As we passed by a fort, we were fired on. We took cover and looked where the arrows were coming from. It was an occupied fort held by bandits. There were forts spread all over the map for the Players. If they wanted to form factions and kingdoms of their own, they would need some territory. If a Player held a fort, city and village to themselves, they could declare themself a petty king. From there, they could name their kingdom and go to war with other powers. First, a petty king would have to win a war against the king who previously owned the land. “Lancelot is a few days away. We need to get further away.” Suzie said. She knew what I was going to ask her. “We can still kill these bandits. We have a reputation to hold.” she said. We certainly had the level to do it. The high leveled bandits were a trial by fire and we were reaping the benefits. I was Level 19 and Suzie was Level 16. I smiled at her and I poked my head out to see where they were. On my signal, we charged the fort and killed all the bandits outside the fort. We then went through the gates and fought the bandits.
Cutting down the bandits were getting easier and easier as time went on. That also meant that the bandits would also get tougher. We would probably spawn a bandits group that would not be able to be handled by the NPCs. I wondered what would happen if that happened. Chaos would definitely ensue. These bandits were here for a while because they were all around Level 20. At this level, they were a breeze. There were multiple bandits in the keep and on the walls. Reiner shifted to his normal human to help Suzie on the stairs. Elis and Tybalt were still in centaur form for some reason. I turned to them and asked what was wrong. “I have a plan to get back at that Master. I have to keep this form to do it though.” Elis said. Tybalt nodded. “Yeah! You’ll like it. He won’t fucking see it coming!” he added with excitement. I sighed and continued to walk the perimeter of the fort. That brought out some of the bandits out of hiding. I killed them and there was nothing else to do other than to wait for Reiner and Suzie to come out. Five minutes later, a popup appeared saying the fort was cleared. We healed up before leaving.
I was pretty proud of doing it. When the bandit encounter spawned, I said “Let’s give them some money. I want to see where it goes.” They all looked at me in pure annoyance. “You better listen to your friend here.” the leader said. He was Level 63 and he had five men all leveled 56. They wanted 5000 lin. We had more than enough to eat the loss. I told them about the vacant fort and their eyes lit up like children. “You wouldn’t have laid a trap for us in the fort, would you? That is not a nice thing to do. We would have to get back at you for something like that.” the leader said in a threatening tone. I rolled my eyes and said “We cleared the fort and we are moving on. If you don’t want to occupy it, thats fine. We are on a journey.” I began to walk past them and the rest of my party followed. They watched us go before walking towards the fort. Since this was the same country. Lancelot might be distracted by the attack by Giganto and a bandit uprising. I just hoped it would be long enough to forget about us. The last thing we needed was for his to send bounties on us. We would not be able to hold out forever.
We made it to the border after a few in-game days. We were already hearing rumblings about a new bandit group in Fort Silverpike. They worked fast and were already oppressing a nearby village. All they needed was to take a city and they would become a petty kingdom. We were noticed by the guards and they offered to feed and host us for the night. We agreed and were a honored guest among them. A side quest was offered to help them erradicate some monsters along the border. We declined and they were dissapointed, but understood. We left at first light and entered the country of Qwidon. We were going to continue on towards Sacrilmon when the road tapered off into a path that waved through a forest. We were occasionally beset by monsters and bandits along the trail. We cleared a bloody path until we heard a voice telling us to stop. We stood together and looked where we thought we heard the voice. We saw a unicorn peer at us from the treeline. Reiner and the others notched an arrow and aimed at it. I told them to not shoot. “Leave. You killed too many creatures and champions.”
