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Hours later, we find Boson at his camp in the trees, not too far outside of town. The inns had no vacancy, and Boson is no stranger to living life in the outdoors. He fidgets with the note like he fidgeted with the coin. "Who of this caliber would take a worthless copper coin?" he thought to himself. "This has to be the hooded girl, but why?" He begins to hear whispers in the bushes. Their nondescript sounds appear to be calling out to him, as if leading him somewhere. He then climbs down the branches gracefully and quietly begins to follow the whispers. The moon in its crescent form barely lights up the night. As he makes his way through the brush, the whispers get louder, but remain unintelligible. The cicadas singing also grow louder. Together, the sounds appear to be drowning him out. He grasps his head in pain, but presses forward into a clearing. As he reaches the middle of the open space, suddenly their is silence. Boson stops and let's go of his head. He opens his eyes to a group of 8 shadowy figures surrounding him. A young female voice then calls out to him. "Marauder King Boson! For your crimes against our people, we hereby sentence you to death." She steps out of the shadows, in full white garb with her hood lowered. Boson stands up straight and then remains motionless as she places her scimitar as his throat. The girl, for some reason, he recognizes, though the dim moon light barely illuminates her face. Without turning, he glances towards the other shadowy figures, who all stand in fighting posture with their bows drawn at Boson. "Will you at least do me the pleasure of telling me how you found me?" He asks, carefully taking mental note of the mens' positions. He pays particular potention to a white bookmark dangling from her satchel. With her free hand, the girl takes the coin and effortlessly rolls it between her fingers on the back side of her hand. "When I was a little girl, a band of marauders pillaged our town and left us with no food for the winter. Our families starved. Many lost their parents so that the young could survive. You were at the heart of that band. Boson, the Marauder King. That coin you carry, belonged to my mother. I have been bound to it ever since you stole it from my family." "I've thought about that day for 20 years." he said calmly. "Nobody was ever supposed to die, but the insatiable appetite of my men has haunted me ever since. I'm not in that business anymore." Unconvinced by his seemingly sudden attempt at redemption, she laughs. "You'll never fool us marauder." She pulls back her blade to strike, as a sudden shroud of fog envelops the area. Boson closes his eyes, and quickly moves through the fog, disarming the two nearest men while the others fire blindly in the chaos. He moves behind the girl, and with a quick flick of his wrist wedges his dagger against her throat. His free hand pilfers a small notebook from her satchel. To his dismay, he is unable to locate the coin. "I've been tracking you my entire life. Don't think this is going to be over so easily" she laughs as she seemingly fades into the shadows. "We'll continue to hunt you down." The fog fades, and with it, the shadowy figures. "This shouldn't have been that easy of a fight," Boson thought to himself. "That was my last smoke bomb, I'm going to have be careful from here on out." Bewildered, he sits down on a nearby log. Despite his prowess, he should be dead right now. None of it is making any sense to him. He takes out the small notebook he stole from the girl and proceeds to read the cover. "Ranger's Code." | |