1 A Friendly Encounter

The sound of wood creaking while being subjected to stress was all around, the branches of the many trees that were densely packed together still couldn't escape from the occasional strong gust of winds, the leaves shook as if terrified of something and the weaker branches succcumbed to the vicious assaults.

They nearly made no sound as they fell upon the thick grass, their corpses gently resting upon the surface of it, they would either be subjected to the test of time right where they were or maybe be carried by a bird to serve as material for a future nest, no one could possibly care about the fate of such a meaningless thing but as if to scorn that very idea, the exception was moving right past here, looking intensely at everything happening around.

Riding upon a beaten up carriage which also produced the sound of wood suffering every instant it moved forward, pulled by two horses, they didn't appear to be the kind of horse one would to be pulling such a shoddy carriage.

A lot of things seemed to be carried inside of it but everything was obstructed from view by a dirty white covering.

The figure driving the carriage appeared equally as shoddy as the carriage, they wore a hooded cloak on their shoulders, the bottom of it seemed to have been gnawed and slightly ripped, the hood was covering their head, completely darkening the person's face even though they stood unnaturaly straight, their shoulders barely moved as they gazed around, taking interest in the most meaningless of things, it seemed nothing was uninteresting to that person.

The rest of their attire was also worn out, it seemed like their clothes had been mended back together multiple times or that even some of them had been associated with others, in the end, everything they wore was very dark, each part of skin was covered by something.

Garbed in such dark clothes and fully covered under such brilliants suns, one could only imagine how much that person was sweating.

Peeking slightly from the hood, a few long strands of black hair could be seen.

Everything was tranquil, the road was in bad shape and the carriage jerked around a lot but the driver still sat with their back straight, moving in unison with the carriage, as if following the movements instead of going against them.

All of a sudden, not quite breaking the silence yet but forcing the driver to stop the carriage, a group of men emerged from the right, some struggling a bit too get through the vegetation, their presumed leader, a man that appeared much cleaner than the rest of the others, with a neatly made msutache and beard.

He silently cursed under his breath seeing his subordinates messing up their entrance before turning to the driver of the carriage, speaking in a charismatic tone as he unsheathed a nice looking short sword, the others carried around things that barely qualified as weapons.

"Listen traveler, you have two choice, either you give us your belongings willingly and we let you go or you decide to resist and we'll have to kill you, your choice" he said, full of confidence while his bandits just stood there.

The driver just got down the carriage, clearly showing that there was height difference between the bandits and them, the bandits flinched back just from that, the leader rolled his eyes, there was no way a random guy driving a carriage would actually fight back in any way.

"I choose to resist then" spoke the driver, speaking in a strangely deep, menacing and unnerving tone.

"Huh?" the bandit leader let out a sound of surprise as his underlings immediately ran away without any hesitation, some falling face first while getting through the vegetation again.

Looking at them running immediately, the leader was utterly flabbergasted and terrified as he was now alone, he immediately sheathed his sword and pleaded for his cause.

"I am sorry sir but as you know, life is hard, I have to feed my family and the crops aren't growing properly so I had to resort to robbi-" as the bandit leader begged for forgiveness with a certain eloquence, the driver removed his hood and spoke to him in a much friendlier tone.

"Te fous pas de moi Venec, you have been a fucking crook and robber since you were born" he said, wearing a nice, lazy and mischevious smile alongside some some eyes that seemed to not care about anything in the world.

His eyes were a deep, dark purple and his teeth looking much sharper than what a human should have, each of them ending in a point, they were so white that they reflected the light of the suns into Venec's eyes, strange to have such nice teeth when his hair were beyond unwashed and his clothes battered as if he was been dragged on the ground on multiple meters.

"Theli? You should have said it immediately, now they won't come out with me for a whole week!" complained the bandit leader.

"Sorry, mes excuses, I didn't realise your bandits were such cowards" responded Theli raising his hand in the air.

"Bandit is a nice word for them, they're just a bunch of peasant I told to just stand manacingly while I make my speech, I told them that they shouldn't worry about a sole guy playing hero but the moment there is even a hint of danger, they scatter like rabbits!" said Venec, yelling the last part toward where his bandits ran.

"What are you doing back here anyways? I thought you had gotten yourself a comfortable position at the royal castle?" questionned the carriage driver.

"Have you not heard? The king died and his son is in charge, not the first or second, they died of some illness or from a dumb accident, I don't remember, the third son is king now and he 'cleaned up' the whole castle if you get what I mean" responded the crook.

"I can't believe this, I hope this whole noble and honorable phase will not last, I can't stand these incompetents, back in the good days, my bandits were bloodthirsty savages with little survival instincts..." he lamented on his poor condition as Theli, rubbed his chin intensely, wearing a most creepy smile on his face and loudly chuckled at this information.

"That's great news you brought here Venec! I was thinking of beating the shit out of you for making me run late but as a gesture of appreciation, I will let you off the hook" he then uttered, slapping the bandits shoulder before turning back and climbing back on his carriage.

'He grew up quite a lot since I last saw him' thought Venec as he watched the shape of the carriage get smaller and smaller.

Meanwhile, Theli was back to what he had been doing, except that on top of his constant interest in everything around him, he was also thinking deeply about what Venec had told him, wondering what it could bring him and theorising to what would happen in this kindgom in the next years.

As he did so, he arrived to his home, a lonely and dark house with a large rock formation behind it, it could almost be qualified as a mountain from afar, the rest of of it was mostly surrounded by vast forests, the house was large and extended into the rock formation, leaving one to wonder how far it went, the whole thing was surround by high fences made from spiked trunks, completely blocking the sight of the house for anyone that wasn't absurdly tall.

He opened the gates, drove the carriage inside and after making sure it was properly closed, he opened the door of the house before unloading the content of his carriage, many boxes and barrels filled with who knows what.

Seeing that no one was here to help him, he did it all himself at a fast pace before going to check on the two other people that lived here.