The interior of the ranch wasn't what one would expect from a small Texan ranch, there were a couple of cow horn decorations scattered throughout the rooms the three half-bloods were being led through and a bunch of weapon racks and a few I'd rather be hunting home placks but that's where the similarities ended. in the weapon racks, the usual shotguns and rifles were replaced with spears and double-edged long swords, the walls were also decorated with the heads of deer and other forest animals, where they found them was anyone's guess Malcolm thought to himself.

Divicatus and Virlus continued to lead the group of three through the ranch, the width and length of the house sure made up for the lack of a second-floor Malcolm thought to himself Divicatus had already led them through the entry hall, the living room, a side room consisting of a desk and several bookcases and a chair was observed before the group passed a dining room set for a banquet-style meal what seemed to be two wild boars flanked by half a dozen roasted pheasants, multiple loaves of bread with an assorted amount of nuts baked in and three pitchers of a dark red liquid to witch Malcolm could only guess was wine.

While the smell was intoxicating Malcolm was quickly pulled along with the rest of the three through a small outdoor garden consisting of final rimed hedges and colorful rocks arranged in different geometrical patterns.

"Nice garden you have here," Katie said looking around the small but colorful courtyard. "I'll have to remember the pattern," she said genuinely impressed.

Virlus smiled good-naturedly bu waited a minute before responding with strained politeness, "I would advise against it, it requires a specific set of conditions for it to work.

"Besides," Drew shot Katie a look, "have you forgot they might want to kill us."

The five of them reentered the ranch into a long sparsely decorated hallway. The only decorations in the entire hallway Malcolm noticed were bearskin rugs that laid out in the middle of the hallway and small elaborate torches used to light the hallway in the absence of windows.

As the five of them approached the end f the hallway Malcolm noticed two guards standing watch over the door at the end, both were dressed in elaborate chainmail armor and a helmet made out of the hide of a bear each with a spear almost as tall as he was.

Divicatus approached the two of them and without stoping said: "the king is waiting for these three."

"well, you won't be visiting the king today I'm afraid." one of the guards said maintaining his stare straight ahead "he left this morning, you'll have to present these three to the Shepard."

Divicatus groaned pushing the two doors open himself he gestured for Virlus to follow him.

The room the five of them found themselves entering was a grand hall divided into two by a series of small braziers each lit and emitting enough light to fill the entire hall. A safe distance above each of the flames drapes was hung, alternating between dark greens and browns depicting different mythical events of different cultures, Hercules slaying the Nemean lion Romulus and Remus being suckled by the She-Wolf and the funeral pyre of Elisa of Carthage, along with some others that Malcolm couldn't identify.

However, what caught the eye of Malcolm the quickest were three figures near the center of the room seated in front of an empty throne with their hands tied behind their backs and what seemed to be gags over their mouths.

"Viriathus!" Divicatus called out into the hall, "We have returned."

Malcolm waited to be greeted by another giant, wielding a double-handed sword clad in tight-fitting armor strained by the muscle pushing against it, however, he let out a gasp he hadn't known he was holding when an unarmed tired-looking man dressed in light wool pants and a white linen button-up shirt stepped into the room from a door.

"What is it." The man said in a voice halfway in between overly cautious and dead tired.

"We got the three of them just like you asked," Divicatus said prodding Drew forward, who seethed with anger but remained quite. surrendered rather meekly too, we didn't even get to stretch our legs that much before we had to get back into our vehicle."

Viriathus stepped closer to the group keeping his focus on the two guards he said, "I suppose hoping you'd have your fondness of violence altered was too much to ask of the gods."Viriathus returned his attention to the prisoners inspecting them individually before turning to face Divicatus, "I have no idea where you found these but was already delivered the three I needed.

Malcolms eyes were starting to get accustomed to the darkness and he was able to make the figures out a bit more than when he was first brought in, of the three two, a man and a woman, seemed to be well above their late teens, in their mid-thirties perhaps? but the scrawny looking one looked to be about his age, nineteen or eighteen. All three of them nonetheless seemed way more prepared than any of the people in his group. The eighteen-year-old and the woman wore different types of light armor mainly consisting of leather while the man completed the outfit with chainmail covering a leather curious, pair of gauntlets and greaves.

Of course, none of them carried weapons but of course, that was to be expected if they were all bound.

"Are you sure?" Virlus said sliding around to the front of the captives, "this one looks kind of wimpy." he said stopping in front of the eighteen-year-old.

"And you're saying that the ones you captured without a fight are any better? The only reason I got the three of them all bounded up here was that the man surrendered pretty meekly after I shot his lady friend here, shell probably die but not before I extract the information I need, arrows and lungs do not mix well together, one reason why I'll never trade my bow for a gun."

The man continued to squirm in his bindings while the woman remained motionless, probably to the arrowhead from tarring any more tissue or she was already too weak to do anything Malcolm reasoned.

The teenager, looked asleep?

Malcolm shook his head, he needed to focus on how to free the man and get some medical attention to the woman, if they worried his kidnapers they would most definitely come in handy in this situation.

Thus a curse and blessing of not having ADHD came into play not having his senses as finely honed as the rest of the campers Malcolm had to compensate by building frequent observation of his surroundings into his routine and it didn't look good, weaponless, powerless, and running out of time the only options were the tapestries and the torches, both hopelessly out of range for to make use of them anyway.

That, however, wasn't the case for one of the three of them, somehow he noticed Drew had given Divicatus the slip and was standing by one of the lit torches with her hands in the flames.

Malcolm returned his attention to the three captives desperate not to give Drew away but his motion attracted the attention Variathus.

"Hmm, what have we here, guards stop that girl fidgeting with the fire," Variathus said unconcernedly as he returned his attention back to the three prisoners bound at his feet.

Virlus, who at this point had been prodding the sleeping teenager with his spear snapped to attention and hurried over to apprehend Drew while Divicatus stood motionless in spot for a while before he observed Virlus rush pasty him and joined in the chase.

Drew cursed as the binding was consumed by the flames of the torch before she hastily withdrew her hands and drew a thin long knife from her left sleeve and used it to scatter ash from the torch in front of her before she backed up with both of the guard's full attention grasping her dirk like a sword leveling it at the approaching guards. Malcolm took this opportunity to kick Katie, who was at this point glued to the action unfolding in front of her before jerking his head to the other torch before he dashed off leaving her following him.

Malcolm and Katie barely had enough time to shed the ropes from their hands before they noticed that Variathus was approaching them summoning an already loaded bow out of the air.

"I just can't catch a break can I.," he said as he drew the bowstring back aiming at Katie's chest and releasing it in one fluid motion.

"Hit the ground Malcolm yelled tackling Katie to the floor as the arrow whizzed past them right where Katie had been standing seconds earlier "gods watch what..." Malcolm started before a searing pain spread through his left arm.

"Hmm, I missed, twice." Viriathus said to himself, "two arrows one for each of them and still no sound of them choking on their own blood."

Malcolm immediately got to his feet an arrow protruding from his left shoulder. "on my count split up he won't be able to shoot us both if we scatter and... gahhh!" Malcolm clutched his right arm as another arrow embedded itself in his right shoulder.

"Another reason to favor bows over rifles," Variathus said unemotionally as he nocked another arrow on his bow. "hmm, it would be such a shame to destroy the symmetry of this, I think ill just aim for the sternum." Variathus said leveling his bow aimed at the center of Malcolm's chest.

Fortunately for Malcolm, the man who had been crawling his way over to Virathus chose this moment to act, throwing himself at Viriathus he managed to throw his arms out ahead of him letting the already out of course arrow slice through his bindings.

Viriathus doubled over under the weight of the man as he tried to use his bow to pry him off of his back.

"Gahh get off of me, guards guards slice this man open," Viriathus said as he stumbled around trying to free himself.

Katie at this point had dragged Malcolm away from the center of the action and into a corner of the room where she tore one of the tapestries down and used it soak up some of the blood that had started to seep out of the two of his wounds.

"Thanks, Katie, I should be good for now I think you should go see what you can do for the women over there." Malcolm indicated the woman who was shot in the lung jutting his head as it hurt too much to point and didn't want to move either of the arrowheads.

"Yeah, I'll go check on her," Katie said as she turned to leave Malcolm called her back.

"Wait, my Bollas, you should take it, for now, gods know I won't be able to use it," he said looking at the two arrows.

"Oh, right, um where is it."

"Attached to my belt, the guards probably just thought it was a coin pouch here let me... he said before he cringed in pain and returned his hands to their initial position "nope sorry it's tied to my left belt loop."

"Uhh right," Katie said quickly lowering her gaze.

"Also if you tell any of this to Drew, Gardener..." Malcolm trailed off.

"You think I'd mention this to her?" her cheeks fully crimson now. there's no way she would let me hear the end of it.

"Ok, ok, your right but you should probably get out of here."

Malcolm cringed at how he handled that but returned his attention to Drew who was currently trying her best to avoid combat with the two guards, holding her long knife in one hand and a torn tapestry in another in a net-like fashion making her seem like a Retiarius style gladiator being chased by two giant lions, otherwise known as, not in the best position.

The same however could not be said for the man with a chokehold on Viriathus, Viriathus had started to slow down, no longer shouting out for his guards to slice the man open and seemed to spend the remainder of his rapidly fading strength on trying to pry the man off of his back resorting to attempting to maneuver the man into the flames of one of the torches but he held on strong and refused to budge.

Katie by then had made her way back to the two other captives, stopping at the teenager she put two of her fingers against his neck before nodding and moved on to the woman.

Malcolm noticed that the daughter of Demeter seemed to hesitate as she looked at the woman, either she knew the woman or things were a lot worse than she expected, Malcolm thought. Katie then kneeled in front of the woman, her face and body blocked out by the other woman's body not allowing Malcolm a view of what was transpiring so he turned his attention back to Drew.

The said daughter of Aphrodite was slowing down her one advantage over the two guards was that she was smaller and faster, this however also meant that sooner or later, if nothing changed she would be tired defending against two well-armed giants.

Fortunately, that was the time when Variathus finally ran out of oxygen and stumbled over to the wall closest to the entrance. The man on the back of Viriathus deftly leapt off before he was squished against the wall grabbing the man's bow and a handful of arrows, and with pinpoint accuracy shot an arrow right into the arm of Virlus who had cornered Drew, his sword raised to strike.

While forcing Virlus to drop his sword the arrow didn't stop the three hundred pound celt from slamming into Drew, the silver lining being that drew still had her knife extended at arm's length in front of her, which ended up finding its way in between two of Vilus's ribs before the momentum from the already dead body forced the hilt and the rest of body into Drew who staggered backward hitting the wall before collapsing.

"Drew!" Malcolm yelled as he tried to struggle to his feet. Alerting not only Drew and Divicatus's attention but also a recovering Viriathus.

"Damn," the man who had just shot Virlus said, "I should have taken him out when I had the chance. Whatever I can take two at once." the man said knocking an arrow on the bow.

Before he even had a chance to aim the doors that the three had come through burst open revealing at least ten additional tribesmen.

Viriathus, now standing again, smiled "I believe this is called a reverse of fortunes."