[h3]Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara – Forest north of Borstown, Bandit Farm[/h3]
All things considered, the attack on the bandit base was proceeding very smoothly, Freagon noted as he cut down another defenseless bandit while making his way around the farmstead itself and toward where Quintin had marked its entrance on the map. It would have gone even more smoothly if he had been on the actual fighting force in their plan rather than the one protected by Irah's Angel of Fear, but part of him was actually content with things the way they were. Since what he was doing currently was effortless to him, he had sufficient time and energy to study everything else that was happening on the battlefield.

Irah had obviously already proven her value several times over with the ridiculous amount of tools she had at her disposal in the form of her elemental magic, mysterious “divine” healing potions and the ability to summon and play host to divines. Such magic came at a great cost, however; to his knowledge she had not only summoned a greater divine, but also acted as the conduit it used to heal people for a short while. Then she had been exposed to the dense divine aura of Caleb back at the manor, and now she was hosting [I]another[/I] greater divine, and this time one whose powers were perpetually fully active. Resistant or not, this much exposure was bound to cause significant amounts of divine taint, and being resistant meant that taint could take a very long time to resolve itself. She was immensely powerful and useful [I]for a while[/I], but they would eventually reach a point where relying on her divine allies like this would render her significantly less useful. He was somewhat undecided on whether her use of summoning magic today had been overly liberal... though the thing that kept bothering him was that she had summoned the Angel of Mercy into herself before even coming to Bor Manor. Before she had any idea what had happened, she had already exposed herself to significant amounts of divine taint. [I]That[/I], specifically, suggested that summoning was her first resort rather than her last, which would seriously limit her usefulness on a prolonged quest.
Lhirin was an odd one. He certainly seemed to have considerable magical power and mastery, but he was also weirdly erratic both in the way he fought, talked and reasoned. Sometimes he showed remarkable intelligence and insight, and other times he hyper-focused on specific details and jumped to conclusions without considering the bigger picture. The fight against the wraiths at the manor had revealed a lot about Lhirin, particularly those first few moments of the encounter. First he had rushed ahead of the rest of them and been captured by the water wraith, which to an extent was fair enough; how often was it necessary to look [I]up[/I] to check for threats? But Lhirin had not only not looked up, he had not looked left or right either, he had just focused on the threat in front of him to the exclusion of everything else... which was an incredibly dangerous habit to have. And then a moment later, when Lhirin had been trapped in the rug wraith, he had opted to magically manipulate iron nails to attack the creature wrapped around him. Which had worked, but was a bizarre decision to make when he had had a sword in his hand that he could have easily cut himself loose with. He had also chosen to imbibe a dose of piaan after just fighting the few wraiths and ghouls there, before they even knew what they were up against in Caleb, which was entirely as dangerous as Irah's over-eagerness to expose herself to divine taint. He had the talent and power to potentially be useful, but he quite obviously had a lot to learn to succeed as an adventurer.
Nabi was an interesting one. A member of a species Freagon knew little to nothing about, from a culture he was unfamiliar with, she was understandably distant compared to most of them and mostly played a spectator rather than participant in discussion. During combat she seemed competent enough and even seemed to strike a somewhat decent balance between when she relied on her sword or her magic. She seemed to be an incredibly diverse force with a lot of tools at her disposal for battle, though she quite obviously lacked knowledge and experience.
Madara was a difficult one to conclude much of anything about. She was obviously not a combatant as such, but she had already proven to be an exceptional surgeon and physician. Having her around was certainly going to be immensely useful, particularly once Irah had managed to thoroughly taint herself by relying on her iriao to heal people... or, ideally, to avoid Irah getting to that point in the first place, though that seemed unlikely given her behavior so far.
Yanin, and to a lesser extent Jordan, were Freagon's greatest delight out of the bunch. Obviously neither of them had any magical gifts, which would render them much less useful against certain threats... but Yanin in particular was obviously an extremely potent warrior who excelled in combat. Not only that, but he possessed a focused, logical and inquisitive mind. Excluding Freagon himself, Yanin was almost certainly the most formidable out of everyone in their little party, and the prime candidate for leadership.

And finally, of course, there was Jaelnec. He performed about as well as Freagon had expected, albeit not in all respects. It was mildly surprising that the timid boy who had lingered mostly as a background observer in every conflict he had been present for was this aggressive in his fighting-style, though in hindsight Freagon supposed he should have expected as much. This was the very first time the freshly named squire engaged in real combat, and the first chance he had had to actually put everything he had learned for the past fifteen years to use.
Still, the way he was fighting was hardly efficient and far from safe. Charging at multiple enemies like that made sense if Jaelnec had been alone and had to fight aggressively to avoid being swarmed, but in this situation it would obviously have been better to form a line with the other melee fighters and compensate for the enemy numbers that way. On top of that it was all unnecessarily flamboyant – something Freagon thought he had thoroughly beaten out of him during their sparring matches – and somehow overly reckless and hesitant at the same time. The most surprising thing about it all, however, was how well the innocent, naive little nightwalker handled his first time killing other sapients. Jaelnec had just lethally wounded three men and did not even seem to react to this at all... though Freagon wondered if it was not just compartmentalization and adrenaline keeping him focused and moving.
At least it looked as though the boy was reeling in his aggression some after those first three, halting his charge and letting bandits come to him and generally fighting more conservatively. A fourth bandit charged Jaelnec as Freagon watched, wielding a longsword that was longer than the nightwalker's bastard sword but obviously shorter than the spear, and the squire wisely stayed out of measure at first. For a couple of seconds the two of them just made small jabs at each other, striking and stabbing to test each other's defenses but staying out of reach as they did so. Jaelnec only stepped into measure after parrying one particularly ambitious thrust from the bandit with his sword, and upon doing so he instantly ended the fight with a stab at his opponent's throat with the spear before retreating back out of measure so that he was safe during the bandit's death throes.
It was still far from perfect, and Freagon would have a lot of things to lecture his squire on later... but for now it was sufficient. It was certainly better than most fighters.

But as much as the battle provided useful observations, eradicating the bandits was not the main reason they were here. Taking point, Freagon reached the door into the farmstead. According to Caleb's information, Brent the Healer was in here. The old nightwalker's eye narrowed, raised his gleaming sartal sword to his right, and used his left hand to turn the handle and open the door.
Freagon's reaction was, as usual, instant in what happened next. The split-second the door started to swing out of its frame and the first rays of sunlight slipped past it and inside, a loud bang announced a hard impact against the wood, and the door that had been opening slowly abruptly slammed outward and as far as its hinges allowed, completely open. Freagon stepped backward and away from the building just as a long blade emerged from the interior and cleaved through the air where he had been standing an instant earlier, clearly intending to immediately kill whoever opened the door... irrelevant, Freagon noted, of whether the one doing so was one from their party or one of the bandits. The one inside had not had time to identify their target.

While Freagon retreated another couple of steps and took up a defensive stance, the one inside the farmstead stepped out of the door and into view for everyone else. It was a particularly large man, obviously; probably over two meters tall and heavily muscled, which suggested he probably possessed raw strength that was greater than that of Freagon or even Yanin. But his brawn was mostly obvious because the man was not wearing a full set of armor. He had steel-plated gauntlets and greaves, and he wore a full helmet, but his entire torso was not only unarmored, but almost entirely naked. He wore bandages around his chest and abdomen, mostly clean but slightly bloodstained at on his left side, and Freagon noticed that he seemed to be dragging his left leg slightly. The bandit was presenting his right arm in front of himself, holding out his weapon defensively: a long, slender two-handed falchion.
But much more worryingly, the bandit's true defense was held with his left arm. Carried in front of him and used as a shield, the bandit dragged the catatonic body of a thirty-something year old man. This human shield had no armor, but was wearing nice yet modest and somewhat bloodstained clothes, adorned with numerous bags and pouches attached to belts and straps crisscrossing over his body. His eyes stared stiffly straight ahead, his consciousness trapped by the magic of the swaigh.
On top of holding up the body of this man with his left arm, he also used his left hand to hold a dagger to his hostage's throat, its tip pressing hard enough into the skin to already cause light bleeding.

“That's enough fun already!” the bandit roared, flinching slightly as he did so but remaining resolute. “Throw down your weapons or your damn healer dies!”