Aside from Eye of Graeae and the skill he could get from Peasant leveling up, everything was out of his reach. Viewing his character sheet or his non-existent party member’s character sheet was not going to give him any advantages against the, hopefully only two, lackeys outside. Linguistics or Simple Weapons Training were his only real options here now. He thought back to his fight with Stinky again. An ambush clearly gave him an advantage and the poker certainly managed to massively damage his opponent with a critical strike. The key here certainly was the ambush. He needed to work with the woman to plan out the ambush. Making his decision he selected Linguistics. 

Keiran invested 1 skill point immediately and was greeted by another screen.

Kerian frowned at the list of available languages, he had slightly miscalculated and assumed there would only be one language. However, he realized he could just ask the woman now that he knew the names of the languages. Turning to face the woman, he noticed she was done smashing her rapist's face, not that it made a single dent. Either she was weak or the body still counted as high level after death, he thought. “Hattani?” he asked her with a slight hope. He secretly didn’t want to spend skill points on learning a language that very few people used. To his relief, she nodded. Keiran quickly selected the language and was greeted with a sudden intense pain in his head that was gone even before the rest of facial muscles could respond.

“Can you understand me now?” he hurriedly asked the woman. She silently nodded again. He hoped she would speak but clearly the traumatic events had left her quite scarred. It didn’t matter as long as she helped with the plan, he thought, setting her silence aside for now. “I apologize I didn’t intervene earlier, I am not a fighter. Just a peasant. I got lucky with this” -he held up the poker, “but I don’t think I can get lucky again with two outside. There are two of us and two of them. If we work together, I think I have a plan that will allow us to ki-err, umm, handle them. By the way, my name is Keiran Shah.” Once he finished saying his piece, he noticed the woman’s iris flashed a bright golden hue before returning to normal. She stared at him quietly, long enough for Keiran to start regretting picking up Linguistics. “Nihata Kazch,” she replied.

“You really are a Peasant, level 3 to boot! Why is your level so low? How did you even manage to kill Caron with just a Tier 0 civilian class? He was rumored to be a level 19 Berserker!” she asked completely aghast at the man, no, moron standing before her. Keiran frowned, he didn’t like where this conversation was going. Especially not since his secret was out of the bag while hers wasn’t. “We can talk about it later, we have more pressing matters. Besides, I saved you from whatever stinky Caron was going to do. Also, you are being rude. I shared my class and level, you didn’t.” He stated firmly, a bit angry at himself and this world because he was flying blind here. If he knew how to block his class and level, he would have. “Sorry, you are right. I am a Hedge Witch.” she stated without elaborating any further. Kerian could see that her class and level in the party view at the periphery of his vision still showed both as blocked. She returned his stare and refused to disclose anything further. “Fine, whatever.” signed Kerian exasperatedly. 

“Assessing our current situation, I am a low leveled,” it pained Kerian to admit it, “Peasant with no fighting skills. I have this poker, which I was able to use to take down Caron in an ambush. We have access to two hand axes, which I really hope you are somewhat capable of using.” She shook her head at that and added, “I only have skills with daggers, staves, and crossbows. The Frontier Justice caught me while I was returning from the forest. I had already exhausted all my mana. Unless you have a mana potion in there,” she pointed at the pouch, “I won’t be of much use.” “Frontier Justice?” he questioned with a raised eyebrow while handing over the pouch over to her, hoping it contained a mana potion. “It’s what these bandit scum call themselves. Caron was their leader. With the exception of Vidic, Caron’s right hand man, they are mostly a rag tag group of Tier 0 criminals.”

She took the pouch and started searching through its contents. “The vials are useless” she stated holding up the vials. “Alchemical physical boosters, likely keyed to him.” she added noting the confusion on Keiran’s face. “The health potions are potent,” holding two of the bright reddish-orange. “A potion of haste,” picking up the purple potion. “Lastly,” with a smile on her face, “one mana potion,” picking up the last potion with shiny golden sheen. “This should easily allow me to cast Tier 0 spells four or five times,” she said looking at him expectantly. It took Keiran a second to understand that she was asking his permission, he nodded, mentally glad he could trust her at least a bit. She removed the seal on the potion and chugged it. “What spells do you have at your disposal?” he asked. “I only have one that will be useful to us, Ice Shard, it won’t be able to take them out on its own but should damage and slow them down, providing you with an opportunity to deliver the final blow.” 

“With an element of surprise, with me hasted and you slowing them down, we should have a distinct advantage against them.” Keiran stated while scratching his chin, a plan forming in his head. “How many of these Frontier Justice are there?” he questioned her. He needed to know what to expect next if their plan worked. Also, it didn't hurt to be prepared against any uninvited guests. “There were twenty of them when I was captured and Caron dragged me over here with those three.” Keiran frowned at those numbers, even after taking down Caron and the two outside, that was a lot for him and Nihata. Sensing his hesitation she added, “With Caron dead, we just might be able to rally the rest of the village against them. Vidic would be a problem but there is a chance that showing Caron’s head would break their spirit.” “I guess that’s a problem for the future” Keiran stated, realizing it was going to be a long day.

“Now, here’s what I have I come up with,” he paused before continuing, “I know you won’t like it but hear me out fully. My current plan is to have you pretend to show Caron’s corpse what he missed out while I pull one of them inside. If you know the names of either one of them it would make separating them easier. Once one of them is inside, I ambush and stab him from behind. We both regroup and take out the second guy together. What do you think?” Kerian finished while observing Nihata. Her face cringed but she didn’t show any outward opposition to the proposal. Taking a deep breath, she sighed and said “Jax,” while handing the pouch back to him. She then turned around and moved towards the corpse.

With her back toward the barn entrance, she mounted Caron’s midriff and put up a performance that would compete with Meg Ryan’s role in When Harold Met Samantha. Keiran for his part quickly moved near the entrance of the barn and hid with his trusted poker. Anyone entering would need to turn around to spot him, so he felt pretty confident he would get the first shrink in. An attack on the neck would allow them to deal with Jax without even alerting the other guard. Mentally prepared, he unsealed the potion of haste and drank it. Trying his best to imitate Caron’s voice, he shouted, “Jax! get your scrawny ass in here.”