"Bound spirits? Those are usually a bad idea."
"If you do it wrong, definitely. But I would be creating the spirit to see the ship as its home, not binding it against its will."
"Interesting, and what about…"
We continued on like that for a long time. While Leona was fascinated and had little frame of reference for the purely mechanical parts of the Azure Horizon, she had worked with me long enough that some of the smaller quality of life improvements I had introduced when talking about or making the healing mystic codes that she could understand the broad strokes. It did make actually fabricating a new reactor and replacing the slagged one take much longer than it would have otherwise.
But she was curious and I was hardly going to discourage that kind of thinking, especially when she would be following me to god knows where and not knowing something like say, what a car was, would make her stick out more than we absolutely were going to anyway.
Besides, I was almost done anyway. A few extra minutes wasn't going to make a difference in the end…I hoped.
Once that was done I had to check on anything else that might have been shaken up during my little crash landing now that I had power again, but for once luck seemed to be on my side. Besides a few burned out lights and a replaced length of cable for one of the doors, there was very little damage to the interior.
The exterior was another story and was scraped to hell in some places, punctured by rocks in others, and a good bit of the front was still technically buried. According to the sensors the ventral weapons were probably scrap along with a good bit of plating, but the ship was still sealed so I would have to wait until I got to a world capable of supplying large amounts of sheet metal.
Problems for another time.
Inside was good, outside was as good as it was going to get. It was time to leave, I thought as I flipped the ignition switch.
There were a few vibrations throughout the ship that had Leona looking around in a panic while I had a laser focus on the power readout. Theoretically the reactor was perfectly safe, but I couldn't shake the feeling I had just installed a giant bomb until it came online normally at least once. But once it did and the ship started going through its full startup checks I quickly relaxed.
Everything was good.
"Last chance if you're having second thoughts." I told Leona, who was watching the control panel with astonishment. "I can drop you off anywhere you want, no questions asked if you don't feel like you want to do this."
"And miss seeing wonders like this? I could never!" My apprentice denied. "But I thought you hadn't bound a spirit to the vessel yet, how are the little levers moving by themselves?"
They were doing what now?
I rushed over to see what she was talking about and sure enough, several switches were moving on their own. Some buttons too, now that I was looking at them.
The ship was running through initial checks and startups after the reactor was replaced so they weren't doing anything, but what could have caused this to…
"Son of a bitch, that's how he did it." I muttered angrily as I figured out what was going on. "That clever bastard…"
"Is something wrong?" Leona asked worriedly.
I took a moment to calm down. No point freaking her out just because I was frustrated. "Well, as you might have guessed from the fact I crashed here, I didn't exactly plan my landing. I was actually planning on visiting a different World entirely but one of the guardians there mistook me for one of the threats they have to deal with occasionally and managed to kick me out of the dimension entirely." I explained. "I thought it was some kind of spell or something, but the bastard just enchanted my control panel to repeat the last few actions over and over again. That's what caused me to skip through a few dimensions and eventually crash here when the reactor broke down and the safeties refused to let me do another jump…"
"He must have been incredibly powerful to do such a thing!" Leona exclaimed which felt like an arrow right through my heart.
"I mean, he called himself a master so he's probably no slouch, but this is such a simple spell I don't think he needed to try very hard…" I slouched over and hid my face.
It was actually pretty humbling.
While I couldn't consider myself a master of magic I at least thought I had been beaten because I'd been up against someone simply stronger, more experienced, and with the backing of an organization that regularly protected their planet from extra-dimensional threats that kicked me out with irresistible force. And now I was finding out that I had really been beaten by the equivalent of a street performer doing a card trick.
"O-oh, um, well at least you discovered it now before it became an issue again?" Leona tried comforthing me, which did little to help since she was the one to notice it.
Still, I appreciated the effort.
"Yeah…anyways, the spell is broken and I'll get some defenses over the controls when I have a chance…we shouldn't need it for where I plan on taking us and we just packed everything up…so, ready to go?" I rambled a bit, trying to push through my embarrassment.
"As ready as I'll ever be…but where are we going?"
I nodded at the expected question. "Eventually I want to try and find a World where I can deal with my injuries permanently, but thanks to my research with the elves it's not an immediate problem." The dashboard beeped in front of me and I took a second to look over the various startup errors – nothing that would stop us from taking off. "So instead I want to try and find a more technologically focused World so I can build something to help me use my magic better."
I was sick of trying to calculate everything for my bombardment spells in my head. Getting even a basic device up and running would change all that.
It would also let me do things with a bit more finesse than 'glass everything in that general direction'.
That would be nice…
"How does that work?" Leona asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. "Do you just look randomly until you find what you are looking for, or is there a kind of map you can use?"
"Usually I need to enter a world at random to see what's going on but there are ways to navigate the Dimensional Sea…it's kinda hard to explain if you don't have the senses for it…" I debated trying to teach her for a moment before discarding the idea. I barely knew what I was doing. Trying to teach someone as tech-illiterate as Leona would only end badly. "But the good news is that I already have a good idea of where to go thanks to the random jumping the Azure Horizon was forced to do, ironically enough."
I had only gotten a brief view before the ship jumped out of the World again but there are some sights that just stick with you.
Especially when you pulled up a saved image from the forward camera and put it on one of the cockpit screens.
"Is…is their moon…broken?!" Leona gasped as she moved closer to get a better look at the picture.
"Yeah, don't worry too much about it. It's not a big deal."
Leona gave me an incredulous look. "Their moon is broken! How is that not a big deal?!
"Cause it's been that way for a while and nothing bad has happened because of it." I replied as I ran through the last few preflight tasks. "Besides the god that broke it isn't even around anymore, so it's fine."
"The what?!"
Ah, I should give her a bit of a history lesson on the way there so she knows what to expect. It'd be awkward if she was labeled a crazy person for not knowing some of the basics…Intermission 2
Nathanael sighed as he closed out another report.
He really wanted to spend more time looking for the cause of all the incidents along his wavelength of reality, if only to make sure it couldn't happen again, but his boss had caught up with him only moments after he began looking just to tell him that he needed to get all the disturbances documented before he did anything else.
It was pointless busy-work and Nathanael would be happy to tell that to anyone that asked his opinion. Unfortunately for him, his boss obviously didn't care about his opinion which meant Nathanael was busy filling out ten different forms for each incursion noted even if it had only been registered for a few moments before disappearing again.
All while his own actual work piled up in the background.
He still needed to figure out why ALG-184-G had given him an Avatar Already Uploaded error when he definitely hadn't finished the process to upload one. It was probably a read error or something equally annoying that was the result of a malfunction somewhere. Unfortunately, he just had his workstation replaced three millennia ago so there was almost no chance of getting another upgrade so soon unless he could prove what was causing issues. And even then his boss would probably just tell him to reset whatever it was and see if that fixed it.
Speaking of his boss, another note just arrived. 'Good job resolving the 901 issue. Keep up the good work.'
Nathanael could only stare at the message because he hadn't even gotten around to looking at ALG-184-G again, let alone actually doing anything to resolve the issues there but ultimately he shrugged his shoulders and decided to accept the rare praise.
He would just look at the logs to get an idea of what happened later so if anyone asked he could pretend he knew what had happened.
…after he got through the rest of those incidents…
-o-
"You got most of them right that time." I complimented as I finished looking over the primer I had given Leona.
My assistant turned companion had a lot to learn about what more advanced societies took for granted. And while I had taught her quite a few things about some of the more abstract concepts like physics, biology, and math…I hadn't exactly done the same for things I hadn't expected her to ever encounter. Like a car or light switch.
Some of it was easy to explain using magic as a metaphor or comparison, but there was plenty that Leona had trouble wrapping her head around which would have people familiar with certain things looking at her oddly.
Not being familiar with how to use certain technology could be excused to some extent, but insisting that a computer was powered by a bound spirit would definitely get the wrong type of attention.
So I was trying to teach a hedge-witch from a pre-industrial world how to blend in with a low sci-fi one by giving her a series of tests and seeing how she replied to a bunch of pictures and scenarios and then giving feedback based on her answers.
Leona just sighed and closed her eyes, obviously annoyed that she didn't get a perfect score. "It was my answer on what to do with a runaway vehicle, wasn't it? You said it was better to simply get out of the way but I figured removing the 'engine' would get it to stop quicker."
I waggled my hand. "Eh, I gave you partial credit for that one because if we absolutely did want to stop a vehicle that could work, but lighting it on fire could cause an explosion that could either destroy the vehicle or hurt bystanders. In certain situations it's worth a try but not if we want to be able to use it later. No, the main one you got wrong this time was regarding what to do when you see several brightly colored liquids."
"...I'm guessing 'tasting them to determine what they are' was wrong?"
I snorted at her. "Considering the liquids I had in mind were all cleaning products that would be poisonous to you? Yes, yes it was. I would have accepted pretty much anything other than 'drink the unknown liquid' as an answer. Remember lab safety tip number five…"
"...If I don't know what it is, it shouldn't go near my mouth." Leona completed with a sigh. "Alright, I'm ready for the next test."
"Don't worry, you're doing much better than I expected." I gave her some light encouragement as I handed her the next test. "And we should reach our destination in a day or so."
Leona gave the stack of papers I handed her a look of resignation.
"It cannot come soon enough…"Reaper 1.1
Thanks to the Azure Horizon exiting the Dimensional Sea in a much more controlled manner then my last journey we got to enjoy the view as we flew down towards the planet. Which was a good thing because choosing where to land was important for my short term plans.
At some point I needed to head to Atlas in order to take advantage of their advanced manufacturing capabilities, both for repairs to the Azure Horizon and for the personal equipment I wanted to build, but I needed to approach them slowly. Atlas was advanced, but they were also very militaristic and disciplined so I doubted they would welcome an unknown ship of an unknown design anywhere inside their kingdom without me answering several questions I simply wouldn't be able to answer to their satisfaction.
And from my understanding the 'kingdom' of Vacuo had the opposite problem. Being more of a loose coalition of desert city-states than a real kingdom. I wouldn't have an issue with people looking too closely at our paperwork – if we managed to get any – but at the same time I'd have to keep an eye out for anyone that thought they could steal my stuff and get away with it and then having to worry about whatever group backed up the would be thief.
Mistral was slightly better than its counterpart in the west simply because the government actually existed in more than name, but had the drawback of it being very culturally important about who you knew. You either were in the pocket of one of the upper class and had them open doors for you through favors or you were part of one of the criminal syndicates that ruled the underworld. Again, not exactly great if I wanted to keep my stuff without getting into a lot of fights.
Which left Vale.
Theoretically it was the best kingdom of the four for me to approach since it was more developed than Vacuo, less corrupt than Mistral, and less draconically bureaucratic than Atlas, but it also had the major drawback of being slated for destruction at some point depending where we entered in the timeline. And that wasn't even considering the body snatching, immortal wizard that was using the kingdom for his own whims in the background.
I really didn't need him poking his nose into my business while I was trying to get my ship repaired.
Unfortunately, it was starting to look like I wasn't going to have much of a choice.
*BANG!*
"What was that?!"
"We just lost our atmospheric stabilizers and half our engines." I said tersely as my hands flew over the control panel. "Looks like the last crash did some damage I didn't catch."
"What does that mean?!"
"Well, without the stabilizers we're eventually going to lose air pressure and oxygen, which means our maximum altitude is going to be severely limited for a while. As for the engines –"
"Short version, mistress!"
"Ah…we're slowly crashing and unless we touch down on dry land we're going to choke to death on stale air."
"Isn't that a bad thing?!"
"Yes, very!" I replied in a more cheerful tone. "But we're doing better than the last landing I made already and unless something else breaks, we should be able to walk away with minor injuries. Now strap yourself in and brace for impact!"
The Azure Horizon started fighting me more and more the closer we got to the ground, but I was able to wrestle it into a mostly flat descent. Between that and the still functioning air brakes and thrusters it looked like it would be a comparatively soft landing…
The hull of my variant YT-1300 smashed into the ground and the cockpit started shaking as we bounced to a stop. Alarms shrieked even as the two of us struggled to untangle ourselves from our harnesses. Leona simply flopped to the floor while I at least managed to stay on my feet and peer out the viewport.
Green fields greeted me and honestly? I just considered it an improvement from the last landing since the front end was only partially buried instead of completely underground this time. Now I just needed to see what new issues popped up from another rough landing and add them to the list of things to fix.
-o-
"Well the good news is that nothing is too badly broken." I told Leona as we both settled in for lunch. "Mostly some plating that will need to be replaced and a few components that are a bit smashed up. Which we already had on the list."
"And the bad news?"
I shrugged. "Not that bad actually. We wont be sealing the ship any time soon or flying all that high, but it's functional and it moves. Which is better than I was expecting."
Which was an understatement.
Two crash landings in a row, a handcrafted replacement reactor, and several damaged parts and the Horizon could still hover a few hundred feet in the air and move at what I estimated to be around 120 miles per hour before things got shaky showed exactly how tough my poor ship was. That it could move at all was already more than I could ask for.
"Now we just need to figure out where we are and where to go from here…"
My apprentice nodded and looked out into the distance while I turned my attention back towards my food, both of us content to just let the silence stretch out while we enjoyed the day and push off worrying about where we were going to go for later.
It was only several hours later when we had cleaned up both lunch and most of the ship's interior from the crash that we had any reason for discussion more serious than small talk. The reason for that was a pair of figures we saw walking towards us I happened to see through a viewport.
"Who do you suppose they are?" Leona asked.
"Depends how close we are to a town." I replied. "Most likely they are Huntsmen, but if we are close enough there might be some kind of town guard. We didn't see any major settlements on the way down so I doubt it's the military or anything like that."
"Right, the aura empowered individuals that hunt the shadow spirits." Leona said. I had given her a basic overview on the types of people we could expect to find on Remnant and it was always nice to know she listened to my lessons. "Hopefully they can point us towards a town. While we have plenty of water and your ship is an excellent shelter, we only have two days worth of food stored unless we go hunting soon."
"Well they seem friendly enough so far," they weren't running at us weapons drawn at any rate, "so I don't think that should be too much of a problem. Still, let's be careful just in case."
Leona nodded and sneakily palmed the modified spell pistol I had given her. Instead of a one use device that fired a bombardment spell, it was capable of shooting mana bullets as long as it had power. Not very useful for me, since even my Trace Bullets with normal weaponry were more powerful, but invaluable for Leona who had very little combat experience.
And it doesn't get much easier than point and shoot.
"Hello there!" I call out once they are close enough to hear. "Can we help you two?"
"'Ello yerself, Lass." The first man shouted back, a thick accent coloring his words. "We saw yer crash miles back. Any injured we can 'elp wif?"
"Who's asking?"
"Sean McIntyre and Dann DeLyon, we're Huntsmen out of Thornbell."
"Don't you think you're a little old to be Huntsmen?" I called back. And this wasn't me being snarky.
Sean was a pretty large man but from the look of his generous stomach and the fact his once black hair was mostly gray at this point, it was pretty obvious he was past his prime and while his partner was in better shape and his yellow hair hid the gray better, I could still clearly see that he wasn't much younger.
"Aye, nothin for it tho'. Thornbell aint like those fancy kingdom towns with Huntsmen crawlin all o'er the place. Long as we can fight we can at least make the rounds now and again."
I frowned at that. "Are you expecting a lot of Grimm?"
Because we hadn't seen any.
"Not Grimm. But we've heard rumors of bandits in the area." Dann clarified and I noticed he was lacking his partner's accent.
Bandits though, huh?
I had a bit of metaknowldge about one bandit group on Remnant, but that was mostly centered around its leader. I had very little idea about how widespread bandits were or how much of a threat they could be. But then again if Thornbell was only sending out two older Huntsmen to look for them I guess they couldn't be that big of a deal.
"Any signs of them?"
"Na' a one." Sean grumbled. "Spose they could be hidin out inna hole somewhere but ya could stir up a Grimm nest just as easily as finding them. But enough o' tha. You lasses need an escort into town? Ain' safe and yer ship looks like it landed rough. Ye get caught by a Nevermore or some such?"
"No, just equipment trouble. But she'll fly just fine if it's a short trip." I replied. "We can give you a ride if you can give us some directions?"
The two of them looked at eachother and had a sort of silent conversation before coming to an agreement and looking back to me.
"We'll take you up on that…"Reaper 1.2
"That the place?" I asked as we flew towards a small walled town surrounded by what looked liked farms with a small copse of trees off to one side, but far enough anything trying to sneak up on the walls themselves could be spotted with plenty of warning.
"Aye, tha' be Thornbell aight." Sean replied through gritted teeth as another shudder went through the Azure Horizon. The damaged and missing panels were really playing hell with the ship's aerodynamics. At this point I was mostly keeping the thing flying through the brute force of the engines.
I knew nothing more serious than another hull panel ripping itself free would happen, but everyone else in the ship didn't seem nearly as reassured as I was. Especially poor Leona, who had the arms on her chair in a white-knuckled deathgrip. Sean and Dann were nervous, but keeping it to themselves.
"You're sure this bucket of bolts can get us there?" Dann added. "We're close enough to walk without much trouble now!"
"We'll be fine. It's all turbulence, nothing to do with the ship." I dismissed. "Though I probably won't be flying her anymore until I can get the hull patched up after this."
"Thank the gods for that." Leona muttered, probably louder than she intended because everyone heard it going by Sean's barking laugh and Dann's more subdued one.
My poor apprentice turned an almost glowing red and did her best to sink through her seat into the floor at that.
"You guys have a way to call ahead?" I asked the two Huntsmen. "I'd like to have an idea where I'm going to park us."
"Kin ya not do it yerself?"
No, because I had no access protocols to whatever broadcast network they used and until I got those I'd have to just guess the frequency and hope someone could hear it. But that would be way too suspicious to say so instead I just pressed a button that caused a bunch of red alerts to appear on the nearest screen.
"Comm system is a bit banged up. You're our best bet unless you think whoever is in charge would accept a scroll call from a random ship flying directly at them with a completely unknown pilot better than a call from one of you." I fibbed as I cleared the alerts for the still uninstalled weapon systems. "Still going to need a number in that case."
"Nah, yer right about Jenkins freakin' out a bit. Better I call 'im before he does sum'tin foolish." Sean muttered as he pulled out his scroll and made a call.
Thankfully for everyone things went pretty smoothly once the town found out two of their own were on the UFO heading towards them. Sure they didn't exactly welcome us with open arms and invite us to land in the middle of the town, but they did direct me to a decent sized lot close enough to some dedicated landing pads that I would be close enough to get my hands on some hardware if I could pay for it.
I'm sure the fact that it kept my ship from being in the way and in the theoretical case I decided to sell or abandon it the town wouldn't need to move it far to be worked on were also taken into consideration.
I wouldn't ever consider it, but since it made things easier for me I also wasn't going to point it out or complain.
Dann did plenty of that for me.
"No offense kid, but there's no way I'm flying in that scrapheap you have there until it's all fixed up." He said as we headed off into the town proper. "I'll stick to some safer ways of traveling. Like jumping on the back of a Griffon."
"Speak fer yerself," Sean grumbled. "I'll take a bumpy ride o'er four days o' walkin' any time."
The two Huntsmen continued to poke at each other the whole time we walked but eventually our paths had to diverge. They had to go report to whoever they worked under about their patrol and Leona and I needed to figure out how to get our hands on some local currency.
Easy enough since I had several pieces of jewelry I could pawn or sell off, but not exactly in the same direction.
In the end we said our goodbyes and separated at a street corner, letting me turn my full attention to my rather overwhelmed apprentice.
"Taking in the sights?"
Leona seemed to snap her attention away from our surroundings fast enough that I was a little concerned she had hurt her neck. "No, mistress!" She hurried to say, only to slouch a bit when I raised an eyebrow at the obvious lie. "I mean, I know what you said about wor– places more advanced than my home, but I never thought it would be so stark. The wealth they casually display…it's almost obscene!"
I was confused by that for a second because while Thornbell was nicer than pretty much every town I had seen in Alagaësia, Leona had seen Farthen Dûr which I would consider significantly more impressive…up until I saw the building she had been looking at and something clicked.
Glass.
For a long time glasswork was incredibly expensive and how much you had was a statement of wealth. And it wasn't until new technology and techniques were introduced that large scale sheets were even possible. Yet in a random town Leona was not only surrounded by buildings with glass windows, even storefronts that in her experience should belong to simple merchants.
For the average person on Earth it would be like going to the next town over and seeing that they paved everything with gold because they liked the color and had enough of it. The scarcity and inherent wealth associated with it simply didn't apply to the owners.
"You'll get used to it." I assured her, causing her to huff and sneak a glance back to the store I had caught her looking at.
"I doubt that."
I shrugged and let the topic drop. For all that I could describe the places that we might visit it wouldn't mean much until Leona had seen them herself. Eventually things that she considered incredible and impossible back home might just be commonplace to her.
As if sensing my own doubt Leona puffed up in annoyance. "Anyway, what are we to do now? Trade for local coinage? Talk to the smiths about the order you want to place?"
"I want to get some local currency first and then get my hands on a couple scrolls for the both of us."
"Those mystic codes the Huntsmen used? Would they make something like that for two unknowns even if we helped their defenders?"
I smiled and pointed a little further down the street where several people could be seen eating outside a restaurant. Several of them, from older men and women to children, could be seen with a scroll in their hand.
Leona's mouth dropped open as she quickly spotted children using a device she considered miraculous. Like I said, she would learn in time.
"Depending where you go, devices like that are used by nearly everyone." I informed her. "Sometimes they are simple communication devices, but more often than not they are basically handheld libraries. Something we are going to need since my abilities don't extend to witten words and it will help shorten the time you need to rely on that trinket." I waved a hand at the choker she was wearing.
I was actually being pretty dismissive calling the thing a trinket considering it was a mystic code that could transfer my own inbuilt omniglot nature to her through a combination of Runes, Jewelcraft, and Mana manipulation and abusing Leona's own abilities as an Animancer so that it would actually slowly teach her the language as she used it. The fact it worked instead of melting into a puddle like the first two prototypes was a minor miracle, but one that would only work for a few weeks before it broke down and while she was within a certain distance from me.
Theoretically that was plenty of time for her to learn the language but I knew things happened and I wanted her fully fluent before whatever crazy situation that popped up forced my apprentice to fend for herself.
"Come on, I want to get this settled before it gets dark." I nudged her to keep walking. "The faster we get some money and ourselves a scroll the faster we can move on to the actually important things."
Leona nodded. "Repairing the ship." "Finding a good restaurant." The two of us spoke over each other.
"...mistress…" Leona groaned at my nonsensical answer.
I was unrepentant. We'd had nothing but jerky and nonperishable meals ever since we left Alagaësia. I was absolutely going to prioritize food now that we had the chance!
But even if I wanted to run off for a good meal we still needed the money to pay for it, so our first stop was actually to a small locally owned jewelry store where I could sell off a few pieces I had made specifically for this purpose. I was sure that I got absolutely fleeced by the owner for what those would actually be worth but at the end of it we now had several thousand Lien in a variety of colored plastic cards.
From there it was a simple trip to an electronics store where Leona and I got a basic model scroll after spinning a tale about how ours had both been damaged while we were outside the town.
I even made a projection of Sean's scroll to sell the story. And since I had no idea how the device actually worked and the projection was basically a thin metal shell rather than a working device, no matter what the sales person did he was unable to 'retrieve' our information or settings and was forced to set up two completely new devices.
The poor guy was so embarrassed after failing to uphold his promise that he could get everything migrated to the new devices no matter the state they were in that I was able to get him to download a few language learning apps without him asking any questions about them.
I was happy with it though. We had some money, we had access to everything we'd need to learn Valeish, Eastern Minstrali, and Old Atlesian even if we probably wouldn't need the last two.
That meant it was time for food!
"Come on, Leona. You can play with the scroll later. I think I saw a ramen bar this way. You'll love it!"
Reaper 1.3
"And that's the last of it." I said cheerfully as I tightened down the last exterior panel replacement on the Azure Horizon.
The ship wasn't completely fixed though. No, that would take a bit longer since I didn't have access to certain materials that a simple town like Thornbell simply wouldn't have a need for, which meant high altitude flight was still off the table. But the outer hull had been completely fixed so now I could at least take it on a short flight without it feeling like the ship was trying to tear itself apart.
"How's it look, Alex?" A voice below me shouted, causing me to shimmy to the edge of the ship and look over the side.
"Fits perfectly, Chief! Tell the boys I appreciate the quick turnaround!"
The head mechanic of Thornbell's airport, who everyone eventually just defaulted to calling Chief, just scoffed at my words. "Don't mention it, girl. Our fault the last one wasn't up to spec."
I shrugged at that since it kinda wasn't. Somewhere along the line someone got the machining dimensions of the hull plating I ordered wrong and I was shipped a panel far too small for me to actually use. I knew from working with Chief and his crew that they had at least triple checked the order before sending it out so the issue was with the supplier. They even showed me the measurements when I went to tell them the plate didn't fit.
There was no point in getting mad at them when they didn't have a hand in my problem. The supplier on the other hand…
I shook my head to clear those thoughts. They deserved it and the rest of the mechanics agreed with me.
"That the last of it then? I noticed you didn't place another delivery order, or did that lemon finally drain you dry?"
"That 'lemon' can outperform any three bullheads you can scrape together even if she is a bit beat up." I shot back. "In fact…"
I went on rambling about the ways my ship outperformed any vehicle I had seen in Thornbell. Which wasn't all that impressive because it was the same as me bragging that my high-performance custom car was better than farm equipment and commercial vehicles. Yes, it absolutely was better but it wasn't a fair comparison to begin with.
Still, it was an argument that we'd had several times over the weeks Leona and I spent settling in and preparing to face a new world. More a ritual that Chief and I did at this point than either one of us trying to convince the other we were right.
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before." Chief eventually waved me off before he got a look in his eye. "But I guess that means your hangar princess is good to go now. You and Leona gonna be heading out soon then?"
"So quick to get rid of us now that we're not a potential customer? I'm hurt." I smirked back. But he was right, now that the Horizon was flight capable again we were ready to move on to a bigger town where I could order more custom components or the materials to make them without paying a premium to have them shipped all the way out here. But just because we were planning on moving on hadn't stopped us from becoming friendly with the locals. "But yes, once we finish up a few things and get things sorted out at our next destination we'll be off."
"Guess we'll have to throw you a going away party before then, huh? We're going to miss your help dealing with local grimm. And Jason is definitely going to challenge you to another marksman competition though."
"Hah! If he really wants to get thrashed by me again I'm not going to tell him no!"
Dealing with the odd grimm that wandered close to the town was one of the ways I helped earn enough Lien to actually pay for the repairs I needed to make. All I had to do was stand on the walls and snipe the things when they got close enough. It was a great way for me to practice my long distance shooting on a moving target and the local huntsmen didn't have to leave town for a few hours to deal with the creatures.
Everybody won.
Of course not everyone was one hundred percent thrilled with me taking over their jobs. One of the younger Hunters, Jason, had seemingly made it his life's mission to prove he was the better shot. Not that I was all that upset about it since, one, a little friendly competition pushed me to improve far quicker than mindlessly taking practice shots ever would, and two, I was never planning on hanging around forever. It's a lot harder to get worked up over someone's ego trip when you keep beating him and know you don't need to deal with it forever.
"Hey now, he's a good kid." Chief protested. "He's just a little–" Our conversation was cut off by an alert coming from my scroll. More grimm heading towards the town.
"Another one? There's been a lot of alerts lately." the head mechanic muttered, concern on his face.
A look I shared. "Yeah, lots of grimm wandering nearby. I heard some rumors that a nest formed nearby but no one has been able to find it."
As expected for barely cognizant beings made of darkness and hatred, Grimm reproduction cycles were really weird. Most of the time they just seemed to form out of nothing, appearing in remote areas where they wandered until they were drawn towards some nearby settlement. But sometimes a Grimm Alpha would decide to make a nest or lair where it would spawn more Grimm like itself that tended to be stronger than average.
Since the Grimm didn't actually need to eat or drink there was always a risk that a nest would continue to grow until it was discovered and destroyed, or became powerful enough to drive everyone else from the area.
"Well I won't keep you then. Knock 'em dead, girl."
I gave him a two fingered salute before running off towards the wall section that raised the alert. I was probably only going to do this a couple more times before I left, might as well do a good job till the end.
-o-
As I got closer to my destination I spotted not only the uniformed town guard but a small group that included Jason, Sean, Leona, and one of the captains all staring out over the wall at whatever was approaching.
That was concerning.
Heads turned to face me as I moved to join them. "Hey, what's going on?"
It was Sean that answered, an uncharacteristically dark look on the older man's face. "Bandits."
I looked around at the other men for a more verbose answer but got nothing. They had all turned to look back over the wall. There was definitely a bit more to that so I followed their line of view.
It didn't take long to see what everyone was so interested in.
Three vehicles, one motorcycle and two rough looking buggies, were racing towards the city walls. The motorcycle I vaguely recognised as something a few of the local huntsmen used when going to the even more remote settlements in the area. The buggies I didn't know, but considering that I could just barely see a passenger popping out to take a few shots at the fleeing motorcycle was enough to clue me in that they probably weren't friendly.
"Ah, I guess someone finally found the bandit hideout the huntsmen were looking for." I mused. "Any reason we're all standing around instead of going out there to help them or at least shooting back? Jason, I know you can at least get close enough to a target the size of a car from here even if you can't guarantee where it lands. A few shots would at least make them flinch."
"Already tried." My self-proclaimed rival replied. "They dodged every shot. Best guess is one of them has some kind of danger sense Semblance that lets them see when I shoot. As for why we're up here…bandits have some kind of jammer blocking scroll calls. Our guy out there got cut off before he could tell us where the bandit camp is and I don't think he's going to live to tell us about it. Sean has a team rushing to get out there but…we figure we need to at least watch the whole thing, yeah? Make his sacrifice be remembered."
That was something I saw in a lot of the people here. That if they couldn't change a situation, they would make sure the people lost were remembered. I guessed it had a lot to do with being a smallish town where people could go missing for any number of reasons. Knowing people would try to remember them after the fact helped them keep going and made them return the favor on their own. It was pretty noble thinking at the end of the day.
And perhaps unnecessary in this case.
"You said they managed to dodge your shot?" I said as I unslung my bow and pulled out a particular arrow, something I was still in the habit of keeping around since I didn't want to blatantly advertise my magic even if I could fudge some of it off as a Semblance. "Well let's just give them something they can't dodge then."
"Mistress, are you sure?" Leona whispered under her breath. "You mentioned you wanted to keep a low profile while we were here."
I pulled back the string and sighted in on my target. "Yeah, but the Horizon is as fixed as she is going to get for now and we'll be heading off soon. Besides, I'm not going to let someone die in front of me just to keep a few things hidden."
That said, I made one final adjustment in my aim and fired off the arrow – quickly followed up by several more.
Only for all of them to land a short distance in front of all three vehicles, not even coming close to hitting any of them.
I smiled a bit when the two bandit vehicles made no moves to avoid the arrows.
"What was that, Cross?" I could practically feel Jason's confused stare. "You missed."
"Give it a second."
Giving in to an urge for a little showmanship I raised up my hand and just as soon as the motorcycle cleared the field of arrows, snapped my fingers.
Every one of the enchanted arrows I just shot went off with the force of a hand grenade and just like I hoped without a direct danger directed at the bandit, his semblance didn't give him enough warning to move out of the way or alert his buddies.
I knew this probably wasn't enough to take out any of the bandits unless they didn't have an active aura, but that was fine. The buggies they were driving weren't nearly durable enough to escape unscathed. That many explosions to the lightly – if at all – armored underside of the vehicles tore them to pieces and allowed the Huntsman to finally escape and make a bee-line for the walls without getting shot at.
Meanwhile I could see three bandits dragging themselves out of the wreckage and immediately began running in the opposite direction back the way they came.
"Can't dodge a carpet bombing." I smirked as I watched the bandits flee. "Should we check on the Huntsman now?"
There was a beat of silence and then Sean spoke up again.
"Lass…tha was damn terrifying. Glad yer on our side."
Reaper 1.4
I watched with no small amount of amusement as Leona almost immediately took over as the medical lead almost the minute we arrived at the gate where the Huntsman had entered. She wasn't exactly the best educated compared to the doctors on Remnant – something she was doing her best to rectify with a desire that surprised me quite a bit – but she had more practical experience than most along with better toys than anything a town like Thornbell had.
Thankfully there wasn't a whole lot she or anyone else needed to do.
Besides a few scrapes that would have been taken care of by his Aura over the next day or two once it was restored from shattering and some bruises, the Huntsman was lucky enough to have avoided any major injuries bar one bullet wound that had caught him on the meatier part of his shoulder. Thanks to Leona that would be healed up in a week at most.
As I was giving him a look over I realized I didn't actually know the man. Not exactly a surprise considering I didn't go out of my way to meet all the huntsmen in town and mostly knew the ones I did either because they went to the same bar Sean and Dann had introduced us to or because they came to me for one reason or another like Jason had.
Sean seemed to know him though, going by the concerned way he was looking the guy over despite trying to look like he was unconcerned.
"Looks like ye got yerself inna pickle, Cedric. Hou did a handful o bandits get the drop on ye? It shoud have taken twice thon amount tae make ye break a sweat."
The middle aged Huntsman, Cedric apparently, tiredly flipped Sean off. "That's because there was more than twice that amount. More than ten times that amount actually. I took a turn down a game trail and damn near walked into the middle of their camp. Only made it back to my bike because of my Semblance and they still nearly got me."
I could see everyone besides me and Leona freeze at Cedric's words. The two of us shared a glance but I could only shrug helplessly at her inquiring look. I had no idea if more than thirty bandits was a lot or not.
Going by the muttered curses though, I was willing to bet that the number was pretty unusual.
The two of us stayed quiet as the others talked. Unlike with the Varden, neither one of us were in a position to really get involved with how the town was going to react to the bandit presence. We could obviously offer to help, but that didn't mean we could just take over the discussion and start dictating terms. Especially when most of the people here knew we weren't licensed Huntsmen.
The concerning thing was that the idea of just giving the bandits what they asked for if it wasn't too outrageous started getting floated around and no one was really shooting it down. Which was…worrying, for a lot of reasons.
In the meantime Leona finished patching Cedric up and he got dragged off by some of the more senior ranked guys to talk to the guys in charge of the town, leaving the two of us behind with Jason while the rest of the crowd slowly dispersed to go back to what they were doing.
"You two look pretty clueless. Not a lot of bandits where you're from?" Jason commented once we were mostly alone.
"There were a few where I grew up but they were only ever a concern to small groups on the road, never something that a town like this would consider a threat." Leona responded. "I don't know about mistress Alexandria, though."
"You mean there's things about her you don't know, Fangirl?!" Jason said with mock shock, using the nickname he had come up with for Leona after couldn't come up with a cover story about why she called me mistress beyond her respect for me. We couldn't exactly explain it was because she was my apprentice when the main thing I had taught her beyond medical knowledge – that she was now working on expanding on her own, and was probably better at than me by now – was magical in nature and we were trying to keep any hints of that under a low profile.
Naturally, Jason assumed it was something along the lines of a celebrity crush or something similar on Leona's end that I just put up with, and while the nickname did annoy her, we planned to just ignore it until we left.
"Well? How about it, Alex? Any roving bands of criminals you fought off to add to Fangirl's list of your exploits? Though I can kinda guess not from the looks you were giving each other."
I nodded his way. "Not really. A few dangerous animals and a…criminal or two I suppose. But nothing the local Huntsmen ever got too worried about. Not the point they were considering something like that."
That was about the best way I could describe the Hollows that popped up in Karakura from time to time and eventually the Arrancar. They weren't really the same situations, but it was close enough to the truth I wasn't going to get hung up over the details.
"Yeah, I hear ya." Jason muttered. "And honestly no one here is thrilled to consider it either. But a dedicated group of thirty bandits is more than we can handle."
I was a bit confused. "If they were decent fighters and all had Aura, sure. But Thornbell should have at least that many active Huntsmen, right? Between the walls, defenses, and them the bandits shouldn't be able to threaten the town itself. At best they could stop anyone from leaving on foot, but you could reach out to a neighboring town or even Vale by bullhead or CCT and have more Huntsmen come drive them off. So why the talk of just giving them what they want?"
Jason was shaking his head before I finished. "First off, we can't afford to hire the amount of Huntemen it would take to drive them off without issue. Even if we could, it would be obvious and they would just move on. Meaning we waste a bunch of Lien and they just come back in a month."
"Second, yeah we might theoretically have similar numbers, but that doesn't consider more than half of our guys are mostly retired, green, or not here. Just because we found out about the bandits doesn't mean we can have everyone hide out here or the Grimm will overrun the smaller homesteads in the area."
"Third… third is that we can't afford a fight. Even if we run them off and only lose about ten Huntsmen for it – Brothers forbid – the fighting would attract a Grimm horde they can just ignore, wait for us to get pummeled by, and then come around for round two or to pick through the remains."
I grimaced at that. The Grimm really made everything more complicated.
An implacable, inexhaustible horde of monsters attracted to negative emotion had actually negated the normal defender's advantage. The bandits could simply leave whenever they wanted and Thornbell would still have to drive the Grimm off.
"Would they really do that though?" I asked. "Condemn a town to the Grimm like that?"
Jason shrugged. "Depends. Most of the groups we've dealt with over the years haven't but there is that major group in Minstral, the Branwen I think they're called, that do it. They're a much bigger group though from what I've heard. If they were here they wouldn't even bother hiding, they'd just overrun the town."
He gave the two of us a crooked smile. "Don't worry about it too much. This isn't the first time we've dealt with bandits, won't be the last. Besides I heard from Chief you finally got that oversized bullhead of yours fixed up. You can just head out and avoid the whole mess. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Dann asks you to deliver a message somewhere if you can."
"You expect us to just leave?" Leona said with an affronted look on her face. "If this is such a big issue that the town could be ruined, we don't mind helping out. I'm a fairly accomplished hea– medic, and my mistress's skills speak for themself!"
"Leona, you don't even have an unlocked Aura!" Jason said, exasperatedly. "And even if Alex is a great shot, there's a difference between dealing with the occasional Grimm and fighting for your life!"
"Alright, why don't we calm down a bit." I decided to cut in. "We don't know what the town is going to do about the bandits so there's no point getting wound up right now. And the Horizon still needs to get stocked up before we can leave. So we'll be hanging around for a bit if needed." I said trying to placate both of them. Not sure how successful I was but at least they were content to just stare angrily at each other instead of screaming in the streets like they were about to. "Come on Leona, we have some things to take care of. Jason, keep us in the loop if you hear anything?"
"I guess you're right. I'll send you a message if I hear anything. See you around Alex, Fangirl."
I watched him walk off for a second before turning to my apprentice.
"Come on, if we've got a potential Grimm horde to deal with I want to make a few preparations. And something tells me time isn't going to be on our side."
Leona just gave me a smile and a determined nod. Both of us knew a straightforward fight would end in our favor, it was the unexpected twist we failed to account for that would hurt the most. So we'd stack the deck in our favor as much as we could so if the bandits tried something clever, we had a few tricks up our sleeves.
-o-
The next day instead of getting a message like I expected, Sean and Dann had decided to drop by in person. And going by the looks on their faces – this wasn't going to be a fun conversation.
"Sean, Dann. Good morning, can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water?" I greeted them and invited them inside. They had been inside the Horizon enough that I didn't need to direct them to the small sitting area where Leona was already up and working on a personal project of hers.
"Nothing for us, we don't have time to stay long." Dann said, interrupting Sean as the other man raised a hand to request something only to sadly lower it with a nod. "We voted on what to do about the bandits last night, and safe to say we aren't going to give them anything if we can help it." He gave the two of us a look. "But a lot of us would feel better if the children and their caretakers were somewhere out of harm's way. We know it's a lot to ask last minute like this, but do you mind flying them to Vale?"
Leona stopped and put down her project while I frowned at them. "I don't mind, but we did offer to stay and help out, you know? Sending people away isn't necessary."
Both Huntsmen shook their heads. "Canae have ye doin thon for us. Neither o ye are huntsmen an we canae have twa young girls fichtin our battles for us." Sean said. "An besides, gin ye girls can put up thon kinda ficht, wha better tae make sure the wee ones are alricht?"
"We can't think of anyone more trustworthy than you two to make sure everyone is alright." Dann added. "So if you're sure you don't mind…?"
I sighed at their attitude but nodded. "Fine, we'll take them. Have them pack up what they can carry with them and we'll leave in a day or two."
"Aye, we'll tell em. Just don't go dragging yer feet outta concern for us. We'll manage just fine."
True to their word, both huntsmen didn't stay long - leaving almost immediately after our conversation. I escorted them out of the Horizon before giving them a wave good by and closing the door only to find Leona basically shadowing me.
"Since you told me earlier we were ready to leave whenever, I assume you plan on staying and helping out?" She asked me with a smirk, one that I easily returned.
"Yeah, if the bandits make a move before then we'll jump in and help deal with them. If they don't…" My smile turned sharper. "Well, I'm sure we can figure something out."
Reaper 1.5
Over the course of the next day, the mood of the town plummeted to the dirt.
Not only were people miserable about preparing to evacuate even temporarily, there had been several Grimm attacks that left the local Huntsmen constantly fighting throughout the day. Even if they rotated out on occasion to rest they had to resupply ammunition, bandage any wounds they took, and do quick and constant maintenance on their equipment.
And since they needed to always be on alert, small issues that normally wouldn't be a big deal were starting to build up into bigger ones. There was at least one Huntsman that was rushed to the medical group because his weapon broke down after being hastily reassembled at just the wrong moment.
It was a downward spiral that was just attracting more Grimm feeding the cycle as each Huntsman had to spend more time fighting them off, leaving a shorter and shorter amount of time to properly rest and recover.
And that was without the bandit group making any direct moves against the town.
No, they seemed content to let the Grimm wear the defenses down until they could just walk in and take what they wanted. Which was a little concerning because from what I knew, they should be under just as much pressure from the Grimm, but no one had noticed signs of fighting anywhere close to where Cedric had spotted their camp. That meant they had either relocated or more worryingly, had a way to hide themselves from the shadow monsters.
If nothing changed, it almost wouldn't matter though. The Grimm swarms would spell the end of the town, bandits or no bandits. And I wasn't the only one that noticed.
"Another attack was destroyed on the other side of town." Leona muttered under her breath in order to not panic the children around us. "That confirms the worst case scenario, the Grimm have the town completely surrounded."
I nodded. "I know. It's messing up our plans too. At this rate it'd be better to evacuate the entire town with the Horizon and any vehicles we can scrape together even if that means the bandits get away."
I'd expected the bandits to lure a few handfuls of Grimm towards the town while making themselves a general nuisance that would slowly ramp up over a couple days. I don't think anyone was expecting a constant almost unending siege the very next day.
"Will the others agree to that? I saw people packing supplies but…" Leona trailed off, and I knew why.
Yes, the town was packing up some supplies with the expectation that people would need to evacuate. But most of the townspeople themselves had picked up whatever weapon they could get their hands on and moved towards the walls.
It helped…for now.
A bullet was a bullet and could kill something like a beowulf whether it was shot by a huntsman or a farmer, but the problem was that a farmer was a hundred times more likely to miss and waste ammunition and had no chance in melee range if a Grimm got too close. And it wasn't like the town had an inexhaustible source of bullets, so Thornbell's residents picking up a gun and helping hold back the Grimm tide might buy the huntsmen a few hours to properly recover but their ability to help would run out pretty quickly and then the remaining huntsmen would be forced to cover for dozens of suddenly helpless civilians.
At that point it would be game over.
I had to give the bandit group credit where it was due, they had clearly planned this out for a while to have this many Grimm in the area and still be able to move around unseen.
My scroll pinged and alert and I cursed after checking it. "Another flock of nevermore. I've got to go. Do me a favor, can you start asking some people to start packing the trucks with supplies? If we can convince enough people we need to abandon the town we can use them as a convoy. I think there's enough that everyone can hitch a ride even if we need to move slowly because of the older ones."
Leona nodded. "I'll do my best, mistress."
I just hoped it was enough. As powerful as I was, I simply couldn't be everywhere at once if things went bad suddenly. And it was looking like things could go bad in a heartbeat.
-o-
The group of townspeople erupted into ragged cheers as the final nevermore exploded into a cloud of black feathers.
As the only person here with functionally infinite ammo, I was making it a personal priority to deal with any flying Grimm. Just to let the defenders stretch their own ammunition as far as they could. It also helped that I could actually cover most of the town from any flying incursions from just about any decently high spot instead of having to relocate constantly to hit the ground based attacks.
These Grimm were even fragile enough that I didn't even need to break out any special tricks.
With just slightly enhanced arrows I was able to wipe out entire groups with a volley…and it was pissing me off because it didn't matter to the Grimm.
Wipe them out with a volley of arrows, explode them with enchanted swords, vaporise them with a Zanpakutou or Noble Phantasm, hell, nuke them with a Nova Blast, the Grimm wouldn't care and they died the same to any of them. They would just keep swarming until one group got lucky and managed to get through the walls.
And to make things worse the sun was starting to go down.
I noticed some movement off to the side and turned my head slightly to see Dann making his way towards me. "That was some good shooting, Alex." He greeted me with a raised hand.
I nodded back at him. "Just doing my part. Something up?"
The huntsman shrugged tiredly. "Just what you would expect from something like this. Weapon issues popping up, the townspeople are starting to panic and waste shots we can't afford, and one of the boys ended up breaking a leg… things aren't looking great for us. I think it's time you grab whatever and whoever you can and make for Vale."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "And the rest of you?"
"Oh, we can hold out for a few days if we pull back a bit." He replied with a cocksure grin, one I was sure was fake. "Set up some chokepoints, cook off a few explosives, there's all kinds of things we can do to slow down the Grimm if we aren't worried about keeping the town intact."
"Uh huh, and what about the people staying behind?" I asked. "How are you all going to get out?"
Dann's smile shrank. "We'll think of something."
I sighed. Stupid, self-sacrificial idiots.
"Okay," I said after taking a deep breath. "Instead of that, why don't we go get everyone and leave together? Leona should be working on getting enough vehicles together so everyone can ride out of here and I haven't gotten a call saying she ran into issues."
But Dann was shaking his head. "Nice thought, and it might have worked if it was just the Grimm, but that bandit group won't just let us go. Especially if we pack everything they want nice and neatly and put it in one place. They won't chase a small group escaping, but if too big a group goes, they'll have to assume the stuff they want is going with them."
That…was a good point. And not one I had an immediate answer to beyond; 'trust me'.
Before I could think of anything to say to convince him otherwise, there was a commotion nearby. At first I thought it was just another group of Grimm spotted heading towards the town only to realise the shouts were coming from inside the walls.
There was the sound of squealing tires and I turned to see a small flatbed truck peel out around a corner and start heading for the nearby gate. Reflexively, I raised my bow ready to fire a shot into the cab, only to curse as Dann had the same idea and managed to unintentionally tangle our weapons when his rifle caught between one of the arms and the string of my weapon.
Credit to him, he was quick to recognise the mistake and actually let go of his rifle to give me a shot rather than trying to fight me for control or disentangle the two weapons, but it was too late. The driver dove out of the vehicle and he must have wedged the accelerator or something because it continued speeding up towards the gate.
I managed to snap off a single, poorly-aimed shot that blew off a wheel, but that didn't stop the truck's inevitable crash into the gate.
If it was only that, it might not have been a big deal. Those gates had been built to at least temporarily hold off any Grimm that got close, after all. But the thing that made everything worse was that apparently that truck had been loaded up with boxes of raw Dust, crystals of raw elemental power that when properly used, could imbue machines and Aura abilities with all kinds of interesting effects and more commonly powered most day-to-day items. But when slammed into a gate at over sixty miles an hour? It gave a pretty good impression of a bomb.
The town gate now had a decently sized hole in it. And I didn't even need to look at the others to know that time had officially started running out for Thornbell.
Dann moved to retrieve his rifle, looked at the gate for a second and let out an impressive string of curses before looking back into town.
"Where's tha' bastard that was driving that thing?!" he yelled. "I'm gonna skin him alive before leaving him out as Grimmbait."
"He got away!" one of the other men on the wall called back. "Jumped out and ran into some weird red portal thing that appeared out of nowhere! Must've been a Semblance!"
"Same thing happened at the North gate!" Another person called, scroll still held up to his ear on the call he must have answered.
"Bastards aren't even letting us try to get the women and kids out of here." Dann cursed the bandits again, but I was distracted by the description of that portal. There was one person I knew that had a Semblance like that, but as far as I knew, she should be on another continent entirely.
"I'm heading to my ship." I suddenly told Dann and got ready to move. "If the walls are breached we need to get out of here before the Grimm swarm over everything. I'll get the vehicles moving, you better meet up with us." I turned to glare at each of the men individually. "I mean it, don't go dying out here just because you're too stubborn to know when to quit."
Most of them looked like they wanted to argue, and part of me couldn't blame them wanting to fight for their home. But no one said anything when Dann put a hand on my shoulder and spoke up. "You're right, Alexandria. And I doubt the bastards stopped at two gates." He said which drained the remaining fight out of the others. "You go ahead and get everyone moving. I'll start rounding up the rest of us 'too stubborn to quit' and meet you by the East gate."
"You better." I replied before deciding to screw subtlety and stepped out mid-air onto a spell circle. I caught the start of some startled muttering before I vanished using Haste.
Three casts later and I was back at the Azure Horizon looking at a scene that made my heart skip a beat.
Leona kneeling on the ground in front of a group of townspeople, holding a bleeding arm and surrounded by five smirking bandits slowly moving closer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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