As a stronger Player, I was not going to just give in to these knights. Especially when I knew all of my companions would be returned to slavery or killed. "Listen up. My name is Brianne Terri. I am a mercenary from Ablinas. The best man you have can't beat me. These centaurs, Korenio and Xenios were slaves until we saved them. The slaver was a horrible man. Ossie is going to be a great adventurer one day. Kyoko is his new slave. If you do not let us go through, many of your men will die. We can all figure this out if we think this through and strive for peace." I said as I pointed out the members of my party. The commander just scoffed. "Peace!? The Knights of Hesa do not negotiate with criminal scum. Especially if that scum comes in the form of a 'taur or beast. Submit or die." he demanded. I just crossed my arms. "Then it looks like we are going to have to meet on the field of battle. We can call this the Battle of the Beasts." I told him. He just looked at me in disbelief. "Fine. I'll be happy to reward the ones that capture you." he chuckled. He then took his white warhorse back over to his men.
By the time he was back to his army, I told my party to get some arrows ready in their bows. We got them from the bodies of the weak bandits we slaughtered. Ossie and even Kyoko were on my back so they got the buffs. The buffs also applied to me. Even a totally untrained slave like Kyoko could be extremely deadly with a 11111% buff to damage and accuracy. The centaurs also drew their arrows. I told them to fire at will before they could be ready to attack. My first arrow pierced through one and went into the chests of five behind them. The arrows from the the ones on my back did much the same. We continued firing our arrows and finished off the quivers. At least two dozen men were able to reach us. I had to drew my sword and attacked them. We fought back and forth, but it was clear that my companions were no match for the knights. Companions could not actually be killed except by friendly fire or by other Players. They were only knocked out when their health was reduced to 0. Now that my party members were all knocked out, I had to stay to defend to them. That was not too hard.
Cutting through them was like a hot knife through butter. After I got down to about 13 knights, they retreated. "That's right! Run and tell the city about all of us. We are not going to be taken by the likes of you!" I called after them as they left. I saw them hurry faster. If they tried to stop me with more knights I might actually be a big problem. I was taken down to half health due to the sheer amount of enemies swarming me. Waiting for them to wake up could take hours. This was going to be a waste of time. If I was on my own, I could have been on my way by now. I also could have avoided the fight by just outrunning them. It took 8 hours before they began to stir. When I got my healing magic from the paladin class, I would be able to bring them back to action much sooner. When they got up, I looked at them. I just said "Listen. All you guys need to toughen up before more people came after us. We have things to do and we cannot get caught up here." They looked upset but they just got in line and began a long trek with me. Eventually, Korenio and Xenios needed to rest. I looked around for a safe spot.
