4: Ambush from the Residential Bandits

Liran yawned as she walked a quiet path through an evergreen neck of woods. The more she walked, the less she heard the birds' chirping. 

Her blood code sight detected fine movements in the trees and flow of sound through bushes and branches, yet the animals were quiet.

"Something's startled them."

A shiver ran through her as she felt a coldness seeping from her pocket.

She stopped and carefully removed her lute from her back. Sparrowfire. It not only had the means to allow healing magic, but it could also tap further into her Namtila Blood Code of diagnosis insight and area of effect distortion: a domain that revealed the hidden beneath the truth.

With a careful, precise, and swift motion, she unwrapped her lute and positioned it before her. With meticulous strumming, her sound magic activated and tapped deep into her mental zone to initiate her lingxi magic. An image of a falling leaf appeared in her mind with her spirit hand catching it to keep it steady.

"Namtila Blood Code: Reveal Domain." Her voice and tune carried across her section of woods like a wind's sigh.

The dense greens, browns, and physical colors of the landscape became inverted to shades of white, blue, and yellow, showing sketched outlines of all objects and those that weren't visible to physical sight. Yet, nothing stood out, so she closed down her blood code sight.

"I'm just being overly, overly..." She calmly rewrapped her lute and strapped it to her back.

As she resumed her walk, something crashed into her from a side bush.

"Yah cheeky mouse. Gib me back my cheese!"

"Yergh!" She let out as she found herself staring at crushed leaves in the dirt.

As she sat up, she saw a tiny gray mouse scampering past with a small cheese wedge on its back. The vermin let out laughing noises as it fled into another bush.

Stomping green feet moved past her to follow the mouse's plight. She blinked at the sprinting beast fixated on catching its prey.

"Must be a fun run." She sighed and picked herself up to carry on.

The path through the woods eventually cleared onto a main dirt road where the sight of pastured fields rolled on, but she didn't move very far down it.

"This the one, boss?" said a gap-toothed ruffian with spiky, uncombed hair and wearing matted leather armor. He was chewing on a toothpick and smirking.

Next to him was a muscly brute in studded dark leather armor, whose squarish chin was covered with a stubbly beard and one eye was hidden behind a patch. Streaks of scarlet color seemed to overpower his natural dark, short hair. A crude scar was slashed down the left side of his face, drawing attention to his lone small gray eye that carried a gloating expression.

"Yeah, that be the elfar." The Scarface boss spat to the ground.

Liran frowned when she saw seven more similarly armored ruffians enter to crowd the road. All carrying blunt weapons and swords. She presumed they were the residential highway bandits.

The scarface boss stepped cockily toward her. "Nuthin personal love, it all just business."

"Oh?" She lifted one brow, unimpressed.

The boss unsheathed his greatsword as he stepped closer with his threat. "Dun worry, we've been asked to keep you alive." He licked his lips. "Unspoiled; however, we didn't get paid for that."

Liran sighed as she slipped into a mental focus. With swift movements beyond the bandit's limited range of vision, she whispered a spell while slipping off her lute to strum a tune. The muslin ribbon-like wrapping began moving on its own via her sound magic. Slashing, whipping, and tripping up her attackers so they fell incapacitated.

"Bloody hell! Boss yah said she's a bard!" A young and weaselly-looking bandit complained as he found himself forced onto all fours. He yelped pitifully when ribbons spanked the naughty boy's butt.

Liran chuckled as she skillfully plucked strings to make a line of bandits face the dirt with their butts in the air and getting spanked by her muslin wraps.

Boss Scarface growled as he pressed forward with his attack, slinging his greatsword toward her without a care. But she was too agile for his clumsy, heavy strikes that upturned dirt rather than landed on her face.

After a while, she saw sweat trickle down the sides of his neck and his chest heaving for breath. His stamina was draining faster than hers.

When she glanced toward the others, they were panting on the ground and looking pitiful beneath her muslin wrappings.

"Boss, we gettin' creamed by baby cloth!" A bandit squealed when a butt-slap sent him flying into the air.

Boss Scarface sighed. "Guess I underestimated you, Bard. No more playing nice."

"Nice? Well, I didn't think we were having a tea party." She nonchalantly responded and upped her playing tempo to be allegro.

The muslin spankings were rapid and brutal, seeking out, binding, and throwing the bandits around, who fortunately had no magic ability to counter.

But Boss Scarface, however, started to get serious with his "Flame Blood Code: Fireball Scatter Shot."

A torrent of fireballs rained down on the flowing muslin cloth to make it burn. Liran countered sound magic to blow out the flames and recall her wrappings, which wound around her waist.

The light damage to her wrappings had drained some of her stamina. Now that the boss was using magic, situations became a serious threat.