As Rae made baskets to carry the children on Thor's back, Remi and Hawk looted the battlefield. It wasn't a dungeon, that was for certain, as the bodies didn't disappear, and they didn't just get the loot. But they did find the bracelet that the leader of the bandit group was wearing, and it looked like it was something excellent.
[Bracelet of Combat Fortune] Reduces damage taken by 150 points per second.
[That item is evil. You can't Blizzard them, you can't poison them, you can't even just slowly bleed them out.] Remi complained.
Karl put the bracelet on, and Remi giggled. [Yes, now we are team evil. It's a shame that doesn't apply to all of us, though. We need to get more of those bracelets.] She added.
[You've always been on team evil magic.] Hawk muttered, thinking about her primary attack skill being Blizzard with a side of Thunderstorm.
She had redeemed herself somewhat with the Poison Fire Totems, but then learned Thunderstorm to offset all the respectability that she had gained the Hawk's eyes.
His little sister was shameless.
Once the harness on Thor was ready, Rae began to use her webbing to load the children into the pouches, before carefully cutting the restraints on their hands.
The children were so terrified by the aura and presence of giant monsters that they didn't dare to move, they just sat silently in the pouches, not even removing their blindfolds and gags after their hands were freed.
"Hello everyone, I do hope that you can understand me. My name is Karl, and I will be your tour guide tonight. There has been a slight change of plans, and now that I have killed the bandit group, I will be delivering you to the city of Bunga. There is a Darklight Host outpost there, I am told, and they will know what to do with you all." Karl announced.
Most of the Elven children just seemed confused and terrified, but one boy carefully pulled his blindfold down, and then realized that he was staring directly at Rae and promptly fainted.
A few seconds later, a girl pulled her blindfold down and turned to face Karl. She was cautiously scanning the area for her captors, but there were none left.
The beasts had already finished the cleanup, and other than some scuffed dirt around the campfire that indicated either a caravan stopped for the evening or that there was a fight, there was nothing left to indicate that this had been the chosen ambush site for a bandit group.
The Elf girl slowly removed the cloth tied around her mouth and began to whisper.
Karl nodded. "We killed the bandits, and you were left behind, so we're going to take you with us to the city of Bunga."
The little Elf nodded reluctantly, and Karl began to worry that the town might not be a good one.
"Is there a spot that you would rather be taken to?" He asked.
The girl shook her head. "We were headed to the village of Glatt to visit family, but that was months ago.
I didn't realize we had travelled so far. Even if you went straight through the forest, it would be over a thousand kilometres to bring us home.
Bunga will have to be good enough, and then we can beg for money to get the Darklight Host to send us closer to home."
Karl smiled and patted her head. "Don't worry about that. I will talk to them and see if I can get them to escort you all safely back. I am guessing that the rest of your caravan didn't survive?"
That seemed a bit insensitive the moment that it left his mouth, but it was too late to take it back.
The girl gave a tight smile that was anything but happy.
"When we passed through the village of Senau in the Thearchy of Roblavil just a few days after our capture, all of the adults were sold off to a slaver caravan. They wouldn't pay as much for the children as the bandits wanted, so they were going to take us to Kanyigi once their contact made it back into the port.
They would likely send us to Akelia. The Khan has a fondness for Elven servants. They pretend that there are no slaves there, but it's illegal to run away from a work contract before your debt is paid. That's what the bandit leader was saying. Elves live a long time, and the Khan demands a third of your wages for life, up front as a tax debt."
That was pure extortion to get around a slavery prohibition, Karl was certain of it. But they were likely afraid of some outside force cracking down on them for keeping slaves, so they found a technicality.
"Everyone, please remove your bindings, so you don't become sick from the motion of the Cerro. We will be moving quickly along the road to get to the city sometime hopefully during the day. I don't intend on stopping, but we do have some food available. Is there anything you don't eat?" Karl asked.
"Elves are vegan." The girl whispered.
"Alright, that's easy enough. We have some foods that fit that requirement. Like these hard tack biscuits. They're labelled as vegan friendly. Oh, and there are fresh vegetables here. That should get you through the night."
Karl passed out the biscuits from one of the ration packs that he never actually used, and then sighed as he realized he had no clerics for food spells anymore. But Thor had planted various edible leafy greens, along with some magical tubers that vaguely tasted like potatoes. He could roast those later and they would grow back.
He motioned to Thor as the kids began to remove their blindfolds and gags, then untie their feet while huddled in the pouches slung over Thor's back.
"Now, once we're moving, I need you all to keep as silent as possible. We will be moving fast, so we get to the city before it gets dark again, and hopefully, we don't run into any more bandits."
Karl led the way, with Rae darting through the trees and Hawk overhead, while Remi retreated to her space, as she was not as fast moving over long distances.
Thor's plodding behind them could easily be mistaken for a wagon or other animal drawn transport, which seemed to be the normal method here, going by the narrow ruts in the dirt road.
He didn't see any rubber tire marks, no sign of tread. Just compacted ruts where hard narrow wheels had passed. The mining carts used those same wheels, the ones that the mules pulled. It was cheaper than fuel for the trucks, so they were still in regular use at the mine back home.
Thor returned to the road, and the kids resisted the urge to cry out in joy that they had been at least temporarily rescued, and that someone was bringing them to safety.
Or, hopefully bringing them to safety. For all they knew, he might be lying and bringing them to a different group of slavers. But Karl with his monsters seemed trustworthy enough. Thor seemed so happy to be bringing them down the road that the Elves, who were deeply attuned to nature, couldn't see Karl as a bad person if he was Thor's friend.