After getting the criminals to tell us the location I asked for some more details. They'd told us it was in an alley and where to find it but that was all we'd gotten so far. It was within walking-ish distance to the town square but it wasn't a short walk.

It makes a bit of sense. Sketchy alleys equal sketchy people after all. They probably found the right distance where they could stay out of the guards' radar for the most part while also still being able to mess around with the people in the town square easily. Only the people with quite a bit of money could probably afford to live in the town square like Scott Crawford.

"So where in the alley are the gang members?", I asked our informants.

"They live in the buildings off the side of the alley we told you about."

"Ok well, which buildings in the alley are occupied by the gang members?"

"Um. All of them."

Hmm okay well, there probably aren't that many buildings there.

I wanted to bring the criminals with us so that if they were lying we could show them the error of their ways but the fact that they couldn't walk properly or at all anymore made that impossible.

So we walked to the alley. Leaving the crippled criminals behind. The alley looked like most of the other sketchy alleys we'd been to except even sketchier. Aside from the normal random trash that littered the ground I also spotted a few splotches of red here and there.

Yeah, this definitely looks like the place a gang would hang out.

I looked around the alley and noticed that there were quite a few buildings that lined the alley. More than I'd anticipated.

Wow, that's... quite a lot. Well, I don't think we can take them all at once. Hmm. How are we going to do this...

I ran through all the runes I'd unlocked so far.

Let's see. We've got Movement, Time, Sound, Observe, Sound, Bind, and then the Control Runes like If and the Parameter Rune. Oh yeah. This should work. We're not too close to the populated areas so it should be fine.

I motioned for Dob and Lob to stop.

"Guys I'm gonna do something to help incapacitate all these guys. You'll need to put something in your ears though."

Dob and Lob put their fingers in their ears and I picked up a rock from the ground.

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Ehh this rock should work.

I quickly thought, "Rune Programming" and put together a simple program with a Parameter Rune containing some very high numbers and a Sound Rune as well as a Time Rune so I could give myself some time to cover my ears.

Then I ran the program and quickly jammed a finger into each of my ears. A second later the most high-pitched sound I had ever heard rang out. It was less loud for me since I'd plugged my ears but it was still very unpleasant.

Ok, that should have everyone reeling for a bit. Hopefully it also scrambled whatever semblance of order a gathering of criminals might have.

I had Dob and Lob follow me as we went into the closest building. We heard innumerable shouts from inside as we neared it.

"What the heck was that? Where did it come from?"

I had the Sound Rune be the same volume across the entire area so that no one could tell where it was coming from. Since if it was obvious it came from the outside everyone would rush out and then I'd have to fight the whole gang at once.

Everyone inside the building we'd gone in was so confused and disoriented due to the loud high pitched sound that they didn't notice our entry. I had Dob and Lob start picking people off and I reprogrammed my knife many times and had it fly around the room. To save myself time I didn't have it focus on specific things like the Achilles Tendon but just had it stab people.

This made it much more efficient and it didn't take that long to take down the whole building of crooks. Unfortunately for me though it wasn't the only building. There were still three more buildings that we had to deal with.

Those people have had more time to recover from the um. Sound Bomb. Yeah, I like that name. Anyway, they've had more time to recover from it so they'll probably be more alert.

So we quickly moved on to the next building not wanting to waste any time. This time when we entered we were met with glares and angry voices.

"Who the hell are you guys? GET OUT!"

"Hmm. No."

And I immediately sent my dagger into his knee. Dob and Lob noticed the fight was started so they leaped into action. The whole situation quickly devolved into mass amounts of chaos and bloodshed. I mostly just stood back and watched Dob and Lob fight while my Programmed dagger did my work for me.

This is practically child's play. I just Program my dagger and it precisely follows its instructions. I'd always liked that about Programming. Everything did exactly what it was told to. Nothing more, nothing less. It followed everything to a T. Of course this also meant every mistake was basically your fault.

We finished 'cleaning up' this building quicker than the first one despite the added alertness of its occupants.

Practice does indeed make perfect. Two more buildings to go.

We quickly finished off the last two buildings. I assumed the gang leader was in there somewhere but it didn't matter who it was since everyone had been taken care of anyway.

The last building had actually sent someone outside just as we were finishing up the building before it and so we had the last fight outside. Which ended up making no big difference. After we'd finished off the last guy I gave Dob and Lob a big thumbs up which they promptly returned.

Okay now to say the gang members were from Whitebridge. I gotta be careful how I word this because if I just say Whitebridge it could be believed that Whitebridge took out the gang which I guess they did but that wouldn't make big boss man happy and I need him to be happy to find out what the ABW's plan is.

I took part of a broken bottle from the ground and scratched it on the ground to write out a message.

"These guys were from Whitebridge. Screw them."

That should do it. Nice and blunt. There's no way to misinterpret it.