“Contrary to popular belief, most bandits out there, barring the larger organized groups who had their connections in the black markets and bribable officials, rarely aimed for gold or jewelry when they went for a raid, though they would still take whatever they could get away with on robberies since those were more something left to chance.

Instead, grains and other foodstuffs, as well as ale and other beverages made for the most common items such bands would have taken with them. After all, hiding out in the wilderness meant no steady supply of food. Water might be more easily found if they happened to build their camp near a clean water source, but food was generally more difficult to get without risking themselves to the wilderness.

Other than those, young, pretty women were most often kidnapped by such bandits, or handsome men, for those bands that were more female-dominated, to be used as an outlet for their sexual desires and urges, usually of the ugly sort.” - From a Socioeconomy lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Dean of the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, circa 687 FP.

Aideen waited a few hours before she moved closer to the bandit camp. The wait was not because she had become timid and feared the inhabitants of the camp, no, nor was it because she did not care about the captive women mentioned by the other bandits she had met.

Instead, it was exactly because of the presence of those women that she took her time to scout out the bandit camp first, to make sure she knew what she was dealing with, and hopefully in a way where she could help those kept captive within. After all, she never knew what the bandits might have done to the captives if they saw her coming.

She waited until it was dark and the campfire was lit. There were six bandits left to guard the camp, as her guide had told her along the way. None of them looked that dangerous or competent except for one man who was a size larger than the rest and riddled with scars all over his body.

Her erstwhile guide, the former soldier, had mentioned that he and his squad were deserters from the Count’s private troops who fled after the count’s forces lost a recent skirmish with the neighboring barony. A squad in the local area referred to five soldiers including their commander, so that one in the camp must have been the last member of the group.

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Most of the encampment was open lean-tos and makeshift covers, yet Aideen failed to spot the mentioned captives. She thought they must have been in the one thatched hut, which was the only proper building in the camp.

She remained patient and kept watch as the bandits cooked a meal, some sort of slop that was pretty much gruel mixed with some dried meats and local wild vegetables from what she could tell. Her guess about the captives was soon mostly confirmed when one of the bandits brought two bowls of the slop to the thatched hut, with an obvious lewd grin on his face.

That was all the confirmation she needed.

Aideen was perched atop a large branch, roughly forty meters away from the camp. There was enough foliage in between her and the camp to make sure that they wouldn’t have noticed her, while from her vantage point she had a clearer view.

Carefully, she yanked a vine that grew from the canopy of the tree to test its strength, and found that it was firmly set in place. Looking at the terrain between her and the camp, a bold idea came to her mind, and she looked around to make sure it was feasible before she committed to it.

From her storage, she brought out a length of animal thighbone as long as her entire arm, with a notch set on its bulbous end, as well as a javelin which she then set on the notch as she held it in place with her fingers while her hand gripped the other end of the bone.

The simple contraption was an atlatl, a sort of spear-thrower that was commonly used by the elven tribes. Aideen had trained a bit with it when she realized that she had no options whatsoever to deal with enemies at range with her current weapon and magic, not unless she hurled her only weapon away. She had gotten decent with it, not as good as the elves that could nail a flying bird a hundred meters in the air, but good enough for the distance between her and the bandit camp.

With her arm fully extended behind her back, she took aim at the bandit camp, and launched the javelin with a single, powerful motion that used her entire body. Propelled by the force of the throw, the javelin shot through the foliage and caught the eating bandits entirely by surprise, as none of them reacted before the javelin struck.

She had aimed for the head of the burly, scarred man, but missed her shot slightly as the javelin landed a bit lower and pierced the man’s throat from one side and out the other instead. The other four bandits jumped back in surprise when they saw that, even as the burly man gurgled and choked on his own blood.

They soon found that they had no time to be surprised. The moment she hurled the javelin, Aideen grabbed the vine with her other hand and launched herself from her erstwhile perch. Then as she reached the apex of her swing, she released the vine and grabbed another one, lower down the treeline, and continued her swing.

Many small branches struck her along the way but she ignored them, as she swung across the distance in seconds. The last vine was still a short distance away from the camp so she just leapt off at the apex of that swing, as she relied on the built momentum to bodily hurl her over the fence.

Aideen landed hard, as she felt her ankles and shin snap on impact, but she ignored the pain and simply re-set her bones and healed the torn muscles with her healing magic while she leapt towards the surprised bandits, much like a wolf let loose in a flock of sheep.