Chapter 1676 The first…

--- Kat ---

Meg flopped down into the last free chair at the table and actually looked a touch annoyed for once. It was a rare sight, especially when it doesn’t involve Hunter. Seeing her like this made Kat sit up immediately even if Meg looked like she wanted to just slide out of the chair and onto the floor. "What ails you?" asked Hunter.

"Well it turns out that Drl and Dav weren’t quite so up to date on what those bandits have been up to. I’ve got a bunch of info, both from the ’bandits’ and the deputy at the sherif’s office and I find myself annoyed," Meg simply finished on that. Notably not explaining herself even though it was beyond obvious she both wanted to tell and everyone else wanted to ask.

"So… um… what seems to be the problem?" apparently Kamiko broke first, or perhaps she was never trying to hold back on the question and once it became clear nobody else was rushing to speak she simply took the chance to do so.

"The problem is that some people got annoyed with coming and going between the town and their main hideout. They’ve started to keep their families around. Now I don’t know if that was encouraged by Pebbles or Creep… or if this is just what they’ve decided to start doing but I now know there’s innocents around. Which wouldn’t bother me too much normally," Meg paused to wave off the glares from the others.

"Look I know you guys care and I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to kill them all or something… but I’m not going to lose sleep if I’m not one-hundred-percent sure if they’re a bandit or not. If they’re willing to live in a bandit hideout they’re in too deep for me to consider them innocent… unless they’re children," finished Meg.

Kat felt a chill run down her spine. "Are… are there many?"

Meg shrugged, "Not sure. Nobody seems to know… but a couple of full families have vanished from their houses here while still being seen around occasionally which means they didn’t like… die or something. So the big suspicion is that there’s a bunch of kids out there now… and that limits our options somewhat. I mean, I’d still go through with it if I had too… but even I’m not going to completely fine involving kids. Teens are fair game though,"

Kat didn’t laugh at the attempt at levity. "Right…"

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"I take it there is a something you are still holding back?" asked Hunter.

Meg made a ’so-so’ gesture, angling her hand from side to side. "Sort of. See, before we could just follow the compass and bust into the bandit den. Might cause a collapse might not but I could easily deem it an acceptable risk. I mean, it’s just bandits so I consider the fact we might lose the drake part to be of greater concern… with this new information though…"

"It’s no longer a valid line of inquiry," confirmed Hunter.

"Indeed Lil Sis. Indeed. It’s just a touch too risky now. If we had no leads I’d likely still go through with it… but we do have other leads and I suspect you would force me to find another way regardless so it’s a moot point. The problem is… that while the teens in lockup are a great lead the sheriff’s office wants to come along if we take them out bandit hunting," admitted Meg with a sigh.

"What’s the issue with that?" asked Kat.

Meg glared a bit at Kat for a few seconds but Kat didn’t feel all that threatened by it… this time. "The problem is that they want to make a big production about this. Now officially they want to send a bunch of people along with us to ensure ’the prisoners don’t escape’ and ’that we aren’t working with the bandits’ AND ’to ensure that no bandits escape during the confrontation’

"But that’s all secondary to the fact that they want to be seen DOING something. This has been a consistent problem for multiple years. I’m quite sure the pressure, both internally and externally to just ’do something’ about the bandits has been building and they now have a great excuse to force a confrontation and demons to ensure that it goes in their favour.

"The issue though? They want to send more than a token force. Probably so that people believe them when they say they helped. They were talking about something like twenty people and… well I can see just a whole heap of problems with that just at the outset,"

"What’s the issue?" asked Kamiko drawing attention to her, causing her to shiver. "Um… I mean… err… does it really matter… they… they won’t be doing any of the fighting right?"

"In theory that should be true," stated Hunter. "In practice they will likely try to ensure they are involved at least somewhat in the combat and any failures, including losses to their lives will likely be lain at our feet. Possibly after we leave…"

Meg nodded, "Yup exactly my thoughts. Well that and I’d expect at least one spy amongst the group. There’s no way the sheriff’s office isn’t at least a little corrupt. Not sure if there are other criminal elements around the town but with these bandits being such a big operation? Potentially numbering up to a tenth of the town or more? No way they don’t have a man or woman whose entire job is just sitting around and listening in on the other enforcers…"

"In that case… um… might they already know?" asked Lily.

Meg made a ’so-so’ gesture. "I would suspect not but they might I suppose. The office didn’t seem to be bugged when I gave it a quick go-over and the deputy that I talked to was the only one their so early. They were actually on night shift. Nothing I saw of her weaknesses would lead me to believe that she’s a spy so she’s probably safe. I also tried to ensure that she didn’t tell anyone else about the plan to move on the bandits…

"But I’m less sure she’ll follow up on that. She has a high degree of honour and loyalty and while she swore not to reveal the fact that I planned to move on the bandits to anyway… I am unsure if she considers her promise to me more binding then her duties to the office. Plus that’s not even accounting for the fact that if the spy, assuming there is one, is smart they can just ask the teens I was poking at.

"If they’re smart enough they can probably work out enough to know that we’re interested in the bandits at the very least… and while that might not give specifics it could put them on high alert. Which, sends us back to the previous issues of the group being too large and likely to cause issues…"

"Do we need them?" asked Kat.

Meg shrugged, "Probably? See, I did get some info about the hideout but the real issue is that there isn’t just one tunnel in there’s a whole bunch all over the place. You have to know which one will have a ’doorkeeper’ at it and present the password. Pebbles enchanted a bunch of walls to move aside but apparently if you just break through somethi8ng bad will happen. Now I don’t know how bad or if there’s anything at all… but the rumours are enough to be a bit concerning,"

"Do the kids even know the password or the correct door?" asked Hunter.

"No, not the current ones at least… but they’ll at least know one or two doors that are valid doors at least some of the time. I personally suspect that even if Pebbles can’t trap the ones that actually work… I can see him trapping some false doors that look legitimate enough. Perhaps at Creep’s urging but I’d expect it. I did manage to get one of the entrances so we could head into the tunnels and the compass can help prevent us from getting too lost… but if we don’t find a valid door?" Meg finished off with a shrug.

"So that’s that? We have to bring the sheriff’s onboard… so why do I feel like there’s still discussion to be had?" asked Kat.

"Because there is. We need to decide exactly how many people we’re willing to take along with us. The deputy was pretty insisted but we have options. We could simply break the teens out, or we could argue them down, or something else. That’ll take time, or gain us some infamy but I’d be willing to commit to either of them if we’d prefer. This is more or less me trying to be a team player I guess. I have no real preference here because my favourite plan is probably off the table," explained Meg.

Kat rolled her eyes as she thought about what the best option would be. Twenty people was… a lot of people to protect and yeah probably would include a spy or two. The question was… how big of an issue would that be? Would someone need to be on ’babysitting’ duty? Could Meg intimidate them down to a more reasonable number? What was that reasonable number? Kat didn’t know and neither did Lily. Seems it was time to brainstorm a bit.

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