"Oi, who are you?" Rurik approached a heavyweight clad in half-plate, wielding a pole hammer, the only one to have a full helmet — a sallet, gorget included. Though, his other armour pieces didn't fit the helmet. Rurik watched the Plate walking towards him, approaching slowly with his weapon on the ready. The young man kept staring into the slit of the helmet, until the heavyweight stepped next to a tree, his body perpendicular to the thick trunk.

"I asked you—" Rurik swiftly lifted his right hand in a fist, instantly pointing left with the index finger. A cylinder of wood protruded from the trunk with a considerable velocity, slamming into the side of Plate's helmet. The man took a few steps to the side, almost dropping his pole hammer and falling over when his hands reached to grasp at his head. Rurik kept his attention on the heavyweight, until a glimpse of a figure further down didn't point something, swiftly alerting the young man. 

He barely managed a squint, quickly realising that it was a "CROSSBOW?!" — Rurik screamed, quickly raising his left arm up, the fingers clasped together in a duck gesture. Not a second later, a metal bolt was travelling through the air, aimed directly at the young man's head — Rurik quickly spread the fingers of his left hand, the tip of the bolt deforming, turning flat. The flat bolt passed between Rurik's middle and ring finger, sticking right into his forehead, the force of the strike made the young man stumble back, a small splatter of blood flying up and down, as well as to the sides of his forehead as his head bent backwards. The bolt plummeted to the ground, and the heavyweight had regained some of his senses, sprinting towards Rurik.

Hunched over, the young man threw his right arm to the left, a direction where the pole hammer was flying at his dome. Like a punch, Rurik's clenched fist made the shaft of the pole hammer shatter into wooden shrapnel even before it made contact with his skin, covering the leaves of the plants behind the weapon in irregular holes. The head of the pole hammer had its momentum neutralised: it fell straight to the ground, while the rest of the shaft that Plate held missed Rurik by a huge margin. 

"HA?!" The heavyweight exclaimed after realising what happened to his weapon. With the Crossbow obstructed by the large frame of the heavyweight, Rurik knee-kicked the air in front of him, a pillar of earth shooting up, hitting Plate under his arms, sending the remnants of the pole hammer high in the air as the grip of his hand released. The pillar kept going further — higher than Rurik's head in height, and forced the heavyweight to retreat in confusion.

Keeping up the tempo and tipping the advantage to his side, Rurik punched the pillar with his right hand, sending a huge chunk of earth flying right at Plate. It exploded into dust upon impact with enough force to push the heavyweight over a few paces, revealing the line of sight for Crossbow, but, by that point Rurik had weaved out of the direct sight of the skimpy crossbowman and ran towards the wooden cylinder that he used to surprise attack Plate, hitting it with the same move as he did the pole-hammer. 

This time, the wooden shrapnel was far bigger and much faster, penetrating the clothes and skin of the lightly-dressed Crossbow even at a distance of over ten paces, the thin fingers releasing the contraption with a loud scream. "BARD! BARD!" He kept screaming while running away.

"Shit!" Rurik shouted himself, seeing Crossbow flee, shifting his gaze back to the heavyweight on the ground, laying on his back while panting, his elbows pushed into the dirt. The young man mended the slit of Plate's sallet with a quick pinching gesture and raised two smaller pillars to either side of the heavyweight's head. Moving both of his arms, Rurik clashed his fists together, the mass of dirt smashing against the metal of the sallet, the earth crumpling the helmet with each repetition until the panicked screams stopped and the desperate arms dropped to the ground.

Rurik sped off towards the position from which Crossbow had fled and put his thumb to his cheekbone.

"They have crossbows! A rat is coming to the center of the camp!" 

The big open ground of the center of the camp was already crowded: 3 escapees, only now approaching Luka and Neoklipt — Crossbow who ran to the men that sat at the bushcraft table, talking to each other. 

"BARD! AMBUSH!" The conversation instantly stopped, and the cleanest man of the bunch with braided black hair and a beard rushed to stand up and took up arms: a long and shiny greatsword. Two other men, who looked about as old as Bard, maybe thirty-five or forty years with some weak wrinkles, also rose and raised their weapons: a bardiche for the one right of Bard and a spear with a round shield for the one left of him, all of them equipped with half plate armour.

"Take another crossbow from the tent!" Bard had instructed the arriving skimpy man, his eyes darting around, catching glimpses of the arriving Luka, Neoklipt, and Rurik, who only now came to the center. "The boy is a mage!" Crossbow kept shouting as he appeared from the tent with a newer-looking crossbow. “WHAT?!” The cleaner man screamed, and the seven exchanged a couple of glances, until Bard opened his mouth again and looked at the assailants in right-to-left succession. "Who are you?! Are you with the lord of Gastat?!" He asked, thinking of defusing the situation somewhat.

"Who?! Who?! Who?!?! Did we get found out? How did they manage to track us down in this forest?? The masked guy came from where Kuie and Pasfes were... Are they dead??? The girl came from the direction that Kitte and Ganstanne partolled, what's with them?!? If two of them took out four of our guys so quickly, this is bad business! And the boy, he is a mage?! What are people like them doing in this nowhere?!" 

"Nomel, What happened to Hunnes?" Bard hurriedly asked, the three men forming a ring around him, the Shield looking at Luka, Bardiche at Neoklipt, and Nomel — formerly Crossbow, stared at Rurik. "Dead! I think he's dead!" The four got increasingly agitated as the staredown continued. The pressure mounted, the one at the center seemed to be the most despairing, "Answer me! Who are you with?!" Bard kept shouting at the group.

"No-one!" Luka spoke up, holding a point with her sword in front, each of them was roughly seven steps away from their prospective opponent. Bard gazed at Luka, a flicker disdain and a pinch of anger a highlight of his tone, "Fucking headhunters?! What did you forget in this damn forest?! Who hired you?!" Luka looked him in the eyes, too, "Heard that some bastards escaped from a dungeon, I dunno if y'all got a bounty over your heads yet or not, but we'll find out after we clap you all!" The woman shouted as the four of them tensed, Bard wa sweating profusely, frankly it looked like Bars had a hard time believing that they were being attacked because of a rumour of all things, "You fucking pricks!... what's with the others?!" — "DEAD!" Bard's face kept thrashing around, looking at the assailants, the grip on his greatsword shaking.

“UUUUGH!! What the fuck do I do?? What do I do?? I don't understand it at all!?”

"UGHHHH...!! FUCKING KILL THEM!"

Bard lost his composure and haphazardly ordered the others to attack. As soon as he said that, Bardiche lunged at Neoklipt, Nomel fired his crossbow and Shield tried to start approaching Luka.

The bolt had been deviated with a swift wave of Rurik's hand.

"Let's get over this already!" Luka shouted, suddenly pulling her right arm back, a spear —  a more javelin shaped object made of what looked like rough rock appeared in her hand. "WHAAAAT?!" Bard reacted wide-eyed; everyone but Rurik and Neoklipt averted their eyes from their opponents. Her brother did move aside from the line of fire, however. 

"Go to hell!" An explosion as loud as a cannon shot behind the javelin launched the projectile at unfathomable speeds right at the center of mass of Shield. In a single blink of an eye the man who held the shield had a gaping hole through and through his stomach, the shield erupted into splinters and individual boards, the metal sheets that had covered the wood were instantly crumpled. The sheer force of the penetration sent the body flying back even without transferring most of the projectile's momentum, the insides exploding from the back of his torso, as even the vertebrae had their connections severed and flew out as additional and possibly harmful elements. The rest of the path of the javelin was clear — Bard and Nomel barely avoided losing their arms and insides respectively. Bard felt his mind going blank for a moment as he almost fainted from the sight in front of him.  

But, only the escapees had halted their assault. Bardiche received multiple stab wounds to his neck, Neoklipt brandished his dagger for only the necessary amount of time, sinking it right into the arteries. Nomel got sent flying by a massive pillar of earth shooting out of the ground, further terrifying Bard as the flying silhouette crossed his field of vision right above. A characteristic and audible crunch was heard coming from the place where Nomel had landed, surprisingly, he didn't scream while he flew.

Bard took a jittery glance around, his teeth grit against each other, the lips parted and eyes opened wide. His thoughts had become a slurry as the entire ordeal happened in less than ten seconds. The greatsword dropped to the ground, and so did Bard, flailing his arms around while on his knees. 

"Surrender! I surrender!" To the point of tears he screamed, the group approaching the man slowly, all of them relaxing after hearing the man plead into the open air. "Throw the sword towards the man in the mask and take off your armour, all of it." Rurik said, pulling at his collar as he approached, sighing deeply with a trickle of sweat running down his forehead. Luka was also covered in sweat, standing closest to Bard, her sword pointed at him, the blade covered with blood; the engravings filled completely with the red liquid. The trio watched as Bard threw the greatsword to Neoklipt's feet and began to tink off every belt that held his chest piece around his body, then the long pauldrons made from multiple plates and rerebraces with the elbow pieces and forearm protection, gauntlets and after standing up — his greaves. The chainmail was taken off last.

Rurik slowly came up to search him, while Luka held the blade pointed at his neck. Bard kept breathing fast and shallow with his arms held up at chest level. He had his eyes closed, head pointed up and forward, trying not to notice the feeling of blood on his face, which splattered all the way from the man who held the shield. The young man's hand lifted Bard's tunic, fondled some places and patted down basically everything down to the very toes. "Take off the boots." He told the man, who was considerably taller than him. With shaky hands Bard had obliged, taking a few steps away.

"He's all clear." Rurik said, Turning away to search for a rope or something else to tie up his hands, Neoklipt had his arms crossed in a rather dismissive manner, looking over at the senseless Nomel somewhere in the bushes to the left: he hit his head hard on the adjacent tree, his body seizing up from critical damage to what seems to be his entire brain. 

"Well, it's better to move him elsewhere." Luka said, not removing her eyes from Bard, who couldn't help but bend over, supporting himself by putting his hands on his knees. "I heard them talking about a river, I suppose it shouldn't be too far. Rurik, can you use detection again and find it?" Neoklipt said, unable to control his urge and going over to poor Nomel, finishing him off — either out of mercy or just to make sure that he's dead, "Sure thing." A weak wave of wind permeated from the young man again after a few moments of static standing. "It's to the East, about sixty six meters. Rather wide and full, we can refill our water." He said, going into the second tent, emerging with a length of rope after less than half a minute.

"Sheesh... Let's go, then. Watch over the guy while I wash up." Luka began to whine, signalling that the encounter had finally come to an end. It was a gradual release of tension: Rurik tied up Bard, who still didn't open his eyes, and obviously didn't want to. Neoklipt was the one to move him, pulling Bard behind him by the rope between his wrists, Luka and Rurik walked in front the same way that Rurik had ran after Nomel, but instead of going back completely, they turned left into a path of flattened grass and leaves, having a comparatively easy time walking, considering what they had to do to get here in the first place. 

Eventually, the thick brush began to thin out, until running water could be heard and a spacious clearing met the eyes of the group, all but one person sighed with relief. "Get behind the tree over there~" Luka said, pointing to her right, the trunk of that specimen was quite sizable. Rurik and Neoklipt led Bard behind the tree, and the young man sat down with his legs crossed, the walking cloak nudging Bard to sit down as well. Some splashing sounds could be heard not too far from them.