One day before.
The afternoon sun beat down, turning the packed dirt of the courtyard into a hard, baking surface. The hunting parties began to trickle back, their walks heavy with the day's kills. Squirrels, rabbits, a small deer, the carcasses were stiff and smelling of blood and earth.
The bandits were tired but in high spirits, their boisterous laughter echoing through the trees as they approached the palisade walls of the camp.
"Hey, we're back! Open the gate!" a gruff voice yelled, tinged with impatience.
There was no answer, no shuffling of feet or curse-laden command to move their asses. Nothing but a thick, oppressive, and unnatural silence.
The bandit yelled again, his voice now sharp with anger. "Yo, cock suckers! Open the damn gate before we tear this shit down ourselves!"
A few of his companions exchanged uneasy glances. A cold knot of apprehension began to form in their stomachs. This was abnormal.
"Something is wrong," one of them muttered, his hand drifting to the hilt of his axe.
"Open the gate," another agreed, his voice now low and tense.
A small group of them pushed against the heavy wooden gate. It swung inward with a groan, revealing the interior of the camp. What they saw stole their breath, then their sanity.
The camp was a slaughterhouse.
Not a single person was alive. Their brothers, the men they had shared stale bread and sour wine with just day ago, were all dead. But they hadn't just been killed, they had been annihilated. The bodies were not merely lying down but were strewn like broken dolls, limbs bent at unnatural angles.
One man was pinned to a wall by his own spear, his entrails unraveled and pinned up next to him like a grotesque tapestry. Another lay on his back, his chest split open, his heart and lungs lying in a bloody heap beside him.
The ground was a slick, dark lake of blood, choked with coagulated lumps of gore and shimmering with fat. Intestines snaked across the dirt, glistening like thick ropes coated in oil.
A trembling hand went to a bandit's mouth, the callused fingers smearing blood from a cut on his cheek. "What the fuck… happened here?" he whispered, his voice cracking with a terror he hadn't felt since he was a boy.
Another, bolder, tried to rationalize it. "Did the monsters from the forest attack? A big pack? Maybe a pack of wolves?"
A third shook his head, his eyes scanning the carnage. "Or maybe the other bandit camp. The Scorpions. Those bastards have always been backstabbers."
One of them, an older veteran with a scarred face, crouched down close to a corpse. He pushed his spear into the blood-soaked ground and used it to lean over, examining the body without touching it.
His brow furrowed. "Weapon wound," he grunted, pointing a thick finger at a deep slash wound in the chest.
"But look… The organ was pulled out, and the limbs… They look torn off, chewed on. And these tracks in the blood… They're not from boots. They're hooves marks."
He stood up, his expression grim. "So an animal that can use a weapon?" another asked, his voice laced with disbelief.
"Might be," the veteran replied, his gaze sweeping the devastated camp. "Could be an orc, or a Panthari, half-human, half-panther motherfuckers. Fast as fuck. Or something big enough to kill a man with its hands, and just smart enough to pick up a dropped blade. Hell, in this cursed forest, it could be anything."
A sudden, sharp cry from across the camp cut through their horrified musings. "Come here! This is weird!" a younger bandit yelled, waving them towards the large tent.
They all converged, their boots making sickening sucking sounds in the congealed blood.
The scene outside the tent was different from the wanton slaughter outside. All the slaves were gone. There wasn't a single one left.
Except, that wasn't entirely true. Just next to the tent, lying in a heap, were the corpses of the women they had used for entertainment just the night before.
But they were different. They hadn't been torn apart. Their bodies were intact, unblemished save for the violent violation they had endured in life. There was no gruesome tearing, no pulled limbs. They had simply been… killed. Silently and cleanly.
"What does this mean?" the first bandit asked again, his hands trembling as he gestured at the strangely pristine corpses.
"Nothing is making sense!" he continued, his voice rising in panic.
Just then, another sharp yell echoed from near the gate that led to the other side of the camp. "Another intact corpse! This way!"
They moved as a unit, weapons held at the ready, their hearts pounding. Lying just inside the gate was the small, crumpled form of a goblin. The old veteran knelt, pushing the body over with his hand. Its throat had been slit cleanly, on its body many kind of different wounds.
He studied it, his mind working. "Killed by many monsters, I'd wager," he muttered, more to himself than to the others.
He stood up and scanned the horizon. "But why is it here? Goblins are not intelligent bunch. Their traces would be very clear. Also, they mostly live to the southeast of the Withering Jungle. No goblins are ever found in the northwest, where we are."
His companions stared at him, confused. One voiced the question on all their minds. "Then how did the corpse get here?"
The veteran's gaze grew distant, calculating. "There is only one possibility," he finally said, his voice heavy with certainty. "They must be from the dungeon."
"You mean… that Nazas dungeon?" a younger bandit gulped, the name sending a shiver down his spine.
"Yeah," another nodded grimly. "There's no other dungeon around here but that one."
The bandits froze, their thoughts a tangled mess of fear and fury. One of them, his face red with rage, slammed his fist into a post. "Should we go in and kill the monsters to revenge our brothers?" he shouted, his voice ringing with a desperate, bloodthirsty need for vengeance.
The old veteran rounded on him, his face thunderous. "Are you fucking insane?" he roared, spit flying from his lips. "They are already dead! You want to get your dick deep into the ant hill, then fuck you, do it alone! I don't want to die!"
The younger bandits flinched back from his fury, quickly nodding in agreement.
"Yeah, I don't want to!" one muttered, his eyes wide.
"Go fuck yourself," another added, shaking his head. "We're bandits, not heroes or adventurers."
Suddenly, a loud, panicked yell from across the camp cut through their argument. "GET OVER HERE! THE TREASURY…"
The sound was like a bolt of lightning. As one, the bandits abandoned all thoughts of monsters and revenge, their hearts seized by a different, more powerful emotion.
They broke into a dead sprint, their boots splashing through blood and gore, all of them matching to the sturdy, reinforced building that served as the camp's treasury.
'No, please don't be what I think it is,' the old veteran thought, his chest burning with a terrible, sinking feeling. He ran alongside the others, his mind churning.
It didn't matter that their brothers were dead. They were all thieves and killers; empathy for them was worthless than the shit stain under his boots.
But the treasure… the money was different. He couldn't take it all for himself. He'd have to split it. The thought was infuriating, but as he ran, a single, terrifying possibility bloomed in his mind, a possibility far worse than having to share.
He skidded to a halt in the doorway of the treasury, the others crowding behind him, their eyes wide with a mixture of avarice and dread. They looked inside, and the veteran's worst fear was realized.
The room was empty.
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence. The air in the treasury grew thick with the scent of sweat and despair. Not a single coin remained. Not one gemstone, not one piece of gold or silver. It was all gone.
After a long moment, a single, raw sob broke the stillness. "What should we do? We have nothing now!" a bandit yelled, his voice trembling with desperation.
The sound seemed to break a dam. Others began to weep openly. "We're all going to die!" another wailed. "No one will take us in! Not the kingdoms, not even the other bandit camps!"
More desperate cries echoed, a chorus of hopelessness reverberating through the blood-soaked camp.
"ENOUGH!" the old veteran roared, his voice like a thunderclap that cut through the wailing.
All eyes snapped to him. The men fell silent, watching as he slowly turned to face each of them, his gaze hard as stone.
He took a deep, shuddering breath.