Befriending a Bandit

The orc laborers return to the cart, deliberately keeping themselves within earshot. Ricayu follows Mara through the narrow doorway, while Corven remains concealed somewhere uphill, beyond sight and reach.

Inside, the house smells of lamp oil, damp wool, and ink. Mara shuts the door halfway, leaving the laborers visible through the gap as a ready, natural audience.

She opens a ledger on a scarred table. Recent entries list sacks, tools, and hired carts. One delivery bears a small notation for blue wool and resin.

Outside, an orc laborer laughs loudly and calls for another sack, making the cover seem effortless. Mara watches Ricayu over the ledger, waiting for his next question.

Still broad and green-skinned in the laborer’s disguise, Ricayu adopts the orcs’ relaxed stance and easy handling of weight. He lifts the ledger for a closer look.

The entries resolve beneath his searching gaze. The blue wool and resin were received by a river-road trader named Joren Pell, then transferred to a hired carrier marked only with a narrow boot sketch.

A second notation gives the destination: the old charcoal-burner’s track above the fir ridge. The scout’s supplies passed through Mara’s records before reaching Corven’s hidden approach.

As Ricayu turns the page, the ledger’s metal clasp slips from his thickened fingers and strikes the table. Outside, two laborers glance toward the half-closed door.

Ricayu holds the ledger upside down and flashes a broad, toothy tusk-filled smile. Mara’s eyes narrow, but she accepts the performance and takes the book back without protest.

He steps into the lane and joins the orc laborers. They laugh, clap his broad shoulder, and offer him a place at their usual bar whenever he wants it, naming the Copper Ladle.

Ricayu leaves the invitation behind and takes the long route uphill, turning corners, changing streets, and doubling back through lanes where carts and pedestrians break any clear trail.

At a sheltered bend above the river road, he waits beneath dripping firs. The disguise remains green and massive while daylight fades across the distant roofs.

Corven arrives from the concealed slope and hands him the antidote. Ricayu drinks; the borrowed bulk recedes, his skin returns to its natural tone, and his human form is restored.

Corven leads Ricayu to a narrow trade shop near the river road. Its proprietor, an elderly woman with silver braids and a green wool dress, studies him before offering the stoppered potion.

Ricayu drinks. His frame narrows, his ears lengthen, and his features settle into an elegant male elf’s fine appearance. A hard cramp twists his stomach, the draught’s definite cost.

From his disguise kit, Ricayu changes into a fitted dark coat, pale shirt, polished boots, and a modest sash. The proprietor hires him for a part-time shift sorting ledgers and unpacking cloth.

Ricayu begins work and observes the delivery book without touching what is not his. Joren Pell’s name appears beside a morning consignment, and a carrier promises to return before dusk.

When the shop needs hands for the late shift, Ricayu volunteers. He sorts ledgers, helps customers choose cloth, and keeps every movement measured beneath his elf disguise.

During quiet intervals, he cleans the counters, polishes the front windows, and repairs untidy entries without disturbing the original records. The shop grows orderly around him.

Customers come with ordinary needs: wool for winter, linen for household work, and narrow ribbons for merchants’ parcels. Ricayu listens while noting which deliveries draw unusual attention.

Before dusk, a carrier, a young man with a lean build, wind-browned skin, cropped dark hair, and a rain-dark blue-gray coat over sturdy trousers returns with folded cloth and a sealed bundle. His boots carry pale river clay, and a small blue thread clings to one cuff.

She pays Ricayu for the shift and the extra hours until closing. He continues working as lamps are lit, observing the carrier’s route, the sealed bundle, and every name entered beside them.

Ricayu finishes the late shift beneath the shop’s lamplight, returning ledgers, folding cloth, and memorizing the carrier’s departure time without drawing notice.

After leaving, Ricayu keeps to alternating streets and shopfront shadows. He follows the carrier’s pale clay marks, using carts, awnings, and passing customers to break the line of sight.

At a ribbon stall, Ricayu pauses over folded merchandise and catches his reflection in a polished brass tray. The elf is slender and elegant, with longer ears, altered eyes, and a sharper facial angle.

He watches the carrier through the reflection as the young man leaves the river road, passes a cooper’s yard, and enters a narrow counting house beside a covered arch.

From a recessed doorway, Ricayu observes the sealed bundle delivered inside. The carrier returns without it, speaks briefly with a clerk, then takes a separate lane toward the old charcoal-burner’s track.

The carrier disappears toward the charcoal-burner’s track. In the counting house’s dark alcove, the sealed bundle rests beside stacked ledgers, briefly unattended.

Ricayu slips from the recessed doorway, takes the package, and ducks behind barrels in the cooper’s shadow. Passing carts and hammer blows conceal the movement.

He opens the wrapping carefully. Inside lie a folded length of coarse blue wool, a small resin pouch, and a narrow iron digging spade wrapped in oilcloth.

Beneath the tools, a waxed scrap shows the ridge, the hidden approach, and two marked observation points near Corven’s shelter. The route is copied from someone’s careful survey.

Footsteps sound within the counting house. Ricayu folds the map, replaces the wrappings, and settles deeper behind the barrels, keeping the shipment concealed with him.

Through a gap between the barrels, he watches the covered arch and the counting-house door. Whoever ordered the bundle expects it to continue uphill before nightfall.

Ricayu finds a spare scrap in his kit and sketches the ridge, placing a false route toward the exposed hill where he once ate picnics. Nearby slopes overlook it clearly.

He folds the fake map around half the coarse blue cloth, resin pouch, and iron spade, then returns the bundle to the counting house’s hiding place.

The genuine survey disappears beneath his coat with the remaining cloth. He leaves the alcove by a different shadowed passage, restoring the barrels and disturbed dust behind him.

Ricayu reaches the old charcoal-burner’s track before nightfall and follows it uphill, using the real map to avoid the marked observation points.

Corven joins him beneath the firs, and together they settle above the exposed hill, hidden among wet branches while the false bundle waits below.

The damp branches drip around them. Without the antidote, Ricayu’s elegant elf form will last until he can safely return to town, and the exposed hill remains their only cover.

Ricayu smiles in his elegant elven form, and the expression catches Corven by surprise. As the tonic continues its work, his hair shifts toward a bolder color beneath the dripping branches.

They move toward the observation position without leaving a single readable footprint. Ricayu follows disturbed earth, roots, and stones, matching his pace to dripping branches and stirring leaves.

At one muddy hollow, a sharp cramp twists Ricayu’s stomach as the tonic works through him. He pauses behind a fir, then continues, the pain his concrete price for the disguise.

Ricayu remains beside Corven beneath the wet firs, showing him copied accounts, shipment entries, carrier names, and the notes gathered from Mara’s ledger and the counting house.

Time settles over the hills. Ricayu’s hair turns a pale gold, his ears lengthen into graceful points, and his musculature and posture refine until the disguise seems born rather than brewed.

His eyebrows and body hair pale to matching blond, completing the transformation. Ricayu’s steps now merge with dripping branches and shifting leaves, leaving the muddy hollow undisturbed.

At last, a middle-aged man emerges below, lean and weathered, with a narrow face, dark cropped hair, a blue-gray coat, and pale clay drying on his boots. He carries the false bundle.

Ricayu follows Corven into the wet firs and stands beside him, the bows secured across his back. Beneath his pale-gold fingers, the wood feels familiar, warm, and precisely balanced.

Old habits of melee combat recede as clear memories of archery take their place: stance, breath, anchor, release. The knowledge settles into his body without struggle.

Ricayu lifts the bow and draws smoothly, testing its limbs without a wasted motion. His elbow, shoulders, and back align as though shaped by years beneath a training roof.

Below, the carrier reaches the false route and studies the marked ground. Beside Corven, Ricayu watches silently, newly armed with the bow and the certainty of his elven craft.

Ricayu watches through the wet firs. His altered elven eyes resolve every raindrop, boot mark, and twitch of the carrier’s hands with startling distance and precision.

The carrier follows the marked route across the exposed hill, then sets the false bundle beneath a split stone. He whistles once and withdraws behind a thorn hedge.

A middle-aged woman emerges from the opposite slope, lean and severe, with iron-gray braids, a russet cloak, and a small brass key hanging at her belt.

The woman opens the bundle, examines the false map, and looks toward the ridge. The carrier steps from cover and bows his head.

Ricayu lowers the bow and waits beside Corven, accepting his judgment. Rain threads through the firs while the woman and carrier stand exposed below.

Corven signals for Ricayu to retreat through the wet branches. They withdraw without disturbing the false trail, leaving the hidden watchers unseen.

Below, the iron-braided woman folds the false map and gives the bundle back to the carrier. He bows, then descends toward the river road.

Ricayu follows Corven along rain-darkened roots and stones, leaving the exposed hill behind. Ahead, the carrier’s pale-clay boots begin a careful descent toward the covered arch.

Ricayu follows in silence, placing each foot where rain has already darkened roots and stones. His elven senses read pressure, broken stems, and softened earth as one continuous path.

Ricayu adjusts his pace, moving quieter than before. Wet branches and distant cart wheels swallow his passage while the carrier descends unaware.

The carrier glances toward the river road, then relaxes as he reaches the covered arch. Ricayu reads the change and guides his attention back to the man’s hands.

Corven leads Ricayu behind stacked timber near the arch. Together they arrive unseen, close enough to observe the carrier entering the counting house without disturbing his trail.

Corven studies Ricayu’s pale-gold hair, pointed ears, and refined elven features. In the rain-muted shadows, even a close acquaintance would struggle to recognize him.

Ricayu straightens his coat, counts out coin, and approaches the counting house with an unhurried merchant’s confidence. The carrier has vanished inside.

Within, a thin young clerk with ink-stained fingers, a young human man with a narrow face, cropped brown hair, and a russet vest over a cream shirt receives the deposit. Edrin’s sharpened hearing catches voices beyond the partition, discussing Joren Pell, tonight’s men, and the ridge.

Edrin lays his coins on the counter one by one. The a thin young clerk counts them slowly, scratches the figures into a ledger, and prepares a fresh account.

While the clerk pauses over each calculation, Ricayu’s sharpened hearing separates rain, quill-scrape, and murmurs beyond the partition. He signs Edrin Valea beneath the account.

The clerk sands the wet ink and folds the receipt with deliberate care. His unhurried routine gives Ricayu time to catch every word from the back room.

Ricayu leaves with his signed receipt and deposit account, carrying the complete plan in memory: Joren’s men move tonight, the ridge is surrounded, and Corven’s evidence is their target.

Edrin walks away at a slow pace, leaving the counting house behind. At the timber stacks, he rejoins Corven and quietly recounts everything overheard inside.

Corven looks over Ricayu’s elven form, from pale-gold hair to pointed ears, his expression thoughtful beneath the dripping branches.

Ricayu nods his understanding. Corven answers with a slow nod of his own, visibly moved, then glances between the counting house and the darkening ridge.

Corven leads Ricayu into the timber stacks’ deeper shadow, positioning them where the counting-house door and the road toward the ridge remain visible.

They wait beneath dripping eaves. Cart wheels pass, lamps kindle behind windows, and the counting-house door opens twice for ordinary clerks, two adult men in plain work clothes with visible faces and short brown hair carrying ledgers.

At last, the carrier emerges with an empty bundle and turns toward the river road. A second man, a lean adult man with a weathered face, close-cropped black hair, and a dark hooded cloak over gray trousers follows minutes later, wearing a dark cloak and carrying a short iron bar.

Corven slips between the timber stacks and disappears downhill. Ricayu remains concealed, the bow warm beneath his coat, while the cloaked man pauses to study the darkening road.

Ricayu lets the timber stacks and evening gloom swallow his pale-gold form. He follows the cloaked man by stepping where rain, carts, and fallen leaves have already disturbed the ground.

His elven grace makes each turn fluid, and the man never looks back. At a narrow lane, however, Ricayu’s boot nudges a loose iron hoop, sending it softly ringing across the stones.

The cloaked man stops and scans the shadows. Ricayu presses against a damp wall, holding still as the man’s gaze passes over him, then continues toward the river road.

Ricayu follows beyond the covered arch and through a yard crowded with stacked barrels. The man leaves the road, crosses a drainage ditch, and takes a concealed footpath toward the ridge.

At the path’s end, the cloaked man crouches beside a fallen birch and reveals two waiting figures below: adult men carrying sacks, rope, and short iron tools.

Ricayu reaches the overlook unseen and hears the plan clearly. The ridge party will approach from the eastern slope, while the cloaked man returns to mark the western path.

Ricayu moves along the ridge at changing elevations, using hollows, roots, and deepening shadows to remain above and behind the cloaked man. His elven hearing separates footsteps from wind and dripping leaves.

The cloaked man leaves the two mercenaries below and climbs toward the western path. Ricayu follows across a narrow ledge, but a stone shifts beneath his boot and clatters downslope.

The man pauses and looks back. Ricayu drops behind a fallen trunk, holding still until the search ends. The cost is clear: the cloaked man now knows some watcher travels nearby.

The names settle into Ricayu’s memory: the cloaked commander is Varric, and the mercenary below is Dalen. Varric descends toward the western path, while Dalen gathers the others.

Ricayu tracks Varric through the dark, shifting between higher roots and lower gullies without exposing the scout or Corven’s shelter. The ridge party’s division is now clear.

Ricayu follows Varric through gullies and fir roots, placing each foot where rain and fallen branches have already disturbed the ground. His breathing joins the wind.

Varric never sees him. The commander reaches the western path, pauses beneath a leaning ash, and studies the ridge while Ricayu remains hidden above.

Using Corven’s lessons, Ricayu reads Varric’s shoulders and hands. The man is not searching randomly; he is choosing a concealed route behind the shelter.

Varric scratches a small cross into wet bark beside the path. Ricayu memorizes its position and discovers a second advantage: the mark points toward an unguarded drainage gully.

Ricayu slips down the gully ahead of Varric, keeping roots between them. From there, he can reach Corven’s shelter unseen and warn him without revealing the scout.

Ricayu descends the drainage gully, using roots and wet stones for cover. He reaches the shelter’s uphill side unseen, while Varric remains unaware above.

Corven turns from the braced rear wall as Ricayu emerges beneath the firs. Ricayu quietly warns him that Varric marked the western path and plans to bring men through the charcoal track.

Ricayu indicates the eastern slope and the concealed route behind the shelter, describing Varric, Dalen, and the other waiting mercenary without exposing the scout’s position.

Corven lowers his voice and studies the weakened supports, then the dark charcoal track. He begins shifting harmless gear toward the visible entrance while keeping the true supplies hidden uphill.

Ricayu stays with Corven as they arrange decoy gear near the visible entrance. He studies every placement, then crosses between fir roots without disturbing the shelter’s story.

Ricayu repeats the route, timing each step with dripping branches and distant movement. He shifts his weight before the ground can answer, then returns with no fresh sign.

Something in Ricayu’s elven heritage settles into place through the successful practice. Distance, pressure, sound, and broken growth connect into one clear language beneath his feet.

Corven leads Ricayu through the firs toward the marked watchpoint. Ricayu follows without leaving a readable trail, bow in hand, arrow nocked but lowered beneath the dripping branches.

Ricayu settles above the drainage gully and raises the bow. His altered elven senses join distance, pressure, and sound into one precise awareness, while the weapon’s balance feels instinctively familiar.

Below, Varric advances first, followed by Dalen, a lean adult man with a square jaw, cropped brown hair, and a weathered dark-green jacket over sturdy trousers and three armed men, adult men in rough brown and gray work clothes, each carrying a short weapon from the eastern slope. Ricayu aligns his aim across the safest retreat route, ready to fire if Corven gives the signal.

Ricayu draws smoothly, but the damp string snaps against his bracer with a sharp twang. Varric looks uphill. The ambush remains set, though their concealment has been compromised.

Ricayu moves ten feet through the darkness, following the higher root line where wet earth and fallen needles conceal his passage. The new angle opens across the battlefield.

From behind one fir, Varric, Dalen, and the three armed men, three adult human men with sun-browned skin, rough-cut hair, and weathered faces overlap along his sightline, each movement crossing another’s retreat. Ricayu remains hidden above the gully.

Below, Varric advances past the birch, still searching the trees. Dalen and the others follow in a compressed line, their weapons lowered as they enter the overlapping angle.

Ricayu releases. The arrow cuts through the rain and bites into the mud before Varric’s leading boot, scattering water and forcing the group to halt together.

Ricayu draws the next arrow beneath the rain. The bow settles against his palm, and the forest seems to widen around the narrow line between him and his target.

When he releases, the motion becomes instinctive. His shoulders, fingers, breath, and sight align with an elven certainty older than any lesson Corven gave him.

The arrow strikes a hanging branch beside the eastern slope, snapping it hard enough to shower leaves over the armed men. Their formation breaks, and the prepared route becomes their only clear escape.

The awakening leaves Ricayu’s drawing fingers split and bleeding where the wet string has rubbed them raw. The pain is small, but every subsequent release will demand care.

Varric’s gaze searches the firs while Dalen and the others retreat along the forced path. Corven remains still beside Ricayu, watching the men reveal where they intend to regroup.

Ricayu nocks another arrow and holds the draw beneath the dripping firs. His injured fingers tremble once, then settle as he waits for Corven’s signal.

Varric drives the retreat east, glancing uphill while Dalen tries to keep the three armed men together. Their panic compresses them along the narrow route.

Ricayu releases. The arrow strikes beside the fallen stone, kicking mud across Dalen’s boots and forcing him aside. Before the group can recover, Ricayu sends a second shaft into the retreating path behind them.

The men halt between two warnings, their escape narrowed to the open eastern slope. Varric looks toward the ridge, recognizing disciplined archery but not the hidden archer.

Ricayu keeps the bow raised, its balance settled into his pale-gold hands. His injured fingers hold steady now, and his sharpened sight tracks every man below without haste.

Varric studies the two warning arrows, then the exposed slope. Dalen grips his short weapon while the three armed men glance between their commander and the hidden ridge.

Ricayu shifts his aim across the open earth, covering Varric, Dalen, and the eastern retreat in turn. Below, the men hesitate, their route controlled without a wound.

Ricayu holds the bow at full draw, pale-gold hair stirring in the rain. His sight follows Varric’s shifting stance, Dalen’s tense grip, and the narrow ground between them.

Ricayu releases. The arrow strikes hard between Varric and Dalen, spraying mud across their boots and driving them apart. The wet string tears Ricayu’s drawing finger open, and blood slicks the grip.

Varric raises one hand, but his eyes remain fixed on the firs. Below, the three armed men lower their weapons slowly, while the eastern path stays open behind them.

Ricayu keeps the bow trained on the ground before Varric, shoulders steady despite the torn finger. He follows Corven’s command exactly, ready to fire only if the surrender breaks.

Dalen lowers his short weapon first and moves back. The three armed men follow, placing their weapons in the mud beneath Ricayu’s watchful aim.

Corven steps into view with his bow lowered but ready. Ricayu remains above the gully, covering the eastern path while Varric studies the outlaw’s familiar face.

Ricayu keeps the bow trained on the ground before Varric, his torn finger braced carefully against the grip. Every movement below remains clear through the rain.

Varric’s jaw tightens. Dalen keeps his hands raised while the three disarmed men watch the eastern slope and listen for any signal from their commander.

The account settles the shipment’s path and purpose. Ricayu’s arrow remains ready, covering the men while Corven studies Varric for the name still withheld.

Ricayu lowers the bow only when Corven raises two fingers. His torn drawing finger has reopened, blood slicking the grip, but he keeps the men covered as ordered.

Corven removes the copied survey, Mara Venn’s ledger details, and the counting-house receipt from his coat. He places them beside the surrendered weapons in the mud.

The evidence is now joined to names, routes, payment, and testimony. Corven binds the surrendered men for the journey to Puka, while Ricayu wraps his bleeding finger and keeps watch over the eastern slope.

The prisoners trudge downhill between Corven and Ricayu. Rain darkens the path, while Ricayu walks behind with his bow ready and his wounded finger wrapped tight.

Warmth gathers beneath Ricayu’s bandage. The torn flesh closes cleanly, but the pain leaves him briefly unsteady, and one arrow slips from his quiver into the mud.

Something deep within Ricayu reshapes. His bond to elven blood becomes permanent, not a disguise or tonic’s borrowed shape, while his pale hair and pointed ears settle into their true form.

Ricayu nods to Corven and resumes his watch. His true elven features remain calm as he studies the prisoners, the path, and every shifting hand.

Her presence rests quietly within him, steady as warmth beneath the healed skin. The forest’s rain and the prisoners’ footfalls return to the forefront of his senses.

One prisoner shifts toward the roadside brush, testing the escort’s spacing. Ricayu notices before the movement becomes an attempt, and Corven turns sharply toward him.

Ricayu raises the bow and draws until the string rests firm against his anchor. His sharp elven eyes fix on the shifting prisoner, promising death without a word.

The prisoner, an adult man with a stocky build, a crooked nose, and a patched gray tunic, freezes with one foot angled toward the brush. The others turn their faces toward Ricayu’s hidden line of fire, suddenly aware of how little cover the road offers.

The prisoner slowly raises both hands and steps back onto the road. Corven closes the spacing, binding the man’s wrists while Ricayu keeps the drawn arrow trained on him.

Corven binds each prisoner’s wrists, then threads a single rope through the restraints, spacing them into a tense, stumbling chain. Ricayu covers the line with his drawn bow.

His pale elven face hardens into a predatory warning, eyes fixed on every hand and shoulder. The prisoners keep their heads forward and obey the rope’s direction.

Corven leads them down the rain-darkened road. Ricayu follows at overwatch distance, bow ready, sight tracking the prisoners while the tether keeps their movements joined.

By dusk, Puka’s timber gate rises beyond the fields. Two adult gate guards in quilted brown coats watch the approaching chain, one a broad-shouldered young woman with dark braided hair and a square chin, the other a lean middle-aged man with a ruddy face and graying hair, their hands resting near sheathed swords.

The guards take custody of the prisoners at Puka’s gate. Corven presents the records, while Ricayu keeps the scout’s identity concealed and preserves the evidence concerning Joren and House Seln.

Within the town hall, an elderly woman judge with a narrow build, silver hair braided beneath a black veil, and a sharp scar across her chin receives them at a crowded records table.

A clerk, a young adult human man with a slim build, a round face, short dark hair, and a russet vest over a cream shirt, records the prisoners’ names and statements records the prisoners’ names and statements. Dalen recounts Joren Pell’s payments, Varric confirms the ridge operation, and the altered convoy accounts are placed beside Mara Venn’s ledger entries.

The judge seals the testimony, inventories the evidence, and orders the counting house searched for Joren’s payment ledger. Corven’s account is entered as a formal petition to clear his outlawry.

Obtain a ruling clearing Corven’s outlawry