"Aw man, bandits again?"

He eyes the two directly in front of him. They seem… not that tough, actually. And there's something about their outfits…

"Hey, is this getup, like, standard for bandits around here? Like striped jail clothes?"

He gestures with the zappy sword.

One of them squints at him (probably, anyway, it's hard to tell through the mask). 

"Hold on...blond hair, musical instrument, little red moglin friend...you're Elan! Drakath has promised a rich reward for whoever can take you down and bring him the Black Dragon Box!" 

"Oh, the slug prince guy? Well, joke's on him, I don't even have the Black Dragon Box!"

Beat.

"… how much of a reward could he have even given you, if you have to bandit people?"

"Well—but—" he splutters.

"...times are hard, alright?" mumbles one of the bushes. 

"We don't even get dental," says another. 

"SHUT UP!" The spokesbandit pulls himself together. "Drakath said the box was the big score! Once we get it, we'll be living like royalty! Now hand it over!"

"...but he just said he doesn't have it?"

"He was lying, stupid!" 

Hmm. Elan could:

1. Tell the truth about where he thinks the box is. Probably a bad idea, because they might beat Elan to the sneevil fort.
2. Lie and say he found the box already and put it where Lady Celestia wanted it to be safe. This is risky because there's a lot he doesn't know, so he might accidentally make it obvious he's lying.
3. Show them the contents of his bag. This seems like it would lead to them taking the contents of his bag.

"Okay, well, I'm only coming this way in the first place because I'm looking for the box! If I had it already then I wouldn't be here. Also, I'm sorry about the dental, that sucks. Do you at least have good toothbrushes?"

"You know, I think he might be telling the truth," says The Other Visible Bandit.

The spokesbandit hesitates. "...it doesn't matter. We'll get a reward for taking him down anyway, right? Plus we can, you know, take his gold."

"Yeah! Let's kill him and take his gold!"

"Yeah!"

"Get 'em, boys!" 

Okay, well, he tried.

These guys probably aren't as good as Drakath, since he's in charge of them, but there's a lot more of them to worry about. Also, this terrain is annoying.

"How much money do you guys expect me to have on me, anyway?"

Not that he himself has counted his pay yet, but he'd be surprised if it brought him over a hundred gold.

The bandits don't seem interested in in-fight banter, sadly. They're more interested in trying to kill him, or at least knock him out, as fast as possible. 

Luckily, the terrain is hampering them as well: there's only really room for one of them to come at Elan and Twilly from each end of the path, otherwise they get in each other's way too much. The ones hiding in the bushes attempt to provide ranged support, but Elan is moving fast enough that they realise they're in more danger of hitting their own allies and stop. 

He is very definitely still in the low-level starter zone. None of these guys individually is even as much of a challenge as Drakath was. 

Twilly can't really stand back-to-back with Elan, but he can for sure stand facing the other way and whack bandits in the shins with his stick so they don't sneak up on Elan from behind! 

Oh good, he was hoping Twilly would protect him from getting flanked.

The first time he disarms one of them, he tries talking again.

"Guys, I'm sorry, but you guys really aren't a serious threat. And you don't even seem super evil! Like, the last big bad guy I had to deal with killed his own best ninja just so he could run away. And you just seem like you want money. Do you wanna just pretend that you never saw me or something?"

Some of them kind of want to do that, seeing how easily he just disarmed their friend! The one who was loudest about wanting to start a fight is more reluctant, but with his club lost in a bush somewhere and his friends running away, he reluctantly backs off. 

The bandits flee into the woods whence they came. The path is clear again.