<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/7b/BanditLeader.JPG)</div>After Kye's expert ministrations, it didn't take much effort to rouse the bandit woman. She opened her eyes and groaned, too disoriented to answer immediately.<br/><br/>When Thea questioned her, she set her mouth firmly for a few moments, then looked between Thea and Kye until it became obvious that the ladies meant business. "Ugh, fine," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Look, I didn't do anything to your fucking monastery. They were all dead when we got there."<br/><br/>She shifted in her bonds to get a little bit more comfortable. "We were there three days ago. One of my men had heard a rumour that the Mother Superior was going on a pilgrimage to some other temple, or maybe that the woman in charge of the warrior order that protected the monastery was. Either way, we figured there might be an opportunity to hit them on the road and grab some loot, or maybe raid the monastery while it was less protected.<br/><br/>"I went down to the monastery to scout it out, dressing like any other traveller, but there was nobody at the gates, nobody on the walls, nobody came out to talk to me. I got my men together and we went inside, and... there were bodies everywhere. The paladins guarding the monastery, you know them, right? A dozen women in your Sarenite sun tabards with spears? All dead. Half of them had arrow wounds, the other half had marks from lightning magic, like from my wand." She twisted around to try to see where her wand had ended up, then cursed quietly and gave up.<br/><br/>"Obviously somebody had hit them, and hit them hard, with way more force than we could muster. We thought maybe whoever did it was still there, so we were on guard, but we figured... they must have looted the place, but they might have missed something we could scavenge.<br/><br/>"They didn't take anything, though. Not a thing. All the statues, all the relics, all the gold, it was just lying out in the open. The whole building looked normal, except that the nuns were all gone and the paladins were all dead. It didn't make any sense, but my men didn't look a gift horse in the mouth. They loaded up everything they could take."<br/><br/>She looked down at her bizarre tunic. "I'm not dumb like them, though. I wanted answers. I scouted around and found a body at the bottom of one of the cliffs of the plateau. Human man, dressed real weird. He had an arrow through his throat, but not a scratch on his clothes, which is how I figured out they were magic. I found the wand on his belt, and some mana crystals in his pocket to power it. I figured I'd found the real treasure, more valuable than a few scraps of gold." She glared at Thea sullenly. "It did a great job keeping knives and arrows off, but I guess Sarenrae got the last laugh."<br/><br/>The bandit woman looked down at her bonds and sighed. "That's all I know. I don't know who these people are, but they've got powerful magic and they went through your holy order like a hot knife through butter. I don't know where they came from or where they went, but I don't want to be around if they come back."