We had decided beforehand to be captured.

At the beginning of this quest, there are commonly held to be three different ways of dealing with the situation. The first involved defending against the bandits surrounding us at the moment, and eventually fighting them off. Alternately, we could run, and let the NPC’s deal with the situation—which would lead to a quest line where we become a part of the bandit group. Lastly, we could lay down our arms, and let the bandits take us captive.

We chose to go with this option. It would spare us any sort of messiness with interrogations, and allow us to be brought straight to the bandit’s hideout.

I know what you must be thinking. ‘But those guy’s are bandits, right? Why would they leave you alive, instead of simply taking the valuables and killing everyone?’ In response to that, I must mention that these NPC bandits are professionals, no matter how uncouth they might have been programmed to be. A professional knows not to miss out on a potential profit, no matter where it might be found. Well, as it turns out, Ashenload is modeled on a mostly medieval societal system, right? Believe it or not, slavery is a thing here. And of course, players can actually be sold into slavery. Some do it as a bit of a fun thing, while others see is as a realism sort of detail.

Look, my point is that these bandits would lose out on a good amount of cash if they simply killed everyone they came across and robbed. It would be a waste, so instead they keep them locked up until a slave trader can come about and pay for the merchandise.

That’s the reason why they slapped handcuffs onto our arms, and lead us all back to their home base after we had “dropped” our weapons. In reality, all our arms and armor rested safely inside our inventories. Funny how that works, really. Also, they trusted that the iron manacles around our wrists would be enough to hold us. They’re right in thinking that.

What? Did you think we would have been able to break out whenever we wanted? Pfft—what a ridiculous notion. The manacles are engraved with magic-canceling runes. Expensive, but effective in getting the job done. We would have to wait until the manacles came off before trying anything. It looks like these bandit’s have powerful backers, if they can afford to indulge on their equipment like this. Though, someone like me, who had cheated a little and taken a look at the quest’s storyline beforehand, knows this to be true. They have someone powerful backing them. This is fact, and becomes relevant later on. Actually, it’s recommended to try and tackle this quest with at least one attractive woman in your party. It ends up streamlining the quest quite a bit. Given that there are not one, but three highly attractive women in the group, I think it’s safe to assume that we’ll be fine. Especially with the cat ears.

Which reminds me—I had my coat taken away by the bandits. I guess they were feeling squirrely about hidden weapons or something, and decided that letting a party member keep a heavy overcoat was a bad idea. Unfortunately for them, most of my knives are not inside the coat. In fact, I still have something like seven or eight hidden in various places on my body. Oh, and then there’s the fact that I’m wearing the fake cat ears and tail. What is it with those things? Xavier nearly fainted dead away when the coat was removed, and he saw them. Deadly to lovers of the female form, I guess. Or maybe just to weirdoes. Yeah, remembering Xavia, I think it’s to weirdoes.

Anyway, we were lead back to the bandit’s base. They were housed inside a dilapidated looking castle. It seemed sturdy enough though, especially after viewing it up close, which revealed that the castle was nowhere near as run-down as the bandits would have you believe. And from the inside, it became clear that this was almost a full-blown military installation—except the occupants were bandits instead of any sort of legitimate army. Obviously.

To enter the massive structure, a drawbridge was lowered over a moat filled by moss-green water—which occasionally saw bubbles surfacing from something under it’s top layer of algae. I don’t think I want to run into that something, since I have a strong premonition that there's lot’s of large and sharp teeth involved.

Past the drawbridge, a portcullis was being raised. The timbers making up the thing were larger around than most people’s bodies. Also, the area around the portcullis was littered with murder-holes, and I swear I saw eyes staring back at me from inside the thin gaps of the walls. Scary. This place isn’t run down in the slightest.

I hate to think of what would have happened had we killed all the bandits back at the campfire. Likely, we would’ve then faced a hell of a time trying to get into the castle here. It’s looking more and more like surrendering was the right choice.

Of course, once we were inside the castle, we were lead into a large building in the center of the complex. From there, we went down a series of staircases bringing us deeper and deeper under the ground. It’s the classic castle dungeon, isn’t it?

Sure enough, there were cells at the bottom, filled with despondent looking men and woman. Probably, they were people captured in previous bandit raids, and were either waiting for the slavers to come, or death. Whichever came first. And for some of them, it would be death, due to the nasty looking puss-filled wounds on their bodies, or the boils and rashes indicative of communal diseases.

It’s a little sad, but these guys are still NPC’s. Whatever happens to them is of no concern to us players. That being said, I still tend to treat NPC’s well, since you never know if they’ve gained sentience or something. I read too many of those types of stories to not consider the possibility.

We were all shoved into a mostly empty cell on the far side of the dungeon. The manacles were removed, and the cell door closed. Spark walked over to the metal bars serving as the outermost cell wall, and Xavier followed suit.

“Ah, they’ve treated the iron bars here too. Same deal as with the manacles—they block all forms of magic. Must have cost a massive fortune to be able to get this much.” Said Xavier, while inspecting the bars.

“So, how do we get out then?” Asked Rina.

“Patience. Or feed food.” I said, pointing to the bundle of rags in the corner of the room.

Diana looked at me, puzzled.

“Feed what? The rags?”

“I think the young lady means me, missy.” Croaked out an ancient voice from under the rag pile. It moved a little to reveal a leathery and drooping face, complete with moles all over the place, and milky white eyes. Rina, who happened to be the closest to the old man, shrieked and stumbled back.

The old man chuckled, and smiled a toothless grin.

“Now, young lady. What make’s you think that feeding me will get you out of here?” Rasped the ancient man.

“You’ve been here long time.” I replied. Interestingly, the old man seemed to mull over my words for quite a time before speaking.

“I suppose that’s true. But I have no magical way out, lady. You’re stuck down here ‘till the slavers come.”

“Have tips, tricks though, right?” I asked. The old man smiled. His aging head bobbed up and down, making the loose flesh around his neck and chin wave back and forth.

“Got that right, lady. But, I want food in return.”

I indicated that I would be willing to part with a meal or two in return for information on how the dungeon operates. It was key to figure out those intricacies before we could escape, otherwise we could run down a corridor, only to run straight into a bandit’s guard patrol, or find ourselves stuck in a dead end. We needed to have a good idea of how the place works, else things’ll get messy pretty quickly. Besides, there’s apparently a reward you get if you can sneak out of the dungeon proper without anyone noticing.

After leaving the dungeon though, you can do whatever you want. You could leave the castle without anyone the wiser, you could steal all their gold, or go on a rampage all over the place. It’s all up to you, and that’s the particular charm of this quest. The God Quests are the same, as they have innumerous ways of completing objectives. I’m heard some people compare it to an Old Earth game called D&D, where players create their own stories or something.

After coming to an agreement with the old man, it occurred to me that I had forgotten something.

“What’s your name, old man?” I asked him curiously.

He chuckled, which lead to a hacking couch that rattled his old bones.

“Heh—It’s not often that someone asks this useless old guy about his name. Why would it even matter?”

“Common courtesy?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion. Names are one of the most important parts of a person. Why would this man think they didn’t matter?

“Common courtesy, huh? Let me ask you this, young lady—What would knowing my name do? Would it give you insight into who I am, my actions? Child, you must learn to look beyond a name, and see the person beneath in their entirety.”

“Call you Old Man then.” I said. I just wanted to know what to call him, not a philosophy lesson.

Old Man, for his part, looked flabbergasted for a moment, unsure of what to take from what I said. Then he did a hacking laugh, and wiped a little tear away from his cataract filled eyes. I didn’t ask him what he was laughing about—I was afraid he would start into a lecture of why people laugh.

After that, things quieted down significantly. We are in a cell, after all, and there’s limited entertainment to be found here. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long before the events scripted into the questline began activating. The first thing was a guard coming by to feed the prisoners and leer at the more attractive women. Since we were at the end of the cell rows, we had to wait and listen to the man dropping slop into the cells and catcalling the girls.

He reached our cell, and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh boy—Wha’d we have here?” He said, a slimy look in his eyes. As disgusting as it is, I really can’t blame him. After all, there are three beauties in the cell that could be considered world-class. There’s Rina, with her graceful and poised beauty. Diana has the sultry and mischievous looks of a succubus. And of course there’s also me. Though, I’ve always thought of myself as more cute than beautiful. I’m just too short.

Anyway, the man leered into the cell, licking his lips in a suggestive way. I could see a struggle going on inside of him, and knew that a few words would kick him over the edge.

But it’s not time yet. We don’t know enough about this place to risk something like that. Instead, we meekly backed away from the cell bars, and watched at the man threw a bucket full of soupy kitchen slop into the cell. Much of it splashed out of the bucket, and onto the cell floor. The man then threw in some hard-tack bread. He gave us one last oily smile before walking away, humming happily to himself. Yeah, I think we can expect him to come back at a time when his superiors aren’t watching.

As per the agreement, we gave a good portion of the food we got to Old Man. It’s not like we needed it, per-say, and we got good information from it.

“Well, ‘s far as I know, there’s ‘bout five hundred bandits living here inside the castle.” Said the old man, who was willing to talk now that he had our food. “They started setting up camp about ten years ago, and initially numbered thirty or so. They started getting funding from some outside source, and quickly grew in power. The castle itself is fairly old, but they spent large amounts of money repairing it. I don’t think there are any passages in or out of the castle that aren’t guarded. The guards change shifts every six hours, from my understanding, and they feed us three times a day. Most of their leaders should be living in the central tower of the castle.”

“Thanks, Old Man.” I said.

So, now we know where we should go first, after escaping. Eliminating the bandit’s leader would make them akin to a chicken running around without a head, and would make the entire process of clearing the castle much easier. Though, I think we’ll need to have a nice and long talk with the leader before taking care of him or her. After all, there’s the question of who the mysterious funder is.

After a while, the bandit guard returned. I guess night had fallen outside, as people looking to do something in secret normally felt more comfortable when the sun was gone. He walked straight to our cell, and brought out a set of keys and two pairs of manacles. Grinning in a way that would make small children wet themselves, he threw the manacles at Rina and Diana.

“Put those on, bitches.” He said, brandishing a sword as if it would convince them to abide by his order. I scoffed a little internally, a little insulted that the man didn’t even look at me.

Rina and Diana feigned reluctance as they slipped the manacles over their wrists and tightened them. They then “cowered” into one of the cell corners, making the guard click his tongue in annoyance.

“Tsk—Get over here, ya bitches. Don’ make me come over there, ‘cause you won’t like what happens.”

They stayed put, forcing the guard to curse and grab his keys. He opened the door, and entered the cell with his sword still at the ready. Walking towards the two girls, he completely lost focus of the rest of us. Well, it’s not completely his fault, since we’re all supposed to be disarmed and powerless inside the cell. How could he know that I had a savage assortment of knives on me?

Well, I think he got clued in as soon as one of those knives meet his throat. He fell with a gurgle, and a bloodstain quickly spread out from under him. I grabbed the keychain, and found the keys to open the manacles. Tossing them aside, everybody left the cell before me. I remained behind, looking at Old Man, who peered back at me from his corner.

“You coming, Old Man?” I asked.

He smiled sadly, and motioned downwards.

“Thank you for the offer, young lady, but I’m afraid my legs don’t work as they used to. I will have to stay here for the time being.” He said. I nodded, and left the cell door slightly open behind us.

Once outside the cell, we all had access to our inventories and magic again, as we had exited the bounded field created by the warding symbols that had been engraved into the cell bars. I reequipped my cloak and larger weapons, and watched as my friends did the same. Unfortunately, we couldn’t let the people inside the cells go at the moment, since they would just be dead weight.

Stalking around the corners of the dungeon, we were careful to avoid any of the guard patrols still awake and checked our route time and time again in order to keep straight the way out. This dungeon has a very interesting building style, since everything had seemed simple and straightforward when coming down here earlier, but trying to get out had turned the affair into a twisting mess of corridors and dead ends. My guess is that there a very small bit of magic involved, and that most of our difficulties stem from architectural trickery and slight-of-hand.

Never the less, we eventually found the way out, by following the direction of airflow. It’s odd to think a trick normally used when cave exploring came in handy here, but that’s what happened. It just goes to show how complicated things were.

When we came up to the exit, I decided to go out first. Among everybody here, I had the best sneaking capabilities, and could most easily push open the door leading out without anyone noticing. I slipped out, and saw that a group of guards were sitting at a table, drinking and playing dice games. Two minutes later, I went back to my friends, and led them past the slumped-over forms of the guards. The next door brought us right outside. Next, we just had to get to the central tower and find the leader of the bandit’s castle. At least it was easy to find the place, since the tower truly was the tallest part of the castle by a good amount. The hard part was avoiding the numerous tents pitched in the courtyards of the castle, where potentially hundreds of bandits slept while others kept watch.

Some of the bandits we came across, we took down, while others we left alone. It came down to whether or not we thought someone would find the body before we could finish our main business. Eventually, we made our way to the tower via the outer wall. I fished a grappling hook out of my inventory, and had Spark throw it up onto one of the window ledges. It stuck fast, and I scurried up the wall of the tower. It had been decided that I would be the only one going to take care of the leader and gather information, while the others kept a lookout in order to give me warning if something goes wrong.

Silently dropping into a tower room through the window, I fell to a crouch and assessed my surroundings. It looks like this room’s used for…actually, I’d rather keep this part PG. There’s some nasty shit in here.

I quickly left the room through a staircase on the opposite side from the window, and crept around, sticking near to the walls. I froze when footsteps began reaching my ears from above me. Someone’s walking down the staircase, towards me. I flattened against the wall, and went dead still. A man turned around the corner of the staircase, in full view of me. He was holding a bit of paper though, and mumbling under his breath as he walked right on by me without even looking up. That should be a slave trader, judging by the fact that his clothes are much richer than any bandit should wear.

As he disappeared around the corner, I make a decision of my own, and unlimber my bow. Quickly stringing it, I follow after the slaver and send a silent arrow into his back. He fell with a crash that nobody was around to hear.

I resumed my trek up the stairs, and eventually came to a door at the top of the tower. This should be the bandit leader’s room. I push open the door, and walk inside calmly while closing the door behind me. There was also a convenient deadbolt on the inside of the door, which I locked home. Opposite the door sat a nice desk with a scarred and white-haired man sitting behind it. He’s big and burly as well, with a mean glint behind his eyes. He looked up as soon as the sound of the deadbolt locking shattered the silence in the room. His eyes narrowed when he saw me.

“Who are you? I never called for anyone, especially not a kid.” Growled the man.

I smile sweetly form under the hood. Given that the man could only see my mouth, I’m sure it looked a little odd.

“Here for information on funder.” I say.

The man doesn’t take me seriously, and waves his hand to shoo me away.

“Get out of here kid, before you do something you end up regretting.”

My smile widens, and I close my hand around a set of daggers tucked into my belt, behind the cloak. The leader stands up.

“Look kid. Either you get out now, or I assume you want to be here, okay? And trust me, you do not want to be here.” He growls ominously.

“Who pays you?” I asked him. His eyes widen imperceptibly.

“So it’s like that, huh?” He says angrily. Grabbing a club leaning against the side of his desk, he hoists it up and swings intimidatingly. “Who sent a kid to question me? You want to answer that before I break each and every bone in your body?” He asks.

I shake my head, and my smile turns sad.

“Last chance. Who pays you?”

“Why you little shit!” He yells, and swings the club at my side. I duck under the blow, and slide past his exposed body. I take one of my daggers, and slam it into the area of his leg behind the knee. Instantly, he yelps in pain, and nearly falls to the floor.

“Who pays you?” I ask again. He glares at me angrily.

“You little fuck, you’ll pay for this! Get over here!” He yells. I oblige.

As soon as I’m in range, he initiates a savage series of strikes, swiping his club in every which direction in order to hit me. Me being me, I dodge each strike with infuriating ease, building the man’s anger with each miss. In the end, he’s chasing me around the room with his right leg limping along behind him, and giving a lethargic swipe of the club every now and then. Panting heavily, I’ve worn him out rather fast. I guess he’s past his prime or something.

The club drops out of his hand, and he slumps onto the side of his desk, supporting himself with his arm.

“What…What the hell have you done to me?” He asks, sweat dripping down his brow. His previously angry eyes look a little fearful now.

Ah, that’s right. My daggers have poison attribute, don’t they? Teehee~?

I sigh, and tell the truth—as it tends to be more terrifying than any bravado I can come up with.

“Poison on dagger. Death coming.”

“No, wait! Is there a way to cure the poison! I’ll do anything!” He yelled. Ah, these types of people are wonderful to deal with. They want to protect their own lives at any cost, and are willing to do or say anything when it comes to that.

“Who’s paying you?” I ask again.

He readily gives me the answer.

Of course, I left out the fact that there’s no cure for the poison on my daggers. Either you survive it, or you don’t depending on your constitution levels. The leader didn’t.