Day 3. ...like we're being watched...
Dear All,
Mere seconds after I finished my last letter to you, and was checking the spelling (shaddup, it’s better than yours, Frudak ya loser), Runa cleared her throat.
“I think...there’s somebody on the roof,” she said, softly.
Scan and I looked up. Shepard and Tarian had gone for a look around the homestead - nobody else was awake, apart from our party. It was barely dawn.
“You think?” Scan asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“How much d’you think so?”
“What do you mean ‘how much’? Do you want a percentage certainty?” Runa asked, tensely setting down her blade. “I heard movement up there, and I don’t think it was a cat...”
Scan walked over to the window, then hesitated.
“Okay, I’m not sticking me neck out...helmet.” She held out her hand. Runa looked like she was about to say something, but instead passed over her helmet.
“And I need me a stick...pass yer sword.”
Runa put her sword out of Scan’s reach, and instead passed over Scan’s own morningstar.
“Alright, alright...” Cautiously, Scan balanced the helmet on the morningstar and poked it out of the window, and turned it from side to side, as if somebody was looking out at the scenery.
We waited quite some time. Nothing happened. Looking disappointed, Scan pulled the helmet back in.
“I’ll nip out the front and have a look,” I suggested.
“Gotcha...I’ll take the roof,” said Scan. Runa nodded.
I slipped out of the front door, crossbow ready. Immediately I saw something retreat from the edge of the roof.
I acted before I really thought. There’s no good reason a man gets on the roof at the crack of dawn and sneaks around up there. This place is besieged by bandits. And we’d been attacked last night.
I moved around, and saw a black cloaked figure crouching on the tiles. I had my crossbow up and fired before he could move. He fell backwards, and slid out of sight.
I heard a nasty thump on the other side of the house.
Scan was quite annoyed with me. She’d managed to get on and off the roof undetected, had conferred with Runa, and they were all ready to capture this bloke and find out where the bandit camp was, how many bandits, and so on. Except I’d sort of killed him.
I said sorry. She said nothing. Then when she saw his body she said quite a lot, including a couple of offensive words I hadn’t actually heard before. I said sorry again. She calmed down a bit, and told me not to do it again.
I said okay, but I’m not sure I can keep that promise. If someone’s that blatantly a threat, I don’t want to give him a chance to harm us.
Should I feel bad at killing the guy? Probably. I mean, I’d have preferred not to. I suppose as a healer I should feel terrible or something. In fact, Runa asked me something along those lines.
But he was creeping around a peaceful homestead, armed to the teeth. Working at the temple, that was cure. Shooting that guy - that was prevention. They do say prevention is better than cure. I can heal people if they get hurt. I can also shoot bandits off roofs so people don’t get hurt in the first place.
Yeah. I’m pretty well at peace with my profession.
Shepard and Tarian got back, and we had a short “You’ll never guess what happened to us!” - “Yeah well, you’ll never guess what happened to us.” - “Yeah but I bet that’s nothing compared to what we’ve just done!” conversation.
They found a blackcloak too. Tarian asked him what he wanted, and he attacked. Apparently, the fight ended with Shepard casting a ray of frost spell and aiming very precisely at a target right below the belt. This finished the guy off.
I thought Shepard was a bit more sporting than that. Think we’ll all be a bit more polite to him now.
We fetched the two bodies, and buried them just outside town. When I say “we” I mean me and Runa. The others didn’t seem to think it was their job, or that the two “religious types” should handle it.
I know how I’d feel if some people I’d given hospitality too shot a person off our roof then just wandered off leaving the corpse there. I’d feel...somewhat put out, to say the least. It wasn’t the villagers job to bury the bandits, it was ours. We were the ones who shot him, we were getting paid to deal with them. Also, I can still remember the lecture about how many kinds of disease can come off a dead body.
The others didn’t seem interested when I mentioned this. I’m not gonna bury every one, but this was in a village! There were kids about, for crying out loud...
Anyway. We ate, and I fixed Tarian up. Then we set out.
We didn’t know where the bandits camp was, or even how many there were. All we knew was the location of the ruins. So that’s where we headed.
A few hours later, I started to hear echoes as we passed between hills. Tarian turned her head too, and I think she spotted something.
The whisper came back from Scan. We were being followed.
We carried on until we found a clearing. We settled down, weapons ready.
Nothing happened for a little while, so we took it in turns to eat. Tarian’s eating now, she’s the last, and I took the time to write. But I’m gonna leave it there. I could say more about our journey, but obviously...dunno how many are following us. Maybe they weren’t following us, maybe thye were just behind us.
But I’m fully armed, just in case.
Love Gresha.