Brigand's camp, date unknown

Stas woke up this morning feeling rather well. His hungover was finally gone, the weird sense of emptiness he came to associate with a lack of mana in his body was reduced to a slight nagging in the back of his head. Soreness, which shrouded his entire body like a thick blanket after his self-provoked nap on a dead body, finally left his body.

The sun already shined in the sky. Stas threw the blanket off of his form, stretching as he raised and made a step off the bed. Only to hiss in pain as he put almost half of his mass on an injured leg.

"Shit, i forgot about it..." Lifting his injured leg up to his face, Stas undid the bandages and took a look on his wound. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious, the arrow did not hit any bones or a major artery, there was a little bit of pus, but no inflammation or any visible sight of infection. Once again after being stranded in this world, Stas was grateful to his drill instructors, first aid was a part of his training they took very seriously.

"Huh, I guess that hole in my leg makes me a proper changeling!" He chuckled darkly at his own joke, finding humor even in such a weird situation. He lifted his saddle bags in his magic and started to apply bandages, using the sterile gauze from his own dressing kit. After all, he highly doubted a bunch of illiterate medival bandits knew how to properly make a sterile bandage.

"Aaand... Done!" Stas finished dressing his wound and held his leg before his eyes, he slightly tugged on the bandages to make sure they held firmly. Satisfied with his work, he finally left the bed. With a creaking of the wooden frame begging for mercy, he raised on his healthy leg and gently put his injured leg down to check how well he can stand. He will have to move slowly for the next two weeks until his body repairs itself, but otherwise, it was fine.

It looks like he should stay here for a while, hopefully without anyone else finding this place. He finally stood up and turned around to face the bed. He looked down in discomfort as he noticed that the bedding was covered in a fine layer of sand, remembering that the last time he took a shower was back in his homeworld and he had no chance to do so for the last three days without risking spoiling the water of oasis. Stas decided to leave this minor problems for later.

For now, he decided to take a close look at the camp and search it for anything he could possibly use or take with him. First, he decided to look for anything usefull at the ataman's tent. The bedroom itself had very few things, he checked the dresser filled with various knick-knacks (which would probably been useful if he had fur), the bed and persian rag were lifted and checked for any hidden stuff, the small table greeted him with a sight of multiple unreadable letters and a dirty clay bowl. The only thing which could contain something usefull was a smallish locked trunk by the foot of the bed. Still, the padlock is something he can break at later date, when he has nothing else to do, after all, it will be a trivial task for him, he was practically a walking tank.

The next room was just as useless, a table filled with yet another pile of unreadable scrolls, table and ten cushions were of little interest to him. Even so, he still decided to take a look at the scrolls in hopes he could find something written in ~~English~~ Equestrian. He was pretty disappointed, other than slightly amusing him by the sight of childishly big letters with very poor calligraphy (and, without any doubt, a ton of mistakes) those letters served him very little purpose, the best he could do with those letters were to use them as a toilet paper or a fire starter.

Leaving the large tent behind Stas scoured the camp for anything useful or interesting. There was twenty seven tents in total, serving mostly as barracks for two to four, majority of which only had cots and few saddle bags with a rare table here and there. Even so, he still found something usefull besides the "barracks".

First point of interest was a pair of tents neer the center which served as a cookhouse and a food storage. The cookhouse itself was pretty useless, all it had was several large iron cauldrons, shelf of poorly-made dishes and three tables which were clearly used as a cutting board at some point, through, most likely, they were the cutting boards in the first place. What interested him much more was the food storage.

The relatively large tent, judging by a stool standing right behind the curtain, clearly used to have a guard assigned to it to make sure someone wont try to steal the food. He quickly realised why when he looked upon the shelves, realising that those bandits clearly had problems with supplies or managed to almost hit the rock bottom. For the entire gang of sixty or so ponies and griffons, the storage contained eleven forty-kilogram sacks of various grains (one half empty), three twenty-kilogram bags of dried dates, one similar twenty-kilogram bag of dry apricots, six twenty-kilogram bales of hay and somewhere around ten kilograms of tallow one would normally use for cooking instead of oil. Stas was pretty confused, he used to work in the field kitchen and he knew that this was nowhere near enough food to feed an entire company even for a week*!

There were also twenty three water barrels, thirteen of those were empty, but two of them contained what seemed to be a makeshift hamr. He supposed bandits were getting their water from the oasis, in which case he was really lucky that they are already gone. Who knew what were to happen if they went to refill their water at the oasis and met him there when he was practically helpless.

Still, he was alone and there was more then enough food for him to last two weeks until his leg was healed completely, and he will be able to take a lot with him when he was ready to depart. Not to mention, it was barely ten meters to the leader's tent.

He looked doubtfully to where the hay bales stood by the wall, thinking if it was worth it or no. Sure, humans cant eat hay, but ponies and changelings could, and he is no longer a human. Not to mention, judging by the show, hay was a very common food item on the pony's menu, if he wanted to blend in this new world he had to get used to it's rules and the pony who refuses to eat hay will look quite suspicious to other ponies. So, he decided to rip off the metaphorical band-aid and try it head on. He took a few straws with his magic and took a bite.

"Oh..." That was... Disappointing. Stas thought that hay would taste similar to the potato, considering that hay-fries are a thing, but the life had other plans. It was bland and dry, it had the same taste (or, more likely, lack of taste), just as an army-issued MRE hardtack. He really hoped that this hay was just dirt-cheap crap and not the widely-spread food. Last time when he was so disappointed was when he spend 300 rubles* on a can of imported American root beer just to find out it tastes like toothpaste to him.

With his food source now secured he decided to check the rest of the camp, which was just more of the barracks. Bandits, obviously, had no arsenal or a workshop, as all of them took care of their own gear and lacked the skills to make something on their own.

Still, there was another unique place he found, which turned out to be a small guard tower with a crappy training range right outside one of the camp's exits. The range itself was merely three poorly made archery targets standing thirty meters away and a fighting arena with several crude seats placed around it. There was few tables around as well, probably for those who decided to eat while watching a fight. Still, there was something usefull here. Laying on one of the tables there was a smallish wooden crossbow* and a handmade waist bag for the bolts.

Stas knew that magicians, even among bandits, had quite a few combat spells in their sleeves, but he knew none of those spells, so a crossbow seemed like a good alternative to a magic missile. Especially to someone who could use telekinesis.
He knew that, during Earth's medieval, to become a somewhat good archer one would need to spend somewhere around five or six years on training alone, but that was merely five to six months you need to became a decent crossbowman. That's not to mention that he already was pretty good with AK-74M thanks to weekly training for an entire year, aiming with crossbow wont be that different from aiming with an assault rifle. An only serious problem for him - it's getting used to ballistics of a bolt rather than a bullet, but, as saying goes, if you want to live know how to twirl*.

"Eleven bolts..." He walked to the table and picked up the crossbow and a bolt poach. Bolts had conical tips and were nothing special, looking just as normal as those he used to see in hunting shops back in Russia, the only major difference being the materials those bolts were made from. Remembering his training, he drew the crossbow, cocked it and put the bolt in the groove.

"I can draw it with ease, it wont be that powerful..." Stas tilted his head ro the right and closed his left eye, after quickly pointing it at one of the dummies, he pressed the crossbow's lever and let the bolt fly. Bolt struck it's target with a dull thud and buried itself almost four centimeters in the soft wood. Stas went closer and extracted the bolt with his magic, grunting in dissatisfaction as he noticed the tip of the bolt slightly bended on strike.

"Why would they even have a single crossbow in the entire camp?" Stas asked himself, only to realise that every single archer he seen among the bandits was winged. They probably just cant draw the crossbow when on flight, especially if his theory is correct and flying creatures have hollow bones and less muscles as a way to make it possible for them to fly. Still, if that was the actual reason, why is there a single crossbow in the camp in the first place?

"Probably belonged to the one of the unicorns or the ataman... Eh, fuck it, free crossbow it is." Taking the crossbow and the bolt poach he placed them in his saddle bag, adding the crossbow training in the short list of activities he will be doing while recovering.

Finally, after his looting run he returned to the big tent and placed everything he found usefull in the war room. His findings included the crossbow with eleven bolts, bigger set of saddlebags, paper and ink from ataman's tent, some clothes which could be used to make himself something usefull, a sewing kit from one of the barracks (which is a generous way to describe a single needle and a skein of string), locked trunk of the bandit's leader and a small hoard of coin purses. There also was a small saddle bag filled with various (probably) medical herbs and potions, together with another locked tiny chest he found in what probably used to be the tent of one of the bandit "officers".

Obviously, he decided to leave the food and water he found in it's own tent, there was no reason to waste his time and mana carrying half-a-ton of food and even more water when he can just walk fifteen meters down the road.

He decided to start with opening the tiny chest, as it will be easier than counting all the coins or try to test what the hell were the herbs and potions in the (probably) medical bag. He lifted a large stone and hit the lock, with a clang of metal hitting stone, the small lock broke and no longer obstructed him.

Stas opened the lid. The small lockbox was filled to the brim with hashish*. Stas locked the box and placed it to the side.

Next were the coins. After emptying every purse and spending several hours to sort and count them he found himself the proud owner of 136 golden coins (57 of which were bits), 364 silver coins and 1133 copper pieces. That probably was a small fortune, but how is he supposed to carry all of that*?

Stas realised that he still has to break into the ataman's trunk and sort out the herbs and potions, but he decided to leave it for tomorrow. As it turned out, being a looter is pretty tiring. Stas went back to his bed and dusted it off, reminding himself to take a shower or a bath at some point.

Slowly, trying his best not to brake it with his weight, he laid on a bed and closed his eyes.

Author's Note

1) Bandits had somewhere around 630 kilograms worth of food, the norm (in Russian army) is 2.5 kilograms of various food for a single man on a DAILY basis.

2) 300 rubles is enough to buy 5 kilograms of rice or 6 loafs of bread.

3) First crossbows were created 24 hundred years ago, they were invented both in ancient Greece and China almost in the same time.

4) If you want to live know how to twirl - original Russian saying is "Хочешь жить умей вертеться".

5) Hashish - concentrated cannabis, popular narcotic in the East and somewhat well-known in the neighboring countries (including Russia).

6) I have no accurate info about weight of the coins in medieval, so i used the info about coins from 18th century Russian empire.
136 golden coins (6.54 grams each - 5 golden rubles, year 1778) - 0.889 kilograms.
364 silver coins (24.9 grams each - silver ruble, year 1743) - 9.064 kilograms.
1133 copper coins (3.65 grams each - one kopeck, year 1728) - 4.135 kilograms.
Total - 14 kilograms 68 grams of coins alone.

Guess at that point i will have to add slice-of-life to tags, because i want to make the next chapter a world-building one as well.