Chapter 35

The Bandits – Part 5

With the gem key in hand, she got to work removing the girl’s collars. It seemed to be as simple as running the gem over a section of the collar in order to remove it. Asking what she should do with these collars, she was told to keep them.

It felt like these girls were saying or just implying she was some sort of slaver, but as it stands that wasn’t the case. While slavery is illegal in this land, that is not the case when dealing with criminals. In this kingdom, if someone commits a heinous crime, they were captured and placed in a slave collar, which is owned by the nobility in charge of the region. Doing this makes a statement to others, and helps keep track of them when they are either imprisoned or forced into servitude doing some form of menial labour. If they somehow manage to escape, they can easily be caught again, given that they have the collar showing what they are.

It was apparently also stated that if you have the ability to put slave collars on people, it was your duty to do so if you come across a criminal where punishment for their crime is enslavement. In the case of these bandits, that was very much the case. They can then be handed over to the authorities in the nearest town, giving you a small fee for performing a service. Assuming you have some proof of what they have done.

Moving along, with the girls now free, and the slave collars collected up, they then moved on to the men. Sure that she would not get a favourable reaction if she just strolled up to these guys who were scared and alone, she brought a few of the women with her to help keep them calm. The two dog-kin decided to join her, and it would seem that even though she removed the collars from them, they still decided to put some distance between them and her.

…

Having headed to each of the small tents to release the men, with thankfully no issues, they then headed back to the centre of the camp and placed the slave collars on the bandits. With there being ten slaves and now only six living bandits, they had more than enough to keep them in line.

They then quickly searched through the tents and found a good amount of gear that was usable, including plenty of rope which was quickly tied to each of the bandits, meaning they were unable to go anywhere when they woke up. With that done, they all became relaxed and the conversation started to flow.

“What are you?”

.....

That was the first question that arose from one of the men when he finally worked up the courage to ask.

It obviously annoyed Olivia, given this is what she had to answer the most since she ended up in this world. She was tempted to just wear a sign around her neck telling people what she was.

After explaining who and what she was, she then told them that she had come from the nearby trading town. Most of the group had originally come from their two, but a couple of the men had just been hunting in the forest nearby when they were captured.

Before they got onto introductions from the beast-kin, groans started to arise from the bandits. This was then followed by struggling, shouting and grunting as they all tried to untie themselves. A few noticed their boss laying dead on the floor, and got really worried, afraid they would meet the same fate.

Muting out the sounds of the bandits, Olivia decided that they needed to get out of here. There was no way she could stay listening to them moan and groan for any period of time. She also had to get back to let Lyrika know she was fine.

She spoke to the former slave group, asking if they knew how to get back to the village, and from their response, it seemed that they were not that far from the road that travelled into the village. Again, it somewhat made sense. The bandits had to be nearby to stop and attack traders travelling along the road.

With their direction known, they loaded a few wagons with loot, geared themselves up, took several torches from the equipment tent, and headed towards the road. They did however leave much more than they took, but one of the beast-kin said that they would return with more wagons tomorrow to get the rest of it.

The path out of the clearing had actually been flattened and cut to make it possible to wagons to travel down. Something the bandits would have done when raiding trader wagons and carriages. This made it much easier to get through, and there were fewer things to trip over, in the darkness.

At the back of the group, the bandits were all tied along in a line, with rope wrapping around their hands and their throats, meaning if any should get any ideas, all of them would end up choking as the rope tightened. This kept most of them quiet as they resigned themselves to their fate. The rest still shouted, angry at their situation.

As they walked, Olivia spoke to the beast-kin, asking about the bandit group. It turned out that they had been a larger group, but after the initial attack on the village and the carriages, the rest had taken the money and left.

…

After a good while, they eventually made it to the road, well dirt path, and they headed towards the village. It was quite the detour compared to just walking through the forest, but with the darkness, that would not end well for anyone.

Travelling along the road, it took quite a while to make it back. There were quite a few twists and turns along the road, and it was not very direct. When they made it back, the village was still in complete darkness, and lacking any life, where the only light present was from candles and oil lamps peering through the wooden panels across the church windows.

They travelled between the houses, following the road to the marketplace, where they left the wagons. The women left and headed to the church, with the men staying behind in order to keep guard over the bandits. As Olivia watched them go, she realised they were missing someone. She looked around the wagon she stood by to see who was left but found no one. As she turned around to look at the other wagon, she almost jumped out of her skin, finding the other girl right behind her.

She stood there staring at Olivia, not her face, but more just her body, with a scrutinising look on her face.

Olivia still had not had a proper look at this girl given the darkness, but the two bunny hears that stood erect right in her line of sight told her who this was.

“Err, hello.”

The girl just stood there looking at her. Her gaze shifted across her body as if she was trying to figure out something about her. As she stood there, it was complete silence, aside from the groans of the bandits.

“So, you’re half-orc half-goblin.”

Olivia was not expecting the statement. She had already told them what she was in the bandit camp. So why was this girl just saying it again? The way she stood there staring, it was like she was analysing her. Compared to the other girls, it also seemed like she didn’t care that she was, being a monster and all.

“Err, yes.”

The bunny girl tilted her head to the side as if she was trying to figure something out. This was followed by a sudden and short cry of ‘ahh’ as if she realised something, where she then headed to one of the waggons.

The girl rummaged around in the gear they brought back from the camp, before pulling out a thin leather-bound book on a plank of wood that was twice its size. The wood had a couple of small areas that had been gouged out of it, one circular and the other long and thin. These were filled with a pot of ink and a quill.

The girl headed back over to her and started writing.

“How did you end up a half-orc half-goblin? Mother a goblin father an orc? The other way around? Spell?”

“Wha-“, confusion just hit Olivia as she was suddenly bombarded with questions.

“Come on. This is the first of maybe a hundred questions I have. Can’t spend all night on the first one.” The girl said as she cocked her head to the side.

“Ok, hold on. I get that you have questions. Lots of people do and will when they see me. But what I don’t understand is why you are writing it down. Also, shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, scared of me?”

The girl placed her quill down in its slot and placed the board on the edge of the nearby wagon before turning back around, and extending her hand.

“I just realised I never introduced myself. My name is Philine Portanthas, but most people call me Philly. I am a researcher at the Elven Institute of Knowledge. I came here to learn more about beast-kin, their habits, culture and society, and things like that. Pleased to meet you” She said holding out her hand.

Olivia could only look back at her quizzically.