Seeing the armed men, Roland realized that things were getting bad and opened fire on them before they could catch up to the Dascalos. He wounded the bandit with daggers, but the bandit caught up to him and slashed him badly. Morlish threw a smoke grenade, which made things much more difficult for the bandits, but also for himself and Roland. The second bandit, seeing this, attacked him with a saber. The beginning of the battle was discouraging; the opponents were clearly attacking more powerfully, but Morlish's strategy paid off: the smoke grenades confused the enemies, while Roland's Flash spell practically required no conditions to cast. Soon, the enemies completely lost their ability to orient themselves in space, and Morlish only occasionally added "more smoke," while Roland consistently blasted the bandits with Flash spells until they fell to the ground (the sound of the impact was more indicative of this than the visual image). In the smoke, Morlish still took some damage: the opponents decided that he was their main problem and tried to wound him as much as they could. After a while, the smoke cleared, and the companions were able to see the heavily wounded bandits. (Roland +163 experience, Morlish +228 experience)
A couple of minutes later, the halfling and the Yoru climbed the stairs and looked at the result of the battle. After asking if the winners were okay and receiving an affirmative answer from the panting Morlish, they went back.