In a wagon en route to the campsite, a slow melody played on a box-like item, similar to a modern-day speaker. The item was able to play music because a magical sound crystal was embedded in it. The song that played sounded like a slow Mozart's Requiem in D minor, giving the interior of the wagon an eerie feeling. But hey, bad guys have their own eerie music, right?
The interior of the wagon was mostly black with orange linings and decorations on the seats. A large man dressed in silky orange robes and a ridiculous number of rings sat in the corner, staring outside his window as he drank from his glass of wine. Prestige was clearly not a foreign concept to him.
With him, a woman with silver hair and blue eyes sat quietly inspecting her swords in the diagonally opposite seat. She was clad in a silver armor but no one really knew if she had served in the army before. Her armor came with a red cape that had fire-like orange drawings at the bottom. She was a Tier 8 fire mage but mostly preferred using her swords as she had once been an assassin.
The large man had shiny black hair with thin gray patches running just above his ears, all the way to the back of his head. He had a cowboy's mustache curled slightly upwards at the edges of the mouth and a neatly shaved stubble.
He used to be a very muscular man but the years of being a noble had brought a small potbelly with them. He looked like quite the noble too if one didn't see the scar on his right cheek.
A few years ago, but just after he became a noble, he had fought for his life against an assassin and ended up with the scar. The woman sitting with him in the wagon was the assassin that had been hired to take his head. One of the relatives to a family he had robbed and murdered a long time ago paid her to kill the former bandit.
She nearly killed him even but alas, he offered her 10 times the gold she had been paid. The cliché 'I'll pay you 10 times what you were given' finally worked on someone. All she had to do was join his crew and kill the one who sent her instead. Her loyalty was indeed an abstract thing but the highest bidder could buy it.
Although he had been upset about the scar and plotted revenge, he found out that Noma, the assassin, was far more useful than he expected. In no time she had risen to become someone he could depend on to take care of his numerous enemies. The scar she gave him was a minor thing he could ignore for having someone as brutally strong as her for an ally. One such moment was this one.
"I sense two very strong beings and someone much weaker than the two in that direction," Noma said, pointing in the direction of the campsite.
"Aren't they our men?" the large man asked.
"No, none of your men at the campsite have this type of magical signatures. These three are... different. And I don't think any of your men are around," Noma said.
She knew of a few bandits that were strong but not on the level these three beings were. It would not be completely wrong to assume that the bandits had been wiped out since she couldn't sense anyone else with strong magical energy in that direction either.
The large man sat quietly for a little while as he tried to figure out what was going on. Could he have upset a powerful noble that sent mercenaries to his camp? And had all his men been killed or did those cowards run away, leaving behind the three people at the campsite?
As these thoughts continued to run through his mind, the wagon he was in stopped and so did the other two wagons.
One of his men, Balduino, came to his wagon and reported that he could smell a strong stench of blood coming from the camp's direction. He could pick up the smell of things from a distance away as part of his wolf transformation abilities. Even without transforming, the smell of blood coming from the camp's direction was too strong and he could pick it up from this far out.
To the large man, this meant that probably his men or the slaves had been killed. Either way, this was a declaration of war.
"Can you and I take them on?" He asked Noma as his rage started to build up.
He was a Tier 8 mage and so was Noma, having her by his side in this fight meant certain victory, he thought. His confidence was further increased by the other 5 men he traveled with who were all at the Tier 7 stage. The enemy had bitten off more than they could chew this time.
Noma broke out into hysterical laughter upon hearing the question.
"Just who do you think I am?" She managed to say when she had finished laughing.
She formed a nasty grin as she grabbed her swords, making them burst into flames.
The large man smiled as well, feeling reassured once more that he had made the right investment. He needed to at least finish one of the three enemies with his own hands so he started gearing himself too. After this fight, he would use every connection he had to take down whoever had decided to mess with his business before hiring new stronger men.
He ordered Balduino to drive them closer to the campsite and to tell the other men to prepare for battle. Not so long afterward, the wagons started moving again when everyone was done preparing for the fight to come.
30 meters away from the campsite's gate, the three wagons came to a stop. 6 men and a woman in armor alighted, standing in a line facing the gate. Their eyes were focused on Menzine and Lord Canning who had stood in the middle of the road leading into the campsite. The gate behind them was closed and they could not see what was on the other side.
The large man in prestigious clothing bent over and whispered something to Balduino who conjured a spell and turned into a 2 meters tall black wolf. The creature emitted what looked like small tendrils of black smoke from the surface of its fur.
The creature then disappeared from sight but only attracted a raised eyebrow from Lord Canning.
"They use a nightmare wolf as a scout?" he said with a slight grin,
"I hope Annabeth is ready for some troublesome company."