ELi POV

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Staking out on a tree, I looked over the road out in the middle of the woods as the moonlight filtered through the dark trees. I had seen a carriage coming down the road a good ways off. More importantly, I saw the group of bandits who saw the carriage coming. My current position was farther north this time and the batch below me was far better armored than the last bunch I put down a few days ago.

I was thinking of how to kill them all and prevent the poor sods coming down the road from being murdered until I saw the telltale glow of orc eyes in the bushes farther back. This group of bandits also didn't have the regular band of mages helping them so it was going to be a proper ambush this time. It was honestly very unnerving to see the orcs when doing night operations and I had to admit some grudging acknowledgment of the bandits' tenacity to go out and be willing to face them.

It wasn't just the orcs ability to swarm in and out of the rivers and ponds with their frog-like allies, and it wasn't just the great skill a lot of them showed with their axes, bows, and darts. A big part of it was the creepy display of their eyes. When looking through a dark forest at night their green skin helped them blend in but their eyes would reflect the smallest torchlight or the moon if it glowed brightly enough.

Since orc eyes were black, it gave the effect of a pair of irises just floating in the air. There have been several troops of orcs moving through the woods in my scouting area and all my eyes could make out were several floating circles of red and gold as they moved around trees and boulders. I had also seen several ambushes where the bandits would walk through the woods carrying goods or trying to get somewhere and out of nowhere would be several red and gold irises just looking at them in the bushes and between the trees before they were stuffed with arrows, darts and throwing axes.

I was just damn glad to be up here in the treetops.

As I was thinking about how to deal with the situation while keeping the civilians out of the way, the neighing of a horse as the carriage came down the road reached my ears. Driving it was a red-haired man in a white shirt and brown pants who looked very tired. As he looked behind him into the carriages canopy, an arrow took him in the chest, from some archers farther up ahead I had apparently missed. He slumped forwards and the whole carriage ground to a halt as the panicked horses tried to pull back against the sudden onslaught of whooping bandits wielding clubs, swords, and daggers.

The men ran up to the carriage and dragged out a screaming woman. She had soft brown hair and was holding her crying daughter of about seven years old. As they leered at the crying duo they only just now noticed that the entire band of about 25 men had been cut down to barely more than 13 as the orcs tore through the back ranks with barely any sound that was distinguishable from their earlier battle cries.

"Go you sons of bitches. Get those green cunts!" One larger man, wearing nothing but brown pants and a belt holding a dagger and a sword yelled. He had a red mop of hair and while his green eyes spoke of ferocity, he apparently had no plans to die in glorious battle. The rest charged forward but he just turned around and grabbed the two trembling victims. Then he dragged them off behind the carriage.

The mother's green eyes were slicked with tears as they ran down her face and hair. But the bandit just kept pulling her along until they further into the woods. I bounded through the treetops silently but I couldn't move too fast as I didn't want to get spotted as I leaped around the woods away from the slaughter to the opposite side of the road. Then the mother started fighting back. Eventually, the bandit got tired of her struggling and took out a dagger, which he promptly slammed into her throat. The little girl, a freckled thing with light red hair and brown eyes cried out but he tossed her to the ground as he shoved the dying mother into the dirt. Then he turned to the little girl.

"Come on you little bitch, you'll at least keep my cock war-" The swing of a blade, dodged at the last possible second that only got to slice into his shoulder, interrupted him as an orc tried to remove his head.

She was a slender thing with a short bowl cut of black hair with a little bit running down the right side of her face and golden irises. Her form was like a ballerina but with more muscle. Aside from a scar across her left eye, there was very little I could see of her face in the night light. She wore black, skin-tight armor made of shiny leather, from what animal I could not guess.

The bandit drew out the sword at his hip and then I got a good look at his shoulder.

Jackpot. He had a gaping jaw tattooed on his shoulder that was now exposed due to the cut on his shirt.

"But how am I going-" My planning was interrupted when the orc grabbed the girl and pushed her off behind her as they tried to shuffle backward. I didn't have time to think about what I was seeing as the red-haired bandit made a move to go after them but after a second of consideration he promptly took off in the other direction. But my speed greatly outpaced his and my pool of patience had run out when I heard that little comment about the girl.

My boots were a special make of wood and water magic that acted as shock absorbers. It helped distribute the energy of landing throughout my legs and in the rest of my suit. I had worked out a series of wind and magic spells that did the same thing but the crafts did their work automatically and freed my mind to ponder on all the great times with this gentleman I had ahead of me.

After putting a stone bullet into his back, I slammed into the ground right a good foot in front of him. He miserably tried to lift up his sword as he laid in the dirt but I just kicked him in the side opposite the sword hand and turned him over after I used magic to yank the sword off into the underbrush.

"Damn orcs. Can't just let-" His voice died as his brain caught up with what his eyes were telling him. I must have been quite a sight. My body was just a thick 'mess' of vines and leaves with a deer skull for a head that had the horns sculpted forward.

"What the fu-" the swift punch of a stone first silenced him. I quickly healed and buried him in the dirt with just his head sticking out for air. Some stone restraints around his limbs and a cover for his head made of a pile of leaves, and he was properly restrained. Rushing back towards the carriage I tried to see if I could save the girl from the orcs but I didn't really understand what on earth they would want with a human peasant girl.

All sorts of images of the girl being torn limb from limb, tortured for sport, and all manner of gruesome fates presented themselves for a few seconds as I made my way up the trees and back to the battlefield. What had been the battlefield.

All the bandits had been butchered. Not surprising given the orcs abilities but as I scanned around the area I found something that was surprising. The little girl was on the carriage driver seat crying but the rest of the orcs just milled about picking up various pieces of armor or valuable metal bits. Beside her was the orc from earlier.

Out in the open, I could see the orc more clearly now. She had anther light horizontal cut across the top of her nose in addition to the vertical one across her eye. Her chin was very sharp and her chest against the girl showed a bust of a middling size. I noticed now that she had a black band around her throat as she hugged and patted the sobbing girl.

Eventually, the corpses were picked over and the orcs exchanged some words. Then the slender one on the carriage took the reins and led the carriage further down the road closer to one of the local villages as the rest shuffled back into the forest. I didn't know what to think of the situation so I just stalked behind them waiting to see what would happen. When they came near the end of the road towards a village the carriage stopped. The orc spoke a few more words to the girl then got off.

She helped the little girl down after tying carriage reins around a tree. Once the little girl was back on the ground, she ran off towards the village. The orc then stared for a moment and shot out back towards the woods. I looked out at the girl who seemed familiar with the place as she ran over to one house in particular and slammed on the door until the residents came out.

The orc was far more interesting though and I stalked her through the woods until she came back towards the main fighting force. The others gathered all of the good material from the battle but when she came over they started arguing. I decided that I wanted to know what they were saying so I sent a wind tunnel down the tree and over to them through the bush. It took a lot of careful maneuvering but I eventually got the wind tunnel to where I could hear.

"-at isn't fair. I fought good and hard in this fight, killing the three archers further up the road. I even went off to save the girl. You know the rules, fair split amongst all parties." She growled to another orc, blond with large muscles and red eyes.

Her opponent just spat at the ground.

"Shamed, you best be grateful we even let you fight with us. I'll bear no more shit talk about taking OUR loot." She growled back as she put her hand to the ax at her side.

The rest of the group looked at her in scorn as well. Outnumbered, the outcast simply scowled at all the others then shot off into the woods.

I had a painful stab of familiarity as I watched her push past the bushes into the night. Shaking my head I made my way back towards my stashed treasure. Coming up on the pile of leaves I saw he was still sleeping tightly in his hole. It took some doing, but eventually, I got him back in my house by shoving the air mask on him and dragging him through the water entrance while using a wind spell to hold a large bubble over my head.

After molding a stone table out of the earth near the pillar, I slapped my sleeping prisoner on it. The night was already too exhausting so I just left him in a stone cocoon, with the smallest head portion exposed, enchanted from a mana crystal with several bits of bark around him. These had enchantments had a sound blocking effect like the crafting pods back in the classrooms.

A good night's sleep was in order and it passed rather quickly. The next morning as I was coming down into my workshop, I could hear the faintest sounds of struggle. Closing the stone cocoon completely, I quickly went to put on my vine/deer skull get up that I put on a crude mannequin in the corner. When I cut the mana flow to the summoned stone around the cocoon by disabling the mana crystal with a wind spell, the whole thing disappeared except for the stone shackles around his limbs.

He looked around as his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden burst of light from the flame I held in my palm directly in front of him.

"I will speak. You will respond." I said with as blank a tone as I could manage.

'What the fuck is-" I turned the flame into a whip which I lashed across his body three times in as many seconds. One for disobeying me, two for the people he helped murder the night before. Then I dragged him off the table towards the small pool of the river entrance.

"Now, wait. I-" He yelled before I forced his head under.

A quick head only bath later, I pulled back up when I stopped seeing bubbles. He gasped for air in big mouthfuls before he threw up on the floor. Giving him just enough time to get some air in his lungs I slung him back on the table.

"I will speak. You will respond." I repeated as the lantern behind me flickered.

He spat at me with a look of defiance.

"I don't know who or what the fuck you are but it's gonna take more than that weak shit and a leaf costume to make me break. Maybe if you get down there and suck my dick for me we'll have a good conversation, cow head!" He spewed.

Cow head? Now that was just insulting.

I then sent out the vines from my suit onto his chest. From there I used my internal mana to grow them under his skin. He screamed in agony as the veins of green worked their way under his skin, gradually peeling him while leaving the loose skin on him.

"All right! All right! What do you want?" He screamed, his eyes now showing real fear as his face glistened from sweat.

"That tattoo on your shoulder. Tell me all about that gang and everything you know about their operations and locations." I said.

He looked confused for a moment until he started spilling everything he knew.

"I worked for them a good bit, but decided to strike out on me own to-"

"I don't give a shit about you. The gang. NOW!" I commanded.

"Works up in the woods past the grove a bit. They do a lot of... not violent crimes?" He said awkwardly as he was trying to explain this alien concept.

" It involves a lot of money with businesses and taxes. I never understood any of it. but I was a low-level grunt for them a while back. That was until I got tired of taking-"

I took a deep breath and proceeded to move the vines back over his chest near the bits of bloody spots where they last entered.

"Numbers, entrenched positions, preferred routes for trading and fighting, favored weapons and tactics. Not your fucking life story." I said as my patience neared its end. I knew he was disoriented but god damn I felt my brain cells dying just talking to him.

"A large stone fort with three floors out against the mountains. They keep it near in a small valley near the Beards Drip. The whole thing is a military camp near Bushwackers. Their preferred fighting style is whatever works. Mobs, stealthy hit and runs, hired assassins, whacking families, whatever gets them what they want. Pretty much like any of the other gangs." He said, breathing more and more heavily as he spilled his guts out.

"Where is the valley or Bushwackers?" I asked.

"Bushwackers is between Dunwich and the Dwarves Mountains. I don't know where the valley is, I only got a description from a guy stationed out there." He said pleadingly.

"Is that all?"I asked.

"Um..." His gaze told me he was out of information and he knew his end was here.

A spike of stone sprang up from the table into his skull, ending his life.

For all that was worth.

I quickly disposed of the body by putting it into a stone coffin and setting fire enchantments to burn the corpse to ash. Afterward, I threw the skeleton out of the underwater hatch to have it drift and shoved by the current of the river.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a more close-range option for my vine suit when Salamede came by near the setting of the sun. I was currently adjusting the hammock when she knocked on the door.

"Ah, good. I had something I wanted to show you," I said as she put down her cleaning supplies to follow me into the workshop.

"I see you're still at it, so what does that do?" She asked as she pointed towards the retracted wooden hand fit snugly in the vines of my suit laying on the stone table. It would be out of view but I had lifted up the vines to work on it.

"You know how you use spirit magic to activate a mana flow with the jet boosters?" I asked as I put down the needed plant mana construct into the triangle.

"Yeah" She replied.

"Well, this runs on that same principle but, this allows me to move them semi-independently. With this, I can wield an extra set of blades while keeping my hands free. Once I get the hang of using them obviously." I finished.

"So, it's like having two new arms?" She said excitedly.

I had to admit, there was a part of me that enjoyed dazzling her with my inventions. It wasn't the recognition of the entire mage world, but hey a little appreciation goes a long way.

"Eh, not really. I don't have any delusions of using the spirit magic to such a fine degree. But activating certain triangles will allow me to do crude thrusts and swings." I said.

To do a little demonstration, I put out my spirit magic and sent the electric sensation into the wood while thinking 'flow' at the joints in the elbow and wrist. It took a little work but I got the spirit magic to make the right connections in the left arm when it suddenly shot out in a simple thrust.

Salamede gave an excited little coo of wonder.

"Want to give a try?" I asked her, to which she excitedly nodded.

It took a few minutes but after explaining the principles, she got pretty decent at it. While she worked moving the wooden arms, I went over how to broach the real reason I had invited her here until I got it down.

"I have to make a trip up north to the grove. Do you know anything else about the place?"

Slalmede paused for a moment in consideration before resuming our conversation in a spirit connection.

"It doesn't have any hard borders as far as I'm aware. You just know you're in it when you get there. But the more northern part is treated as distinctly more peaceful than the southern section" She replied

"And one more thing. After I get back did you want to help me hunt bandits?" I asked.

This was something I had been reluctant to do, but I needed all the backup I could get. A few rounds of practice with the gun and jumping mechanics and she would be good enough to stay in the back and kill people out of site. Plus, she didn't panic when she set the troll on fire or run away when it charged so I felt she had that 'it' factor where combat was involved.

She waited a long moment just leaving the wooden arm hanging in the air until she turned to me.

"I'll think about it. But whatever I decide, let me make you some good traveling meals before you go." She said through the spirit connection.

"Thank you, and I will await your answer," I said as I gave a slight bow.

"I better get going. Those meals will need to be cooked good and long if they're to be travel-worthy." She said before heading out.

I gave another slight bow in appreciation. After she left, I spent the rest of the day working on the suit and going to get lunch and dinner. I did a last-minute check of my equipment to make sure it was all in order for my early morning trip tomorrow before going to bed.