The Will Of A Life: Astras

Bandits!

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CHAPTER 10
Bandits!
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   “This guy had quite the bounty of loot on him, boss!”
   “Can I just kill him already?”
   Many other voices rang out in the night as a large man in a black coat marched through the bandits towards the carriage that burnt brightly in front of them.
   “Quit fooling around,” he  barked as the group became collectively silent excluding the muffled cries from the old man who’d owned the carriage as he struggled to free himself, “Through the old geezer in the fire already!”
   “Yes sir!” Shouted the group in unison.
As they neared the flame with the man there was a sudden boom as something crashed through the roof of the cart. Engulfed in flames came a bloodied mess of a person. Their skin was burning and peeling back as their face was barely visible. They stepped down from the burning structure and walked forward a few dignified steps before stopping.
   A sudden wave of black crashed over the person and the fire and began moving towards the bandits. Their previous confidence washed away as the wave sank into the ground and burst into white flames attacking one of the men who approached it. As they laughed at the man who appeared to be drenched in black water, their laughter almost immediately melted into screams and panic as the man fell over a rotten and dried corpse. The bandits threw the man at the wave and ran. The wave followed them and crashed into each and every one of them without mercy.
   The man looked at the chaos with tears in his eyes and froze in horror at the wave crashing his way. It never touched him, as it stopped and encircled him, protecting him from the bandits. The man cowered as the bandits attempted to kill him still. The wave suddenly parted as someone walked through. He saw it was the figure that had burned in the flame. It suddenly encased itself in some form of a black cocoon dripping against the floor. In an instant, the thing cracked open to show a hooded figure with its face concealed behind a black mask. Glistening purple hair wisped and waved past the fiery peaks. The end of their hair seemed to edge white. The grass around them seemed to have died out.
   He stared at it, sunlight shining against the cape showed a bright gleam against a silver brooch. It was small but showed a hood and mask surrounded in flame. The man wasn’t afraid anymore. He knew that symbol and scrambled from cowering on the floor to kneeling on one knee. His face shed tears of happiness as the wave sank away alongside the bodies of the bandits.
   “Your bow is unnecessary, please stand,” Comera stated, “are you hurt anywhere?”
   “I am alright, a bit burnt is all,” he replied calmly.
   “That is good. Where were you headed?” Comera asked gesturing to the carriage. It had become almost like new and there was no hint of ash on the ground. “I had to take the old carriage as it was burnt beyond repair but I hope you won’t mind the new one.
   As she sent the man on his way with a pouch of coins she let out a sigh of relief.
   “I was trying so hard to keep myself calm this time. I-I mean they aren’t all dead…s-so I d-did good right?” she mumbled, pulling Ashen out of her hood. Once the man was gone she removed her mask. She then was startled by the sudden roar of a dragon as Tick and Aldrador approached from the trees while Sylphin and Nora circled above. She averted her gaze, preparing to face the berating and yelling. She had heard it before, she was “supposed to be a hero” and how she “shouldn’t concern herself with common problems.” She wasn’t sure what they would say, they had never been mad at her before, but then again those people would turn on her for the simplest of things. She didn’t know what they would say. No she just didn’t want to, but at the same time it made her want them to talk already, so she could know what they would say.
   “Well you succeeded in scaring the life out of Nora, so points there I suppose. Great job with the bandits though, but in the future avoid jumping directly into the fire,” Rodrik mused. Aldrador
agreed with a nod.
   “Y-you aren’t…mad?” Comera asked, almost startled.
   Rodrik looked completely taken aback by her words. “Why would we be? One, you saved that man. Two, you looked really sick doing it. Three, shut up! And besides I was cool enough to come down here and help” he laughed, making large hand gestures as he went on.
   Just then Rodrik jumped through the top of the trees with Nora in his arms and Aldrador right behind him. Comera looked at them in confusion and turned back to the original two who had appeared without Nora. The Rodrik who had jumped through the trees immediately drew his hand to the air as Sylphin landed and encircled the area. Comera walked cautiously to Sylphin’s side. Nora jumped out of Rodrik’s arm and ran up to the other pair.
   “Hello Mr.Tick,” she said, “can you come here for a minute?”
   “Sure, Nora.” Rodrik replied, bending down to the floor.
   “Closer! I have to tell you something secret!”
   He kneeled down and leaned closer, obviously drawn in by the mention of a secret.
   Nora leaned close to his ear and suddenly pulled on it with strength no six year old should have as he was thrown to the floor. It became obvious to Comera and the others that she had drunk one of her potions for strength, but they still weren’t sure who’s ear Nora was in the process of ripping off. The Aldrador next to Nora suddenly popped like confetti as the Rodrik faded away to reveal a certain illusionist.
   Arthur cried to Nora about her treatment towards him in vain as Nora started yelling in his ear. Rodrik, looking more displeased than any noble should ever let himself look casted a water bullet spell and an ice bullet spell in unison and launched them towards Arthur. As anticipated, Arthur was hit with freezing cold water as Nora dodged the splash.
   “Bullet” spells
There is a bullet spell for each element. These spells cast an array of 1-3 masses of the element. Unlike “Arrow” spells these spells are usually non lethal, causing minimal damage at the most. These “Bullets'' can then be sent out by the caster in a straight path.
   A short argument followed as the two bickered. Arthur, about the cold water and his clothes, Rodrik about impersonating a noble. This one was short lived as Nora threw a potion on both of them. They both lost their ability to speak as the potions orange color seeped into their skin as all potions did.
   Nora then threw two empty potion bottles at them and angrily trudged over to Aldrador, raising her arms to show that she wanted to be picked up. As Aldrador complied Arthur went over to the parked Sylphin fishing for sympathy. Sylphin swatted him away with her tail and he cleared over the tops of the trees. Comera watched him go out of view and heard a crash and some shouts where he landed. Rodrik’s voice returned and he turned, giving a smile to Sylphin who moved to let everyone back on her back.
   “Come on, we should make sure he doesn’t need Yan’s healing. I don't want to hear Captain’s complaints later,” Rodrik said, to cover his slight worries.
   They soon made their way to where Arthur had landed to find Arthur and Yan knocked out on top of eachother. Leon suddenly appeared and moved  to separate the two and laid them out. Raising his hand he created a line of sigils questioning if they had caused this.
   Comera responded with another line of sigils saying that they followed the sounds of the crash. Nora suddenly pointed at the ground and Aldrador jumped down with her, she was then pointed to Yan as she followed Nora. there was a sudden commotion as a tree crashed down toward them. Comera raised her hand and a sudden giant splash of ink separated the tree in half vertically. As it crashed to the sides of them, Comera ran down and in front of the crew. Removing her blindfold and looking at where the tree had fallen, she suddenly saw a pair of large white eyes hiding in a cloud of black. She looked at them for a while and a sudden wave of energy emanated from behind Comera and the world suddenly darkened. She turned and saw a sword was embedded in Sylphin’s tail that she was struggling to remove. Her tail was pinned to the ground and a stream of golden blood slowly oozed from it. The sudden array of energy knocked everybody off their feet. Rodrik drew a sword from its hilt. It was a long silver blade with beautiful and intricate patterns and dragon scales along its body. His silver hair began to float and glow against a sudden moonlight. As it whipped past his face Comera saw a shining gold drip from his forehead. This was the price of taming a dragon, they shared everything…
   Licking the blood as it dripped past his lips, he raised his sword forward.Comera looked at the chaos around as Aldrador shielded Nora to the best of her abilities and Leon summoned barrier after barrier to protect the unconscious members.
   Comera stood without any pressure and she ran to Nora and Aldrador, as she approached the aura on them suddenly receded as comera drew up a barrier of ink and placed another on Leon and the unconscious others. She turned to Rodrik and again found herself focused on his face. He raised his head slowly and a wide and devilish grin rolled across his face. His teeth were sharp and as he finally stared down his enemy. The whites of his eyes became black as he bolted into the dark cloud of the forest ahead of him. As his Aura grew heavier and heavier on Comera’s ink, she picked up everybody in her barriers and brought the two barriers together ducking inside. She closed the hole behind her and lit a pillar of ink in the center with white flame. Leon was doing his best to wake up Yan as Rodrik would remain in his frenzied state until Sylphin was in a state of recovery at least. Nora cried in Aldrador’s arms as a small stream of blood dripped from her mouth. Comera only looked at the chaos for a moment as she immediately wore her gloves and blindfold. She rolled down her sleeves and placed a scarf over her neck. Comera reached out her hands and a glow inhabited the room healing everybody while the grass around them turned brown and cracked into dust. A few forest bugs fell from the air.
   Comera turned and jumped back through the ink before immediately bolting towards Sylphin. She thrashed around frantically as Comera attempted to approach. A speeding paw kept her back. She straightened herself and scattered a circle of black flowers which bloomed into thousands of strings restricting Sylphin enough for Comera to spread ink over the wound. She removed the sword as quickly as possible, immediately leaving ink in its place. She did the best she could do to heal the large wound. As it illuminated, a flock of birds seemed to suddenly fall from the sky.
   Rodrik appeared from the forest dragging a giant monster behind him. It wore great horns on its head and shared a body similar to a boar, yet its muscles towered over everyone and it would’ve  neared the height of Sylphin if it were to stand on its hind legs. The tall beast had been white and green in color with a mark of wind showing what element the beast could use. The beast had become bloodied and burnt as golden flame illuminated parts of the corpse. Rodrik dropped the beast near a half of the fallen tree and brought the sword towards him with only a gesture of his hand. He examined the blade closely and pierced it into the ground. Leon approached holding Yan like a baby and took the sword from the ground as he jumped away.