The sun was setting as Alan and Gerry crouched in a field of wheat. From his time as a busboy, Alan had learned that Chrisly often liked to stay for dinner in the tavern. It was easy to understand that inclination, as he himself enjoyed cooking, but the food you didn't have to make yourself always tasted better. What that meant was that the man should still be in Elstree. Alan hoped to follow him and his party to see how they behaved outside of town.

Lyonel had already shared what the mayor had told him while turning in their bounties. The expected word had come down, and 'Pebble' was public enemy number one. Anyone who could provide information, or direct action that led to his capture, was told they would be handsomely rewarded. Conversely, any of the villagers who were even suspected of helping to hide him would be severely punished. The specific manner in which they would be punished wasn't stated, but that just made everyone envision something worse than the reality would be.

To help make sure they were properly motivated, they hadn't only offered both a carrot and a stick, but also a dagger in the dark. The men who had brought Chrisly back to the town in a cart had not returned. In an offhand manner, he had said that they were being rewarded for their service, but that they wouldn't be returning until the 'dangerous insurrectionist' was caught. The measure was for their own safety of course. As hidden threats go, that one was painfully obvious.

The only good news was that Lyonel and his party weren't even mentioned. Chrisly was already unconscious when they had helped Alan to escape, and it was possible that the rest of his group had been too distracted with their leader's condition to notice the beast people. Alan wasn't willing to risk it yet, so they were helping him to watch for the adventuring party to leave from the relative safety of the surrounding fields.

The group was spread out around the town since they didn't know in which direction Chrisly would head. They could have covered more area if Gerry wasn't with him, but unfortunately, the fact that Alan wasn't in their party was showing its drawbacks. Gerry was here acting as a walkie talkie for Alan since he had the worst perception of the group.

Due to the fact that it was almost time for sunset, the workers had left the fields. There were still some villagers who patrolled the area, keeping watch over the fields, but even the giraffe man had no trouble hiding from the inexpert guards. It helped that they mostly stuck to the perimeter of the fields and didn't go much out from the village itself.

While they were in the field, Alan took the time to study the effectiveness of their farming methods. The plants looked healthy and the soil was well tended, with only a few rocks poking out here and there. They still didn't have any irrigation set up, so they must be watering the crops by hand, or simply trusting in the weather. He studied the wheat plants themselves with both his natural eyes and his aura senses. Everything was looking good, it should be a fine harvest for Elstree.

His examination was cut short when he finally saw what he was hoping for. Alan had taken one end of the only road out of town. That term was a little misleading since the road simply disappeared shortly after the buildings did. There was a little sign of carts and feet beating down the tall grass stalks past that, but it quickly turned into an otherwise undisturbed field after the farmland ended.

Coming down that road and entering the grassland, was Chrisly and his four party members. There was only one woman and four men, and they were all human. Alan had seen representatives from species similar to all of the recruits in the village, but the Aristocrat's group was homogeneous. It probably wasn't significant, just an observation his mind noted.

As a doctor who had extensively studied the human body, and a martial arts practitioner of many years, Alan knew how a person should move. Well, an Earth human anyway, he thought with a glance at Gerry next to him. After being inducted into the tutorial, he had immediately noticed many of the changes in how his body worked. As his stats increased he was also able to study their effects. That was one of the reasons why he had managed to stay undiscovered while working as a busboy.

The serfs, he still didn't love that term, living in the village, had bodies that were slightly better than baseline Earthlings. Watching them walk around made it obvious the difference in how he was now capable of moving. It took conscious effort to slow his movements down, but that was one of the easier things to control. It took much more effort to not move as smoothly or to 'fail' to notice things that a normal perception wouldn't. It was worth it though, because none of the villagers had been able to tell that he was different.

Chrisly and his crew, on the other hand, made no such attempts to blend in. After just a few seconds of watching, it was clear that Chrisly and the woman, plus at least one of the others had dexterity classes. It was possible someone was suppressing their abilities, so he didn't want to say what classes they didn't have, but it was easy to tell who did have them.

The way Chrisly and the woman's eyes moved was a giveaway that they also had perception classes. Alan's own stalker class boosted his own sight enough that he could actually see their eyes from a couple hundred meters away. The redcoats would have been in trouble if Alan was a colonist back during the revolution.

Increased strength was more subtle to discern. Going off of the way their legs flexed as they walked, he would guess that Chrisly had a strength class, and maybe one of the others. He had now identified three of Chrisly's class types, and had some sense of his support characters, but things like intelligence, wisdom, spirit, and focus were harder to detect simply by looking. If he got closer he could probably judge if they had increased constitution, but that was too difficult to tell from here.

Of course he could have gotten a lot more detailed information if he had just used identify, but that risked alerting them to the fact that they were under observation. If one of them had a decent spirit class there was even a chance that they could follow the probe back to Alan's location. It wasn't worth the risk at the moment.

Having gotten at least a feel for their stats, Alan then inspected their gear. The first thing he noticed was that none of it was kept all that clean. Chrisly didn't fit the trope of the spoiled rich kid who spent all of mommy and daddy's money on the nicest clothes and coolest cars, instead it looked like he was more the lazy loser bully who relied on his parents' name to get him out of trouble.

That wasn't to say that the gear wasn't good, it just wasn't being properly maintained. Determining preferred weapons was difficult when people had access to spatial storage devices, like some of the group must have. Obviously the rich leader did, and it looked like two of the men did as well. This meant that they didn't wear their weapons when strolling around. The near instant recall that such storage had, meant that they could safely leave their weapons hidden away and still retrieve them at a moment's notice.

Fortunately, the storage devices didn't allow you to rapidly equip armor. This meant adventurers usually traveled with their protective equipment already on. Chrisly was wearing some serious armor. It had long horizontal strips of metal fastened to some kind of fabric or material behind it. The strips slightly overlapped which left few openings to strike, unless he could slide his blade under the bands. The main armor seemed like it would provide good protection while also allowing him to move reasonably well. It was also probably heavy, but with improved strength and possibly constitution it shouldn't be too much of an issue. The chest armor also included some metal around the shoulder and he was wearing metal gauntlets as well. His legs were less heavily protected with what looked like leather pants.

Based on the armor, he must be some kind of melee warrior, possibly a tank, but probably not based on his character. He didn't seem to be the type to put himself at risk for others. Knowing that he had strength, dexterity, and perception, Alan figured that his family would have also gotten him a constitution class and at least one other. It was harder to figure out which of the others he might have, possible focus to help with his higher perception.

There were two others who were wearing actual armor. One was a man who had on a simple breastplate, but he also had leather armor for both his arms. The top half started at the shoulder and ended just above the elbow, and the bottom half was a gauntlet that stretched all the way up his forearm. He seemed more likely to be their tank, and the fact that he was leading the procession reinforced his guess.

The other person in armor was the sole woman. She had a leather chestpiece on with leather bracers and hide pants similar to his own. She also had dexterity and perception classes, so Alan figured her for the scout or rogue. She and the other armored goon were the only ones carrying their weapons, so they most likely didn't have spatial rings, marking them as most likely poorer or lesser warriors. The man had a mace on his belt and the woman had a bow on her back and a shortsword on her belt.

The other two weren't wearing anything Alan would have considered armor, and they both most likely had storage rings since they didn't have any visible weapons. The one who also had a dexterity class was wearing what Alan would have thought of as normal clothes. He didn't necessarily look like a mage, but he had to have some kind of combat class to be included in the group. Or possibly he was a dedicated healer. The last member of their party screamed wizard. He was wearing robes cinched with a belt that contained a variety of pouches. He was even playing with a small flame that he held in his right hand.

He now had a decent understanding of generally what Chrisly's group could bring to a fight, but a glaring issue was that he didn't know how strong the classes were, or how good they were with their weapons. Just because the woman had a bow didn't mean she could actually hit anything with it, and it would make a big difference if they were quartz, opal, or possibly diamond level.

Because of what power level the tutorial would have restricted volunteers to, and the amount of time they had to improve while actually inside the tutorial, Alan could discount any of them being red grade, so diamond was the upper limit. If they were that high, that could be an issue. He had taken out a red grade warrior before, but that had been under the effects of an Army array. Alan was still working his way up through opal and if they were actually knocking on the door of garnet classes, then they most likely had a ton of skills and talents to boost them. He didn't think that was the case however.

The Network wouldn't have allowed these guys to come in any higher than recent opal, and while it was possible they could have improved enough to level themselves up to diamond, it would have taken a work ethic that they just didn't seem likely to possess. Even with opal classes, though, they could still have some impressive abilities. Again, it wasn't too likely since they had ended up volunteering for a tutorial, which was something classers usually only did if they weren't doing well in the outside universe.

Alan leaned over to whisper to Gerry. "Let the rest of your team know that we've got eyes on Chrisly and they should start moving this way."

This wasn't the time to fight, the current mission was about gathering intel. If an opportunity to take out Chrisly's group presented itself, Alan might take it, but at the moment he wanted to learn more about the individuals in the group. When he did make his move he wanted to overwhelm them to limit how much fighting there was. It seemed counterintuitive, but he thought he could do more damage to the team by capturing them without really hurting them.

As the town-based adventurers moved away from the village, it became obvious where they were going. Part of their job was to make sure the local dungeons didn't complete their countdowns and start releasing monsters. Because Roger was still kind of holding up his end of the bargain, Chrisly's family were still obligated to reset the timer. Apparently the group liked to delve on full stomachs, which Alan found to be an interesting choice for something they knew would only take several hours of their time. A post victory meal would have been more Alan's style.

He was also interested to see their reaction upon reaching the entrance. One of the things he had learned from Tamee was that all dungeons had a lockout feature. After someone enters, it will prevent anyone else from entering for a set amount of time. This delay can vary wildly, with some being incredibly short, like the initial dungeons in tier one that had a lockout time of around one second. Some dungeons also closed off the entrance until the current party left or died, but many also allowed multiple instances to run at the same time. The lockout feature was the result of a ton of things that Tamee didn't really understand, but it mostly had to do with how much energy the dungeon had access to, and how much effort it took to create an instance.

Town dungeons, in addition to not allowing multiple instances, also prevented rapid entry after completion. They were an example of dungeons that had a long cooldown, at least for their grade. As a tier four village, their dungeon was only accessible every twelve hours. Lyonel's group had completed it around six hours ago, so Chrisly was in for a surprise. If he was a better adventurer, it wouldn't have been an issue, though, so it really was his own fault. The bounty board by the mayor's house had a real-time countdown for the dungeon, and if they had bothered to check it before leaving, they would have seen that someone had cleared it recently.

The rowdy party was in no hurry and the rest of the Corellians were able to catch up with them well before they made it to the dungeon entrance, so they all got to watch the show. Chrisly walked up to the entrance and tried to step through. He was lucky he was leading with his foot and not his face because an entrance on cooldown was like a solid wall. He had been moving at a fast, confident pace, and it was clear that kicking the entrance had been painful.

Then, of course, the bully turned to the rest of his group and demanded an explanation. Alan and his allies hadn't wanted to move too close for risk of being spotted, but those with perception classes were still able to make out what they were saying, especially since most of it was being shouted.

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It was clear that there was a hierarchy among the henchpeople. Chrisly was definitely the boss, but the two melee members were at the bottom and acted like sycophants. The two probable mages were also below Chrisly, but they didn't demean themselves nearly as much, and seemed to have a level of disrespect they wouldn't accept, even from the boss.

The next five minutes involved a lot of yelling, shoving, and at one point Chrisly threw the male fighter, who they heard being called Caleb, into the entrance headfirst. The man's helmet protected him from cracking his skull open, but he was also left dazed. The one in the robes, Gaf, turned out to be a healer and he was able to fix Caleb right up. The final man, whose name Alan hadn't caught yet, finally explained that it must be because another party had entered the dungeon.

That piece of information hit like a bomb blast. Chrisly's face turned an impressive shade of red and he led the party back to the town at a much brisker pace than before. Alan's group followed from a distance, and he actually started to get worried. The way Chrisly was still yelling meant that they could catch most of what he was ranting about. The man had decided that this was proof of the mayor's duplicity and that there was a recruit team hiding in the village. He also described all of the painful things he was going to do to the mayor and the recruits when he found them.

Alan sent Hector ahead to position himself near the town hall. He was hoping the scout would be able to keep an eye and ear on the situation there, and let them know if things started to go too far. While Alan had been embedded in the village, Roger had shown that he was a smart man who was good at hiding his true feelings and thinking on his feet. In a battle of intelligence Alan would wager everything on the mayor, but Chrisly might be too mad to actually listen to anything Roger said. The mayor being killed or tortured by the odious brat wouldn't hurt Alan's interests in this tier, but the man had been kind to him and shown himself to have a good character. Alan didn't want anything bad to happen to him if he could help it.

Fortunately, Chrisly cooled down somewhat before they made it back to the village. He even caught a part of an exchange where the healer suggested that it was the large golemoid group they had seen who was responsible. Alan and the others recognized the description of the Bodarians and listened as best they could. Since the man wasn't shouting like Chrisly, they were only able to catch bits and pieces. It seemed like the group had seen the Bodarians entering the wild dungeon a while ago, and he was positing that maybe they were simply exploring all the dungeons. It was possible the people of Elstree knew nothing about it.

This was a plausible enough explanation that Chrisly's murderous feelings faded and he started making other plans. This potential group of recruits was upsetting him more than the serf 'Pebble' who had embarrassed him. That surprised Alan, who would have thought the man's pride would have demanded satisfaction, but it could also be explained by prejudice. In the end, a serf was a matter of no real consequence and he might feel that he would eventually get his way. The villagers would be too cowed by his impressive might to go against him over such an insignificant person.

A group of adventurers, though, that was a true danger and he wanted them taken care of immediately. As they got to the village, the group split up. Brynna, the woman in the party, went with Chrisly to confront the mayor. The other three started moving through the streets, demanding the pedestrians tell them anything they knew about an adventurer group in the area. The two mages continued down the street while Caleb started entering peoples' homes to search.

Alan waited until the mages turned off onto some of the small side streets before moving closer, the Corellians right beside him. Meanwhile, Caleb left the first house and barged into the second. Someone must have been home this time because there was a lot of shouting. Watching through the window he saw that the man wasn't being physical with the woman inside, but he was being fairly rough on the property. Tossing tables and chairs aside and kicking down doors.

This was the opportunity Alan hadn't thought he would get so soon, but he wasn't one to be caught unprepared. No one had noticed Alan's group yet because anyone who had been in the streets had quickly moved away to avoid the rampaging men. Also, it was after sunset at this point, so most people would be having dinner, either in the tavern or in their own homes. This let Alan check out the next couple of houses that Caleb would most likely move on to. The closest one was perfect, there was nobody home and there was a section by the front door that was impossible to see from the windows outside.

Lyonel and Samson didn't go in, instead they waited around the corner. Alan and Gerry were positioned just inside the door, waiting silently in the blind spot. When it happened, Caleb didn't even knock or try the handle, he just kicked the front door in. As he moved forward, Alan slipped behind him and put him in a sleeper hold. Gerry also helped out by putting a sphere of water over the man's head to make sure he couldn't call out.

As Alan tightened the hold, he restricted the blood moving into and out of Caleb's brain. He also studied the man's aura. It was clearly opal, based on its spread throughout his body, but Alan noted how anemic it looked. The pathways were much thinner and less energy was flowing through them compared to his own. He also saw areas with few or no pathways where Alan's body had plenty. Maybe this was what happened when you didn't have the corresponding class for a given section of the body.

While the hold did nothing to restrict Caleb's energy flow, it definitely had an effect on his body, and in no time at all the man had passed out. Alan signaled to Gerry who dropped the water sphere, they didn't want to drown the man after all. The giraffe man also sent a message to Lyonel and Samson who came in and grabbed the body. Now it was time for the fun part.

Too bad for Alan, he couldn't participate yet, he and Gerry had more work to do before Chrisly's party realized something was wrong. They didn't know how often they used party chat to communicate, but it might only take them a little while to figure out that Caleb was unconscious. It was important to grab as many of them as they could before they understood how vulnerable they were while separated.

As they made their way after Gaf, they also checked in with Hector to see how the mayor was doing. Alan had instilled some operational standards into the beast people, and they made sure to check in over party chat every couple of minutes, however it was normally just a short message to let everyone know they were still okay. The fact that Hector hadn't sent anything more substantial should indicate that everything was at least reasonably fine at town hall, but it was still good practice to make sure.

Gerry passed the questions along and then shared the scout's answers. Things had gotten a little heated at first, but Roger's acting skills were top notch. He could truthfully say that no one was hiding in the village, and then built on that kernel to deny any knowledge of what was going on. He even said that he had noticed the countdown reset earlier, but as Chrisly had shown up shortly after that, he had figured it was them who had done it. That one put Chrisly back on his heels.

Alan appreciated how slick the man was, but he made a mental note to watch him closely. If he could become a true partner, then those skills would be a great asset, but if he instead chose to work against Alan in secret, those same abilities would pose a serious danger.

Gaf and the still unnamed adventurer had split up earlier in their search, and Alan and Gerry soon found Gaf all by himself. He too was going door to door, but he was at least a little more subtle than Caleb. He would knock first, but then immediately try to enter. If the door turned out to be locked he kicked it down anyway. It wasn't a huge difference, but it showed at least some sign of a conscience.

Rather than trying to hide in a doorway, Alan and Gerry simply waited around the corner of the house Gaf was currently searching. When he stepped out, Alan lunged, knocking the mage to his knees. He followed that up with a sleeper hold while Gerry put a water bubble around his head again. It had worked so well the first time they didn't see a reason to change anything up.

Gaf was apparently made of sterner stuff than Caleb for two reasons. The first was his aura was significantly stronger. The pathways were thicker and covered more of his body. Not as much as Alan's, but it was easy to notice the difference between the two goons. Another sign was that he didn't let his surprise get to him, and he tried to cast a spell to fight them off.

If he was a better mage it might have been an issue, but during one of their discussions, Tamee had told Alan about a technique that higher level spell casters used. After seeing him create exploding missile and bramble wall, she felt that he was ready for some advanced training. Alan already had experience with disrupting spells from back when he fought in the dwarven tunnels. By sending some of his mana into his opponent's spell as it formed, it caused the form to fail and resulted in a decent sized explosion.

Such a method would not be too helpful here. In addition to an explosion alerting the whole town to something hinky, Alan was also right there. He was liable to be seriously hurt as well as Gaf, and he was trying to pull off this initial part of his plan without showing signs of effort. It would have a great demoralizing effect if the adventurers thought they were so thoroughly outclassed that he could take them out without even trying.

Instead of using his mana to corrupt the spell, what Tamee had mentioned was that it was possible to drain the spell as it formed. It was incredibly tricky, and only his high aura reading skill would give him a chance. The general idea was that as the mana started to enter the spell form, it temporarily lost its secure attachment to the mage's aura. This could allow another person to draw it off. They couldn't actually steal the mana, but even separating it a little from the form caused it to be lost to the spell, meaning the sigil would dissipate. Higher grade mages eventually learned how to shield their own spells to prevent such disruption, but Gaf was definitely not at that level, no one below red grade usually had to worry about such things.

The only difficult part was that you had to be able to identify the mana type being used, and you had to do it quickly because there was only a fraction of a second between the mana leaving the mages body and when it locked into the magical spell form. Alan had gotten a chance to practice with Gerry earlier while they were waiting for Chrisly's group to exit the village. It had taken several tries, but since most of the giraffe man's spells were either water or light based, Alan hadn't had a hard time determining the type. It was doing it fast enough to catch the mana while it was vulnerable that had taken the most time to figure out.

Unfortunately for Gaf, while Alan could be a little slow sometimes, especially when it came to women, he often picked up new techniques very quickly. The mana type Gaf tried was easy for Alan to identify, fire was one of his personal favorites, and he had a talent for it. As it left Gaf's aura, Alan used his own mana handling skill to draw it off course. Instead of entering the sigil, it simply drifted away before fading to nothing. The shock of having his spell so easily blocked lasted long enough for Gaf's brain to lose consciousness.

Gerry was not the strongest or stealthiest of people when unburdened, so Alan put the unconscious mage in a fireman's carry, and then together they snuck out of town. It took only a few minutes to meet up with Lyonel and Samson who had already gotten started with Caleb. They were in the middle of one of the twelve fields spread out around the outskirts of the village. Caleb had been stripped of his armor and gear and was currently wearing some underwear and the padded shirt he wore beneath his breastplate.

One of the issues with a choke hold, or sleeper hold, is that while it knocks the target out fairly quickly, they also usually recover almost as fast as well. Luckily Alan's burgeoning alchemy skills had a remedy. One of the early potions he had tested out was a sleeping potion. It was usually used to help people fall asleep who were keyed up from battle but needed painful medical attention. It worked for their more nefarious purposes just as well. After knocking out each of the adventurers, Alan had poured a small vial of potion into each of their mouths. They didn't even have to swallow it, just by sitting in their mouths it would slowly be absorbed. Judging by Calebs's aura, they had plenty of time before he woke up, an hour at least.

Gaf, on the other hand, only had about ten minutes before the potion would wear off, the man must have a spirit class that was helping to cleanse the debuff. Alan and Gerry got to work quickly in stripping him of his gear as well. Beneath his robe the man wasn't wearing anything, not even undergarments, so Alan removed an older pair of boxers from his necklace and also gave him a worn shirt that he previously used to clean up after dungeon runs. It wasn't very sanitary, but that was what Gaf got for not wearing anything else. He should have listened to his mother and made sure he was wearing clean underwear.

Samson and Lyonel had already set up a wooden post with a crossbar, but Alan and Gerry commandeered it for Gaf. He was going to wake up soon and Caleb wouldn't wake up before they had a chance to move to the second location. There was still a bit of a time crunch, though. Hector had messaged them while they were subduing Gaf, that Chrisly knew something was up. The mage must have sent a message through chat even while he was trying to fight them off. It was an impressive feat since you still had to speak to send a message, and the man had been for all intents and purposes underwater at the time. Alan had to respect his tenacity.

Whatever he had managed before, it didn't take long for them to tie the man onto the cross. They used several different sections of rope to secure him in place. He had learned as a kid that if you tried to tie someone up with a single long piece of rope, it was just too easy for them to escape. If you used several smaller ropes for each of the body parts, it made it much more difficult. In a final bit of theatrics, Alan ran some heat mana through his spewn. It amplified fire spells, and this apparently counted, as the whole thing quickly started to sear his skin. Alan pressed it up against Gaf's filthy shirt and rolled it a little to let the full shape scorch onto the fabric.

Then Alan was running to the next field over where Lyonel and Samson were now tying Caleb to a nearly identical pole. When he pressed his spewn into his shirt it left a much clearer image since the cloth was a more uniform colored fabric. The beast people then set off at a run, and after a few seconds to give them a head start, Alan shot a series of fire bolts into the air. He dashed back to where Gaf was now waking up and shot off a few more. Hopefully that would get some people's attention.

Jogging out into the moonlight darkness, he settled in to watch with his Allies. Soon people were standing at the edge of the village looking out at the new scarecrows protecting their fields. A few of the braver souls moved closer so that they could see what exactly they were. What they found were two of their antagonizers tied up in nothing but underwear and a t-shirt with a decent approximation of a large spoon burnt onto their chests. Gaf was now awake and furiously thrashing about, trying to free himself, but was making no headway. Caleb was still blissfully slumbering away, he was quite the snorer.

After Alan had heard about the nickname 'Silver Spoon' that the villagers had given him, he decided to lean into it. If he could turn himself into a kind of folk hero, then getting them on his side would be simple. His spewn in reality bore very little resemblance to even a giant spoon, but its imprint was another matter. The scorched fabric really did resemble a cook's large stirring spoon. Alan couldn't keep leaving his cutlery lying around to claim credit, so this seemed like a good method to claim credit.

The villagers started laughing, especially as Gaf started trying to call out to them through the gag which had been shoved in his mouth. There were even a few cries of 'Silver Spoon' as they celebrated. Those shouts were quickly silenced, though, after someone called out that Chrisly was coming. Either Gaf had sent his location, or the man had also followed the light show Alan had put on. Someone had spotted him and after warning the crowd, they all quickly dispersed. It was one thing to celebrate the adventurer's humiliation, but they didn't want to face the wrath of the pride filled Aristocrat when he arrived.

The woman, Brynna, cut down Gaf and removed his gag. Chrisly started interrogating him about what had happened while she moved to the next field to cut down Caleb. The man was still unconscious, and when she slapped him awake he looked around blearily and asked when breakfast was. Chrisly had arrived, dragging a protesting Gaf behind him and turned an interesting shade of purple when he heard Caleb ask if there was any bacon. All in all, Alan was having a great night.

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