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Description
It was night in the Forest of Dor as Aspen stood in the bandit’s small clearing. There were three of them, and she assumed that the broad shouldered brute in front of her was the leader with how he towered balding head and shoulders over her. She could see the blood stain on his soul, as easily as she could see his oversized nose. Not that uncommon in a kingdom caught in conflict and unrest, especially out in the wilderness.

Aspen looked down, hiding her smile with the wide brim of her black hat. Yes, the forest was quickly becoming home to all kinds of villains.

“Please sirs,” Aspen began. “I’m an herbalist out gathering materials, and lost my way in the dark. Please, won’t you share your fire with me until the morning? My humble clothes are not enough against this chill.”

The bandit, Bulls, was a blunt man. “Our fire is small and our stomachs are empty. If you want to spend the night, you’ll have to pay.”

“Of course sir. Here, please.” With long practice, Aspen lifted the strap slung over her shoulder without messing up her hat, and held out her bag. She reached up with one pale hand and tugged her hat down further, to hide her evil smile. “After all. Every creature needs to eat.” The shadows of the feeble fire danced weird as Bulls snatched the bag from her hand and threw back the flap.

“Damn it, it’s too dark.”
“Go ahead. Look closer.” Aspen added a little husk to her voice, and cast an eye towards the other two bandits eyed her and snickered to each other, lust and thievery showing in their spirits. She looked back at the leader squinting into the bag, bending down trying to see in the darkness, and whispered.

The simple flap of Aspen’s bag rose snake-like. The bag seemed to stretch, grow darker as the bandit stuck his head inside. By the time he finally figured out something was wrong, the bag chomped down like jaws, and suddenly half his body was caught in the bag. The legs kicked frantically for a moment, expressing desperate panic. Then there was a muffled snap, and the two remaining bandits watched, stunned as Bulls legs and hands hung limp from the bag that now wiggled and chewed on the ground until he was gone like he never was.

For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the camp fire as the two men tried to come to grips with what just happened. But then the bag rumbled slightly, and quickly belched out a stack of clean bones, and the fear clutched their feeble spirits. For all they shuffled and fell back, they were paralyzed, helpless as children caught in a nightmare as they watched Aspen rummaging through her bag before pulling out Bulls skull and throwing it onto the pile with a look of disgust as she continued to reach far deeper than the bag should have allowed, before producing a thin black candle.