Chương 38: Ambush

So we set off in search not of greater lynxith, as we had planned on yesterday, but rather in search of bandits. Logically, bandits are going to either be scouting around, like the one we tracked back to camp yesterday, or they're going to be waiting to waylay travelers. To do that, we need to find a road. To find a road, we need to follow our noses. Every path we take is an animal path, but those will cross with roads eventually.

We just have to take every turn that smells more like people and less like animals, and eventually we'll find the road. It takes us the better part of the morning, but we do run across a road. It isn't paved, but it's wide enough for a wagon to roll down the center of it, and there are ruts where wagons have gone before. I'm sure it becomes harder to pass when it rains, but the dirt is packed pretty densely, so there might not be all that much mud. Maybe in certain places.

Places that it would make sense to set up an ambush. The problem with looking for an ambush site is that the bandits are likely already there, waiting. They're likely to ambush us rather than the other way around. Still, if they're as low level as the last group of bandits we saw, maybe we should just walk into an ambush. Maybe we should let them attack us, and just take them down in the ensuing battle. They'll surround us as best they can, then probably call for us to surrender.

We'd probably prefer to give up our money than our lives, right? That makes sense even for seasoned adventurers. How many will there be to ambush us? If there are fewer of them than there are of us, they'll let us go by. They won't try to ambush us unless they have us outnumbered and believe they have us at a severe enough disadvantage that we just give up. Will two to one be enough? Three to one? The last group of bandits we encountered outnumbered us six to one and we defeated them handily.

But that was when we were ambushing them. I don't know if we can take six to one when they have the upper hand at the start of the battle. They're going to be shooting at us from cover. We walk down the center of the road, looking for somewhere that would be a good spot for an ambush. I think we're waiting for an attack, given the way Gigi has her sword in hand and El has her axe over one shoulder as they walk. I have an arrow nocked in my bow, with another held in the same hand as the bow for a rapid second shot.

As we walk, I keep an eye out in the underbrush and in the trees along the side of the road, trying to spot bandits hiding in the trees and waiting for us. I don't see anyone, but after about forty five minutes of looking, I do gain a level of alertness.

"We're walking into a trap," Gigi says as we keep walking. She adjusts the grip on her sword.

"Yeah," I say.

"That seems like a dumb idea." She looks over at me.

"Wouldn't you think?"

"They're only level eight," I point out.

"That's so weird," El says.

"I mean, it's so unrealistic. We don't know if they're all that level. And we shouldn't care. It's a bad idea to walk into a trap." There's movement ahead, and I smell people.

"It may be too late," I say.

"I think we just walked into one." Looking around, I spot six of them in the trees. They all have bows, arrows nocked and aimed at us. And next to each of them is another bandit, this one armed with a sword, ready to come out and fight. Twelve of them and three of us. Four to one odds. That's pretty solidly in their favor. I stop walking.

"Come on out," I say.

"Make your demands."

"Drop your coin pouches on the ground and just keep walking," a voice says from the woods.

"No harm will come to you." I look at the girls. They're already ready for combat. I see no point in dragging this out, but a little voice does tell me to try to solve the problem without violence.

"If you attack us, we're going to kill you," I say.

"Back away now, and no harm will come to you." I hear a bow string tighten, and I turn towards it and fire at the shooter just as he releases his arrow. Mine has the benefit of Sniper Shot, and deals 469 damage. With the bleed from that arrow, that'll be enough to kill him. His arrow hits me, dealing 19 damage. It would probably also cause bleed if not for Shell absorbing the damage. El screams a war cry and charges off into the trees to start fighting.

Gigi quickly moves to the other side of the road and does the same. I'm left standing in the road. I shoot a Rapid Shot at another of the bandits, ending his life a few seconds later from the bleed as well. Another two shots hit me, one dealing 21 damage and the other dealing 25. I move to the side of the road that Gigi took, using the trees for cover as I take aim and shoot at one of the archers who shot me. I deal 88 damage with my strike, which tells me that I hit his armor.

I like the shots that ignore armor much better. I need a bow that ignores armor. Or arrows that do. The target arrows would probably pierce through armor much better, but they wouldn't bleed. And bleed is way more important. Bleed turns 88 damage into 173 damage, which is more than the bow shot would do if I just ignored the armor. So I suppose bleed is good for now. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I take another hit for 21, and I shoot two arrows at the man who just shot me. If he has a clear shot on me, that means I have a clear shot on him. Looking at him through the branches, I can see him grimace when another arrow thuds into his arm. It's too bad I can't use Sniper Shot on him. It has to be on an unsuspecting target. But I can use Rapid Shot again when it comes off cooldown, if he's not already dead. A minute is a long time.

I shoot at him again, then fire a fire bolt at him, the bolt doing even more damage. That spell does 150 points of damage per hit, and seems to ignore armor. Again, not as good as the bleed effect, but good for sudden surprise, and good enough to get him to move away from his defended position and let me get another shot at him when he's wide open and not under cover. An arrow thuds into the tree next to me. My next shot doesn't miss, and the archer falls. That's three I've taken out. Half the archers.

But only one of them is still shooting at me, which means that Gigi and El have probably taken out the other two. As fast as my shots can be, I'm wasting a lot of time trying to aim around cover, trying to make sure that my arrows actually hit. I could probably fire four or even five times faster than I currently am, but I'd still hit about as often, so I'm not wasting the arrows.

Hitting a tree is bad for the arrow – and the tree – and can break or at least weaken the shaft of the arrow, making it unrecoverable after the battle. And if the head of the arrow goes too deep into the tree, I won't be able to recover it to make new arrows either. So better not to waste shots. I take careful aim and let loose an arrow at the remaining archer. I have a brief fantasy of my arrow snapping the string on his bow rather than hitting him, but that doesn't happen.

Still, it gives me the idea, and I wonder if I could make that shot. My bow skill is pretty high, the highest of all my skills at 26, but I don't think I can make that shot. Still, something tells me I need to try, and I take careful aim. I take a deep breath, center myself, and let loose the shot. It doesn't hit right where I'm aiming, but rather a few inches to the left. That's the bad news. The good news is that a few inches to the left is right into the eye of the archer.

I do a full 268 damage, and he screams and drops his bow, his hand going to his ruined eye. That's worth enough damage that he doesn't survive my next shot, which ends up hitting him in the chest and dropping him to the forest floor. As he falls, I am hit for 36 damage by a sneak attack, the blade sliding along my back, deflected by Shell. It's the most damage I've taken in a long while, and I whirl to see who dealt it. It's another of the bandits, holding a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.

He slashes at my face, and I nearly fall over dodging the blow. He keeps coming, and I stagger out into the road, desperately trying to reach my sword. He stabs me again, this time for 12 damage, and then slashes across my arm for 8 more. I finally get my sword free and swing wildly, hitting nothing but making him step back long enough for me to get my footing underneath me. I'm pretty good with a sword now, and knocking his blows aside isn't all that difficult for me.

But he has two blades, and he knows how to use them well, so it's really all I can do to keep knocking his attacks aside or dodging them. I don't have the momentum to actually attack back. I can't hit him without letting him hit me. Still, I'm sure I'll come off better for the exchange. I use Bleeding Strike and hit him for 67 damage, then I shoot a Fire Bolt at him for another 150. Magic is clearly the way to go in this fight, but I still have to accept a hit from him every time I fire a bolt.

He deals 9 more damage to me to hit him with the Bleeding Strike, and then 16 when I hit him with the fire bolt. I try to back away, trying to put some distance between us. If I do that, I can start throwing fire bolts at him without having to worry about getting stabbed or slashed. But he keeps up with me step for step, maintaining combat range and not letting me get back to where I'm comfortable. I slash at him again, watching his health plummet as I do 50 damage here and 58 damage there.

He hits me again for another 13, then another 7. We keep exchanging blows, but he's definitely getting the worse of it. It's just a matter of time before he goes down. A matter of time and a question of how low he can bring my Shell in the process. He grimaces, seeming to know that the battle is not going to go his way. He's just trying to buy time, possibly so that his companions can finish with my companions and come to overwhelm me. I'm kind of trying to do the same thing.

Because if I took out three of them, him being the fourth, then I'm pretty sure that El and Gigi have taken out four of their own. Each. He begins to look more and more desperate as time passes without his friends coming to join him.

"You should run," I tell him as we exchange blows.

"Your friends are probably already dead. You should run before it's too late." There's a brief pause, and I get a notification that I've just gained a skill called intimidation, but he doesn't run. I'm guessing my charisma isn't high enough to convince him yet. Just as well. I feel better because I tried, and he doesn't last more than another hit with Bleeding Strike. You have defeated bandit x12. You receive (9600/3) 3200 experience. I'm inching closer to another level.

I remember a time when three thousand experience would've meant multiple levels. Weird that I miss that. Though I suppose I could always let myself get killed and then I could experience it all over again. That does not sound appealing, intrusive thoughts be damned. It looks like these bandits have been busy. We manage to get 58 gold from their pockets, along with another six bows, ten short swords, and twelve daggers. Now my bag is getting heavy.

"That's one more gold for the group account," Gigi announces, sharing out nineteen each to me and to El.

"Now do we track them back to their campsite and deal with any stragglers we find?" That was the plan, and it's not hard to find their trail. They haven't done anything to disguise it, and the smell of oil and leather is easy to follow, my alertness increasing to fourteen while my tracking goes up to fifteen. I check how that does on my skill savant class, and it looks like I'm just one skill point shy. I wonder which skill will end up doing it. Which one will put me over the two hundred mark?