1st of Saun 718
It never stopped.
It never ended.
They never learned.
Arrows whizzed past as the adventurer pressed his back against a tree. The bark scraped at his arms where his skin was unprotected, his armor not covering it. His upper arms, his lower thighs, and half of his face did not enjoy any protection from harm and the elements both, but the adventurer didn’t mind. The cold didn’t bother him anyway.
“Never should have come here,” his assailant roared, firing more arrows into the old pine.
The adventurer didn’t pay it any attention, having heard similar things many, many times before. One would think after all he’d done, people would learn--
An arrow drilled itself into the bark of the evergreen with a dull thud, right beside the adventurer’s face. Dusty white snow was knocked off some branches with the impact. The bowman had circled around, aware of his prey’s position, to strike from an unexpected angle.
It was futile. The incantation was complete.
The adventurer mage came back out of the brief trance required to cast his spell, preferring to cast it once with a time limit rather than continuously divide his attention between the spell and what was happening around him.
For the second time an arrow was trained on target, aim adjusted a moment after the first had missed. The second projectile left the bow’s embrace not an eye-blink later, and the adventurer did not have time to even throw himself to the ground.
Not that he needed to.
Without a sound the arrow bounced off as if hitting solid rock, plunging into the snow, shaft broken.
The adventurer grinned as his foe’s eyes went wide.
He took a step forward, and the man retreated by the same margin. Despite his fur and hide garb giving him a rough appearance, the man was not stupid. He visibly considered running, but to die a coward was a shameful death.
The man discarded his bow and drew his blade, shouting a taunt. The adventurer merely shrugged and unsheathed his own, infuriatingly calm. The rugged man saw his chance. The steel bit into the unprotected neck of the adventurer, but there was no blood, no wound. Like the arrow, the blade bounced off, leaving not even a scratch. Another grin as response to the confusion and despair, and the blade plunged mercilessly into the man’s chest. Through the flesh and between the ribs, piercing the heart and causing flowers of blood to bloom on the furcoated armor. Like a ragdoll he plopped down in the snow, staining the white with crimson.
He didn’t have much on him in the way of valuables. Some gold coins, some jerky, a couple sticks of charcoal for writing. Nothing worth taking.
The adventurer eyed the cave entrance the dead man had been guarding. Perhaps his buddies inside… It was decided. For this waste of time, for the disgrace of not recognizing him, he’d murder them all, raid their hideout and take their loot. And claim the bounty for eradicating the bandit leader of this area too.
It could have been very different. If the guard hadn’t begun his attack, the adventurer just have passed through the area without any any trouble. Perhaps some obnoxious wolves to stave off, or a bear, but the bandits would have been allowed to live on merrily.
Alas, they never learned.
