And it begins!

It was Leana that woke me up by shaking me. I stood up quickly and panicked

"Wha… what? Are we under attack?"

Leana laughed and said "No, we are fine Ren. Cleo asked me to wake you up. We are going to be leaving in half an hour. She wants to go over the plan again."

I saw that Turek was already up and gather the supplies. I walked out of the tent and went over to Cleo. Cleo was looking up the mountain and was in deep thought.

"So is the plan still good Cleo?"

"Yes. I checked but didn't see any patrols at all. There is something very weird about these bandits. Why do they have so little security? I have been trying to figure that out but I can't come up with a good reason. Are they really confident in their strength? Maybe the just became lax since they have been doing this for a long time without being caught."

"There… could be another reason. I am not sure but if we capture a bandit we might be able to ask him directly."

"That is not a bad idea. We can decide to not kill the guards at the entrance and interrogate him later."

"Now that I think about it, wouldn't the bandits be on guard once we take away one of the prisoners?"

"Sigh… yes that is an issue. They might even move their camp. I am also worried about it. This is why it would be better if we can rescue all the prisoners at the same time. On the other hand, if we decide to not rescue them, they might not be alive when a rescue does arrive. We already said that the people of Tiaanway might not take us seriously."

"You are right, we can't really have a perfect outcome in this case. Even if we rescue both Tien and Nina, we might still not be able to take the bandits out in a raid if they move their camp."

Turek and Leana finished the packing supplies and we took off for the bandit camp.

After walking for around 15 minutes, Cleo asked us to wait in a thicket and went ahead by herself. She was better at stealth in a forest than I was, so I didn't really mind.

Cleo came back five minutes later and said, "The situation is still the same. There are still only two guards at the door. Leana and Turek, you will wait here for now. I will go with Ren to check out if Nina is still there."

Turek and Leana nodded. I took Cleo to where the air hole was. It wasn't too difficult to find but it wasn't easy either. It was dark and the airhole was a bit further up on the wall. After searching for a few minutes I finally saw it.

"There it is!" I pointed at the large hole in the wall that was around 6 feet up from the ground. Neither Cleo nor I could see through it directly. Cleo came up with the solution.

Cleo grabbed me under my arms and picked me up from behind me. She lifted me up until I was able to grab on to the hole. She held me there and asked "Do you see Nina?"

It was too dark and I couldn't see much of what was inside the room. It seemed that the bandits hadn't lit a torch here.

"I can't see anything." I whispered down to avoid alerting anyone that might be inside. There wasn't a lot of moonlight, so I wasn't worried about blocking it. But it would be easy to see me if they looked at the airhole.

I thought a bit more and said to Cleo "I will go inside to check it out."

I tried to enter but Cleo brought me back down.

"That's too risky Ren! What if someone is there?"

"I don't think anyone will sit there in the dark. If some guards were there, they would have a torch lit. I think they just left Nina over there. I wonder if they even fed her…"

Cleo thought for a bit and sighed.

"Are you going to be able to come out if you enter?"

"As long as the box is still there, I should be able to come out."

Cleo bit her lip and thought more.

"I will be fine Cleo I promise. Don't worry about me, I will be able to come out."

Cleo finally agreed and said "Alright. Let's do this again."