Now there was some notoriety in the village people were now "going missing". Before it was bandits and mercenaries, so no one cared. The treasure hunters were very organized. They had a legitimate guild. Since a dozen of them were missing, they contracted adventurers to search for them. We let them search. The villages had long buried their bodies along with the rest of the dead. Who the hell would ask to exhume a whole graveyard? Not any of these guys. They were not paid enough for that. We waited them out for a week before they left empty-handed. All 4 remaining villages breathed a collective sighed of relief. We had won. Or so we thought. 2 squads of 6 stronger adventures came to the villages. Someone from the other villages ratted us out. Now they wanted to see the bodies in the graveyard. Of course all the village elders said no. That was the end of the discussion. Until, of course, they came in the night and did the damn job themselves. Now there was nothing we could say. They found the bodies of the 12 slain treasure hunters. The jig was up. They were all adventurers too.
Under the guild charter of the country we were in, adventurer's could dispense justice on a contracted mission. That meant arrests for criminals and killing any monsters they encountered on sight. We were blade spirits. We did kill them. Therefore, the adventurers were coming after us. It was clear on their faces that they were just going to kill us. Giving their companions the runaround and making them dig up graves really pissed them off. "Surrender those blade spirits now, and you can still live." the leader of the party, a female paladin, said firmly. Neither Liam nor Darrien would do something like that. Knat and I were actually really nice to them. We built up a good rapport with them. I did not know how the others treated their champions, but it seemed that we had a good relationship with ours. The party surrounded us to cut off any chance of escape. Besides the paladin, there was a fighter, a pair of rouges, a cleric and a tough looking female ranger. I told Darrien to focus on their bookish looking cleric first. I said "We do not want them healing the others. It's already 6 against 2." He nodded.
Fighting them was tough. They had both melee might and magic on their side. Usually, it was just guys coming in for close combat fighting. Killing those types of enemies was much easier. Darrien listened to me and charged straight for the cleric. One of the rouges slipped in our way. He slashed at us with a dagger. We were going to have to deal with them first. After exchanging blows with him, we found a hole in his guard. We scored a critical hit on his neck. He was dead before he hit the ground. Now we made our way to the panicked cleric that was rushing over to us to heal him. That was just perfect for us. It did not take much to take down the cleric. They were a healer class and therefore traded magical power for health. By the time the others noticed, he was already dead too. "No!!" the paladin yelled as she fought even harder. She buffed her remaining party members. It made them tougher to deal with. It was then that we were shot in the back with an arrow. Darrien cried in pain. It was a very nasty critical hit too. He was not doing well now. Liam was getting really cut up also. We were losing.
