Eros and I were waiting in the trees outside the bandits base. We had been waiting there the whole day, waiting for it to become dark.

There was two reason why we did this.

Reason number one: When trying to infiltrate an enemy base, you should not, for any reason, do it in broad daylight. When it's dark, you have a lot of great hiding places, and it's much easier to sneak up, or around, people. When it's light, You have almost no hiding places, and its pretty much impossible to sneak up on people, without having some stuff to cover yourself behind.

Reason number two: We needed sleep. We had been awake in over 24 hours, and we were both on our last legs. Even if we tried, we couldn't be stealthy if our coordination was terrible! Because of that, we retreated a good distance away from their base and slept for about 4 hours. While we didn't want to sleep in the woods, we didn't really have a choice.

When we had gotten some sleep, and it had gotten dark outside, we neared the edges of the base.

From the information that the bandit told us, the lord's daughter is in the most fortified house. We were really happy that we didn't have to comb through every house to find her.

Now, you may be asking yourself, where is that particular bandit? Did you trust him enough to let him go?

The answer to that is a resounding no. We did not set him free, as we didn't trust him to not alert his comrades. We didn't want to kill him either, so I bound him to a tree, with Entangling Vines, and we left him there. His friend should find him in a day or two, as it wasn't that far away from their base.

Anyways, back to infiltrate the base.

Fortunately, most of the bandits were circled around a big. They seemed to be celebrating something, and almost all of them were drinking to their heart's content. Now, we knew that is was maybe 20% of their total number, but it was still good that some of them were already out of the game.

The rest of the bandits were either sleeping or doing patrols around the base.

The sleeping bandits were not a problem, and neither was the partying bandits.

The patrolling bandits were a problem.

It seemed that we just had to wing it.

Lets the infiltration commence.

When the latest patrol walks by, Eros and I stealthily run into the sea of tents.

With the tents blocking our sight, we had to slowly, and stealthily, walk through them. From what we had seen from the outside, there was also bandits patrolling between the tents, so we had to be careful.

Moving around was very stressful. Patrols came up everywhere, and quickly hiding from them was very hard.

A couple of times we actually got caught, but Eros managed to shut them up in time. When he had knocked them on the head, we then threw him into one of the empty tents and silently moved on. While we could try to do it with every patrol we came across, it could turn out badly for us.

It took a lot of dodging patrols to even come close to the house. When there were about 300 meters from the fortified house, we began to speed up a little. While we wanted to take it slowly, we didn't want to take too much time. If it became bright while we were still here, we would be screwed.

After many aggravating minutes of getting trough patrols without getting spotted, we finally reached the house.

When the bandit told us that the house was fortified, we thought that it was a wood house and that it had a couple iron bars around the windows, and nothing more. We were wrong in that regard. The house was a mixture of stone and wood, and It was two stories tall. The lord's daughter is locked in one of the rooms in the house, so we need to get in.

How are we getting in though?

The only door it was guarded by a single guard. While we could easily take him out, he would have the time to blow the horn he had on his side, and we didn't want that.

There's got to be another way in.

We searched the outside of the house, but could not find any way in. Well, we could go through the windows, but that would make too much noise.

Seems like there's only one way in.

I look over at the guard and silently sigh to myself.

“Eros”, I whisper.

“Yes?”, he whispers back.

“I think, I have a plan”, I whisper to him.

Guard duty is boring. All I do is constantly stand up, and look around every 30 seconds, with a stern face.

But, this is what I get for losing that game.

I had lost a game of chance earlier that day, and as the loser, I had to guard the bitch, while the other had a good time. Officially it was Lucas´ turn to guard, but he won a favor from me, and that favor was to do his guard duty, while he got drunk with the others.

I am almost completely certain that Lucas cheated when he was the dealer and was mixing the cards.

Anger begins surging through me faster and faster, but I suppress it quickly.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken a drink or two before going on guard duty.

I look around and see a man walking towards me.

I ready my weapons for attack. While he is almost definitely friendly, I have to be ready for any attacks.

The man walks over to me until he is within 3 meters, and looks into my eyes.

“I am here to replace you. The others thought that you should have a break”, he said to me. There was a little uncertainty in his voice.

The guys sent me a replacement? Bullshit! I have only been here for 30 minutes. An hour tops. Maybe more? Maybe he is telling the truth. Have to be sure though.

I couldn't really recognize the guy, but that didn't surprise me. We got a new batch of recruits a few days ago, and I haven't talked to any of them yet. One of the recruiting group didn't arrive on time today, so maybe this is their punishment?

“Aren't you one of the new recruits? I haven't actually seen you before, and I'm friends with almost everybody here.”, I asked him, with clear suspicion in my voice.

The man flinched at that.

“Well, you see-”, he said but was cut off.

I heard a rustle in the bushes twenty meters from us, and instantly turn my head in that direction. I can't see anything, but that doesn't mean anything. I continued to stare at the bush until I hear the man I was talking to say something.

“I am very sorry for this”, he said to me, in a calm voice. If he was sorry for something, his voice didn't betray it.

“What are you talk-”, I try to say, but was caught off.

A stone hit the side of my head, and I fall to the ground.

That isn't enough to stop me though.

“What the fuc-”, I try to shout, but, as last time, the person hit me in the head before I could finish what I was saying.

That second hit was enough.

I blacked out.

Damn, that bloody hurt!

That bandit was a tough one. It took two hits to the side of the head for him to lose consciousness.

When hitting somebody with a rock, and not your bare hands, you would expect that it didn't hurt so badly.

But it did! It probably hurt me as much as it hurt him.

Now is not the time to think about it.

Of course, it isn't.

Eros comes out of his hiding place and walks over to me.

“Are you okay?”, he asks me, in a little, worried voice.

“Yes, I'm fine. I'm just not the best person when it comes to punching people”, I say to him, with a grin on my face. While the pain was still there, I could just ignore it.

Tis but a scratch!

So it is.

“Good. We should get moving. Somebody will soon come investigating the shouting”, he said while walking over to the door.

He tries to open it, but it's locked.

“Hey, do you have any way to open doors? I could easily do it, but the noise would attract too much attention to us”, Eros asked, in a quiet voice.

I don't have any magic specializing in opening a door, but I have to try, I guess.

I walk over to the door and begin thinking about what magic to use.

Maybe I could use shapeshifting to turn my finger into a key? No, that won't work. I don't even know what kind of key is required for it. That leaves trying to destroy it, but I have to do it silently. Maybe Fireball? No, I have bigger chances of starting a forest fire with it. Then, maybe Greater Ice Spear? No, that wouldn't work. While it would open the door, it would make too much noise. Then, maybe Greater Earth Strike? No, that wouldn't work, because of the same reasons Greater Ice Spear had. That leaves us with Wind Slash. I don't see anything bad with trying it.

I use Wind Slash on the door horizontally. It doesn't do any damage, except for one place.

The keyhole.

That gives me an idea.

I crouch down and put my hand right in front of the keyhole. I then channel the spell to my palm, while trying to focus it only on the keyhole.

The spell connects with the keyhole, tearing it away from the rest of the door.

With nothing holding the door in place, it slowly opens itself, as if to invite us in.

We silently go into the house. The lord's daughter is in one of the rooms, but you don't know which one. The bandit didn't know that much. He was a recruit, and even knowing that much was a miracle in itself.

Eros walked over to the nearest door inside the house and tried to open it.

It was, of course, locked.

Great.

You know what I hate? Repetition.

Eros and I had to slowly comb through the entire first floor of the house. While this didn't sound so bad in itself, there was a problem you had to face every time you wanted to go into another room.

The bloody doors.

Every single door in this house was locked. Even the closet doors were locked, so we had to open each of them just to be sure that they weren't some hidden rooms. It was irritating beyond belief.

A few doors on the first were extra fortified, so I had to use several Wind Slashes to open them.

With the very frequent use of my mana reserves, they were slowly dwindling. While I would like it very much if Eros took over the door opening, we didn't want to attract bandits due to the sound.

After finally reaching the last door on the first floor, we reach a conclusion.

She isn't on the first floor.

While we both were very irritated by this, we simply moved on. It could be a lot worse than this.

After combing through the entirety of the second floor, we reach the last door.

This door was so fortified that I doubted Eros could tear it down. Even if he really wanted to.

Instead of being intimidated I crouch beside the keyhole and begin doing my thing.

I try to use a wind slash on the keyhole-like normal.

It's doesn't work. Not even a scratch

I do it again while trying to focus it more.

It doesn't work. Still not a single scratch

I try a third time. This time, I try to focus all of my being into this single Wind Slash.

It doesn't work. It still looks as pristine as it was in the beginning.

Looks like I have to try something else, but what could that be?

“Do you need help with that?”, Eros asked. It seemed that he sensed my irritation that was figuratively radiating from me.

“No, I can do it. Just takes a bit longer to work”, I say to him.

What spell should I try with? Fireball is, of course, out of the game instantly due to immense fire hazards. That leaves us with Greater Earth Strike and Greater Ice Spear. If you were to compare the two in terms of pure power behind the spells, Greater Ice Spear would have less force. Greater Earth Strike It is!

I use Greater Earth Strike on it, and, as I did with the Wind slash, I try to minimize it to the keyhole.

The spell hit, and the keyhole breaks with a large bang. I am pretty sure that people outside heard that.

Gotta go fast!

Eros walks in first. I look inside, but can't see anybody.

“Seems like she's not here. Maybe we missed a room”, I said and began to go and search the house again.

“No, she's here. She just seems to be a little shy”, Eros said, with an unnatural confidence. He almost seemed happy for some reason.

For some reason, he was looking up at the corner of the ceiling.

A couple of seconds after he said that a woman from above lounged towards him. She had a knife in her hand and looked just about ready to go on a stabbing spree.

The woman tried to stab him, but Eros skillfully dodged her crude attack, and forcefully took the knife from her hand.

“Relax, girl. We are here to rescue you”, Eros said to the ´girl´ in a calm voice.

The ´girl´ didn't really look like one. She looked like she was in her early twenties at most.

I was quietly studying how she looked from the sidelines, while Eros was avoiding her attacks. She was pale skinned, had dark hair, and blue-grey eyes.

That's when I saw a feature on her.

Her ears.

They were ears of an elf.

“Yeah, right”, the elf said, while trying hit Eros in the face.

Eros dodged again and began to hold both her hands.

“Please calm down. We have to get moving before the bandits come”, Eros said.

The woman stared into his eyes for almost 20 seconds. It looked like she was concentrating on finding anything that would indicate he was lying.

After a long wait, the staring contest between them stopped.

“Fine”, she said and looked over at me.

She studied me for a few seconds before walking over to me.

“What the fuck are you staring at?”, she asked me.

Was I staring? Nope. Maybe. Yeah.

“Sorry about that, but, as he just said, we have to get moving”, I tell her.

She seemed to be amused by that, for some reason.

“Sure. Its Elora by the way”, she said.

She moves past me, without saying more.

I look at Eros, but he just shrugs.

“High Elves will always be High Elves”, I heard him whisper.