Evolution: A Warlock's Rise To Power

Chapter 19: Bandit Hideout

"Come on Paul, only 2 hours left in our shift. Don't start dozing off now." Said one of the guards in the watchtower to his companion.

"Give me a break, I slept like crap last night. I am just going to close my eyes for a little bit."

*Thunk*

"Pero, what was that? Pero" The sleepy bandit named Paul opened his eyes. An arrow had pierced through Pero's heart and pinned him to the post of tower. Paul fell out of his chair and turned to see a group of 5 heading into the ravine. A rogue was putting away a bow, Paul made the mistake of locking eyes with another rogue who was holding 2 wands. He froze in fear unable to move or alert the others.

He could see a priest waving her staff as black magic began to gather. When he shook off the intimidation the black magic rifled through the air towards him. Suddenly up was down, left was right, he tried to move his hand and the toes on his left foot wiggled. Paul tried to call out but couldn't speak. He tried to move towards the stairs going down but instead tumbled over the railing to the ground below.

The two bandits behind the gate hopped up as Paul crashed to the ground in front of them, turning gray and disappearing. They saw a party of five running down the ravine towards them. The bandits aimed their crossbows and fired. A monk jumped forward, slapping the first crossbow bolt out of the air while grabbing the second. With a spin and a flick of the wrist, the crossbow bolt was being returned to the sender.

The two bandits yelped and turned to run and alert the others when a heavily armored warrior lowered his shoulder and rammed into the iron gates. The metal bars buckled and blew inwards. The warrior pulled a long greatsword from his back before bisecting one of the guards. A back hand from his heavy metal gauntlet caused the second bandit to crumple to floor.

"I will make sure no one gets through." Van said while taking position inside the blown apart gate.

Lucy and Silent went down the left path with Lucan and Madlad headed right.

"Let's hurry to the end and ensure no one escapes."

Lucan sprinted to keep up with Madlad's light jog. They passed 3 people in the storage room. Madlad ignore them and the confused looks of the 4 people behind desks in the office. He bypassed them all and headed straight to the level 65 Elite in his private quarters.

Before the Elite had time to even speak, Madlad socked him across the face before unleashing a lighting fast succession of fist and palm attacks. Each one stunned the bandit for .2 seconds. The Elite was helpless and unable to move as his health steadily fell. Lucan was amazed by the prowess of a high-level player.

"Don't just stand there." Madlad shouted at the gawking Lucan.

Lucan turned to partially dodge a shortsword swung by one of the bandits who had followed them from the office into the leader's room.

Lucan lost a quarter of his health. He summoned Night Whisper and attacked while fast casting Telekinetic slashes. He quickly realized he couldn't kill this opponent by trading blows. Lucan backed off and summoned a copy of himself and Madlad.

The illusionary monk raised his fist. The bandits started to run, they didn't want to test this monk, his twin was standing over their dead leader and had turned to look their way as well.

"Ha, ha ha, none of you will escape." Madlad charged towards the bandits.

Capitalizing on his momentum, Lucan dismissed the copy of himself and summoned two more illusionary Madlad's. The bandits didn't hesitate to flee when 4 monks came running after them. Lucan followed everyone back towards the front, trying to at least get one hit on each bandit.

As the bandits funneled towards the exit, they met the meat grinder known as Vanslaugtherfest. Silent and Lucy weren't far behind. Soon all 5 players had corralled the remaining 15 bandits and attacked from all sides.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 28.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 29.]

"I finished 8." Silent said.

"10." Van said.

"8 for me as well." Madlad said.

"I claimed 12 lives." Lucy said.

"That adds up to 38. Every bandit is accounted for." Lucan said.

They were taking a break to rest and replenish their resources. (Health, mana, and stamina.) Adrestia and Little brown were sharing a small piece of pumpkin bread. He was right, they liked it very much.

Lucan got up and dusted himself off. "Adrestia, Little brown, rest up and keep your eyes on the outside, let me know if you see anything unusual. I want to start looking around." Lucan said.

"I can help." Silent said, popping up. "We swept and collected everything on the left path while we moved. So we only have to go through the right path."

Madlad and the others decided to help. The five combed through the supply room first. There weren't many valuables, it was dry goods, water, repair tools and ingredients. It looked like the bandits were stocked up enough to hided underground for 2 months straight.

They moved to the office style cavern.

"Damn, this desk is locked." Lucan said.

"We can just smash it open." Van said.

"Or we could use the key, the bandit leader dropped." Madlad said, handing over a key.

Van shrugged. "That's not as fun."

In the locked desk Lucan found two small lock boxes. One was filled with coins, the other was filled with small gemstones and jewelry. But still no wand.

They split the contents evenly. They each got 5 gold in coins and 50 gold worth of jewels and jewelry.

Silent Gave all her jewels to Lucan. "Here my debt is paid with interest."

"Dang, I was looking forward to putting you to work." Lucan joked.

The other desks contained a few ledgers and papers. There was nothing indicating the Prototype wand had already been sold.

The group started to tear apart the private quarters of the bandit leader.

"Jackpot!" Lucy exclaimed after turning over the bandit's mattress. Underneath was a stash of goodies.

A wand, a hammer, a necklace and a painting all gave off a regal glow.

"It's the prototype." Lucy said, handing the wand to Lucan and motion for him to grab the other things.

"Crap, we have company." Lucan said. "Over 50 players all over level 100." He cast an illusion of what he saw through Adrestia's eyes.

"What!!! That's my sister leading them." Silent Night could clearly make out the appearance of Heaven's Kiss, a mile away, leading a group towards the bandit hide out.

"Is it trouble?" Madlad asked. "They probably have some quest to clear out the bandits. It probably isn't a big deal."

"We don't get a long." Silent said. "She will demand all the loot. She won't hesitate to turn her followers on us, you guys can probably get out alright, but it will be harder for us."

"Leave it to me." Lucan said siting down and taking out a couple of mana potions.

Adrestia flew from the entrance and started flying towards the edge of the forest while Lucan began casting Tunnel of shadows in the private chambers.

A shadow arch took form after a minute and a half. His practice had greatly increased the speed of speaking the incantation compared to his first try.

Lucan had little Brown returned to him and drank water while his mana recovered. With Adrestia in position he cast the spell again, this time through her.

Silent Night started panicking as she could hear her sister and her followers enter the cave. Footsteps could be heard coming their way.

Lucan smiled. "Step through the arch and keep walking forward." He calmly said. Silent was the first to sprint through, pushing her way past the others. Madlad chuckled while following her. Van and Lucy were right behind him.

A barely clothed, copy of Silent Night holding a staff, walked into the private chamber of the bandit leader.

"You were a bit to late. Better luck next time." Lucan said before walking through the shadow arch. As he disappeared from the room, the archway disappeared.

After a 10-minute walk through a tunnel of purple and black shadows Lucan stepped out onto the edge of the forest. Silent Night was giving Adrestia a piece of bread and scratching her head while the others waited for Lucan.

"Easy enough." Silent Night said. "No survivors and no witnesses."

"Well I may have taunted your sister a little bit before I left." Lucan said with a grin.

"Why would you do that?" Silent said annoyed. "She isn't a person to let things go."

"Pff, it is fine, with my class, I want people to talk about me."

"Yeah, we will see. Let's start the ride back." Silent Night said, while summoning her mount, still sounding annoyed.

"Lucan, give us a minute and we will trade you all the drops we picked up."

"Sure." He said happily. "But you can keep the gems and jewelry, that is as good as gold."

"Ha, thanks for the consideration."

Lucan became excited as his bags started to fill up. Most of it was junk, but it could be sold to the right buyers. It was worth a couple gold once it was added together.

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