Guards

Guards were supposed to uphold the law, supposed to be just, but that is not always the case. In the world of Albenor, a guard would rather induce anxiety instead of safety into the citizens. Some say power corrupts, others say that power brings out your true self, but what happens if you were evil to begin with. What would power do then?

Jake and Rudolf had to complete this quest before their other quest. They had to hunt these guards effectively and quickly, but they had to find their prey before they could hunt them. They decided to go to the spot where knowledge is shared the libar... I meant tavern, they went to the tavern, the most popular one in the city. It was night and the tavern was filled to the brim with adventurers, merchants and citizens.

He could hear a lot of chatter inside the tavern, the tavern was lighted by a few lanterns, which made it quite dark. The barkeep was a woman with black hair. Jake felt like he did not quite fit in whilst Rudolf felt just at home inside the tavern. Rudolf took a seat in front of the barkeeper, he then ordered one ale. Jake got a bit nervous telling him that they could not afford to waste time, in response Rudolf dismissed him.

Eventually, they asked the barkeeper if she knew about the YellowEagle squad. She claimed not to know a lot about it, all she knew was that they frequented the village of Ekinor. They asked for directions before leaving and heading to the village of Ekinor, time was of the essence. It would take them 3 hours to get there and it was already night.

Jake had forgotten just how dark it would get at night. He could still see, due to his skill "Predator eyes" but Rudolf could not. After tripping once to many times, he got annoyed and decided to make his sword a makeshift torch. This solved the light problem but introduced another one, they felt like walking targets.

Suddenly they heard a howl, followed by another. Then they saw it, clear crystal blue eyes in the darkness. First, there was one, then they noticed another one and another one, they had been surrounded. The murderous intent was dense enough to be felt, growling could be heard. Both sides were standing still staring at each other, analyzing each other. After a solid minute, Jake and Rudolf started walking again as if the wolves did not exist. The wolves could kill them both at any second, but they had not done it. Jake and Rudolf's walking was not a charade, rather an acknowledgement of the wolves fear. In this life, knowledge was power and the wolves did not know their cards. Why not a bluff?

They arrived at the village and noticed it was quite simple. It had a few merchants and a blacksmith as well as a tavern, they also had a house. However, It was strangely quiet, the street was completely desolate. The only light in the town came from the tavern. He could hear loud chatter come from the tavern and could guess who was making the sound. Rudolf was quite a heavy drinker but Jake was not, Jake still felt his mind being clouded from the alcohol. The next decisions they would make would be Rudolf's responsibility and his style is completely different from Jakes. Not to say that he was stupid, Rudolf was quite smart, because that was needed to be the best. The difference was that his strong side was less the planning and more the doing, whilst Jake was the opposite.

Rudolf walked towards the tavern, he wanted to burn the tavern down but thought it would make too much noise and was not completely sure the guards, were inside. As he walked in he saw the guards sitting down and playing cards, they all looked intoxicated and when they noticed him they immediately said: "Who are you". At that moment Rudolf felt like the biggest badass when he responded "Your killer", in the deepest voice he could muster.

From the guard's point of view they had been playing cards when a man suddenly entered claiming he would kill them. The man was quite large and was wielding a flaming sword, at the same time he had an incomplete set of armour and a friend who looked drunk. The men started laughing, "Maybe we should kill you instead", the man drew his sword. The others took up their weapons, the party was composed of three warriors, a mage and an archer. In their lives, they had been on top of the food chain. Only their officer could tell them what to do, otherwise, they were free to do whatever and had done so throughout their entire lives.

Jake immediately sobered up from the adrenaline rushing to his head. He went from being lost in thought to extremely focused. They were up against six guards. He wanted to go into his ghastly form but maybe the guards had some sort of protection against it. He knew that Rudolf did not have anything to counteract it. Jake went into demon form and shot an arrow at the mage. The mage quickly made a barrier that countered the arrow. Meanwhile, the four warriors were rushing at Rudolf, then Jake saw an arrow flying at him, which he dodged by the skin of his teeth.

Rudolf did not back down from the fight. He ran straight into them using his charge ability, fire spewed from his sword which made a barrier of flames around him. He pierced one of the guards killing him on the spot. The other guards went into a frenzy slashing at him, a few stikes would hit him but due to his Pheonix like healing, he would simply regenerate it back. He was in a draw but losing it slowly due to his energy running out.

Jake was in the same scenario as Rudolf except he was up against two people. When Jake would fire an arrow the mage set up a barrier, then the archer would shoot Jake and he would have to dodge. This cycle repeated itself and Jake was on the losing end. after a minute, Jake noticed that dodging the arrows became increasingly easy, almost as if the arrows had gone into slow motion. The whole process drained him mentally, but it got a lot simpler. They were now at a complete draw.

On Rudolf side, he was versing three swordsmen at the same time. Reaction time had always been his strong side, which helped him immensely right now. However he felt his consciousness start to slip, his Pheonix like healing had taken a strong toll on him from only a few slashes. Eventually, his eyes simply closed, the strange part is that he did not stop fighting. If anything he dodged almost every slash and fought a lot more effectively by simply relying on his senses. His was releasing a lot of heat, and he could feel the heat fluctuations the swords were causing when they were flying at him.

Then one of his strikes landed, then another one. Eventually, only two swords were attacking him. He had successfully killed one. Since he could fight them evenly at 3v1, this simply became a slaughter. He killed the remaining two shortly after, then as he tried to move towards his friend he felt his body grow unresponsive. He tried his best to take a step forward and ended up putting his balance on a leg that would not respond. He fell over and passed out.

Jakes fight was still even but now Jake could stop holding back, he switched from his demon form to his ghastly form making the entire room fill up with black smoke. The archer and mage could feel their senses grow weak. In response, the mage made a light which made it easier to see. Just as he finished the light, he got a shot straight through the heart. Now the archer was left alone, in desperation, the archer shot out an arrow. The arrow had managed in the dark to hit the bullseye, Jake felt the arrow sticking in his shoulder. Whilst Rudolf had been pushing himself physically, Jake had been pushing himself mentally, the pain from the arrow was enough to make his overused mind pass out.

The smoke shortly disappeared after. The archer saw Jake on the floor, he took out his bow and aimed it at Jake. Then the archer fell on the floor unconscious, the barkeeper was standing over his body with a broken bottle, "Fucking rapists" he said with tears in his eyes.