Traveling towards the town marked on the Map the Pack had shown Eve was a study in caution. She couldn’t allow herself to be detected before arriving. To that end, Eve took care to scout the route between her current location and the Dungeon’s listed one.

Leaving from her house in the early morning, Eve spent several days charting a path towards the Dungeon’s last known location according to a century-old chart while searching for any trace of individuals from the town that should have grown around it. Herb gatherers, woodcutters, or hunters were all viable targets to help lead her back to the main target.

On the sixth day of slow travel northwards Eve finally heard the repetitive chopping noises of a lumberjack team. Sending her new Paper Spy Eyes forward at a slow creep, the image of several hardworking serpent-men cutting one of the large Forest Titans down appeared in her mind’s eye. They were bare to the waist, with sparkling scales that shifted through multiple colors. A clear rank that depended on the depth of emerald green was demonstrated as she watched. Settling down on a branch Eve waited, watching the lumberjacks work as the day slowly ground past. In order to ensure she didn’t accidentally lose them, she stuck small pieces of paper on each of them akin to tracking talismans that she would be able to follow.

Moving close enough that they were a mere ten meters from her, Eve dozed off to sleep following the military maxim of sleep when you can. As dusk finally crept up, she sensed her tracking papers starting to move away, and floated up to follow. Covering herself in the diamond-glass shield-form Eve floated through the slowly darkening canopy, ensuring there was always approximately fifty meters between her targets and her.

The bright lights of the town shone into the depths of the forest at a long enough distance that Eve could spot them well before the lumberjacks had actually made it into town. Removing her paper tracers, Eve approached slowly using her Celestial’s Five Senses to search for any mana discrepancies that might indicate traps, wards, or tripwires.

Approaching the territory of the nearby owners of the Dungeon was a study in ghillie suit creation. Slow, steady, and above all, smooth movement allowed her to infiltrate the edge of the para-human settlement.

The town residents were a race that clearly descended from some great Serpent Beast. Eve couldn’t tell if it was a lizard or snake type, although either was possible. The sparkling green patterns in the scales were almost hypnotic. According to her Paper Spy Eyes, there were other creatures whose chameleon abilities made them effectively invisible. Celestial Mind helped parse all the different sights, sounds, and smells while ensuring she could playback anything later.

Several notable things stood out when she started to investigate the town’s structure. The wall that encircled the town was completely mundane, without a single sign of mana being embedded at all. However, inside, the town was much different, as some houses had a clear layer of mana or multiple layers worked into the residence. It appeared that wards or something similar was very much a booming business for the rich and wealthy.

Using her Paper Spy Eye’s ability to blend into the background and avoid detection by mimicking the surrounding mana levels, she set out to chart clear layers of information on the town. A sharp division in the town existed between those that delved into the Dungeon and those that did not. Much like the difference between military and civilians, she could practically spot the delvers with one eye closed. They commonly carried weapons, armor, and belts hung with everything from potions to small satchels.

Since she had become better at using her paper to do things other than kill, Eve decided to give the defenders a single opportunity before she took action. The Pack had left the choice of making them abandon the Dungeon and retrieve the Core up to her. On the one hand, her brother’s advice was solid. A quiet campaign of terror from the shadows would be very effective. On the other hand, it was rather clear her brother might be a little lost in terms of a moral compass currently.

Forming a paper clone of another human besides herself to interact with the town’s leadership was challenging. It took her several tries before she mastered something that didn’t look like a walking faceless humanoid golem. Once it was sufficient, Eve sent the construct to the entrance of the serpent folk’s territory. Polyglot had already been triggered from the constant surveillance, so she understood the languages used within the town enough to communicate.

Walking up to the entryway barrier in the walls that surrounded the town caused the guards on duty to shift into high alert. Eve wasn’t worried, though. She had seen that almost anything that didn’t meet the normal entry standards was sent up the chain to a superior. After several minutes of waiting patiently, one of the few fat serpent people she had seen appeared to approach her PG-13, e.g., paper golem, thirteenth try.

“Greetings.” Eve said through the paper golem before continuing, “Take me to your leader!”

“No?” The fat serpent said, his manner slightly confused. “We don’t take strange creatures straight to our leaders.”

“Unfortunate.” Eve said, shrugging PG-13’s shoulders. “In that case, you have ten minutes to abandon the town before I am forced to take drastic measures.”

The fat serpent stared blankly before saying, “Huh?”

“Nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds.” Eve said, giving a helpful countdown.

The fat serpent shrugged before pointing a single-scaled hand and saying to the guards, “Dispose of this crazy thing.” Before departing with a shrug of dismissal.

Eve ignored the swords that cut into her golem as she continued the countdown patiently. In the final moments, her golem appeared like nothing more than a shredded mass of paper strips. Disgusted at the refusal to negotiate, she turned PG-13 into dust that melted in a passing breeze.

Even though negotiations had fallen through, Eve continued to spy on the town. She shifted positions multiple times to get the entire place into her Domain of Paper I so that she could ensure total coverage. It was delicate work that took her almost a solid three days to finish. After completing the surveillance of the entire town, Eve created a Map giving her the key locations and allocating threat levels.

She broke the town down into three districts, as well as marking targets for Alpha Strike down. The two most important locations were the runic circles that appeared to act as a teleportation pad and the tall building that seemed to be a communication tower. Both locations had significant mana levels, which indicated embedded defenses of some sort.

Eve took a solid month after marking priority targets to ensure she learned the entire town's routine. Guard rotations, teleport schedule, and communication cycle were all vital pieces of knowledge. On a lesser scale, Eve also noted when those with the highest level of mana were noting how they moved around town with supreme clinical efficiency.

The first step in any successful attack is proper information. Eve thought, remembering the Sarge’s words. If we don’t know jack, we can’t do jack. Anyone can press a nuke, but surgical strikes require surgical knowledge.

After all her preparation was finished, Eve started her simple plan. Previously she had located two of the lowest level individuals that were managers for the teleport pad and the communication tower locations. Sneaking into their homes after getting past the wall was simple itself since she could float from rooftop to rooftop. Engaging her chameleon cloaking powers, Eve moved into the small housing complex that resembled an apartment complex. Para-humans' requirements showed differences, such as stairs that were slightly larger, banisters built for claws instead of just fingers, and other such oddities.

Once she was at the door to the primary target’s home, a small paper key allowed easy entry. Closing the door behind her, Eve moved forward with assurance. Her spying had revealed that this manager lived alone, without friends, family, or lovers that would interfere. The paper clothing she wore shifted on her form, remaking her image. Wolf's ears adorned the top of her head, while her normal human ears were concealed. A furry tail wrapped around her waist like an extra belt. Her clothing itself was changed to look like just another adventuring delver, albeit imbued with enough mana to prevent identification magic from working—pouches filled with various items that would be useful during the infiltration wrapped around her waist. Everything was concealed beneath a large hood and a deep cloak in order to prevent any chance of effective identification.

A quick search of the apartment revealed all the high mana items within, all of which Eve summarily wrapped in paper before dumping into her inventory. Since it was well into the wee hours of the morning, she accepted the risk that doing this might trigger some emergency signal for aid. It was, in her opinion, still within the margins of safety she set for the mission. If she could reduce casualties by a large amount by taking a few minor risks, Eve was willing to try. Of course, if everything blew up in her face, then she would follow her brother’s advice more closely next time.

Either way, the Dungeon Core was going to be removed from this location.

Eve moved to the bedroom staring at the face of the young para-human serpent man. Opening her inventory, a particular type of paper, more akin to cardboard than normal paper, flew out. Within moments the entire room was muffled, preventing noise from occurring. A quick flick of her Domain wrapped iron paper cuffs around the target’s wrists and legs before dragging him out of bed. She watched as his eyes bulged from being awoken in such a manner. As panic infused his face, Eve let several silent moments pass, letting the fear heighten to a peak.

“Greetings.” Eve said, gagging her prisoner right as he attempted to speak. “You don’t know me, and you never will, but I know you, S’velt S’narsson, day manager of the Link Tower.”

S’velt attempted to struggle out of her paper-iron manacles, to no avail. She watched dispassionately as he attempted to use several Skills and a few Spells. The cardboard paper had too much mana to allow the communication Spells to penetrate, and his Skills were no match for the paper-iron manacles. In all, it was a perfect test of several new techniques.

“Any further attempts to communicate will result in loss of the third leg between your legs. Am I clear?” Eve said, her eyes glimmering cold silver slits in a deeply shadowed hood. Watching the frantic nodding, she removed a red and blue pod from one of her pouches before continuing, “The red pod will grant you pain beyond mortal comprehension for several hours. The blue pod will grant you pleasure beyond mortal comprehension until the end of your life. I was hoping you could answer my questions truthfully, do so and the blue pod is yours. Lie to me, and I will feed you red pods till your body expires in agony before cleaning this entire living quarter and wiping all traces of you from existence. Do you understand?”

A series of quivering nods met her question, and Eve continued, “Is there an emergency protocol in place if the Link Tower goes down without prior notice?” Removing the gag from S’velt allowed him to answer, “Yes.”

“Is it by transmitting a message through the teleport pad network?” Eve asked.

“The Runic Circle Network? Yes.” S’velt replied hastily.

“If both of them go down at the same time, what is the expected response?” Eve said.

“It would most likely be assumed either a beast tide occurred crushing the town or an attack from a foreign power. Both would cause a military response that would take approximately a few days to arrive.” S’velt said, his eyes terrified as he started to sweat.

“No lies so far. You are doing very well. Keep it up.” Eve said, her tone soft and encouraging before she continued, “If all the managers of both the Runic Circle Network and the Link Tower were…incapacitated…and then the two were destroyed, is there any other possible method of communication available to the outside?”

“N-No…” S’velt said, before his expression turned pale enough that the tiny scattering of scales on his face grew lighter.

“Excellent.” Eve said, “Enjoy your reward for betrayal.”

Lighting fast, her hand grabbed his lower jaw, forcing his mouth open before she stuffed a blue pod in. There was a moment where she could almost taste the terror suffusing his entire body like a fine vintage wine. The moment passed, and his eyes became glassy and unfocused as his body began to twitch in the throes of pleasure. Eve carefully laid his body down, removing the restraints, and letting him slump unaware back into his bed. A small wrapper with traces of a very addictive herb was left on the nightstand nearby.

While it wasn’t a perfect setup, it would look rather reasonable to anyone that investigated. Her goal was to ensure that it appeared that S’velt had overdosed on a popular type of recreational substance. Her spying had revealed a healthy drug market existed in the town, and while he didn’t have any previous habits of a user, people were always willing to assume the worst.

Retrieving all her paper and exiting the living quarters, Eve used her chameleon abilities to head to her secondary target. A repeat of the same question and answer session gave her a second set of replies which matched with the ones S’velt gave her. Strangling the second target to dispose of them quietly, Eve dumped the body into her inventory as a paper package.

One drug addict's death was an accident. Two would be a little bit too suspicious. A mysterious disappearance would go down a great deal easier, as it could mean anything from being late to work to being drugged in one of the two brothels she had seen in town. Eve was certain that no one was going to get whatever the local police might be riled up over a missing Runic Circle Network day shift manager.

Exiting the secondary target’s apartment, Eve looked up at the slowly-lightening sky. Shifting into her diamond shield form, she moved straight up until she was a solid mile up in the air. Deploying multiple Eyes around her, she calmly waited for the Alpha Strike targets to start their day. From her previous cautious surveillance, it was clear that most of the Beast races in town were predatory types.

Predators seldom look to the skies for their prey.