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Now that the distractions were eliminated, Albert turned his attention back to the fight between Walt and Dom.
But after seeing his men being obliterated, thus leaving him to face a skilled fighter with a mage to backup said fighter, Dom knew it was time to cut his losses and run. “Heh… you got me good. I know when I'm beaten.”
Albert who was readying a spell shouted at Dom, “Then lay down your arms and surrender or els-”
“Oh, I'll lay down my arms alright.” Dom interrupted, “Right on your precious cargo!” with the speed and power of his aura enhanced body, Dom swung his huge mace down on the roof of the carriage he was riding on.
The aura empowered blow pulverized the luggage cases they were standing on and proceeded to sunder the carriage they were standing on. As the carriage began to fall apart, the cries of the children from inside the carriage were rising in increasing alarm, and from the hole in the roof 4 well dressed children could be seen, 1 of them screaming in pain due to a mangled leg from the aura impact that pierced the whole carriage.
“Hehe, you can save those noble brats or chase me. I doubt you can do both.” Dom said before jumping off the crumbling carriage, tucked in his limbs, and hit the ground tumbling. When his momentum stopped. He got up and rushed into the woods.
As for Albert and Walt, what Dom said was true, they really did not have time if they wanted to save the children.
Albert turned to the carriage behind them and shouted, “Turn off your barrier and move to the next lane, prepare to catch the children!” then he turned to Walt, “Throw the children to the rear carriage!”
The moment the rear carriage turned off its projectile barrier, Albert cast and channeled the spell Air Cushion, directly in front of the rear carriage’s coachmen.
Air Cushion is classified as a utility spell that does as its namesake, it creates a cushion of air to negate or slow the momentum of any object that comes in contact with the spell. Usually, this spell would be cast at a set location and the effect of the spell would last a few seconds, but in Albert’s current situation, the set location he had to cast the spell was mid-air in front of a moving vehicle. This means Albert had to manually maintain the spell to make sure it stayed in front of the coachmen.
The moment the spell was up, Albert shouted “Now!”, and Walt who was already next to him with 2 kids tucked under his arms, threw the children one at a time at the shimmering spell in front of the rear carriage’s coachman, he then jumped back down into the quickly falling apart carriage scooped up the last 2 children and jumped over to the other carriage under his own power.
Walt then dropped the kids and reached out his hand and shouted to Albert, “Jump!”.
Just as the carriage started to collapse under his feet, Albert released his control on the spell and jumped for Walt’s outstretched hand. Walt caught Albert and brought him onto the carriage. When all the children were alive and accounted for, Walt looked around for any more threats.
What he saw was the first carriage still under attack, he then turned to Albert and said, “The first carriage is still under attack, i will go ahead.”
Walt then jumped off to the carriage in front of him. Just as he was about to come in contact with the projectile barrier, he kicked off of it and made use of the repulsing force of the barrier to project him to the next carriage to do the same thing.
He did this all the way until the 3rd carriage where he made an especially powerful jump off of the projectile barrier, over Luke’s carriage, and onto the top front of the 1st carriage’s projectile barrier where the horses were.
From there, he made a few small bounces off the front of the barrier to kill his speed and was eventually slow enough to slowly pass through the barrier and stand on 1 of the horses’ backs.
The moment Walt got into the barrier, it was all over for the 4 bandits, they were pincer attacked and Walt made short work of the bandits.
After making sure there were no more threats left to face, the knights slowed the 1st carriage to a stop and the rest of the convoy followed suit.
When they came to a complete stop, Walt and the remaining knights went to take stock of the survivors and make sure no more of their charges were injured.
When Walt looked into the 2nd carriage, he saw bloodied Luke standing above the corpse of a bandit with his dagger drawn and ready to defend himself.
After looking at Luke and then down at the bandit with an obvious stab wound at the back of his neck, Walt already knew what happened but he had to ask anyway, “You did this?”
Luke, recognizing a friendly face, eased the tension in his body so much that even Walt and the children behind Luke could clearly see it, “Yeah… the bandit got angry at me after I blasted his friend off the carriage and got him trampled.” Walt just nodded and asked him to stay in the carriage for the moment.
A few minutes later as Walt was checking on the other carriages, he noticed the knights who went to engage the bandit riders return.
After the knights returned, they were briefed on the attack on the convoy and Dom’s escape.
Deciding to take a short break, half the knights went to sweep the surroundings for any remaining bandits while the other half went to set up a camp and retrieve the fallen luggage from the destroyed carriage.
After a break to rest the horses, redistribute the now carriageless children into other carriages, and provide medical attention to the child with a mangled leg, they decided to push the horses and double time it to the next stop and make a report of their encounter with Dome Dasher Dom.
***
Off in the woods, Dome Dasher Dom was running towards his base. ‘Now that this raid failed, it is time to get out of this county, lay low, and build up another gang.’ Dom thought to himself as he entered his base to gather what valuables he could carry.
Once he entered his hideout, what he found was what remained of his riders and those who were shooting arrows at the ambush point, and none among them were his elites, ‘Damn it, that must mean the rest of them are dead, now only the trash remains… but I can work with that.’
Dom then gathered up all the men, “Alright boys, We fucked this one up, so we are going to need to move before the Earl does a proper sweep and runs into us. So strip everything of value and let's go! I want to be out of here within the hour! Move!”
A smart bandit is scary for any community
Hmm kinda disappointing that boss asshat got away
But realistic (regardless of future plot points). Very few leaders will put themselves in a position where they cannot retreat easily
@confusedneophyte Yeah, not the competent who managed to survive until they got a reputation. Smart ennemies are annoying to deal with. Entertaining but annoying.