Result of the raid

Elsie's head snapped up with a jerk and her eyes widened. Her eyes looked red and tired, as if she had been crying for a long while. I frowned but before I could ask anything, Elsie dropped down and ran over to me. She hugged me tightly as if trying to break my bones and picked me up!

"Ouch.. that hurts!"

"Oh… sorry… sorry."

She loosened her grip but didn't put me down. Considering what I knew about her, she was probably not going to put me down for a while. So I wrapped my legs around her waist instead of asking her to put me down. Elsie placed her hand below me and asked

"Are you alright? How did you escape! Did the others find you?"

"I didn't really escape…."

I told her the story of what had happened. As I was talking, she carried me towards her room. Once in the room, she sat down on the bed and placed me on her lap facing her. She raised an eyebrow when I told her about Cindy and Mark.

Once I finished my story, she hugged me for a few seconds. Then she grabbed my waist, lifted me off her lap and put me on my feet as she stood up.

"Let's go to the guild. They should be able to contact your party."

I looked up at her and asked "The guild? Aren't they in their room?"

She gave me a puzzled look.

"Of course not! Your whole party is searching the forest for you! The guild master herself went with them along with some volunteers."

Suddenly I realized I didn't know what had happened at yesterday's raid. Were the others alright? Did anyone get hurt?

"Whaa.. what happened on yesterday's raid?"

"It looked like when the raiding party reached the bandit hideout, they only found unconscious bandits around. There was no sign of the bandit queen. The guild master used some spell to wake some of them up but none of them knew what was going on. They didn't even know that they were bandits. The raiding party still bound their arms and took them back to base camp. There they found Sheila and Turek unconscious and there was no sign of you. Once they managed to wake Turek and Sheila, they found out that the bandit queen had attacked them. The guild master healed everyone and sent most people, including the bandits back. As far as I know, your party refused to return. They are probably still following Ifera's trail to get you back."

I stood there in a daze. None of the bandits were bandits? So they were controlled by Ifera as I had suspected. But I had thought they were bandits that Ifera had brought under her control.

I nodded at Elsie and said "You are right. I will go to the guild and let them know that I am back. They should be able to inform my party."

"I will come with you." Elsie quickly grabbed my hand tightly.

"Sigh… Ok. Lets go."

Elsie went to inform her parents and we soon left for the guild. She refused to let go of my hand as we walked. I would need to inform her of my age soon. But it just seemed to get harder as the time went. Maybe after this is done, I will let her know.