The scene that met me after leaving the main tower of the bandit’s castle was nothing short of chaos. I guess my friends had been discovered in the end, since an all out brawl had developed between them, and a number of bandits. Normally, you’d think four people against sixty or so would be bad odds, but that wasn’t the case.

Given that I hadn’t heard the fighting from inside that tower, I feel justified in thinking that they hadn’t used any of the really flashy skills yet, and had stuck to basic movements and spells. In fact, Rina was sticking to healing spells, which was decidedly odd given her…fiery personality. She’s also sticking close to the others, rather than going about her normal acts of flitting about the battlefield. Spark was actually tanking damage, instead of squashing enemies with his massive shield, and Haven was doing her best to keep the area around him to a certain number of foes. Xavier was doing much the same, dealing good blows with his large and heavy axe.

I think Spark was the first to notice me. Fitting, since he’s in charge of defense, and as such, must keep an eye on his surroundings at all times. It takes incredible amounts of situational awareness to defend properly. I’m more suited to cutting down one target at a time, myself.

“Hey Vina!” He called out, letting everyone else know that I’d arrived. “You finish up in there?” Asks Spark. I nod to his question, and join the fray. I immediately saw them relax, but not too much. Even though the bandit’s leader is now dead, we can’t count on that fact to make things any easier, as there are typically multiple command structures within a camp like this. However, it could constitute a rather large demoralizing factor if the bandit’s find out about the untimely demise of their leader at the right moment.

“Got caught?” I asked Spark, who deflected a rather strong looking mace blow with infuriating ease. I would be knocked straight off my feet, due to my size and weight.

“Yeah—Bit of bad luck, really. A patrol made some noise before dying, and drew attention!” He yelled over his massive shoulders. I chuckled a little, not minding their bad luck. After all, it made things more fun, what with this somewhat large battle going on.

I quickly dropped my bow and quiver into my inventory, and drew the short sword hanging from my belt. My hunting knife materialized in my off hand, a peculiarity of this particular rare item. Then, I wadded into the mix.

As stated before, I can’t really deal with multiple enemies at the same time. It’s just not my style. Instead, I prefer to take them one at a time, focusing on a single combatant.

Then, how is it that I’m able to take down groups of enemies almost stupidly easily?

Well, I make it so that the single enemy I’m facing doesn’t last very long. And I plan ahead. It’s a skill many people are sadly lacking. It also makes me unbeatable in games like chess. It saddens me, since no one is willing to play me anymore—even online.

But enough of that. You guys want juicy action scenes, no? Well, I have to comply, I guess.

I waded right into the thick of things, short sword in my right hand, hunting knife in my left. By waded, I mean that I simply walked right up to the closest bandit. He didn’t notice me until I got within a few meters of him, so focused was the bandit on the hub of activity that was my comrades. And once he did see me, he did a little double-take. I saw as a range of emotions flickered across his face, from surprise, to shock, to suspicion, and finally resting on distain and a bit of lust. Ugh. He opened his mouth to speak.

Not wanting to hear whatever filth this bandit was going to spew, I flicked the hunting knife at him.

It sank into his throat all the way to the hilt, stuck fast. The man tried to suck in a breath, but nothing got past the weapon cutting off his airway. He clawed the knife out—which as any medical professional can tell you, is a very, very bad idea. Blood spewed from his mangled neck, pouring down his front. Magically, the knife disappeared as it was falling to the ground, and reappeared in my hand.

I was already in motion before the man had even pulled the knife out though, moving on to the man next to him, who was watching the entire exchange with disbelief in his eyes. Before he even registered it, my short-sword had slipped through a seam in his leather armor and found his heart. Pulling out, my knife re-materialized in my left hand, and I swiped at another man’s face, carving half his head off. Yes, his head. There was brain matter exposed.

What, does that sound improbable or something? It’s a really heavy and sharp knife, okay?

Regardless, I didn’t stop for anything now that I’ve dived into the thick of combat. I always like to think of it as a dance, where toes being stepped on are the least of your worries. There’s a rhythm to battle, a grace that affords itself to only the best and most capable of warriors. Now, I’m not claiming to be the best when it comes to battle, but I’m really damn capable, and can be quite terrifying when I want to be. Right now though, I’m focused on cutting a swath through the bandits as fast as possible, in order to take pressure off my friends. I threw my knife whenever it’s deemed necessary, and abused its properties to always have it back within seconds. Otherwise, I was ducking, spinning and slashing out with my short-sword.

Nobody lasted past my first blow, since I went directly for the vitals or crippling blows. Pretty soon, the bandits were wary to the fact that something was cutting through them like so many stalks of wheat. And, for all the fallen around me, and the blood on the ground, there wasn’t a single drop on my clothes. It’s such a pain to get rid of, so I try and avoid any spray.

The bandits were beginning to recognize what was happening, though. Their comrades were falling to a little girl, and they were understanding that they need to be wary of me. Therefore, I could see bandits running the other way when they noticed me walking towards them, a savage grin on my face. Some even began dropping their weapons, and begging for mercy.

It looks like we’ve basically routed this group of bandits. They’re terrified of facing me, they can’t get anywhere near Spark due to interference run by Diana and Rina, and Xavier simply caused chaos wherever he went. Hell, is that some sort of plasma axe in his hands? Dammit Xavier—I want one too.

Anyway, I regrouped with them once it became apparent that bandits were beginning to run. Doubtless, the noise they make by running and yelling all over the place will wake up or alert those bandit’s who still haven’t noticed that there was a significant battle going on inside their own castle.

“So, did their leader give you any problems?” Asked Rina after we met up again. If she’s impressed by my combat skills, she doesn’t show it.

I shook my head.

“Easy prey. No issues.” I said.

“Right, did you find anything out from him?” She asked.

“Camp financed by Count….Something?” I replied, tilting my head to indicate confusion.

Everyone else looked baffled.

“Vina, did you….forget his name?” Asked Diana with some hesitation. I wasn’t known for forgetting things, after all.

Spark threw up his arms in exasperation.

“Great, so we don’t know who the ring-leader is, and the one who can tell us is dead, am I right?” He said, turning to me. I shook my head.

“No, name is Something.” I clarified. What? Did you think I’d actually forgotten something? Not likely, with my mind. It had just occurred to me right then that the Count’s name is rather odd. Something? Really? That’s the best the quest designer could come up with? I hadn’t lingered over the name itself, so intent was I on getting down from the tower, and supporting my friends.

“Wait, you meant his name is Something? Count Something?” Asked Rina, her tiny form fluttering in front of me. I nodded.

“Great, so we know where to go next. We just have to ask after this Count Something, and find out why he’s funding these bandits.”

I raise my hand eagerly. Oddly, I saw a blush crawl across Rina’s cheeks, small as they were.

“Er, yes Vina?” She asks.

“Know why Count funding bandits!” I say.

“Eh? You do?” Asked Xavier, perplexed.

I nodded. However, before I could explain any further, shouts and yells started up from another part of the camp. Ah, that would be the rest of the bandits, no?

I motioned for my friends to follow me to the entrance of the tower. If we stood just inside, it would limit the number of enemies able to come at us and the stairs would present a good opportunity to fall back. Not that the bandits would be pushing us back. It’s rather that moving around becomes slightly troublesome when there are too many bodies in the way, and falling back keeps them from piling up too high. We got into the tower just as a mob of angry bandit’s rounded a corner, revealing their large numbers. Grinning a little to myself, I reached into my inventory and threw a round and aged object at them.

“What was that?” Asked Spark, who had seen me throw the object, but not what it was. Still grinning, I answered him.

“Incentive.”

Not a second later, cries came from outside the tower, telling me that my gift hadn’t been well received.

“The Vice-leader’s head!” I heard someone call out.

“Those Bastards! Let’s make ‘em pay!”

“For our brothers!”

“Come on!”

Eh? Vice Leader? Then where’s the leader? I thought that man had been the leader of the bandits. Why was he in the tower, where that old man had said the leader would be? Did I screw up or something?

Dammit, this isn’t the time to be thinking about that stuff. We have a few hundred bandits coming our way, and have to deal with them first. I put away my blades in favor of my bow, and took a position above the others, on the stairs. That gives me a good vantage point into the crowd of bandits, where I can deliver my own version of godly justice.

Spark is of course in the front, to take the blows while Haven and Xavier do what they can to kill bandits. Rina—well, I guess she’ll do whatever she wants. The variety of magic under her belt gives her extraordinary flexibility like that. Normally, Eine would also be here, and would work on thinning out the enemy ranks from the back. Utilizing his prodigious abilities as an assassin, nobody would even notice that their comrades were vanishing from besides them. But, he’s not here. I really hope his family’s not making him do something unreasonable right now.

(Elsewhere, Ussen fights the urge to sneeze, which would alert others to his hiding place.)

Anyway, the first bandit appeared in the doorway. He’s a real big guy, with arms like tree trunks and his eyes red from rage. His thighs could probably snap a horse’s neck. Really, a prime physical specimen.

“Ya bastards’ll fall to me, Iv…!” He yelled out right after pushing through the doorway.

No, his name isn’t Iv. My arrow simply took out one of his eye’s, and bored straight through his skull to impact the chest of the man behind him, killing them both nigh on instantaneously. He didn’t have the time to finish speaking. In fact, his mouth is still flapping up and down, the neural impulses trying to finish his dying words.

“They killed Ivan!” I heard someone yell. Even more enraged shouts came from outside. I assume Ivan was well liked, for some bizarre reason. The guy felt like a total ass-hat to me. Well, it motivated the bandits to try and kill us even more, so I’ll take it as a personal win, I guess.

What followed wasn’t very fun. It was like grinding low level enemies one after the other, over the course of half-an-hour. Bandits would charge through the tower door. They would die. Every now and then, we would back up the stairs to make more room, and keep the body piles evenly distributed. It didn’t seem to bother the bandit’s that they were literally running over the bodies of their own comrades. Unfortunately, it seems like their AI is a bit limited in that respect, since a normal person wouldn’t want to go anywhere near a place where all their buddies had died. But no, the bandit’s just keep streaming right on in. Eventually, we were backed halfway up the tower, and I came across the familiar corpse of that richly dressed slaver I had dispatched earlier. That gave me the chance to more closely examine those papers he’d been so intent on.

I think they’re budget lists? Well, they have lot’s of numbers on them, though there’s no context anywhere. It must be one of those things where the man had his own notation, and didn’t bother considering that someone else would need to read them. Oh well. I went back to sniping bandits with my bow at near point-blank range. At this distance, the penetrative powers of my arrows are something fearsome to behold. I would make jokes about wood and penetration, but that’s too crass for even me.

Well, we fell back past the corpse of that slaver—at which point I learned something very, very ironic. You see, the stairwell curves round, right? That meant that the bandits couldn’t see the corpse until we had fallen far enough back for it to come within view. And once they did see it, the bandit’s reactions were rather enlightening.

“It’s the leader!”

“They killed him!”

“Revenge!”

I nearly broke down from the irony of it all. It looks like I’d ended up killing the bandit’s leader anyway, even if I mistook him for a slaver at first. I’ll just say that was on purpose, and that you readers are only finding out about this now for dramatic reasons. Or something.

Honestly though, I couldn’t have done that better if I had planned it. Well, maybe. This is me we’re talking about, after all.

Anyway, another fifteen minutes had the rest of the bandits cleared up. We then made our way down the newly christened “Tower of Death!” (Insert thunder and lightning here.) It was a bit of work, since we had to avoid slipping on the blood, or twisting anything in a bad way. While a broken leg or twisted ankle isn’t as painful in the game as it is in real like, it still stings rather badly.

Once out of the “Tower of Death!” (Thunder and lightning here.), we made a lap of the castle complex, taking care of any stray bandits we came across. There were a few groups who had obviously hung back for one reason or another, but they were put down quickly. It was a bit tedious, really.

And once we were sure all those above ground were accounted for, we made our way back into the dungeon under the castle. This time however, we made marks as we went along, well aware that entering the dungeon is a hell of a lot easier than exiting due to the deliberately confusing construction of the complex.

Reaching the dungeon proper, the smell of the place struck me again. I think it’s worse than when we were down here before, since we knew about it, and anticipated it in the worst way.

Ah well. I’m sure the “Tower of Death!” (Now obligatory thunder and lightning.) will smell worse in a few hours, after all the muscles relax enough too…You know what. I’m going to stop there, because that’s not a pretty image for me.

We went to each cell, and opened them. The prisoners, of whom most of them had resigned themselves to slavery or worse, blinked blearily at us.

“You guys are free to go, okay? All the bandits are gone now.” Said Spark in a kind and warm tone. The prisoner’s responded well to him, and the others started shepherding them out of the dungeon, and back to the fresh air up above. As for me, I went to the very last cell, where we had been placed before.

Inside it, Old Man was still siting in the same place as before. His milky eyes opened, and stared straight ahead, unfocused.

“Is that you lass?” He rasped.

“Yes. Bandits all dead. Thanks.” I said.

“Is that so? Well, I guess that’s the end of it then. I’ve had my revenge.” He said, a measure of peace creeping into his voice.

“Revenge?” I ask.

“Ah. Yes—I had much to atone for. You see, those bandits….they needed someone to plan and carry out the…rebuilding of this castle.” He wheezed.

“I was…taken. With my wife. My children were grown by that time. One of them was pregnant, I remember.” He paused for a second, contemplative.

“I was forced to draw plans. My wife was a hostage to give me incentive. And once I finished…” He stopped. It was obvious what had happened. There was a single tear falling from his eye.

“And I’ve been here since.”

“What’s your name, Old Man?” I asked.

“Fredrick.” He said, looking to the past. “Fredrick Dresden”

I nodded, somber.

“Ah…tell my children…let them know I’m at peace.” He said.

“I will.”

A few moments passed, our breathing the only palpable thing in the cell. His became increasingly ragged, until he drew in one last whispery breath.

“…Martha…” said Fredrick, before falling silent.

I found my friends outside, and we decided to bring all the ex-prisoners to the nearest city. Hopefully, the officials their can sort this stuff out while we hunt down Count Something. Of course, we'll also have to let the officials know about the "Tower of Death!" (You know by now.)

And then I have my own stuff to do. But first, hand over the people. Then, I think we're all logging out, and picking it up tomorrow.