The two bandits lead the way through the forest. The one with the broken leg leaned on the other for support as they walked, tied together at the ankle with a little slack between them and their hands tied behind their backs. Behind them was the little girl, holding her hammer menacingly to remind them she could break more than one knee if they tried anything. Blue Raspberry walked behind the group, the gigantic wolf looming over the bandits to also remind them that they could find themselves the same place as their two devoured comrades if they tried to run.

The group's pace was rather slow thanks to the bandit's injured leg, but the base they were being brought to wasn't that far. It only took about an hour of travel to reach the edge of a clearing with a wall made of logs that were sharpened at the top forming a ring around the bandit's base. They had clearly been setting up such a camp for a long time if they'd been able to set up such a sturdy wall for defense. They couldn't see anything within the camp, but they could see an entrance flanked by two guards. It wouldn't be very easy to get in without being noticed.

As they spied on the camp, the one of the two captives thought they had an opportunity. He looked to make sure the wolf and the girl weren't paying him any attention and suddenly shouted to the camp.

"Hey! We need hel-" he began, but he was cut off as the giant wolf quickly clamped its jaws over his head to silence him. He flailed, trying to escape while hopeing his fellow bandits came to his rescue. The other bandit stared in horror as the man he was tied to at the ankle was being eaten.

"No, I didn't betray you, it was just him! Cut the rope, don't eat me too! I'm innocent!" he quietly pleaded, looking at the girl.

The guards by the door seemed to have heard the bandit's shouting and looked around for the source. The group had been spying from decently far away, but it probably wouldn't take long to spot such an enormous wolf.

After their first encounter with the bandits, Astrid worried they would need to walk a few hours or days to find the encampment, but to her surprise, they've already reached it! She hides in the bushes with her wolf friend and observes the camp. It isn't any larger than she expected, but then again, she wasn't sure what to expect. Part of her imagined it would be a massive camp full of fifty bandits or more. Maybe she's glad it's smaller. This is something manageable.


Astrid tries to count the tents through the spaces between the logs. It proves fruitless, and she starts to ask her wolf friend a question when the bandit shouts for help and is instantly gobbled. Before she can process what's happened, the other bandit is begging for his life. Her eyes dart between the terrified man with a broken knee and the string of rope pulling him towards the wolf's mouth like a spaghetti noodle. The moral dilemma nearly paralyzes her, but her drive to do the right thing brings her focus back. This bandit didn't do anything, he can't run away, and he should face proper justice for being a bad man. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a knife with which to cut the rope, so she quickly checks her tool bag. Finding nothing, she grabs the rope's end inching ever closer to the broken knee bandit and pulls it free from the wolf's mouth. 

"Ya can't be eatin' everyone," she scolds. "Don't ya ever get full??" Astrid watches in a mix of curiosity and disgust as the rest of the bandit slides down the wolf's throat. She has to admit, this wolf is certainly very strange. But there's little time to think about that as there's shouting from the camp. She gives a stink eye to the bandit. "Yer friend gave us away!" 

The bandit, still recovering from the pure terror and fear for his life holds his hands up in front of him defensively. "I know, I'm sorry. I didn't know he'd do that. Please don't hurt me!" 

Astrid huffs and looks toward the camp. "You should tell yer friends they should surrender or else Wolfie here will have a more-course meal." 

Backing away from the wolf, pulling himself through the dirt to get some distance, but trying not to seem to run away, he shakily replies. "They won't believe me!" 

"Well, how many friend have ya got there?" Astrid asks impatiently. 

"Th-There should be six," the bandit says, pressing himself back against a tree. 

Astrid looks at Blue Raspberry. "That's three fer each of us."

"D-Don't eat Jonesy," the bandit begs. "He's a nice guy. He's got kids! Just got caught up in a bad situation is all." It's a bit of a sudden, grim reminder to Astrid that the bandits are just people who made some bad decisions. She looks at the bandit, hoping for some additional information. "He's a short fellow, a dwarf. Bushy red beard. I swear, he'd turn over a new leaf if he had an opportunity." 

Astrid's willing to give anyone a chance. She looks to Blue Raspberry. "Wolfie, can ya not eat anyone else? Just make 'em hurt but not kill 'em. Unless they're big jerks, then I'll turn th'other cheek."

The giant wolf looked at the girl, their head tilted and their ears down. They were confused. They weren't supposed to eat the bad guys? They thought they could just eat bad guys and protect good guys.  It was weird to be told not to, but alright. They'll just have to stop the the bad people some other way. They also were especially not to eat the bushy bearded Dwarf named Jonesy because they were actually not a bad guy, but they were a good guy that was with the bad guys. That was even more confusing.

As Blue Raspberry's thoughts raced, the two guards at the gate spotted the group hiding in the bushes and called to the rest of the camp to alert them. The whole place was now bustling with activity. The two guards stayed by the gate, waiting for reinforcements. They were hesitant to face the giant wolf with just the two of them. Both guards had a spear and a bit of leather armor on. After a moment two more came out of the gate, each with a crossbow in their hands. They looked surprised by the presence of the giant wolf for a moment, but they regained their composure and aimed their crossbows.

Blue Raspberry ran out of the bushes toward the four bandits, a bit of static electricity sparking between their fur and a slight buzzing in the air. The two bolts flew toward the wolf, but were deflected off course by the static, flying into the bushes to either side. The spearmen both got in front of the crossbowmen, their spears pointed forward to stop the wolf's charge.

They skidded to a stop, but the spearmen charged forward. One spear manage to strike the wolf, but it glanced off the fur of the wolf's torso. The other was swatted away with a swing of their paw. Meanwhile, the two crossbowmen hurried to reload their weapons.

---

Static Field
Cuirass

It doesn't take long for the action to begin. Rather than worry about the bandit with a knee problem who she decides probably isn't such a bad guy himself, Astrid foists her hammer and charges towards the fray at the gate. It quickly occurs to her that the men with spears are a bit of a problem seeing as the spears are long, and she and her hammer don't have nearly the reach. She doesn't think she'd get in a good hit if she threw her hammer, and it would leave her completely unarmed. What does she do in this situation?

A thought crosses her mind. A devious thought. So she runs towards the gate pretending that she's lost in the woods and needs an adult. Surely this would cause some confusion for the bandits. So she makes an attempt, perhaps thinking it will help her get close. Astrid lets out a baleful wail and cries out, "Help me! I need help! I'm lookin' fer my uncle! The wood are scary and some nice man said I'd find him here! Please, can ya help me??" She throws herself into the crowd of bandits, namely at the two with crossbows, while the spearmen are distracted by the giant wolf. 

This does indeed catch the men off guard. A strange young girl with a hammer in hand comes running up seemingly in tears. She paid no attention to the giant wolf attacking them, and now she's clutching their arms, making it hard for them to reload. Something seems wrong, but what kind of heartless men would turn down helping a crying child? 

"W-What??" one of them blubbers in confusion. "Girl, get back, there's a vicious wolf!" 

Astrid pretends to sob into his shirt. "It's very vicious! I saw it eat people!" 

"It eats people?!" The panic sets into his voice.

"Eats 'em whole! It ate Mike and Jerry!" Astrid claws at the bandit. 

"Mike and Jerry?! Shoot, maybe this girl is for real! Get back, girl! We'll get that wolf!" The bandit pushes her behind them, taking up an even more defensive position. Astrid stumbles past and seems pleased her ruse worked through the chaos. She decides that maybe these bandits aren't all bad, and she gives Blue Raspberry a playful grin as she takes her hammer in hand. 

"What the hells is happenin' out here?!" shouts someone from behind. It appears to be the bushy bearded dwarf named Jonesy. He's taken up an axe upon seeing the carnage at the front gate along with the sixth man who has two clubs in either hand looking equally confused.

Astrid looks back and sees the dwarf. "Uncle Jonesy, stay back! If ya get hurt, mama will cry!"

Jonesy seems very confused as he has never seen the horned half-dwarf before in his life. "Who are you, girl??"

"I'm tryna help ya, ya ding dong dwarf!" Astrid shouts, taking the opportunity to bash one of the crossbowmen in the back of the knee, making them buckle less from a broken leg and merely because their leg was forced to bend. He grunts in surprise only to be sent to sleep by the thwack of Astrid's hammer. This of course draws the attention of the other crossbowman who turns his bow on her. 

"You little brat!" He fires at her, but the wolf's thrashing against the spearmen bumps him. He narrowly misses a deadly shot and instead grazes Astrid's left arm. She cries out, having not experienced a cut that deep from a crossbow bolt before. At least she's drawn his attention away from her companion for a moment. 

Jonesy seems hesitant and confused. The fighting by the gate doesn't seem like his cup of tea. His two clubbed compatriot, however, rushes to join in and defend his turf.

The two spearmen are struggling to fight the wolf. When the two had struck it with their spears, they'd both felt an electric shock painfully travel down their whole bodies. Their arms felt numb and they couldn't put much power behind their spear thrusts. The wolf swatted at them with enormous paws. And suddenly, there was a girl crying for her uncle that came from the brush to the side. It was a confusing situation. They needed backup.

Blue Raspberry was trying to figure out what to do. The girl had told them only to eat the bandits if they were big jerks. Did trying to stab them with a spear count as being a big jerk? She also said not to kill them, so they tried not to use their claws. They were pretty sure their claws might kill them, so they just smacked them around with their paws and used less electricity than they'd used before. They got even more confused when the girl they had just been with suddenly came from the bushes and called for her uncle. She had an uncle? The bushy-bearded Dwarf came out and she called him her uncle. He was her uncle? This was all so confusing.

As they got lost in thought for a moment, they looked down to see one of the spearmen just in front of them trying to stab their spear into their throat. Out of sheer instinct, they bent down and bit down on the man before remembering that they weren't supposed to eat them, probably, they still weren't sure if they counted as a big jerk, but probably not. They tossed the man to the side. He hit the wooden wall with a thud and fell to the ground unconscious, his leather helmet missing.

Blue Raspberry licked their lips and looked at the other spearman who glanced between their unconscious comrade and the giant wolf. Then both of them heard a man giving a battle cry and looked to see a man with a club in either hand running toward the wolf.

The cut in her left arm stings, but the heat of battle almost blinds her to the pain. She takes advantage of the time it takes the crossbowman to reload and slams her hammer into the crossbow itself. The wood and metal splinter apart and fall into pieces on the ground. Just behind him, Blue Raspberry nearly completely monches a man but instead throws him into a wall. If Jonesy stays out of the fray, they've taken out half the bandits here, Astrid thinks. The crossbowman throws a punch at her, catching the top of her hair, and she yelps, ducking away to rub her head. He takes the moment to grab the crossbow of his fallen partner and load it up. Astrid decides this is a very not good place for her to be, between a crossbow and a two-clubbed man. There's still a spearman left too. This is much more difficult than the last fight. 

She decides the crossbowman is the most problematic because he can hit them from a distance, so she closes the gap between the two of them with a yell. "That hurt!" 

"It was supposed to, you little brat!" He gets the crossbow reloaded and takes aim, but he can't fire before Astrid slams her hammer into his arm. "AGH!" he cries. The bolt fires into the air and misses wildly.

"Yer a big jerk, fightin' a little kid!" Astrid yells, turning her hammer around and swinging from the other side, this time catching the man in his hip. He falls to the ground, but isn't completely out of the fight, reeling from pain and trying to reload his crossbow with an injured arm.

In her focus on the crossbowman, the man with two clubs has made it to the fighting, and he hits her in the back with a blow heavy enough to knock her down. She loses her breath and falls hard on her face. "Pathetic. What an annoyance," the club man sneers. Again, he smacks her with the club. "Stay down!" Astrid seems down for the count, but she still has her hammer gripped tight in her hand and tries to roll over. 

"This one's a big jerk, Wolfie..!" she manages to sputter.

Blue Raspberry swatted the remaining spearman to the side with a swing of his paw. The man twitches for a moment, the electric shock coursing through him. He goes limp and stares at the wolf, a defeated expression on his face.

The wolf then turns to the remaining threats. The girl is caught between two of them, a the crossbowman and the man with two clubs. She manages to hit the crossbowman with her hammer and then calls him a big jerk. Blue Raspberry's ears perk up. A big jerk? That means he's supposed to eat this one, right? They bound over to the man whose on the ground still trying to reload his crossbow with his wounded arm. He looks up in surprise as the wolf's mouth clamped down around his shoulders. His scream is muffled as he flails, his body shocked by electricity.

As Blue Raspberry is slurping up the latest meal, they head the girl call another man a big jerk. Legs still dangling from their mouth, they look at the man with the clubs standing over her. They leap over the girl and plow into the man, knocking him onto his back and pinning him to the ground. The man stares up with a look of horror as they watch the wolf's maw close around the pair of boots that used to be the crossbowman. He tries to swing a club at the wolf's head, but his arms are held down by the massive weight of the wolf's paws.

The wolf bites down, happy to scarf down another big jerk.

Astrid doesn't think she's ever been so happy to see a man eaten in her life. After regaining her breath, she rolls over on her back and takes in the moment. That was tough, and she is hurting, but they've done it. Slowly, she sits up and lets out a heavy, tired sigh. Her new clothes are ripped, speckled with blood, and caked in dirt. Darn, she just got these. Maybe she can repair them with her tool kit or maybe she needs to find someone who can help. 

She looks at her big wolf friend and lets out a breath of relief, finally getting to her feet and stretching her back out. "Thanks, Wolfie," she says earnestly, reaching out to pet her new friend. Her glove makes contact with the wolf's fur and there's a bizarre pull to it, almost sticky but not quite enough to pull. She couldn't describe it if she tried and isn't sure if this feeling is normal. After all, she did notice a bit of static sparking from the wolf from time to time.

The sound of Jonesy stammering from the other side of the camp draws her attention, and she looks over at him. "Mister Jonesy?" she calls. 

"A-Aye. What do ye want with me?" he asks, gripping his axe tight. His eyes dart between the girl and the wolf who doesn't seem to be as aggressive anymore. 

"Yer friend one of the other bandits said yer a good person who's just stuck in a bad situation," Astrid explains. "But if ya wanna be wolf food, I s'pose we can make that happen."


He shakes his head and throws his axe away, holding his hands up in submission. "Nope, don't want none of that," he quickly says. 

"Wish you'd've helped us fight these other louts," Astrid says in a huff, kicking a boot of one of the unconscious bandits. 

"Right, erm, sorry 'bout that. It was confusin' seein' me allies fightin' a wolf then seein' a weird girl callin' me her uncle," he replies. 

"I just needed ta get close," she says. "If ya help us, maybe I'll tell the guards ya found and fought the rest of these guys with us! Could put ya in good standin', maybe make a reward if yer needin' coin fer yer family."

Jonesy rubs his beard, contemplating her offer, and decides he doesn't have any better options. Better to be seen as a hero than a villain, he thinks, especially by his family. They've been down on their luck for months, and he turned to the bandits out of desperation. "Alright," he says. "S'pose I could do that."

"What do ya know about the bandits around here?" 

Over the next few minutes, Jonesy explains what he knows about the Clasp. It's a large conglomerate of bandits with a single leader, but he's never seen nor met the leader, and all he knows about them is that the group generally speaks about them cautiously and with fear. He does provide a few letters signed by various pseudonyms (after explaining what a pseudonym is to Astrid) which he bundles up neatly for her to turn in as proof of her deeds with her... interesting wolf friend. Astrid wonders if there's some greater conspiracy about these bandits, but she wouldn't know to call it that. 

After a little while of searching around, she turns to her new wolf friend. "Anything ya can find with that sniffer of yers?" she asks. Hopefully, there's something else of interest in the camp that Jonesy doesn't know about. 

Blue Raspberry lowers their nose to the ground and sniffs around. The first thing they're lead to is one of the unconscious spearmen on the ground, but they glance at the girl and know they're not supposed to eat him. Then they sniff as they enter the camp, walking through the gate.

The camp is full of tents made from sturdy leathers and wooden poles. Blue Raspberry pushed their giant wolf head through the flap of a tent and saw an open crate. The crate is filled with random trinkets and goods, probably stolen from various merchants and commoners in the area. There's a mismatched assortment of metal cups and plates, some jewelry, a couple of fine lockboxes, and other luxurious goods. Blue Raspberry had learned that these kinds of things were expensive and made of metals that people liked. They were valuables that could be traded for other things. They started eating the treasures, but not dissolving them as they had the big jerks. They also swallowed a metal chest full of coins and a small pouch of loose jewels. They stored these objects safely away to be spit back out later. They weren't exactly sure where such stuff went, since they didn't actually feel like they were full of objects, but they knew it worked since they had done it multiple times with their suit of armor.

Once the tent was emptied of all its treasures, they backed up out of the tent and continued sniffing around for anything important in the camp. The wolf pushed their huge head through another tent and found a wooden dummy with metal gauntlets on its wooden hands. They pulled back out of the tent and looked at the girl, their tail wagging.

While Astrid works on tying up the bandits for captives with Jonesy, she wonders what all the clanging and ruckus is from the tent with the wolf is. She calls over to her wolf friend, still half distracted by the last knot in the ropes and the pain she's feeling. "Hey, Wolfie, what's all the noise over there? Find something good?" She pats her hands together to dust them off and makes her way towards the wolf, leaving Jonesy quietly apologizing to his old comrades, overhearing him say that business is business. 

To her surprise, the wolf emerges with a nice pair of metal gauntlets on a dummy. Her face lights up in delight, and she rushes over to inspect them. They're not well cared for, but she doesn't mind. Her first pieces of armor, a reward for good deeds! "That's a great find! A perfect find!" Astrid throws her arms around her wolf friend's neck, the weird staticy fur throwing her off but not deterring her. With her hair properly raised due to the electricity, she releases her hold and takes the gauntlets, fitting the oversized metal gloves over her hands. She looks goofy and disproportionate. 

"I love 'em!" 

Once all the other bandits were securely tied, Jonesy apologized one last time before walking into the camp with the wolf and the girl. He saw she was wearing the gauntlets that had belonged to the boss of this camp, the man that wielded two clubs that had become wolf food. Well, he wouldn't be needing them anymore. Not like he ever wore them anyways, since he preferred to have a better grip on his weapons. He always said the gauntlets made his grip worse.

With a shrug, the Dwarf walked into the camp's loot storage and choked. It was completely empty! All the valuables, the chest full of coins, the bags and pouches of trinkets and jewels, it had all vanished! He ran back out of the tent and looked at the girl that was happily petting the giant wolf, celebrating having gotten some oversized gauntlets. Meanwhile the giant wolf was slowly swallowing the wooden dummy that the gauntlets had been on. The Dwarf's eye twitched as the dummy disappeared and the wolf looked directly at him. He thought he might know now where all the treasure had gone, but he was too afraid of going to the same place if he said anything.

He walked over to the pair slowly and looked to the little girl.

"Well, there's nothin else in the camp really worth takin. So, uh, ready to go then... Mister Wolfy... and, um... What's yer name, miss?"

Astrid sees Jonesy approaching and wonders why he looks shocked, perturbed, and nervous all at the same time. She figures it must be because her wolf friend keeps eating strange things. In reality, all Jonesy's hopes of using the stolen riches to buy a better life for his family are completely shattered. He wonders if the girl commanded the wolf to eat the riches for transport. Maybe the wolf has a way of regurgitating the coin, and the girl has a plan to deliver it back to the guard that way. It would make a lot of sense if that were the case, especially since they just met and couldn't completely trust one another yet. 

"Me name's Astrid," she says when he asks. "I know yers, obviously, Mister Jonesy. I'm not sure what this wolf's name is, if I'm rightly honest. It's certainly an odd wolf. I just met it today. I'm hopin' it'll be my friend though!" She pats the wolf's side earnestly. "It sure is a hungry fella, that's fer sure. I didn't know wolves had such a taste fer human flesh." Astrid shrugs it off.


"Say, is there any treasures here in this camp? Ya bandits were stealin' from folks. There's got ta be some riches, ain't there?" 

Jonesy is a bit shocked when he hears Astrid's question and looks up at Wolfy again. So she had no idea about the treasure, the wolf just went and ate it all on its own. Maybe this wolf was less of a loyal pet to the girl than he'd thought. He didn't want to get on its bad side, so he just decided to keep it to himself.

"Nope, 'fraid there's no treasure here. It was all taken away recently... I just hope he doesn't have a taste for Dwarf flesh, too." he said to her, glancing up at the wolf that was staring down at him. He imagined it lunging for him like it had the other two bandits by the gate and felt a shiver down his spine. He hadn't been particularly close with any of the people here, not really wanting to be a bandit in the first place, but he felt sorry for them. It must have been a terrible way to go.

He looked the wolf up and down and wondered where all his comrades and the treasure went. The wolf looked pretty normal except for its unusual size. It looked nothing like it had five grown men and a hoard of treasure in its stomach. He questioned if this creature was even a real wolf at all. No wolf he'd ever heard of could electrocute people, either. Either way, he didn't want to be the sixth man inside it.

"The others are all tied up and ready to get goin'. They won' risk runnin' away with wolfy here threatenin' ta chow down." Jonesey said, looking back to Astrid.

Astrid lets out a disappointed sigh at the lack of loot to take as a reward, but also the lack of things to return to the people who were robbed by the bandits. A bit of extra coin for herself wouldn't hurt either. It certainly would hurt less than her back and head and arm. Still, she supposes taking what doesn't belong to her is wrong. Except the gauntlets. Those are absolutely hers now.

"That's a shame," she says. "S'pose we'll get ourselves a nice reward from the guard, and helpin' people's a good reward on its own!" Astrid finds that she enjoys helping others when she's in a position to do such a thing. She definitely has to get herself some armor, though, she decides firmly. The gauntlets are a good start because now she can block with her arms without worrying about breaking one of them in half. 

She looks at her wolf friend. "Will ya help us escort these bozos back ta town?" she asks, jabbing a thumb towards the bandits they've piled up in a cart. "Mister Jonesy can help us drive the cart, but if any of them stir awake, they might cause us some trouble. Maybe we can get ya some real food in town too!" 

The group made their way back to the nearest village with Jonesy in the driver's seat of the cart. They'd also found two horses that the bandits had in the camp for pulling the cart in case they managed to find a bigger haul on the road than they could carry by hand. The bandits were loaded into the cart, their feet and hands tied together to stop them from running, not that any of them would dare with the giant wolf with a seemingly endless appetite looming over them. After a couple of hours, the trees parted and they could see an actual road instead of a slight dirt path the bandits had made for getting their cart through the forest.

They followed the road to the village where they were greeted by a few guardsmen. The guards were surprised to see the group consisting of a little girl, a Dwarf, and a giant wolf with a cart of notorious bandits. They didn't really know how to react at first, but they got over it with the possibility of the bandit raids on all the travelers coming and going from the town no longer being assaulted so frequently.

They looked over the bandits and recognized a couple of them from wanted posters. Apparently a few of them had made quite a name for themselves as bandits and were wanted men. The guards brought out a stack of wanted posters for them. Fortunately, Jonesy wasn't one of them. Unfortunately, there were two wanted posters whose faces they recognized as men that had gone down Wolfy's gullet, including the club wielding man. It might be a bit difficult to claim the reward on them with no proof. There was also one wanted poster whose target was currently in the cart, cursing under his breath.