After having agreed with Katia on attempting to beat the dungeon that has recently been discovered in the demon lands we had to start the next step of my plan. Namely creating a large enough party. Now the key thing when creating a dungeon party is balance. You don't want your party to be too big or too small. If its too big you will attract to many enemies and the loot will not be enough to satisfy every party member. If its to small you will find yourself easily overwhelmed by the sheer amount of enemies as well as the lack of rest that each party member can achieve. You also dont want to much of a difference in strength between party members, if there is the stronger ones will find themselves overworked and the weaker ones will find themselves reliant upon the stronger ones. With that out of the way we're starting to come to the next problem that Katia and I will face, that being that we're of a weird strength ranking that sometimes gets referred to as Over F-ranked. It basically is a weird power ranking that does not happen very often which is a fair distance above F-rank but not quite close enough to be a Z-rank. This weird little phenomenon has only been occurring for the last 80 years or so, and there is a fairly valid reason for that. That reason being that the only people who reach over F-rank are mine and Katia's 'family'. Now is as good a time as any to tell you why Katia and I are such anomalies in this world. Basically the Gist is that around 100 odd children where taken from there mothers before birth and kept alive in some kind of tank. the scientists that did this injected us with all sorts of lovely chemicals and DNA in the hope to create the perfect soldiers. Lots of other lovely shit also happened but thats a story for a different time. Basically around when we were 15 A few Z-ranked individuals caught wind of this and realized that it was pretty fucked up so they came and killed the scientists and rescued us.
As a result of this out of the people that we're on friendly terms with maybe 3 of them are over F-rank, meaning that we will have to pad our party with some F-rankers. (over F-rank isnt an official rank recognized by the adventurers guild due to there not being a high enough amount of individuals to qualify the need for it. However Vaughn and Katia are sometimes referred to as over-F to signify the difference in strength between themselves and regular F-rankers) Fortunately for us we are in the northern part of the Continent and the demon lands are in the south which means that we will not have to go out of our way to build a party. And the Few individuals that I have in mind are currently living in a city around a weeks journey south of here. If they accept my offer they will form the tank and the mage of our group. They are similar to Me and Katia in the Fact that they come from the same background and they decided that it would be better to stick together than strike off on there own. However the main difference is that they are in a committed relationship and do everything together where as Katia and I are a bit more whimsical, We just make sure that we stick relatively close to each over so we can help out when needed and the furthest our relationship goes is casual sex when we feel like it.
They are good people though and they've helped us out in the past and visa versa. So with that explanation out of the way lets get back to present events. I am currently purchasing a carriage and a few horses whilst Katia gets us the last of our supplies. The whole thing sets me back about 12 gold for a decent quality carriage and 2 strong horses. Just as I had finished up with my business Katia showed up having finished hers. With that it was time to start our journey, first stop the city of Miron in the Kingdom of Glaciak. This is where we will found our first party members.
Whilst I was caught up in my Thoughts whilst directing the carriage I heard a voice ring out beside me. "So Vaughn... What do you think the chances are of Mal and Lauren joining us?", It was katia who had been sat in the passenger seat keeping watch.
"Who knows, they've been a bit calmer lately and have not been been going on as many big quests which means one of two things. They're either settling down a bit which would be bad news for us, Or they're bored out of there brains which would be good for us. Knowing Mal I'm hoping its the latter... seriously dudes a battle freak." I replied whilst reminiscing about our old friends.
With a snort Katia responded, "Do you really think that your qualified to call anyone a battle freak after last week? Don't even make me tell you about what state you left the room in! True though the only reason that hes still kicking is that Lauren keeps him in check."
I was about to reply when I noticed a felled tree in the middle of the road forcing the carriage to role to a stop. Well well well, if this isn't bandits you can call me Susan. Nudging Katia in the side and pointing to the tree she has the same bewildered look on her face as I do, like seriously, they couldn't pick a worse carriage if they tried. It only took about 30 seconds for my suspicions to be confirmed, as 7 rough looking individuals stepped out from nearby hiding spots. Of course the second the log drew my attention I circulated my mana and instantly knew where all of them where.
"Well well well, whats this then. Don't ya know that this here's a private road and ya have to pay a toll to pass?" Spoke the apparent leader of the group. He was a man of average height but well built, definitely looked like a bandit as well since he wore fur/ leather clothing and was covered in dirt.
"Oh is that right.... I do apologize, How much would this toll be then?" I answered trying my hardest to keep a straight face, I mean seriously, none of these guys are even over Rank C power wise.
"Oh well ya know.... Everything you've got Heheh" replied another man who was short and skinny as well as speaking in a slimy voice. Honestly this was such a cliched group that I felt like I was preforming at the theatre.
"Oh dear... that is most unfortunate.... you see we have this really valuable cargo...." Half way through my little performance I was cut of "Vaughn stop fucking around and dispose of them already.... im getting bored" Katia shouted with a look of impatience plastered on her face.
"Oh but I was having so much fun... its not every day that you get to meet people this retarded. Fine then....." I gave her a fake pout to show her my displeasure at my fun and games being cut off and then jumped down from the carriage.
"Oi! Who the fuck are You calling retarded?!" shouted the lead bandit.
"well done for proving my point... That should have been fairly obvious." I replied with a Kurt tone whilst grabbing my sword. I then looked at it shrugged and threw it back in the carriage. Just as the bandit leader was about to speak again I dashed towards him. With what must have looked like a flash to everyone except from katia I was in front of him with my hand wrapped around his throat and him lifted a foot of the ground. He let out a choking sound as I crushed his wind pipe and all of his accomplices started panicking and shouting. some backed of whilst some drew there weapons... None knew exactly what to do, What was obvious was that they instantly realized how badly they fucked up. As one of them put on a brave face and swung his hatchet towards the arm that was holding up his leader, I simply kicked the axe out of his hand plucking it from the air. I looked at it and scoffed throwing it to the side. I then used my free hand to punch the leaders face crushing it into pulp in front of his would be savior.
I then dropped the now limp body of the leader and turned to the one who had attacked me not seconds ago. Seeing my sadistic grin spread across my face He fell backwards scrambling for his life and screaming bloody murder. I stamped on his ankle crushing it flat in a way it really shouldn't be eliciting a loud scream of agony from him. Upon looking at my surroundings I realized all of the bandits had started fleeing which just wouldn't do at all. So after a quick glance round I Formulated my trusty old ice spike spell and and sent 1 off towards each of the bandits leaving them all dead and the only live left being the one screaming underneath my foot. I decided it would be fun to leave him and walked back towards the carriage But apparently Katia didn't agree and threw a Knife that burried in his throat.
"You know Vaughn, you really ought to start controlling these sadistic tendencies of yours." She said as I reached the carriage.
"yeah whatever... im just pissed you cut my play time short, I was having so much fun."
After that quick exchange we removed the log and got back on our way again, we had a long road ahead of us.