The archer who wasn't on the ground decided to try to outrun us... and, given his insane, inhuman speed, he managed to get quite a distance away from us before shooting another arrow, this time aimed right at Dorisma's head. This could end very poorly, but it's not like I could do anything about it, not with how far away I was from Dorisma at the moment, and how fast the arrow was heading towards her. The drake ranger seems to have given up on getting up, entirely, as he tried to get up, succeeded for a moment, and then slipped, and fell back on his back, again. Of course, that just made him an easier target for everyone. I then remembered a certain other arrow that lodged itself in my chest, and I tried to pull the thing out, again, this time, however, I finally managed to remove the thing. Looks like that drake's still helpless... that'll make it easy to cut open his throat... yeah... it's like Dorisma said, the only good human's a dead one, and this guy's helping some random, insane human... I then remembered another scene involving fire, horses, and kobolds... the one from when that knight invaded that kobold city... the helpless innocents that he cut down... if I do this... I wouldn't be any better than him... would I? wait... should I really do this? Should I just end his life like he probably expects me to? Like Dorisma probably wants me to? I was completely conflicted on this, for some reason... and it probably showed.

Derevan saw all that happen... then saw the human was running away, not wanting to be near the group. This.. made him mad... but it gave him an idea.. He quickly move forwards, then then using the wind from his blade, suddenly cast a kind of Aero... behind him after running and jumping. He was sending himself literally flying towards the human, but also with the strong wind deflecting the arrow that was going right towards Dorisma.
"YEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWWWWW!" Deravan yelled, actually glad that worked. A flying troll could be seen in the sky that day... a random goblin that was drinking at a distance seeing this from the top of a tree... then looked at his drink and emptied it on the ground right there. Deravan then attempted to slash at the human, who, scared out of his mind from that stun, dodged barely the attack. Dang... Deravan hoped that could have worked, but one thing for sure... that archer might get intimidated and scared from that.

My thoughts stirring in my head, I walked over to the downed drake archer, and I pulled out my rapier, holding it to his neck. "Pl-please... have mercy!" he shouted at me, as he looked for some way out of this. I brought the rapier closer to him... and then had another flashback to that intruder, and to the kobolds who begged for his mercy, only to be met with cruel laughter, and a decapitation. My hands shook, a little bit, and I looked away, wondering if this was right. No... I won't become him. I won't be like that jerk... I then recalled the previous fight, with me burning down the humans' cart, and, after some thought, I put away my rapier, and held out my hand to help him up, instead, explaining "There's a dragon stronghold beyond that cave... they should keep you safe if the humans brand you as a traitor, and watch out for the ogre, she's probably still mad at you," he nodded at that, and ran off towards the cave, as quickly as he could, though, he dropped a strange, blue potion as he did... I picked it up, assuming it was a gift, and put it away... meanwhile, Backstabs tried her best to catch up to the human archer, which only ended with her swearing under her breath as he got even further ahead of her. She then threw her knife, aiming at his leg, and, somehow, she must have caught him off guard, as the knife dug into the side of his left leg, causing him to almost fall over, and apparently dealing some serious damage as well, as he started limping around. Sure, Backstabs didn't really have a means of attack, right now, but it's not like that archer's going to be dodging for much longer.

Dorisma raised her shield to block the arrow launched towards her with startling speed, however before her reflexes could be tested Deveran flew past her aided by a surge of wind that happened to blow the arrow off course. Dorisma however had the sneaking suspicious that the arrow might have hit her had it been unimpeded which of course made her only more angry. So naturally she quickly removed her shield on and hurled it like a frisbee and the archer with the wounded leg. Sadly Dorisma had very little experience throwing shields so it simply slammed into the ground near him threateningly. Perhaps luckily for all parties involved Dorisma was a little too preoccupied running to the puny human archer to punch his face in to see Robert idiotically letting one of their victims escape.

Oh boy, I'm having too many of these moments where I just blank out. I swear for what sometimes feels like weeks.

Er, right. We were fighting... archers I believe? A drake and human pelting arrows at us on the back of a cart (they probably thought we were bandits/'xp' to them, likely the latter)... I was going to say they were screwed more or less, but it seemed as if the drake got clemency and the human became an athlete. A good one at that, stopping briefly at times to shoot arrows while running like a mad man.

When it came to the drake, I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to kill everyone we met (at least the non-psychotics). That said, I only recently loosened my tight grip, knives warm to the touch as the archer's odd ability of running and shooting was matched by a knife. Our goblin thief Backstabs actually had a great shot at the guy's leg with said knife (something we could exchange a few skills in) whilst Dorisma stormed towards the archer, preparing to end his crippled misery.

Thinking my presence would just be overkill, I walked steadily towards Robert, unmarked by the fighting and inspecting my somewhat unkempt clothes. (Well, I'd probably need a good wash on my rather misleading noble clothes, based on the specks of blood, gashed tears and dust blots that have since developed.) "Robert-" Just as I said his name, I flinched somewhat from the arrow yanked from his chest, half-feeling the supposed sharp pain in my chest. "Alright, a small gash was one thing, but an arrow wound to the chest might be out of my league." I spoke, having composed myself whilst paying attention to the fighting a bit further away. Whilst basically waving my palms at the wound slowly and without much of a fuss.

Had Trey noticed that the drake was fleeing, he probably would have chased him down and finished him off. Since the human posed more of a threat, though, Trey was focused on him. The human was fast enough to outrun everyone in the group, firing the occasional arrow at them as he ran. Those who were more melee-oriented had to resort to throwing their weapons at him. Trey kept pursuing the archer, and shot another Fire spell at him, hoping to actually hit this time. Unfortunately, it ended up missing again. Perhaps it was the human's agility that was throwing him off.

The archer, despite being backed into a corner, by now, and despite that leg injury didn't seem to want to give up, or even ask for mercy, no, instead he decided to try to fire an arrow at Miles. Emphasis on 'try', given that his aim seemed extremely off, with the arrow flying well above Miles' head. He probably didn't even see the attack coming, but it didn't matter just due to how poor the archer's aim was, thanks to his injury. The archer than tried to jump onto a tree branch, but his leg injury made him miss, hit his head, and then fall on a sharp rock, afterwards. He then shouted "A FULL disadvantage for a stealth check? BULL****!" after that, which served to confused me as I thought about what to do next. I thought about casting a spell, but, then he complained again with "I'm at the fourth level, and I have a third level friend, I should be able to take these weak monsters down! This encounter isn't balanced!" somewhere, I could hear a wall being torn down at his complaints and shouting, but I decided to ignore it as I figured that he'd complain all the way until he died, which would make concentration a little bit difficult, meanwhile, his friend made it past all of my teammates, and was probably halfway to the cave, by now. Well, he must be feeling pretty lucky... if anyone else saw him, they'd probably kill him in a heartbeat... I thought as the archer spewed more complaints about the 'GM' being 'too harsh', and 'this encounter' apparently being 'stupid'. I tried to tune it out, but it was just too annoying.

Deravan didn't understand what that guy was saying... but it was as if he lost his mind... or that he knew something that the group didn't. One thing for sure, he was not gonna accept him hurting anyone else now. He went and rised his blade upwards, before jumping.
"To the gates of hell with you and your crazy talk!" he yells before bringing his blade down, striking hard onto the ranger and actually bringing his HP to 0. Finally... no more need to go and chase that dang ranger around. No more need to try to attack in range and have him run around the group and shoot arrows. He was glad this was over. He looked down at the guy, annoyed.
"It is over... his god dang crazy talk... I feel like something broke when he was talking." he says annoyed as he looks up.
"Lets check what we can loot from him." he then says

Dorisma gave a grunt of satisfaction as the ranger collapse to the ground in response to Deveran knifing him. She picked up her shield from the ground, dusting it off lightly and glanced around. She then realized the other ranger's body wasn't here. The whelp must have escaped. Well there was no hope of catching him now, she didn't even know what direction he'd gone. Doubtless he would tell more humans about them and make their life more difficult. No matter, they were going to kill as many humans as possible, one way or the other. Still would've been nice to kill them both. Dorisma decided to let somebody with smaller fingers and sharper eyes check the dead body. The burning cart was long gone, pulled by the terrified horse far off into the distance. "Need rest?" Dorisma asked, clearly intending to keep moving if no one spoke up. After all the battle had been rather swift, little more than a shot of adrenaline for her. Getting shot in the chest when you were already small and frail however, might merit a short break.

Like most humans, this one appeared to be insane, rambling about "stealth checks" and "GMs". One final blow from Deravan was enough to shut him up, though. With that out of the way, Trey began to search the area around them for the other ranger, but he was nowhere to be found, and there didn't appear to be any places nearby where he could hide. He must have escaped while they were all focused on his friend. Trying to catch up to him at this point would be more trouble than it's worth. Besides, they had a mission to complete and couldn't afford to get sidetracked.
"Let's keep moving, shall we?" Trey said. "The dust shouldn't be too far from here."

As I was almost done closing up wounds with the motions of my palms, an arrow whizzed past my head and struck the bark of an unfortunate tree. I scoffed somewhat, a little unnerved that battlefield healers were essentially high-value targets. Robert didn't even seem to mind, unflinching against wide shots as I slapped my hands together in delight. "Alrighty, that took a while but you're all healed now." I smirked and slung my various knives into my pockets, adjusting my sand-stricken and twig-infested coat as I stepped around, unsure what else to do since the archer was likely going out of commission soon. "Let's just hope we don't come around anymore of these maniacs." I hoped we were getting closer to the dust as opposed to being slowed by various roadagents, rubbing my eyes and waving away the lingering smell of ashes and blood.

It seemed like everyone else was set on leaving, save for Deravan, that is. After thanking Miles for healing me, I finally spoke up "Wait, it seems like Deravan's trying to get some loot off of the human. Deravan seemed to be looking at the archer's body oddly closely, and honestly, I could use a rest. This seemed to upset Backstabs and the princess, both of whom voiced their concerns with this "We wasted enough time with your bumbling, already! I'll bet they were attracted to this spot thanks to your lightning spell!" Backstabs shouted at me, apparently still a little sore about the unusual way that I woke everyone up. "Won't it be boring if we just sat here, and waited?" the princess asked... though, given who and what she was, I didn't care too much about her opinion, and neither did the rest of the team, even if she was on their side with this situation. Finding a nearby log that was probably a part of the wagon that I burned, evidenced by the burn marks all over it, I sat down, and simply waited on the possibly splinter-ridden wooden 'log'. I felt a little bit better after the short rest, though, apparently, the others didn't share that feeling. Backstabs sort of glared at me, a little bit, and the princess didn't seem to want to get up after hers. There was tension in the air after my decision, but, perhaps the loot would make up for it... that was my only saving grace, at this point. I could feel the others judging me on my poor performance as a leader, already, and I knew that good enough loot would change their minds about me.

Deravan kept looking at the body as he looted the thing. Soon, he started to remove things from the body. What he found was about 120 arrows, 2 gold coins and 4 silver coins, a healing potion that could be useful and.. what is this? He looked a bit and got a bow from the corpse, which seemed to have a slight.. enchantment on it. He didn't know what that was, but he knew that it could be useful. He looked at the group.
"Found money, a healing potion... and a bow with arrows.. and that bow seems enchanted, not sure what effect it has, though. Can anyone check that maybe? We should go right afterwards." he then says. He felt how Trevor was being judged by his decision... but if the group didn't get good loot like this, then how were they supposed to get better equipment. Well... Deravan didn't know how to use a bow that much, but he did seem intrigued by it. He looked at Miles. Well, he was always good with his hands.. maybe he could use that bow? Best check what the enchantment is, though, with the others, or with someone that knows about enchantments.

Well no one had answered her question, but it seemed Robert did indeed need a rest, promptly taking one while Derevan rummaged among the bodies. Dorisma waited patiently, doing breathing exercises while she did so. As usual the princess's words were completely ignored, Dorisma barely even noticed her anymore she'd spent so long ignoring the bothersome girl. It didn't take long for Robert to feel recovered or Deravan to finish looting. She nodded to herself. "Good." was all she said, there was no more reason to stay so Dorisma started moving again. If the loot was relevant to her Derevan would give something to her, otherwise she trusted him to take care of it, mostly because she had little interest in it.

Deravan found several things on the archer's corpse that could be useful. A healing potion, some gold, some arrows...and an enchanted bow. He seemed unsure about what effect it would have on its holder, though luckily for him, Trey knew a fair bit about enchantments. "Let me see that bow for a moment, Deravan." Trey said. He took the bow in his hands, and examined it closely. "It seems to give increased accuracy and movement speed to whoever wields it. It has one other effect on it, though. A negative one. It could be useful, but if any of you are planning on using this, you should exercise caution." He couldn't quite tell what the negative effect was, unfortunately. He could only hope that it wouldn't cause them too much trouble.

I outstretched my fingers and took peace in a big yawn, already tired from one battle. It was only then that the heat of the battle wore off, heart slowing down a bit as I inspected the carnage. Blood trails, stray arrows, splinters and branches... I turned to the others, my patience as a gambler wearing somewhat thin as we stood around looting and squabbling with each other.

To be fair, I was quite startled by our thief's outburst. She rattled my ears as I scoffed at the notion that we were pursued (actually mainly at the princess for being a twat that seems to chip in as quickly as she disappears), remaining quiet otherwise as Deravan's gaze fell upon me. At first I thought I annoyed the wrong person, but our resident ninja seemed to gesture with the bow in his hand. "It's a bow, yeah? Too bad I've never used one in my life." I spoke nonchalantly, brushing a few bruises incurred from the quick movements of the fighting.

Dorisma seemed to stumble around as Trey spoke up, putting himself by Deravan to inspect every fibre and wisp on the bow. I was about to speak out until Trey seemed to know the bow like the back of his hand, listing several positive (and negative) enchantments. I bit on my tongue and stopped myself from speaking out, flicking a card around instead as I waited for the party to move.

Deravan found a particularly interesting bow on the archer's body, which, I suppose, didn't really surprise me, and he handed that bow off to Trey, who examined it closely enough to figure out that the bow would double one's agility... but at a cost of some sort. It seemed nice, but unfortunately, it didn't look like anyone on the team could actually use the bow, except, maybe, for Miles. When he was questioned about it, however, Miles declined, claiming that he didn't know how to use one. I would have said something about that, but, then again, why would he have any reason to lie to us? Feeling more rested, I said "Alright, let's go, it shouldn't be too far from here," and continued onward, towards the dust. Soon enough, it stopped being a desert, and trees started appearing, again, signifying that we were getting close to the former kobold village, and once we got to where it normally would be, all I could see was dust, and rotten trees. "It... it was the only kobold village to withstand a human attack... and now look at it, reduced to nothing thanks to this dust," I stayed almost frighteningly close to the edge of the dust, trying not to step in it, and end up like that dragon, however, the princess had other plans. She pushed me right into the dust, making me fall face-first in the stuff. I got up quickly, and panicked, but the dust didn't seem to cling to me, like it did, say, a piece of bread, or a normal kobold. "Hm... interesting..." the princess said as she tried to push Deravan and Backstabs into the stuff, as well. She seemed to catch Backstabs off guard, and she ended up in the stuff, as well... but, just like me, nothing seemed to happen to her, at all.

Deravan sighed as he moved forwards, before seeing the dust and everything. He looked at it, worried, hearing what was said. He look at it.
"How could it even do that... I mean... god... what even is that thing..." he says... before seeing the princess and then her pushing people in the dust. He looked at her mad, seeing that it didn't affect Backstab at least, nor Robert.. She then tried to push him in... but he would not budge. He looks at her, annoyed.
"You mind... you are one freaken crazy woman! If that would have affected us... god... what were you thinking!" he says, serious. If only they could do something to get rid of her. He shake his head.
"Why the heck did we even meet her... what made it that we are stuck with a woman like that... god!" he says, obviously annoyed right now. Maybe the group will figure a way to hurt her later on, but for now...
"Lets just... collect some dust and try to figure what the heck that thing does... and maybe why it does not affect us." he says.

They finally arrived at the edge of the dust, which had consumed the entire village at this point. They all stood near the edge, looking over the damage that it caused. What was once a lush forest was now nothing but a lifeless wasteland, littered with dead trees and rotting corpses. They were lucky that they got the civilians out of there when they did. There was no telling what would have happened to them if they hadn't.

Trey's train of thought was interrupted when the princess began pushing people into the dust. Trey reacted quickly, flying out of her reach before she could push him in, as well. Deravan didn't budge, but Robert and Backstabs both took a facefull of the stuff. They seemed unaffected by the stuff, unlike anyone else that came into contact with it. Trey wasn't surprised. They walked through a cave filled with it and came out just fine. "Let's get what we need and get out. Preferably before the locals notice us." Trey said, nodding towards the zombies stumbling around in the distance.

Gradually, I felt dread and butterflies in my guts. The destruction seemed to fill the horizon. We retraced the long path back to where we started, decaying branches lashing out from the sides of the worn path. Horse and cartwheel imprints were long covered with withered leaves, perhaps nature itself embracing for the worst as the landscape became grim and colourless. Instead of insects creaking and birds chirping, only a lame wind with moments of silence seemed to talk with us. There wasn't even a smell in the air, a hint of ashes maybe but nothing hinting at previous life. If this was hell to us then it was the life of a colour-blind drifter who only knew death , total lack of life just beyond the village's old perimeter. Husks of trees seem to haunt and gasp with twisted trunks, arced over useless palisades and fencing to penetrate the grounds. "Damn. There goes my favourite bar." I took my eyes off a familiar building in the distance, I muttering and shedding a tear for a place that I didn't seem to care about until now.

While that was going on, we were getting rather unusually close to the dust's boundary. The sky became duller with each step we took, now only a few meters away. A few signs leading to nowhere were uprooted and cast onto the dust, the surrounding bushes stripped of vines and stones uncovered against the tide of grey. We were approaching an atmosphere of stillness and deafness, maddening to my senses as we figured out what next to do. "We're here. Let's grab the stuff quickly, this place is creeping me out." If one was daring enough, the edge of the dust seemed to wipe and clear away grass centimetre by centimetre, slowly creeping towards us. For a moment I felt a tightness in my arms, a little tense at odd figures in the distance. "Uh... there appears to be things living in the distance."

Just as I finished my sentence, I caught a massive glimpse of the princess seemingly betraying us to the greyness. She barely hesitated to push and thrust both Robert and Backstabs straight into the dust-laden ground, drawing my snarl and a quick flick of my knife against the drowned-out sun. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I spoke out, a rough tone grinding against my clean accent. What the others said and reacted though left a puzzled expression on my face, facts I never knew about as I wasn't involved with the group until much later.