As Lucy wandered toward the source of the laughing, she noticed a number of signs that something was very wrong. Many windows were shuttered, and a few were shattered. A fruit stall along the road appeared to be hastily abandoned. The raucous laughter grew louder as Lucy approached, and Lucy also heard the faint sound of a crying child from a house.
Lucy's fist clenched. All the hallmarks of a bandit attack.
The laughter echoed from a large inn near the town center. Lucy reached for her knife- and it was thankfully still there- as she approached the inn, warily watching for bandits.
"Ahahahaharr!" One voice bellowed above them all. "All right, a toast! To the man who swords can't stop and who spells can't touch!"
"To the King of Rogues!" Many other voices shouted, as Lucy snuck through the brush alongside the inn, making her way to a window.
The place was full of bandits bearing bows, blades and axes, and a few terrified villagers waited on them. Lucy could tell by the lack of blood that they had taken over without a fight. Of course, bandits being bandits, Lucy was all too aware there would be blood soon enough.
Then she spotted one bandit that looked different from the rest. He was much taller, wearing a suit of mail with a bright red robe fit for a king over it, and clean-shaven when Lucy was fairly certain most of the bandits had never seen a razor in their life. A man in wizard's robes with a guard's signet, tied up and chained to the floor, served as his unfortunate footstool. "All right, then. Barmaid, I'll take another round of the vintage Thoril's Red. And make it quick, for your dear little sister's sake, will you?" As he said this, the King of Rogues smirked at one of the other women in the inn.
Lucy remembered a key detail. She had the Ring, of course! "Let's take this King off his throne," she muttered, as she aimed the Ring at the King of Rogues. "You leave now."
Nothing happened.
Lucy stopped. Was that what the bandits meant by "who spells can't touch?" Was this man immune to magic? The Ring had worked on her, and the box, just fine...
Lucy ducked back beneath the windowsill just in time to avoid being seen, and as she did so, she spied another note from the mage. "A good try, but it won't be so easy to get him out of here. You can't change him with magic, but what else can you do?"
