The morning sun rose, through the cracks of tree branch leaves.
The group soon awoke, well rested and full.
Colton opened his eyes, having slept on a chair with his body leaned back, he looked around the room to all the members sleeping in different places of the home, he realized. Quill is gone.
He quickly stood up, and started walking around, trying to find her. His walking caused Calliope to wake, raising her head from the table and standing up from the chair.
"What's wrong?"
"Quill's gone." After a brief glance, Her eyes widened in surprise
Suddenly, as if she was waiting for them to notice her absence, Quill jumped down on the balcony.
She headed inside, bits of leaves and twigs were stuck to her clothes and head.
"I heard something outside and found some people, they looked like bandits." She hastily explained through small breaths of air.
"Bandits?"
"Well I did see some bandits before. Just a bunch of civilians who didn't settle with their wealth and wanted more." Myo joined in on the conversation, Getting up from his bed and stretching before walking up to them.
"Actually, that could be an easy place to start with that disguise magic. Who knows, maybe they have money you could use." He explained.
"He's right. Judging from what I saw and heard, they seem to have a second camp, the one I went to was just an observation camp." Quill added.
With the information, an idea lit up in Calliope's mind.
At this time, the rest of the team started waking up. Well rested and wondering what the four are talking about.
"Quill, take us to that camp."
"Certainly Ms Royal guardswoman." With an exaggerated bow, she went out and climbed onto the trees again.
She turned around to everyone, about to relay an order for their sudden new task.
"We found a camp in this forest, they have gold and treasure. If we manage to claim it, we may keep it for future use." Marcus flashed a grin after hearing her statement.
"Alright Madam Guardswoman, where is it?" Calliope took a moment to clear her throat.
"Quill will guide us to it. We must move right now." Heeding her order and holding no reservations on the plan, they all followed her outside.
Just then Quill jumped down near the spiral staircase.
"The camp is close by, from what I heard, it seems the leader is about to leave on a wagon placed there."
"Then we need to move." Calliope responded. Nodding her head, Quill led the way.
The group rushed into the forest, with Quill as their only guide. Myo stayed in his home, uninterested in the mission while watching them from the balcony.
After a few minutes of running through the partially dark foliage, Quill started running slower, before coming to a full stop.
"We're here." Quill excitedly notified. She slowly moved some bush leaves, revealing a camp.
The camp was small, a few white tents were settled around a campfire, people in leather armor and cloth masks walked around. One though stood out, wearing a piece of fabric unlike the rest.
"The one in the purple shirt is the leader." Quill added.
Near the camp was a wagon with two horses, the wagon had a heap of gold and other jewelry just resting on it, uncovered.
"That amount of gold seems to be thirty jobs worth." Marcus spoke, filled with joy at the sight of gold with the grin still on his face.
"That looks like a day's worth of expenses for my family." Marcus looked at Celestine, astonished.
While they were staring at the leader and gold, Calliope began identifying a few of the bandits.
The leader started to talk, but nobody except Quill could hear him.
After he talked, Quill turned to the group, worried.
"He said that they are about to leave for the next camp, and they're asking if any of them wanted to follow. What's the plan leader?" Calliope continued looking at the camp, hastily forming a course of action.
With the information given, Calliope created a plan to get the gold and camps.
"Some of us need to follow him, the rest stay and clean up this camp." After explaining, Calliope selected Clarissa, Quill, and Oliver to deal with the camp. The others followed behind her, making their way to the wagon.
Close to it, Calliope started the disguises. Colton felt a warm breeze flow through him as his entire body was consumed in a blue smoke.
After a few moments, he looked down, his clothes and even his body had changed to one of the bandits.
The others were also disguised, all that was left was joining the wagon.
A few bandits already sat on the wagon, waiting to leave. Luckily, none of them seemed to match the team's disguises.
The team hastily got on as the leader joined in the wagon. The bandits all looked happy, joyfully talking to one another, seemingly not realizing Calliope and the team got on.
As the wagon began to move, one of the bandits turned, and looked at Colton.
"Oi, Hellock. Nice hammer, did you beat the blacksmith for that?" He asked. Colton tried to think up a response, afraid that they would get spotted, and beat himself up for forgetting his large weapon being on his back.
"Yeah- Yeah, roughed em up real good!" He confidently replied, silently cringing to himself.
After a tense moment of silence, the bandit roared with laughter, along with the rest. Across from him, Calliope looked at him, sighing out of relief.
"That's me Hellock, well. We just need your muscles to haul this gold. Guards nearly caught us but Joshua managed to get the gate open just long enough for us to leave." The bandit continued.
The journey went on, Calliope was the only silent one while the other disguised members of the team talked, either out of necessity for the disguise, or simply to talk with other people.
The wagon stopped, after what felt like an eternity of fear to keep up the act, everyone started heading down. The camp had more sunlight beaming down on them with a few smaller tents surrounding a large one, the leader sat inside it.
Colton found Calliope and walked side by side with her..
"Wait for everyone to start resting and we'll take them out one by one, even the leader." Calliope's voice surprised Colton, it wasn't her normal voice, but a deep voice from one of the bandits.
Colton suddenly realized that he wasn't using his actual voice as well.
The group soon got together, Calliope began ordering each of them on what to do.
After a minute, it was time. Colton was ordered to move to the wagon, meant to kill the group hauling off the gold.
He approached three bandits, placing gold inside makeshift boxes and sacks before walking to the tents to store it.
Calliope headed straight for the leader of the tent, once she kills him, the rest can start taking out the rest of the bandits.
As Colton waited by the men, Calliope gave the signal, with a single slash across the leader's body, Colton immediately took out his weapon and attacked the 3 bandits.
They fell quickly to the ground with just a single hit from the hammer, dropping the lumps of gold on the ground, scattering in the process.
The rest killed any remaining bandits in the tent or around the camp. Colton looked at the gold, feeling tempted to keep some in his pouch, but shifted his focus back to Calliope, now walking away.
A blue cloud started to form around her. In seconds, her disguise vanished, now walking in her royal armor and speaking in her original voice again.
The other two soon joined them. Once everyone arrived, Calliope snapped her fingers, and clouds of blue enveloped the three, returning them to their normal selves.
"A little less headache for those city guards, and we managed to get the gold, we'll return to the previous camp with the wagon to pick them up." She explained, sheathing her sword.
"Place the gold back on the wagon." The group started bringing gold back to the wagon. Celestine stared at a pile of gold in her hands, admiring the glow.
Marcus though was busy taking the purple shirt of the leader before heading back to help them.
While throwing gold on the wagon, an idea came to Celestine's mind.
"Ms Royal Guardswoman, what if we simply live here?" The question interested the other three, Calliope placed her hand on her chin, thinking about it.
"I agree with her, we could just use this camp as a home of operations, especially with the gold and tents." Marcus added, placing the purple shirt on his shoulder.
"I suppose it is a good proposition." In a few moments, she made up her mind.
"Although it was not in our plan, this place is secluded enough to use. I just need to inquire with Myo regarding this. And notify the other members of the other camp on it.
"Very well, at least we could have a more decent living space. I mean no disrespect but Myo's home was rather cramped." Celestine remarked.