You choose to help them, even though a large portion of you does not wish to. Two dozen versus eight does not lead to good odds, but at least you have the element of suprise, you hope. You come up with the idea of a poison smoke bomb and tell everyone your plan. It will take a bit of effort on part of the relatively magically inept scholars, but minor illusions shouldnt be too hard to make.
You all spend a while looking for ingredients. The area around here is not a jungle filled with poisonous plants, but you somehow manage to find enough for 5 smoke bombs, the strength of which you are uncertain of. Clay is easily found on the banks of the river. You only have a single candle, coming from the devout Paul who took it along for a little shrine, but its enough wax. The bits of string you have to take from your own clothes.
In the end, you, Paul, the two soldiers for their good throwing arms and a scholar are carrying poison smoke bombs. You then ask the man where the camp is. He seems happy about the fact that you chose to help him, but also looks oddly worried, when you show him the bombs. You bring it up, but he brushes it off by saying he is worried that the prisoners might get poisoned.
The man then starts to lead you, but you keep a keen eye on him and your surroundings. He leads you into a nearby forest, and then onwards. He finally leads you to a small valley like formation, with hills on both sides. Paul tells everyone to stop for a moment, and the man suddenly becomes extremely worried. Paul whispers to you, that he saw movement behind the hills. You pull out the smoke bombs, and light them with the most basic of magic tricks. You both lob your bombs at the same time, before the man can react, nor before the ones behind the hill can.
A few moments, you can hear a bang, and clouds of smoke come from behind the hills. Some birs that had perched themselves atop the trees fall down with, breaking some branches on the way down, before doing a smack upon hitting the ground.
You hear a furious coughing coming from behind the hills. You wait a while, until the coughing stops, and then move forward, over the hills. The man who lead you here looks like he is gonna pass out, with all the shaking and sweating. As you cross the hills, you see a sight you did not expect to see when you came up with this plan. All but a single person knocked out. The single one who is awake is perched against a tree, apparently in deep thought about what he will do now, upon seeing you he simply flees as fast as he can.
Upon closer inspection, only a single one of the bandits is dead. All the rest are simply knocked out, or on the ground, having the ocasianal seizure and screaming about someone called Crinkle. You put it down to the hallucinogenic effects of whatever you put into those bombs.
You now have 23 knocked out bandits at your whim, and a person who is apparently deeply concerned about this fact. What do you do with them? And what do you do with the runaway? He does not have a horse, so you have the speed advantage.
Jesus fucking christ, first you roll for the maximal amount of bombs made, then you easily notice the ambush, and THEN you knock out everyone but a single person. You didnt even need to do the illusions. Hell, I was expecting having to cut the battle into two updates or more. And the minimal amount of the bandits died.
Name: Obek Vandel
Physical might: 2(+1 equipment)
Mental might: 2.5(+1 experience)
Part of group: 7 members(4 untrained, 2 soldiers, 1 Obek, 1 crazy old guy)
Sources of info: Demons: Human book
Sciences: Human book
Special: Notes
Special weapons: Poison smoke bomb (3)