“Many people tend to think of criminals as spontaneous and moody types, who committed their crimes more due to whims rather than thought-out plots and detailed plans. Such thinking could not be much further than the truth, and when it did, it generally only encompassed the lowest rank of criminals, the hired muscles and the scapegoats and whatnot at best.

Most criminals that made a career out of crime on the other hand, rarely did things without a plan, as many that I caught with my own hands would testify. Some of them might well have managed to make a career as master tacticians or strategists, or as administrators and ministers, had only their intelligence and cunning be directed to a more productive manner.” - Alosyius “The Old Man” Grange, former mercenary turned guard captain, Dvergarder, Posuin, circa 6 FP.

“How did it go?” Edwin Reasley asked as two members of his small gang of seven returned from their discreet surveillance of the targets they had in mind for their kidnapping operation. As the leader - and from whom the group took its name - his own face was far too infamous by then to do such things himself, often plastered on bounty posters left and right, and as such he generally avoided big cities whenever he could.

He along with the more recognizable members of their group, that was, Nebula, who served as their main muscle and was a blood mage of middling prowess, Katja, who was a former assassin and often dealt with those that needed to be dealt with quietly, her scarred face making her prominent in cities, “Ace”, which he knew was a nickname for their twitchy sneak, who despite his quietness was the strongest mage in their group, with his wind affinity keeping noise from alerting people during their operations, and Xevra, who was an expert at grappling and was usually in charge of manhandling their target to submission when they were feisty, were camped in a small travelers’ rest, a mere clearing by the roadside, a couple days away from the city.

Vincenzo, who claimed and often styled himself as the descendant of former nobles, was generally the one who was sent to spy on things, as with the man’s skills and his mist affinity, he could disguise himself into various different people to avoid scrutiny. Along with him was Jacob, their youngest member, who had that baby-faced, innocent look on him that fooled far too many over the years. Even his disguise was mostly intended to touch up that natural “honest” look while simultaneously keeping him unrecognizable to the authorities.

Over the past week since their arrival near the city, the two had disguised themselves and pretended to be travelers as they joined merchant caravans that happened to be headed into the city, only to leave the following day the same way. After three forays into the city, they had passed the camp - more a city of tents and wagons, really - where the dependents and support staff of the mercenaries they targeted lived six times, and gleaned what intelligence they could in those passes.

“You can forget getting into the camp itself. Those in the camp might be retirees and cast-offs at best but those mercs keep up a tight guard, even that close to Dvergarder,” reported Vincenzo as he sat down by the fire. The vigilance he noticed was not out of any distrust to the Duke of Dvergarder and his people, as the Free Lances had found him almost a model employer so far, but merely standard procedure for the mercenaries when they were on contract. “That said, there’s still a good chance we can follow through with your plans. It would need some slight changes, though.”

“Quit beating around the bush and just explain it simply, will ya?” asked Nebula as she gnawed on the leg of a boar the criminals had caught off the nearby woods. Technically the woods belonged to the Duchy, and while the locals do hunt animals from there often, they had permits to do so. Of course, a bunch of experienced kidnappers had not thought much about poaching while on the job.

“The brats were often out of the camp and playing around a hill a bit to the south-west of the camp itself,” said Jacob with a frown. “The hill itself isn’t that far off the main roads, so we could make a swift grab there without alerting the camp and get out before they respond.”

“And how many of those kids are usually on that hill you mentioned?” asked Xevra with an interested look on her face. As a group of kidnappers, they usually targeted important people, with children being preferred since they were much easier to steal and cart away compared to adults.

“Hard to tell, honestly. The kids we saw seem to suggest at least a couple dozens of them, maybe more. We can’t exactly take a closer look without being suspicious, nor did we chance checking the backside of the hill since that area faced their camp,” said Vincenzo with a slight frown. “That said, I hadn’t noticed anything too worrisome. A dozen or so brats around ten, another dozen younger ones, even a couple toddlers.”

“And our primary target?” asked Katja, who tended to be the most focused out of the group. While they would be fine with as many children as they could safely kidnap, they knew that they needed someone more important to be able to make their demands properly, namely someone related to the higher-ups of the mercenary group.

“Always with the others,” said Jacob with a nod. “She was always there everytime we passed through, often playing at being soldiers with some of the others.”

“You sure it’s the primary target?” asked Edwin with some obvious doubt in his voice. Their youngest member was at times a bit scatterbrained, so he’d rather have the confirmation.

“Both the primary and who we believe was the secondary target were sighted,” said Vincenzo with confidence. “Can’t really be certain with the secondary target, I saw at least a couple blondish kids out there, but the primary is unmistakable. Beasties of that kind are rare as fuck around here, and her father’s the only one we ever even saw this generation.”

Beasties were an old slur that were used in the kingdom, specifically targeted at Therians. The kingdom’s old human-centric policies meant that non-humans had not been welcomed at all, a state of matters that had only begun to ease up over the past century prior to the civil war. The border duchies tend to be more friendly to non-humans, but those from the lands further in still held many of the old prejudices.

“I guess that settles it, then,” said Edwin after some deliberation. “Get yourselves ready. We’ll strike tomorrow near sunset.”