For the next couple weeks, there were a few more tailing attempts. Not only had they continued, they increased in frequency.
This what Baoba meant when he said they were doomed.
Any operation like that where a lot of persons get followed would have some failures. It wasn't suspicious. But a smart organisation will keep tabs and continue investigating the ones that slipped through.
And therein lied the problem. Even if Baoba managed to get away every single time, it would only prolong the fall. Apart from directly dismantling their opponents, they had absolutely no way of stopping it.
There had been four additional attempts in total. Tree of them had happened during the second week.
This was not mere precaution anymore. They were onto him.
'At this rate, we won't last another week.'
Things had to change.
Luckily, they were going to.
One benefit of the situation was that lots of Rings were being revealed one after the other. So much so that Pando was almost struggling to keep track of all of them. She had started to assign nicknames to the silhouettes.
For example, there first one to follow Baoba was "Grumpy". The short cook was, well... "the short one".
She was able to identify multiple confirmed Rings, and through those, could start looking for more by analysing who interacted with who.
Plus, the old room where the broken ring was supposed to be proved to be a gift that keeps giving. It had slowed down a lot, but many Rings came to try their luck, thinking no one could see them anyway.
So, by now, she had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of who was who. And with this, she had started to learn some more useful knowledge.
For example, where each of them lived. Where exactly were the gathering points. And most interestingly, the location of a warehouse.
Of sorts. It wasn't a huge, empty building save for a single item and a weirdly small amount of guards. It was a normal house, with a family living inside, but one where Rings would visit to store and take out strange objects.
In this forest, a pile of strange, miscellaneous objects was never simple. And such a secret one was sure to be one thing and one thing only.
Magical items.
For the humans, who never got blessed, it was the only way to be stronger than another human. Of course, training and skill mattered more than gear, but this of course depended on the gear.
If one was equipped with a sword that swung itself or one that could cut through steel, the physical prowess would suddenly matter much less.
Therefore, artefacts like these were extremely precious. They were the equivalent of the organisation's power. It was of the utmost importance that nothing happened to them.
So, the team was gonna do something to them.
Rob them, more precisely.
They actually had a lot of experience with that. For the two months they spent in the forest society, they didn't only search for clues. Once they learnt about those mystical artefacts, they immediately became a priority. It was an easier way to become more powerful.
These items were sadly not going to replace the original plan, as they seemed on average less powerful than even the weakest of blessings.
For example, one of their training partners back at the camp, Kakir, had the ability to completely shapeshift into an animal.
Even comparing that to the earrings felt unfair.
Plus, lots of them needed to be worn or wielded to show their worth. Ond person could only hold so many things at once.
So they could not replace additional blessings. But they sure could help.
Baoba thought about the backpack they almost had to destroy a village for. It could hold a lot more things than it should, and without it, the expedition would be far more troublesome.
This item's greatest use in this party was storing other magical items !
The captain took care of most luggage problems normal groups faced, but unfortunately, artefacts did not come from beasts. That was a real shame. Mass producing those would have made life much, much easier.
They were really expensive.
Baoba snapped out of his reverie. Right now was not the time for this. It was time to raid.
"Everybody ready ?"
The whole team was assembled in a rooftop next to the target house. They all wore black cloaks specially made for these occasions.
Their identity had to be kept a secret, especially now. The cloaks were far from the only measure.
Baoba reached into Venus' bag and buried his whole arm inside, searchig for something. The bag seemed far too small the accommodate the whole appendage, but it fit nonetheless.
'There it is.'
He pulled out a sticky, solid black orb.
His companions frowned at the sight of it.
Seeing this, he immediately scolded them. "Nope. We're not doing this. Not tonight. You all know exactly why we have to do it, so you are just gonna shut up and fall in line this time. Alright ?"
While whispering angryly, he started rubbing his hands on the orb and smearing the oily substance oozing from it on his face.
During this process, his face became less and less recognizable. It wasn't only from the color change. Even the contours and overall shape of it became hard to make out, blurry and unclear. Eventually, even his body shape was hard to remember.
He had turned into a truly unrecognisable creature. This item was a very powerful artefact. Disguises was one of their utmost priority back when they first learned of the forest society, and this particular item had been hard to find.
Unfortunately, as they came to find out, it was nearly useless in everyday life. A real life blurry silhouette stood out way more than even an unmasked dark elf.
Plus the use felt gross. The few times the team had to use it, every single one of them protested vehemently, especially a certain red haired unhinged woman with a twisted sense of priority.
This time, however, as soon as the captain was done, Capcsium took the orb and put in her disguise with a resolute -and increasingly blurry- face.
The other four were shocked, even if Baoba's expression was invisible by now.
"He's right. We know. This is a crucial mission for which he's been working alone, right Captain ?" She said, unexpectedly serious. She finished up, and threw the ball to Urtica, unclear eyes fixed on Baoba.
'That's new... I guess she did mean it.' He smiled, and, knowing she couldn't have seen that, made a thumbs up as well.
"Ok, last rerun. We have ten minutes before the reinforcements arrive, thanks to our optimal window. There are four guards in here, plus three regular, unarmed people. Our goal is to quickly and quietly dispose of them, and reach the safe for which Pando has the code. We take all of it and leave, still quietly. Got it ?"
They nodded widely, so that the motion went through the magical disguise.
"Good. In less than a minute, Pando will give the signal, and we go through that open window. At risk of repeating myself, the word to remember is quietly. We don't want actual police on this, and neither do they, so as long as we don't alarm the neighbors, we should be fine."
The entire exchange was whispered, and functionally useless. All these instructions had been drilled into their heads days ago.
It was just to avoid some awkward waiting around. Unfortunately, there was still some to be done.
.....
But not too much.
"Now."