead and head downriver, can’t miss it. Lose the road, just find the river,” Teddy thankfully came in to fill the gaps.

“Hey you can take Void! Boss said it was temporary till justice was served. Well, we’re still servin’ it,” Skunk added and Will turned to look at Void, his face completely covered in blood and gore as he dined on horse entrails. It looked like he couldn’t get enough, so much so that Will shivered as Void tore out a chunk of the horse's rib cage and started grinding away at it with his teeth. Meat, guts, bone, it was all food.

“What about the chestnut? The other horses?” Will actually felt a little guilty like he was betraying Void but it was a better option. Right?

“Bounty came from upriver, Davenshire. The others? We’ll stable ‘em all for now. If we can find the owners they’ll be returned but they’re purely draft horses, never had a saddle on them in their lives I’d bet. You want a smoother ride, stick with the big fella. They’ll buck you right off,” Teddy said.

“’Sides, make sure he’s not starvin’ at night and you anchor him and sleep anywhere. They only eat when they're hungry. But they’ll fight somethin’ fierce if anythin’ comes at them and nothin’s going after him in the dark,” Jakob had a point with that one.

“Just need to give you a reason to go in case the Landrys ask with a truth coin,” Teddy stroked his mustache and looked around for inspiration. Goblins, guns, bodies, horses, tents…. Will was more interested in the coin part.

“What’s a truth coin?” he asked after a couple of seconds, waiting to see if the Sheriff had anything else to say.

“Never seen one before? Here… Vibrates if someone says a lie,” Skunk pulled out a small iron coin that looked very familiar to Will. He gave a glance at the Sheriff but Skunk caught the look, “He actually has a skill. Harder to fool… Never had a drop of whiskey in my life.”

Will was about to ask what that was about but the moment Skunk finished his statement the coin in his hand nearly jumped out of his hand it started shaking so hard. He clamped down on it and it shook more than the void alarm in his exosuit did.

“See, take that and put it anywhere as long as it’s touchin’ skin and it’ll let you know if someone’s lyin’ to ya. Usually keep mine in my pocket unless I need it but I know Victor keeps his in his sock, gotta rub him numb when people are telling stories but he never has to put his hand in his pocket and ask someone to say what they done said again,” Jakob smiled. Will looked at it again and made a mental note to go into the dungeon to get the one he’d found, maybe take a look at the slate to see if it was actually something important. Maybe test to see what would happen if he put the truth coin on the more valuable than both pedestal. He held it out to Skunk but the Sheriff pushed his hand back.

“Keep it for now, I’ve got another one I can give Skunk. Ya might need it,” Teddy said, “You’re goin’ to get supplies for your profession class. Don’t think I know yours so I can rightly say I have no idea what you need to get. Doubt the Landrys know either other than it’s gotta do with magic. Boys, start diggin’ and see what these varmints have in their pockets so Will can get what he needs. Money would just go to Silverstead anyway, might as well pay up the reward for catching that horse thief if we can. Bit extra for his friends.”

Skunk suddenly dropped the saddlebag he was going through and gave the Sheriff a look but picked it back up again. Mumbling about no bounties for lawmen.

“Oh and will, you kill the Landry boy?” Teddy asked. A smirk grew across his face.

“Ah…”

“No boss, that were me. Will clipped him in the arm but I finished him off,” Skunk said. “Landrys are gonna skin me.”

“Well hope it doesn’t happen too soon,” Teddy walked over to pull something out of his saddlebag, “According to Lemar’s will, his land goes to the person that killed his murderer. Landrys don’t know that bit… Think that cage in your new barn is big enough to hold those goblins?”

Sheriff Teddy held out a piece of paper for them to inspect.

“Here’s his will. Your deed's at the town hall. Once we get this cleared up it’s your ranch.”

“My what?”