Chương 39: Bandit Outpost

We follow the trail not to a clearing with a camp, but to an actual outpost. This must be what the adventurer quest was intending us to find. It's a palisade of wooden spikes surrounding an even more permanent camp. The leantos built here seem to be built with every intention of making them permanent, and there is even a small shack for storage visible over the wall.

"We should wait until dark," I say.

"That'll give us the advantage of being able to see without being seen." Gigi shakes her head.

"If we wait that long, they'll be on guard. Right now, they're expecting those people to come back, probably around sunset. They'll get worried when the other twelve don't show up. We're better off attacking now, when they have no reason to be suspicious." There's a guard up in a tower. Two of them, keeping an eye out in every direction. It's not all that valuable of a placement, because the forest is thick enough that I'm sure they can't see us even just fifty feet away.

But it will give them at least a moment of warning when we attack. And it gives me a chance to sneak closer, right to the edge of the trees, and investigate these two guards and make sure that things aren't going to get out of hand. Human Bandit Scout. Rare elite humanoid, level 8. HP 2000/2000. Rare elite. I think that's the first time I've seen anything identified that way. Clearly it comes with a big sack of hit points. Okay. There are at least two of them. How many more can be inside? There are six leantos.

Each one can probably sleep four people. That's twenty four. Call it thirty just to be safe, and in case they're rotating whose sharing the beds. If there were thirty to begin with, and we took out twelve, that means there are eighteen left. They probably aren't all rare elite, but if they are, this is going to take some time. And what if there's someone even higher level who is also rare elite? This is an outpost, so there's probably a bandit leader.

"I'm guessing we're dealing with a bandit leader and probably two lieutenants," I whisper as we convene to make our plan.

"I'm going to climb this tree and count." Turns out, climbing is the skill that gets me to two hundred. It isn't something increasing, it's a brand new skill. I climb up, using Camouflage to stay hidden as I get a higher vantage point where I can actually look into the outpost. I complete the quest Skill Savant and get 7500 experience. Unfortunately, no new quest takes its place yet. I imagine I'll need like 500 skills to get the next one anyway, so I'm not all that worried.

But 7500 experience puts me at 29, 019 experience, just under a thousand points away from level twenty five. This battle, however it goes, will be enough for me to level up. I can tell that just from the two scouts that I'm watching as I settle into my perch and get a good look at what's going on inside. There's about twenty feet of open space between the edge of the palisade and the forest. That's enough room for them to see us coming, and probably enough space for the two scouts to get off a shot, at least.

It might be enough room for several archers to get off shots. Especially because we have to climb the palisades, assuming they get the gate closed in time. We could try to charge for the gate, but all they have to do is push it shut and drop a heavy bar on it, and we'll be locked out. We don't have the numbers, supplies, or patience for a siege. So we have to get through. We have to get in, even if it means going over the wall. But going over the wall means getting shot at. A lot.

And while the bandits might not do too much damage, they might get some kind of bonus for how exposed we'd be, and they might be able to do a lot. Better plan is to go in through the gate. Which means stopping them from closing the gate. How many guards are there near the gate that could potentially close it? How many bandits are there inside the fortress? I start counting, seeing the guards by the gate, picking out the guy in charge and even clocking at least one of the lieutenants.

I'm not able to get identification on anyone; they're all about sixty or more feet away from me, and there's apparently a range requirement that's less than that. But how much higher level could the main guy be? How much higher level could his lieutenants be? I climb back down just as slowly as I climbed up, trying to remain hidden as I get back to my friends. Climbing increases to two, and my sneak finally crests the twenty mark. It feels good to have so many skills up so high.

"There are twenty of them by my count," I say as I get back down. That's more than I had guessed, so it's a good thing I climbed up and actually counted.

"At least two of them are rare elites, which puts their hit points up to two thousand. I'm guessing there are two lieutenants – I only identified one – who are probably two or three levels higher than the regular bandits. And there's one over boss type, who's probably two or three levels higher than that. A lot of hit points, but I don't think it's going to be that much danger."

"I wish Ash was here," Gigi says.

"And Vincent. I'd feel way more comfortable taking this on with the five of us."

"Do we have a plan?" El asks.

"Or are we just going to charge in and kill them all? Because I'm all for that plan." I'm sure she is. She has over two thousand hit points by herself, and she has Shell. Oh, and I think she takes less than full damage from most attacks while she's at it.

"I'd rather we try to break things up a little," I say.

"Let's take out the guards in the tower."

"Can we do that?" Gigi asks.

"You said they have two thousand hit points. I don't know that we can do that much damage that quickly."

"I can take one of them out," I say, pretty confident that I can.

"It'll take a few seconds for the bleed to kill him, but I think I can take him out pretty quickly. Fast enough that he won't be able to see where I'm shooting from, at least."

"They'll close the gates as soon as they realize they're under attack," Gigi says.

"And climbing over that wall looks like it's going to be a bitch."

"You'll probably get a skill out of it," I say.

"I got two points of climb just for going up and down a tress."

"Well, that's at least something," El says with a little laugh.

"What are a few arrows to the face if you can get a skill out of the deal?" Okay. So this isn't going to work. We need to charge in. Unless.

"What if we leave the two in the tower alone and take out the guards by the gate? They might be the regular rare advanced bandits, which means they only have 800 hit points. We can take those out without raising alarm." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Gigi nods.

"And if we take them out before we charge, there'll be no one to close the gate on us. I like it. How many of them were by the gate?"

"Two," I say. They were laughing and talking to each other. No idea how close death is to both of them. We creep close to the edge of the clearing, until we can clearly see both of them.

"I'll take out the first one, then we all concentrate fire on the second," I say. The girls nod, each one nocking an arrow and taking aim for the second guard. I draw down on the first guard and use Sniper Shot to get a sneak attack and kill him. Then I immediately use Rapid Shot on the other one. Between my five arrows and the two from Gigi and El, he goes down before he can make a sound either.

"Go!" I whisper, turning my attention to the guys in the towers. They still haven't spotted us, but they spot El pretty much the instant she breaks the treeline. I fire at him, hitting him for 108 damage as he screams a warning to everyone, shouting for the gate to be closed. El and Gigi stop right inside the gate. It's the best position for them to be fighting.

They have their retreat open behind them if they need it, there are walls to either side of them to prevent anyone from circling around and flanking them, and the enemy has to come at them in smaller numbers. They can't get surrounded, but they can spread out and make sure they are fighting the bandits as they come. I shoot at the one in the tower again and again, peppering him with arrows. Each time I hit him I'm dealing about 190 damage, but that means I need at least eleven arrows in him to kill him.

So I concentrate on putting that many arrows into flight, watching them thud in to him one after another. It's not long before he's shooting back at me, his height giving him an advantage to hit me. I take 33 damage, then 26, then another 31. He deals 40 damage as I hit him with the tenth arrow, and then another 19 when I hit him with the eleventh.

I duck behind a tree as his companion opens fire on me, shooting arrows into the tree that I'm hiding behind and into the ground next to it, like he's trying to catch me when I look around the tree to see him. It's suppressing fire. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that with a bow and arrow before. Usually, they shoot too slow. But he's shooting fast. Which probably means something. I take a breath, then step out and fire a Rapid Shot at him.

It deals 670 damage to him, but I take a shot in the shoulder that deals 29 to me. Mine's going to end up doing more than 1300 damage with the bleed effect, but it still matters that he hit me. My Shell is getting thin. I took about 160 points of damage in the ambush fight, and I've taken almost another two hundred in this fight. That's still less than half my Shell, but it's getting lower than I'm comfortable with. Still, I step out and shoot him again, taking another 31 damage from his bow.

I grimace and stay out where I can see him, where I can shoot back. My bow increases to twenty seven as I hit him another time, and my dodge goes up to nineteen as I step out of the way of his return shot. Strange that dodge isn't a required skill for being a ranger. It seems like a natural skill that I'd want to have, that I'm glad I do have. He does another 107 points of damage to me before I kill him, though it takes four hits to do so. I would probably look like a porcupine if not for Shell.

As it stands, there are maybe a dozen arrows just laying on the ground around me. I scoop up as many of them as I can, putting them into my spatial bag as I step out into the clearing to get a better look at the gate where my friends are fighting. They're each fighting three bandits, though from the looks of it, they're all the regular style bandits. Still, three to one is tough odds, and they're both taking a bit of a beating.

I fire a Rapid Shot at one of the fighters, but another takes his place as soon as I take him down. And the one that takes his place looks different. Human Bandit Warrior. Rare Elite humanoid, level 10. HP 2230/2500. That must be the lieutenant. I focus my fire on him, shooting as fast as I can to try to rapidly deplete that health pool. My shots only do 88 damage to him, which means he's got a pretty hefty defense rating. But every shot helps, I'm sure.

Every drop of blood I get out of him is a little bit less damage he can deal to my friends. It's a little bit less of a chance that I'll have to rush up and heal Gigi. I don't think I'm going to have to heal El. She's drenched in a sheen of sweat, and while there are little lines from scratches on her arms, they're just scratches. She's got a big smile on her face, and from what I can tell her health bar is barely below ninety percent. I also see weapon strikes getting deflected by her own Shell.

She must have just recast it. I fire a Rapid Shot at the bandit warrior. At this rate, I'm going to run out of arrows in my quiver pretty quickly. Then I'll have to see just how good I am at drawing arrows from my spatial bag. There are another hundred or so arrows in there, so I'm not worried about running out. But I am worried about how quickly I'll be able to draw. I fire again and again, then a third time. As I reach for a fourth arrow, though, there isn't one there. No problem.

I reach into my spatial bag, imagining an arrow, and pull one out. It takes maybe an extra half a second to draw and fire. That's a long time, in the grand scheme of things. I try reaching into the spatial bag and pulling out ten arrows at once. They come out as easily as one did, and I slot them into my quiver just as Rapid Shot comes off cooldown. I fire another Rapid Shot into the bandit warrior, hoping that maybe sixteen shots will be enough to take him down.

He doesn't go down right away, but all the bleeding combined does take him down. Sixteen is the magic number. Or the number to beat with the lieutenants, anyway. I pull ten more arrows out of my spatial bag with one hand while I summon a fire bolt in the other, sending it to hit the bandit that takes the place of the warrior while fighting Gigi. The hundred and fifty damage makes him stagger back a step, which is all Gigi needs to run him through and then bash him away with her shield.

I'm tempted to just watch her and El fight for a while. The fight very differently from one another, but both fight with a brutality that is just awe inducing. El takes big swings, leaving herself wide open to return attacks and then somehow just barely twisting out of the way of them, turning potentially lethal hits into little nicks and scratches as she swings back the other way, knocking someone off their feet.

By contrast, Gigi fights in a much more tight and enclosed manner, using her shield to knock people's weapons aside and then lunging forward with the sword for devastating effect. There's room up there for me, if I want to charge ahead and start using my sword. But I do more damage with the bow and with the magic, so I keep that up.

I shoot a few arrows into the crowd of bandits, then throw a bolt of fire at them to keep them on their toes as Gigi methodically strips her opponents of health, breaking down one after another, barely moving except to turn from one to another. El, on the other hand, jumps all around, a whirling dervish of death with her axe as she cleaves the head off one bandit and then buries the head of the axe into the chest of another.

I keep shooting, letting off another Rapid Shot and then refilling my quiver again while throwing fire bolts. The battle isn't exactly one sided, but it is clear that we're winning. As well we should. Even the big boss is unlikely to be higher level than twelve, and that's just half of what we are. We're going to win this battle. It's just a question of how much of a our resources we're going to use while we do. My MP is down to 500, as is my Shell.

My stamina is still hovering at maximum, recharging faster than I'm using it. I can use fifty more fire bolts. I might be able to kill half a dozen bandits just with that. How many have we taken out so far? There were twenty to begin with. I've taken out the two in the towers, the two at the gate, and then four more after that. That's eight. Looks like Gigi has taken out five and El is working on her sixth. That should only leave two more. One of which is the bandit leader. Human bandit leader.

Rare elite humanoid, level 14. HP: 2, 655/3, 500. Okay. Looks like I got a few good hits on him when he was back in the crowd, or maybe one of the girls got a good swing on him that I didn't see. But he steps up to fight with El, while Gigi finishes with the other one. I'm a really good shot. Am I a good enough shot to get in between El's jumping around and swinging wildly and the bandit leader's dexterous dance as he weaves his blade in and out of her defenses? I might be. But I'm not sure.

And I don't want to risk it. I definitely don't want to risk it on another Rapid shot. No, it's time I closed the distance and drew my own sword. It's time we took on this bandit leader as a group.