Violet watched the bandits on the visual scanner. He was not pleased. Chaney had about as much chance of surviving a fight with the bandit woman as a small kitten would. The woman clearly had adventurer style training, which Terse Elements could not provide at this time. Violet had no idea how they could fight an adventurer-bandit without an adventurer on their side.


    On the plus side, Violet was pretty sure he had a prime seat to watch a developing love triangle between the goblin woman, the bandit with broken ribs, and the bandit "queen".


    <hr>


    A white loop processed a new sensation. The "other" signal it had been tracking had suddenly stopped functioning. The vibrations and electromagnetic components of the signal dropped to zero at the same time the heat component spiked. The loop watched for a long time, but the signal did not resume, even when the heat component dropped down to normal levels and faded into the background noise. The loop processed this for a while before recording a memory of "heat, other stop".


    <hr>


    Chaney felt lonely. Living with his moon cat companion in the swamp worldlet was fun, but he missed talking to people and being dry. Yrryth stopped by every few days, delivering bread and some plants called "carrots" and "onions", but she never spoke aside from grunting or growling. Chaney always thanked her extensively and tried to show her his progress, but she had some way of detecting him through I''m not here, which made his demonstrations unimpressive. Chaney had demanded that she explain how she could bypass his skill but she had just chuckled loudly as she stomped back down into the tunnels. The last time she came, Chaney had begged her to give him a hint. She had smiled and pointed at her large bat-like ears. Chaney knew his skill should work to spread out and dampen any sound he made, so this hint was not helpful.


    Chaney and the cat had altered their training game a few times over the weeks. The current version had Chaney setting traps and disguising them. The cat didn''t understand how traps worked, but she could tell something had changed in an area and would avoid it while chasing Chaney. Chaney only succeeded in "catching" the moon cat when he found ways to disguise traps by hiding other traps nearby, leading the cat to avoid one trap and trigger the other. He wondered if Yrryth would appreciate getting caught in one of his traps as a display of progress.


    Chaney had nearly decided to gather some grass to make more rope when the moon cat pricked up her ears and turned toward the entrance to the tunnels. Chaney immediately focused on his skills, I''m not here and Silently, to move around behind the visitor. He was pleased to see it was the dungeon fairy, someone who couldn''t see through his stealth skill.


    Chaney was shocked and dismayed when he felt a pulse of mana right before the fairy turned around and looked right at him. His shock was doubled when the fairy fell to the ground to avoid a pouncing moon cat. "Master fairy!" He shouted. "How in the System did you do that?"Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    The fairy got back on his feet and brushed mud off his knees. That only spread the mud around so he snapped his fingers instead and the mud vanished. The fairy looked up at Chaney with a big grin. "I got the idea from Yrryth. It''s not very practical the way I do it, but it cuts right through your skill."


    "From Yrryth?" Chaney asked with excitement. "How does she do it, she won''t tell me." Feeling awkward for shouting from multiple strides away, he moved closer to the fairy.


    "Oh, I didn''t know she wanted it secret. Hmmm." The fairy tapped his chin for a moment. "Nope. Better if we tell you, at least partly. Do you know how bats see in the dark?"


    Chaney shook his head. "I do not."


    "They squeak. You''ve heard it. They squeak, then they listen for the echos. Instead of one main echo like you or I would hear, a bat hears a dozen tiny echoes. It can paint a picture in its mind based on those echos." The fairy explained while looking up at Chaney. "When I got here, I started making mana ''squeaks'' and sensing when they bounced off things. It would make it entirely impossible for me to hide from anyone with practice sensing mana, which is why I said it''s impractical."


    "Teeth and bones." Chaney said in amazement. "What sort of squeak does Yrryth do?"


    The fairy smiled and shook his head. "That part can stay her secret." The fairy''s smile faded. "Also, we have more serious things to talk about." The fairy waved a hand and summoned a pair of stools. They each took a seat. Chaney''s heart stuttered, thinking the fairy would ask him to start killing bandits. Chaney... would do it, but he didn''t want to do it.


    The fairy cut right to the point. "We cannot fight the bandit leader. She is too strong, on a similar level to Hill Lord Andebert."


    Chaney felt like his eyes bulged out. "As strong as the hill lord? He''s an adventurer!"


    The fairy shrugged. "Possibly stronger. Likely more experienced in fighting and killing people."


    Chaney leaned back. One of the legs of the stool began to sink in the mud, but he didn''t care. "What are we going to do?" He asked.


    The fairy shook his head. "I''m not sure. I came to discuss any ideas you might have. The priority is removing the bandits from the dungeon, so maybe there are things we could do other than fight to kill."


    Chaney looked at the ground, thinking hard. He stood up and paced back and forth a few times, rubbing his chin. He paused and threw out a suggestion. "Poison?" The fairy tipped his head back and forth uncertainly, but summoned a pen and paper to take notes.


    "Can the dungeon just teleport them out?" Chaney asked.


    The fairy frowned and shook his head. "No. The dungeon is focused on... the unseen aspects of... being a dungeon." Chaney thought that explanation held little water, but the answer was still "No".


    For the next hour, they proposed idea after idea to remove the bandits from the dungeon. Bribery, waves of dungeon creatures, starving them of food, assassination, they discussed everything they could think up. After an hour, Chaney had one final idea.


    "If the bandit leader was not there, do you think we could handle the rest of the bandits?" He asked.


    The fairy half nodded half shrugged. "With proper planning, I think so."


    "In that case," Chaney said. "We don''t have to beat her if we can make her leave for some other reason. When she is gone, we deal with the remaining blighted bandits, then there is no reason for the leader to come back or stay here if she does come back."


    The fairy pulled out a new sheet of paper. "How would we get her to leave?"