[b]Fredrick[/b]’s second attempt lands with the kind of blunt certainty that ends arguments. The runner—already half-tangled from brush and vines—tries to twist free with a sharp inhale, shoulders turning as if to slip past the bind one last time. Fredrick closes the distance instead, drives a compact strike into the side of the jaw and follows through with his weight, forcing the bandit’s head to snap sideways. The runner staggers, feet skidding in the leaf litter, then collapses in a limp heap among the roots—breathing, but out cold. Whatever warning they meant to carry deeper into the woods dies with them for now, bought with seconds and bruises.

Low to the ground, [b]Jilly[/b]’s scouting run keeps to the treeline, her height limited and the undergrowth doing most of the hiding. From the bushes near S7, the camp opens up in broken sightlines—clear enough to count bodies and landmarks, but not clean enough to guarantee every corner. Still, the important pieces are hard to miss. A steel cage sits at E14, and inside it a small figure shifts—Marra’s daughter, alive, curled tight and motionless between moments. A bowman at F12 keeps a steady angle that watches the cage and the clearing, while another archer holds a wider overwatch at I4. Three melee bandits patrol the open ground—one near H7, another at J10, and a third acting as the cage’s leash at H13, pacing to G14 where the cage gate and lock sit within arm’s reach.

Voices carry in clipped bursts: talk of “the others” returning later, of needing to move before they’re pinned, and of their leader “working the new plan” beneath the central tent at E9. Whatever this camp is, it isn’t settled—it’s bracing, watching, and waiting, and the window to act feels measured in minutes, not comfort.