It was a cloudy night. There were only bits and pieces of moonlight that shone down through the storm that had just hit Pleasantrees. The storm hadn't been very intense and it easily burned itself out which was why there was so much light cloud cover. It was a chilly evening, not cold enough to freeze, probably thanks to the cloud cover, but it was close. The weather was going to continue warming up from then on. They were a month away from the First of Spring.

Just before the fork in the road, which intercepted the road from Saetwixia to Alten and led to Pleasantrees, there was a small logging camp. The camp was full of rowdy working men, most of whom would return to their families and their farms a week or two before the First of Spring. Not too far away from them, hidden just far enough that the loggers weren't likely to notice, there was a small bandit camp. To call it anything more than a camp would be an exaggeration. There were only five men, all escapees from one bad idea or another. One had turned Grand Theft into Assaulting a Guardsman and then into Murder of Law Enforcement. How he had managed to go from pocketing a ring at a jeweler's to a death sentence, no one else in the group really knew. The other four had other stories of 'bad' deeds done and consequences that they weren't ready to bear.

Every night, as soon as the sun fell behind the hills and trees to the west, the five would hide in the forest of new growth that had sprung up in the wake of the loggers. The young trees and high grasses were good enough cover for most purposes. The reason the five hid there was so that they could keep an eye out for night travelers. It didn't happen often, but occasionally a wagon would break and the rest of the caravan would leave it behind. Once it was fixed, the horses would pull double-time in order to catch up. Other times, there would be an emergency delivery from one city to another. Those wagons often had gold, two or three days supplies, whatever the express delivery was, and nothing else. In both cases, the wagons were easy pickings. That was how the five planned on surviving. There was just one problem: It had been a month since the last opportunity arose for one such raid. Instead, the five had been forced to slip into the logging camp at night and take just enough supplies so that no one there would get too suspicious. Being a bandit in Altia was hard, but it beat trying to be a bandit in either of the two northern countries.

Tonight, on the last full moon of winter, the five all sat just barely close enough to the road to see it, just like they usually did, when an unusual sight befell them. Two people walked down the barely moonlit road. With hills on one side, and new growth on the other, it seemed like a safe enough road. At least, that was how the five rationalized two lone travelers walking down the road. Mid to high level adventurers always took the teleportation circles that the nobles used or horses, so the group figured that the two walking down the road must've been upper low level adventurers, or maybe even lower mid level ones. There was also the chance that something happened to their horses and that was why they were walking, but the group liked their odds. It was five on two and combined they had twenty levels between them. One of them, the big one, had seven levels into a warrior class, the toned man with a bow was level six and was a hunter, the other three were thieves or con men with the last seven levels between them.

The four with melee weapons, one great ax, a logger's ax, a shortsword, and a few knives too many, were about to move out of the new growth and into the road when the duo stopped. All five felt a chill of absolute mortality rolled down their spines as the black hooded figure scanned the new growth. As he did so, moonlight broke through the cloud cover and swept over the road. Thankfully, it didn't cross over the group's hiding place but it did something that, in the moment, was even more terrifying. As the moon crossed over and in front of the black hooded figure, it reflected off of a pair of silver eyes right as they locked onto the group. The moonlight revealed the violet paint of the knight and the pure black voids that were the armored figure's eye slits.

"You got the last one." A dark and gravelly voice purred out from the hooded figure when the knight started to take a step forwards. The knight stopped and nodded. The black hooded man took a step towards the group and then almost seemed to vanish from sight. He hadn't actually vanished but the black cloak and his black armor almost seemed to merge with the pitch black night as the moon was once again completely covered.

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The largest among them rose to his full height and stepped out of the new growth to meet him on open ground. His large ax would be more of a detriment in the tight spaces between the grass and young trees. A bowstring twanged as the hunter released an arrow towards the dark figure. The hunter's eyes were glowing a soft green as they tracked the man's every move. The dark figure pulled a sword shaped void out of himself and cut the arrow in half. With his next step he was already in front of the large man and he met the warrior's attack with one of his own. The sword shaped void cleaved through the ax head itself and the dark figure slipped under the impromptu projectile. With his next step he sliced cleanly through the larger man's torso just far enough to reach his spine. The sword sliced through his spine and the large man's legs went out from under him. A backswing perfectly cut through the large man's brainstem as he fell. In the end, it was a nearly painless death.

"We surrender!" One of the con men exclaimed and threw down his wood cutter's ax.

"Y-yeah! We surrender!" The one with a shortsword agreed. "I'll take the exile bargain and leave Altia, I promise!"

The thief with the daggers used the other two as cover and threw one, then two, and finally three knives at the being wreathed in midnight. He didn't wait to see if any of them had landed true but instead just made a break for it. He only got to take four steps before his neck ran straight into a sword shaped void that came out from behind nothing at all. The black cloaked man was just suddenly there and the young thief was tumbling to the ground in two pieces. The dark cloaked man slowly turned and locked eyes with the hunter.

"I was just backing him up." The hunter told the dark man. He slowly sat his bow on the ground while he held his other hand up. "I surrender too. I'll take my twenty years of hard labor. It's better than dying, right?"

"You." The dark figure purred. "Should you live, archer?" It was immediately clear that the dark figure had not liked being shot at, not that anyone could blame him for that, but since there hadn't been any harm done, the archer just hoped and prayed that the dark man had some amount of mercy inside of him. If not, well, he was under no delusions of being able to fight back. The dark man reached into his shadows that clung around himself and pulled out a pair of platinum tags. "Do you see these?" He asked rhetorically. All three of the survivors could see the shining white metal clearly enough in the dark to know what it meant. "I know you aren't blind in the dark." He added towards the hunter whose eyes were still softly glowing.

The hunter swallowed hard and nodded. "Y-yes sir. I do." He answered.

"Go, turn yourselves in. Tell the Guard that the Lord of Darkness apprehended you." The man wrapped in shadows ordered them. "I will not chase you down, you aren't worth my time, but if I ever see any of you again? It will be the last time."

—

"Have fun?" Lenna asked Isaac as soon as they were far enough from the bandits that immediately headed out towards Saetwixia, if for no other reason than the fact that it was in the opposite direction that the pair were heading.

"It was a nice stretch." Isaac agreed. "It also felt so incredibly good to actually destroy something. I hadn't realized how much pure rage I had bottled up until I drew my sword." Isaac told his wife honestly. "One day, someone is going to contact us with information about that pair, and when we catch up to them, I am going to tear one of them in half."

Lenna nodded. "I'll hold onto the other half for you." She agreed. Her rage was burning like white hot coals compared to Isaac's roaring fire covered in a damp blanket. She had been watching a bit of his flames of rage leak out from time to time at even the most minor of slights from anyone but her. She really hoped that he would be fine until he got it completely under control. It would not end well for them if he exploded on someone important while they were both still recovering. "But we mustn't piss off anyone who could end up helping us find them." She warned him. "We both know how annoying nobles can be."

Isaac nodded with a frown. "I know. I'll be on my best behavior." He assured her.

"Best ever, or best considering how angry you are right now?" Lenna questioned.

Isaac gave her a flat look. "Best considering how angry I am right now."

Lenna just sighed. All she could do was hope that it was good enough. Alten was only a few days away and then they only had to make the climb to Altesia. She trusted Isaac but she knew how he could be and it made her worry. Not a lot, but enough that she had brought it up in the first place. Only time would tell if that worry was well founded or not.

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