The rest of the party and I woke up early and packed up our things. The old elf lady slept in and when we’re ready to leave, we woke her up and we were on our way. After a short while walking we heard a roar from far away and we saw a dragon flying in the distance. It had dark green scales, black horns, and massive wings. Unlike the troll, this dragon is exactly like the ones from books back home.

“We won't need to take cover, this one’s far enough away. Let’s keep moving.” Voyd said. 

Ro was right about the old lady slowing us down. Bringing her with us added 3 days to the journey back. We had no problem keeping her safe from bandits and monsters which was good. But when we decided to take the same shortcut through the capital ruins we took on our way out, we were caught off guard. 

A group of men wearing black robes with blue stitching stood in the road in front of us and one of them pointed a large staff in our direction. The tip of the staff began to light up. “Watch out!” Voyd yelled.

I grabbed the old lady and jumped behind some nearby rubble. The others also took cover and then, a flash of lightning flew past where we were just standing.

Then the man shouted, “You are in MMP territory, surrender now and we will escort you back to Aitenbureaux for trial!” 

“Who the hell are these guys?” I asked.

“They’re b***h a*s MMP’s!” Ro said.

“What’s an MMP?” I asked.

“Magic Military Police. That city in the south sometimes send their scouts up here. They do nothing but cause trouble and kill everyone they see.” Ro told us.

“Me kill MMP’s!” Killer yelled.

“Don’t scream that!” I told killer. 

We need to de-escalate things and let them know we’re not a threat.

“Don’t attack! We have an old lady with us!” I yelled towards the MMP’s.

“Those tricks won’t work on us, come out with your hands up!” They said.

Welp I tried, maybe scaring them off will work. I came out from behind cover and fired at one of them. The bullet hit his head and he collapsed instantly. The other magicians were stunned.

“Alright, I won’t hurt any more of you if you turn around and leave us alone.” I told them. 

They all stood there looking scared, but one of them aimed their staff and fired a shard of ice towards me. I used my gun to fire a burst of wind magic that broke the shard into thousands of tiny pieces. The force of the wind carried through the ice and knocked the magician on his a*s. After that, the MMP’s retreated. I guess that could’ve gone a little smoother but only one person dead isn’t that bad considering they attacked first. 

We continued moving until we made it to Sanctuary. When we got there, we saw a large group of people gathered around the cave’s entrance. As we got closer we realized it was bandits gathered outside. They were screaming and banging trying to get the nomads inside to open up. They were so preoccupied they didn’t notice us walking up on them. We surprised them with a gunshot to the back of one of their heads. They all collectively turned around, then a massive fight broke out outside the mine. I started blasting as many people as I could. Voyd used her wind magic to protect us by blowing away any enemy that got too close and changing the trajectories of any arrow that was fired at us. Ro sniped all the opposing archers and Killer went off to do his own thing. He ran around the battlefield flailing his mace and sending the bandits flying nearly as far as Voyd’s wind magic could. The bandits soon realized their efforts were futile and the few remaining survivors fled the scene. 

We made sure all the bandits were gone then approached the cave door and used the secret knock. One of the nomads opened the door.

“Thank goodness you all returned!” He said.

“Are you guys all right?” I asked.

“Yes, everyone inside is fine. The door you designed for us held up perfectly.” He replied.

“Well that’s good to hear.” I said.

“The leaders would like to see you as soon as possible.” The nomad said.

“Oh, ok. Do you know why?” I asked.

“There’s been an uproar in the capital ruins recently. Bandits and MMP’s have been harassing our scouts the past few days and we need your help again.” He told me.

“Alright.” I said. The nomad brought us in and led us to the room where the leaders were gathered.

They were sitting around a table carved from stone and sitting on little stone stumps.

“Who is this you brought back with you?” One of them asked.

I told them about the old lady we met and begged them to let her stay.

“I guess given everything you’ve done for us we could let her stay, but we need you to do one more thing for us first.” They said.

“Alright, whatever it is I’ll do it.” I told them.

They invited all four of us to sit down. “You may have already heard, but the capital ruins have grown to be more violent than ever before.” Said the oldest.

“We’ve sent multiple scouts out into the wasteland to search for food and supplies. Only two came back alive.” Said another one of the leaders.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I said.

“The scouts that returned reported a power struggle taking place within and around the outskirts of the capital ruins. It seems that after the disappearance of the ‘unkillable group’ there was a short period where bandits fled in fear of whatever was able to kill the unkillable. Bandit scouts must’ve reported that the area was safe and now all the bandits from nearby have rushed to the ruins in order to claim the land for themselves. The MMP’s also heard of the power gap and are looking to claim the area for their own purposes.” The elder said.

I screwed up. “I’m so sorry! This is all my fault, I’ll go clear out the ruins right away!” I said.

“No!” The leaders responded, “If you clear the ruins again you will only be delaying the inevitable. And besides, you did what you had to do in order to save my daughter. We are grateful to you for that.” Said Ro’s father.

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“For now you should go into the ruins and seek out the MMP’s there. Then you offer them this deal, you will help them take control of the ruins and in exchange they let us live here peacefully.” They said. 

“Do you think that will work?” I asked.

“We’ve never made contact with the MMP’s. They tend to attack everything on sight so we have no idea what their motives or intentions are. However, we do know they do stop attacking when you run away and they also accept surrender so they shouldn’t have an issue with a peaceful group living near them.” The eldest said.

“Alright, we’ll get on it.” I told them.

“We also need to address the door situation.” Another leader said.

“What’s wrong with the door?” I asked.

“If we’re ever in another situation like today where an enemy stalks our only entrance then we’ll be locked in like prisoners and eventually we will run out of food or water.” They responded.

“Do you know of a way we can fix this problem?” He asked me. 

I started to think, there’d be no good way for the nomads to attack intruders from the inside, and setting up guards could just get them killed. One way we could keep intruders out is with a trap. But if we set up a trap the nomads would have to be able to avoid it. Maybe we could set up a trap that could be activated from the inside and we could drill a peephole in the door to make sure we don’t accidentally set it off on one of our own. I told the leaders this and they said that they would begin discussing ideas for a trap while we went off into the ruins. 

We were dismissed, we went back to our private rooms to unpack then met in the common area to discuss and plan for contacting the MMP’s. 

After a brief discussion Voyd came up with a good idea; “There’s a flower that when grinded up into a powder puts people to sleep. If I put that powder on the tip of Ro’s arrows we could knock them all out and tie them up.” She said.

“That’s great! Where can we find the flowers?” I asked.

“That’s the problem, they’re in the forest. We’d have to go deep into elf territory.” She replied.

Then I asked, “So… if we run into them can’t we just fight? They can’t be that strong.”

“The forest is dense and they know it better than we do. We’ll die before we even see it coming.” Voyd said.

“That won’t be a problem.” Ro said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Are you guys stupid or something?” Ro replied then she looked at Killer and said, “Don’t answer that.” 

“Are you just gonna insult us or are you gonna tell us what you’re talking about.” I said.

“Um yeah,” she said, “You guys didn’t know that my family knows a detect life spell? It’s how they were able to survive in the wasteland for generations.” Ro told us.

“For real? How come no one told us?” I asked.

“They probably never fully trusted you. The spell could be used to keep track of you guys when you were around the camp and prevent any possible ambushes.” Ro said.

It would make sense for them to hide something like that from us and it also explains why they ran from us while we were sneaking up on them when we first met.

“Can you teach us the spell?” I asked Ro.

“I was never able to master it because I spent most of my time training in archery. I could teach it to you but the range would be really small. But if you ask the others and tell them why we need it they might teach it to you.” She said.

“Alright.” I went to one of the leaders of the nomads and told him what Ro had told me and how the spell could help us get in contact with the MMP’s. He agreed to teach us the spell and apologized for keeping it secret.

“It’s cool, I get it. I’m just glad I’ve finally earned you guys’ trust.” I told him.

A few days went by, Voyd went to learn the detect life from the nomads while Ro practiced her wind magic and I worked on getting better at healing. Killer gave up on magic and spent his time training as he normally would. Once Voyd felt the spell's range was long enough she told us and we left to go to the forest. 

The journey there took us two days. We had to take the long way around the capital ruins in order to avoid fights which added a little bit of time.

On the way there I asked Voyd, “Hey, how do you know so much about this world anyways?”

“Before my mom died, she told me everything she could remember about the world. Just in case I’d have to survive on my own one day.” She told us.

I guess that makes sense, her mom was probably really old with lots of knowledge and experience to share.

We made it to the forest just before dusk on our second day. We waited until the sun had set then went into the forest under the cover of night. The forest was dark and it was full of ferocious beasts that tried sneaking up and killing us, but thanks to the detect life spell none of them could catch us off guard. We eventually saw the flowers Voyd mentioned. They were purple and their petals were shaped like those of a peony.

We started picking the buds and all was going well until Voyd said, “Hey Jeff, can you come here for a second.”

I walked over to her and asked, “Yeah, what’s up?”

She leaned over to me and whispered, “We’re surrounded.” 

“S**t, ok… so now what?” I asked.

“We’re dead.” She told me.

“No no no, don’t say that.” I replied.

“What should we do?” She asked me.

“I dunno, I thought you could come up with something.” I said.

“Nope, we’re gonna die.” She said calmly.

“No we’re not.” I replied. 

The fact that they haven’t attacked yet means they’re being cautious. They have no idea how strong we are. All we have to do is scare them out of a fight. I told Voyd this and asked her, “What are elves afraid of?”

“They’re scared of the forest being destroyed.” Voyd replied. That doesn’t help us at all.

If this were an anime, then I’d probably be some edgy and overpowered main character that could scare off someone just by aura farming. I don’t know if I have aura like that, but I’m pretty powerful and there’s nothing else I can come up with.

I held my chin up high and smiled. “We know you’ve been watching us this whole time. Come out with your hands up and I’ll spare you.”

As soon as I said that I was struck in the neck by some dart looking thing and a couple seconds later, I passed out.