A completely obvious trap

Very early the next morning, thanks to his finely tuned inner clock, Jay woke up and left his room. The inn was completely silent at that time and it was still dark as he exited to the main street.

Without halting he rushed over the big plaza and towards the west.

As Jay passed the slums to his left and even before he went through the city gate, he noticed he was getting tailed.

With this he was sure the whole act of him killing Stillwell was nothing but a trap. From how it seemed to him, Lady Brittany was trying to make him get rid of an enemy and have him killed as well.

Smirking to himself as the stopped only a couple of steps out of the city, Jay summoned his horse and saddled up. The speed he rode the first miles were nothing anyone could follow, be it by foot or normal horseback.

When he was sure he lost the men following him he slowed down a bit again and rode along the road.

At a small forking he took to the left and rode close to the feet of the mountains. Even though the path was smaller and not that well maintained, his magic beast mount had no problems to keep up the pace.

The path ran parallel to the main road, but on the other side of the fruit tree plantations and as he closed in on the shore Jay came to another crossroad. From there the wider path led either to the main road or a slightly more narrow one closer to the mountains.

He took to the left again, riding towards the mountains.

At first the path went up between two small mountains and then back down to a valley.

To Jay's surprise the path didn't go up again there but around a small rock formation it went further down and towards the beach under the cliff. Down there he arrived at a small and beautiful bay facing to the south-west.

The rock standing on the beach to the right seemed somehow familiar and Jay guessed he had seen it from the other side on his hunt at the beach.

The path though turned left before he reached the beach and uphill towards the next mountain.

That one was a really big mountain and after a while, Jay was circling it to the coast as the path led further up on a slope.

As the small bay was no longer visible behind him due to the cliff surrounding it and he already got higher than the whole previous mountain was, giving him a nice view from the Gold Coast to the plantations, the path led slightly down again.

What Jay saw at the end of the path was a small plateau with an even smaller hut to the south and vegetable patches in front of it.

The humble abode was surrounded by a wooden fence with an open gate.

A woman standing in the middle and holding a pitchfork didn't move one bit as Jay dismounted and slowly entered her grounds.

She was quite old and wearing every days clothes, but Jay did not see any openings in her stance, even though she took none.

As she was not aggressive or in the slightest perturbed by his presence he dared to analyze her.

And again his intuition was spot on.

She was strong.

So strong that he was sure he'd not come out unscathed if at all, should she unexpectedly decide to fight him.

Her smile though eased his worries before he looked again on the screen with her information.

__________

Daphne Stillwell (Guardian LVL7)

Base LVL30

*Arathi*

HP 1695/1695 * Mana 624/624

[Shield LVL4]

Hammer LVL3]

[Commanding LVL3]

[Sense Undead LVL2]

__________

Looking up again he saw her slowly closing in on him so he dismissed his horse and the screen.

Giving her a friendly smile while waving hello, she was the first to talk.

"Good morning! Now that you know who I am, may I learn your name as well?" D.

"I'm sorry Misses Stillwell. Good morning to you as well, my name is Jay and I came here to warn you of an impeding Attack." J.

"It's Miss. And you came from where to tell me about those obvious news?" D.

"I'm sorry, Miss Stillwell. Commander Haggard had sent me to help out in Westfield and I'm working with the AI:7 as well on that. Due to circumstances I had to come here…" J.

"Then come, we'll talk further inside. I am not that Old to have lost my manners, and if it really was Haggard that sent you, I'm quite eager to hear more…" D.

After finishing her statement she turned around while stemming her pitchfork into the ground and walked towards her small house. Jay followed her on the heel and was asked to enter at the door.

The House looked to have not more than the big room he entered on one half of it and two, may be three rooms to the other side. Crossing said room and fetching a teapot from the oven, Daphne filled two mugs on the wooden table in the middle of the room and took seat. While pointing to another chair she shoved one mug over the table towards Jay.

"And what were those circumstances that brought you here?" D.

"To be honest, I was the one tasked to get your head. Of course I don't plan on taking it as I'm sure its more helpful where it is now! But to keep it at that, we should probably soon set up some defense in the vicinity." J.

"You got tailed?" D.

"No question. But I lost them still in the plantations near Millshire, so we should have quite some time. But why you?" J.

Following that, Daphne Stillwell sipped on her tea and began to tell that her and Commander Haggard knew each other pretty well from her time in the military. She liked him most out of all fellow officer back then, as he seemed to be one of the few that used their head not to just follow orders blindly.

As for Shalina Ravencrest, she was not that enthusiastic. Her thoughts on her were that she kept trying too hard to match her father but was nowhere near him.

At least to that time.

Looking up from her mug to the also tea sipping Jay, he saw her crease her brows before she stated that she probably shouldn't talk about his superiors in front of a youth like that.

Shrugging his shoulders Jay stated that he had the same thoughts on Shalina but no chance to compare her. He just knew she at least was stronger than Daphne, and not by a small margin.

The Guardian sitting opposite to him was a bit astonished by his remark but went on with her story non the less:

It all started when the big fire broke out in Arathor. The management in that night had been close to nonexistent and the help afterwards was so sparse, most of the citizens had to leave or they would have died in no time.

Back then it seemed to her like the help was kept slow and to a minimum on purpose but could neither find a reason nor what the Kingdom had to gain through that.

Even before that disaster she has had hints that something was going on when she heard of craftsmen and workers hired by the Royals getting tricked and weren't paid.

The hints of someone using the upper echelon for their own goals had been there long ago, like misplaced military personnel, ships going missing and the likes.

As she was helping the homeless flee the city in hopes to find a better life in Eldrin or other regions of the kingdom, she got instructed to stop or would face degradation.

That had been the last drop in the barrel and she quit her post, leaving to Westfield with a last group of refugees from Arathor.

Since then she kept trying to save those in need not to turn into criminals without other options.

As there were countless who lost everything in the fire and even more from conflicts arising at the borders, she hadn't finished her self imposed duty until that day. And it got even worse with the rise of the bandits calling themselves Defiers of Arathor.

Stillwell had been guiding the farmers and workers fleeing from the bandits to the southern plains.

Years ago a small settlement had been erected by some refugees and the local Count had accepted them without much problem.

But a few weeks prior, the route through the mountains had been blocked off.

The two path to traverse were either leading along the way Jay came to her or to the other side of Millshire.

Other than that, only the official route to the south was possible, but even there bandits were waiting and it also was too far.

With him getting sent for her, the ones behind the downfall of Westfield seemed to go to their next phase on what ever they were planning.

But Daphne couldn't finish her last thought as Jay jumped up from his seat. He had noticed movement outside the small house thanks to his keen senses.

They had arrived faster than he thought.

Asking Daphne if she had a weapon, she walked over to the fireplace and grabbed a fine looking sword from it's stand, followed by the shield behind it.

Jay simply took out two basic but not too shabby swords from is inventory. He still hadn't repaired his good one, and he also didn't want to show he even got hammer or dagger skills.

Stillwell wanted to protest, stating he should stay out of this as it was her mission that brought the attackers here, but Jay simply stated he was going to help her as she was too old to fend them off alone.

At least she would suffer serious wounds and the next group coming there would finish her off.

As they finally were ready to walk outside, the men had already positioned themselves. Looking through the small glassed window, Jay saw it was the group that followed him in Millshire like he already thought, but they got reinforcements.

All together they were ten men, four guards from Millshire with their official armor and weapons and another six bandits wearing good looking leather armor. It was an all black one with studded shoulder pads and black metal buckles.

A good weapon each and their red bandanas showed they were not the run of a mill bandits Jay faced until then.

During his looking around, Jay had analyzed them all and not found a single man under level 18.

It as finally time to go a bit all out.

Charging both his swords with lightning after he boosted all his limbs with mana, Jay rushed towards the front door. He arrived there just the moment one of the attackers tried to barge in and went with his signature move.

Kicking the door back it hit the man's face first and broke his nose.

He stumbled a step backwards and held it while bending forward while all his fellows looked baffled at him.

The next second Jay eased his pain as he stabbed his sword through the forward bent man's neck. Shoving the dead to the side, Jay rushed out of the door.

He didn't come far as he noticed a sword descending onto him from the right, but that level of attack was measly a joke to him. Parrying the sword and redirecting it a bit, Jay used his other one to perform a deadly slash. With [Riposte] lighting up he beheaded the man in a single move.

The next attack came from the front.

It was a big axe that came in from the left in a wide swing so he redirected it with a well positioned sword so the opponent showed his flank to Jay.

A (Scorch) followed close to instantly by a (Conflagrate) left nothing of the man except a small cloud of ashes blown away by the wind.

And through exactly that cloud came the first arrow flying towards Jay's head.

He dodged it by a small margin and saw it was one of the bandit archers who had taken a bit distance as the fight broke out. Stepping hard on the ground, Jay disappeared from the spot he had been standing at without trace.

At least it looked that way for Daphne Stillwell who had run after him but only then reached the door.

That youth really was a fast one, was all she thought to herself.

Jay reappeared directly next to the bandit who had tried to shoot him. In the blink of an eye he kicked her so hard the bandit could fly backwards for a couple of yards.

But she didn't.

Instead she got skewered on a rough looking spike that had grown in her flight path even before she got kicked.

It was one of Jay's stone spikes he had cast parallel to his shadow step.

He didn't spare her a single last glance and watched how Daphne engaged in combat with another bandit and a guard. It seemed to him she could hold herself up pretty easy even though she was old, so Jay concentrated back on his own fight.

This time it was the two of the four remaining guards and another bandit who were rushing towards him.

As Stillwell was fighting herself, Jay simply used a chain lightning after what felt like a long time. One of the guards was stunned directly while the other attacked man only took some damage.

It was the second guard that arrived first, contrary to Jay's guess, and he came in with a sword himself as well.

Simply parrying the poor slash from the guard, Jay again combined riposte and a slash himself, earning himself a good shower of blood as the man's torso sprang open. The moment he slashed the guard though, Jay's senses rang alarm.

The last bandit really hadn't been slower than the guard but tried to stab Jay from behind while latter was fighting his companion.

Instead of the soft feeling transmitted after the first resistance when a knife penetrates human skin, he only felt stabbing air and got showered by a shower of blood.

And then he died by the same attack he had just executed.

Jay had smirked to himself the moment he noticed the bandit behind him.

[Shadow Step]'s cool-down had finished and without wait he used it again, appearing behind the bandit who in his own place received the blood shower. A simple stab though his heart ended the man like he has had planned for Jay.

At the same time Daphne had managed to get rid of the bandit and was close to finishing the guard as well.

Both of the men looked more mangled than cut and Jay got that displayed the next second as the old woman slammed her shield into the guard sending him stumbling a few yards backwards, just to rush after him.

The stunned guard had regained consciousness at that time and was trying to help his buddy.

But as fast as he was running, Jay was still faster. With a "No butting in…" he gave a straight charged with lightning to the guards chest.

The result was like it was bound to be.

A fist sized, charred hole from the lower left rib-cage where his fist impacted, to the right shoulder with everything in between missing, ended the guard.

It was an instant kill and even Jay thought that attack to be a bit overpowered.

How would he have loved to have his damage output recorded in his log…