Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

"Finally! Did you guys decide to sleep in or something?" Jen teased as Rena and Lucius walked into the guild the morning after their day out on the town.

Lucius rolled his eyes at her because the sun had literally just started to rise as they entered the guild hall. Honestly, they had figured they would be hanging out in the guild for a few hours before Jen dragged herself out of bed.

"I'm surprised you are up so early. I seem to remember you threatening us to not wake you up this early when we first met…" he mumbled under his breath.

"I heard that, kid." Jen laughed. "Anyway, I got a new job for us. You remember those bandits we ran into on the way to the tamer village? Well, I reported the incident to the guild and it seems we've been issued an emergency quest. They are considering it an Intermediate Rank."

"Yep, seems like they have become a bit of a problem for a number of villages and the city is getting tired of its shipments of food, goods, and taxes being hit, so we get to go bandit hunting." Lethen finished.

"Okay." Lucius answered. For a moment he felt a twinge of panic at the thought of fighting humans again, but then that sensation of it being taken away from him appeared again. It was like a deep chill at the base of his skull.

Rena seemed to have noticed the rapid expression change that must have colored his face because she looked at him with concern for a moment. Jen and the party did not seem to notice, or if they did, they did not let it affect them.

"Any data on numbers?" Rena asked a moment later.

"Six less than there used to be?" Paul answered from his seated position behind Lethen and Jen.

"No matter, I should be able to scout it out before we approach the camp and assess the numbers, then we can decide if we want to continue with the attack." Lucius offered.

"Sounds like a plan, let's get going!" Jen shouted with her fist pumped in the air. Lucius had no idea why she was so excited, but decided to leave it be. If she was in a good mood, then good for her.

They assumed that the bandit camp would be relatively close to where they first met them at the ambush site, so that was where they headed. It took them only a short while to get to the spot they had rested at before when Lucius first heard people moving through the woods.

It felt logical to assume that those people were the bandits that attacked the caravan since there were too many to be a hunting party.

Once arriving at the site, they went ahead and rested for a short while as Lucius patrolled a few dozen feet into the tree line to see if he could hear or smell anything out of sorts. For the moment there were only a handful of normal sounds for a forest like this. In fact, he only heard normal animals like deer, birds, mice, rabbits, and the like and not even a single monster.

After about thirty minutes of sweeping the site, he returned to the group to inform them of what he found, or rather, didn't find.

"Paul and I should go a little deeper and see what we can find. I could do it my own, but I think two heads are better than one and he is still a pretty accomplished tracker." He offered.

Paul nodded his head in agreement while Jen put her hand under her chin, pondering their options. Before she could say anything, Rena spoke up.

"If I may, I think this would be a good idea. Lucius is our scout and best tracker, but with Paul they can sweep the area twice as fast. Plus, since Lucius will be able to keep an ear out for Paul, they would be safer working together and would be able to find each other in an emergency."

"That's a fair thought, but what should we do?" Jen countered. "I don't want to rely on the kid doing things like this alone all the time."

"We can help by checking out the ambush site again. It isn't that far away and we might get lucky to find some sort of signs near where they exited the forest." Rena answered confidently.

"Sounds like a plan. You two good with that?"

Paul and Lucius readily agreed because it was the best way to handle the situation. It was entirely possible the bandits were camp much further away, but this was the only lead they had.

Paul gathered his weapon and supplies and vanished into the woods. Lucius dove into the trees behind him. Paul went a little further north, closer to where the ambush had happened while Lucius went to the east. Since they were both patrolling the woods no, he was able to go much deeper.

The woods here really were devoid of monsters. He came across families of deer and other small animals, but no signs of people yet. A few hours had passed and still nothing was showing up.

Just as he was about to give up, he caught a whiff of blood. It was a little to the north, the direction Paul was in. Concerned for his party member, he quickly leapt through the branches as fast as he could move. He still attempted to be as quiet as possible, but not so much so that he would slow himself down. Any scout worth their salt would be able to hear him instantly.

Lucius continued to smell the sent of blood as well as something else. There was another person, different from Paul, nearby. But for some reason, he could not hear them. It felt like whoever this was had hidden every part of their presence except for their scent. It took a lot of effort, but eventually he was able to pinpoint the direction of the person's scent.

It was a little bit to the east again which put Paul out of harms way, so he was able to slow down in his pursuit and maintain silence as best he could.

Birds continued to chirp and the rustling leaves echoed through the forest. Lucius did everything he could to calm his breathing and heartbeat, worried that his prey would be able to hear them from his approach.

He had tracked the scent to a large tree with a trunk that was easily a dozen feet thick. This area of the forest was filled with old growth trees so many were large, but this one seemed to be the oldest and largest of them. Its lower branches were as thick around as the trunks of the trees near the forest edge.

Lucius slowly drew his sword and climbed up the tree. He could not see or hear anything, but his nose never lied. He rapidly approached the branch that the person seemed to be hiding in, and though he could not see anything there, he swung his blade with all his strength at the area that seemed to be emitting the scent.

His sword connected with something solid, but there was no sound from the impact. Instantly, the seemingly empty space shimmered and a person in a dark cloak and mask covering their mouth appeared. She had bright, green eyes and pointed ears. It was an elf…no, a half-elf. Her ears were too short to be a full-blooded elf.

She held a dagger in her hand and was holding it against the cutting edge of Lucius' machete, blocking his strike. Her eyes seemed shocked and angry at the same time.Who the hell was this?