Luna and G had already salvaged as much scrap metal as the walker could carry. They stuck to the outside of the town and it was a good find as the scrapyard was filled to the brim with discarded iron.

"I think we have enough to cover the boiler." Ada said on her back.

"I think we still need more plates to cover the firebox. Its integrity is below the-"

Luna cut G off when she suddenly ducked. A Silvus soldier on horseback rushed into the town.

"What is it?" G climbed onto her head and looked. "That’s a Silvus soldier!"

"Doubt it." Luna stood up. "The uniform is outdated. Also, I don’t see Ostrin letting Silvus soldiers just freely roam the countryside. Anyway, it's not our problem. Let's haul these parts back to the walker and get some food and supplies, then we are done."

Luna borrowed a large blanket she was using as a cloak in the village they passed by. She covered her head with it and entered the town.

The town was bleak. Closed stores had boarded up windows, and it was quiet, far too quiet for a large town with few people on the streets. Luna came across the general store near a tavern in the town center. The tavern seemed to be the busiest place in town, with a swarm of impersonating Silvus soldiers outside while loud music and laughter played inside.

Luna entered the general store and found it stripped bare, with only some expired cans of meat the only ones left. A Caitor shopkeeper came out of a room to greet her. Caitors were large snail-like creatures with shells on their backs. The caitor left a trail of ooze as it approached the counter.

"Hi." Luna removed the blanket on her head and asked, "Do you have any food that’s still edible?"

"Sorry, I’m cleaned out. If you want food, the only place that has it is the tavern. The soldiers diverted all of the spare food, so I have none left to sell. I can’t even feed my own family without them asking for more."

"How long have the soldiers been occupying the town?" Luna asked as she peeked at the tavern through the window.

"A good month now, they have been going village to village, but they usually return here."

"Are they the ones that forced the businesses to close in this town?"

"Yep." The caitor joined her in peeking at the tavern. "They take everything they can and no one can stop them. I feel sorry for the women and children they drag in there."

"They what?!" Luna looked at the caitor.

"Yeah, we saw them being dragged in there by the dozen and they never came out." The caitor shook his head, making its whole body jiggle. "Bron swears he heard screaming down there when he delivered food the other day. Actually, young lady, you are pretty brave for walking in here on your own."

"Where are your local enforcers?! Why are they not doing anything against them?!"

The caitor snorted. "The good enforcers are dead, while the others have joined them. And no one is foolish enough to join the former."

Luna left the store empty-handed as she walked back to the walker. She put on her blanket to hide her face, but G, sitting on her shoulder, peeked his face through.

"I’m surprised you’re not going to do anything." Luna slipped into an alley and climbed into a locked building so she had a better view of the tavern.

"I won’t, but you will."

"Whaat?!" G blurted it out loud.

"G I need you to go in there and learn anything about them. Find me where they are hiding the civilians and tell me how many of them are in there. "

"Did you forget I’m an inventor, not a spy?!" G was in a panic.

"You’re not even an inventor." Ada sneaked a remark.

"Not helping Ada." Luna said as she looked at the Tavern. "G you are the size of my hand. They won’t even realise you’re there. This is the perfect job for you."

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to dress myself up. I can’t go in there looking like this after all." She looked down at her borrowed clothes and the blanket over her head. "In the meantime, you will feed your sight and sound into Ada so we can listen in as well."

"Luna, I feel sorry for the victims like you, but we don’t even know how many of them are in there and you seriously want to fight them all?"

"If it comes to that, we will. But I want you to find out what they are doing with the women and children they are taking. I have a feeling these soldiers are slavers."

"If we do find out, what then?"

"We then give an anonymous tip to the real soldiers in the area so they could come into this town and free them."

For a long while, Tinkerton-G and Ada did not answer.

"What?"

"That’s actually the first logical and mature plan I have ever heard coming from you." Ada said to her.

Luna then climbed to the top of the building she was hiding in, and once on the roof, she aimed Tinkerton-G and threw him like a ball towards the tavern. He violently landed on the tavern’s roof and had to put himself back together as the impact caused his arms and legs to break apart.

"Sorry, G." Luna said to him. She communicated through Ada, which shared a connection with Tinkerton-G. He then made his way down the tavern and stuck to the rafters in order to hide himself. He shared what he saw with Ada and described it to Luna.

The tavern was packed with soldiers, mostly humans and orks, and they had turned it into their headquarters. Tinkerton could see that they were all fully armed and were holding the workers hostages, putting collars and chains on their necks while some women, notably humans, orks, and bestians, were wearing only their undergarments and were forced to entertain the soldiers.

"What do you see, G?"

"There are a lot of them, probably more than fifty. Wait." Tink saw in the corner of the tavern what seemed to be their leader, a large burly human who was kicking another man’s face in. "Hang on, I see something that looks important."

Tinkerton-G climbed down the pillars undetected and managed to hide behind some decorations so he, Ada, and Luna could listen in.

"I'm telling you, sir, a silvus officer is leading them. I swear!" The man said, on his knees.

"We had a deal with the regiment in this region. Why would they break it now?" one of the slavers asked.

"Did you know what the officer looked like?" The burly man asked as one of his men lighted his cigar.

"I got his full name and rank, Captain Leonard Triferus."

"Never heard of him." The burly man prepared to strike him again with his foot. When Luna heard the name, she immediately knew it was Baldric as it was his fake title he used back then when they were doing bounties in silvus.

"So you are seriously saying one silvus officer managed to take every single one of you down?!"

"There were others! There was a red-headed woman and a GEA centaur as well."

"All you had to do was get more supplies, and you can’t even do that right? Why the hell did you attack the silvus officer first?! You could have bribed them you idiot!"

"We didn’t attack first! It was a little girl that threw a rock, and Howard was the one who fought them! "

"A little girl?! It all started because of a little girl? "

When Luna heard that, she huffed.

Baldric.

"Did they kill everyone?" The burly man walked towards the man who was on his knees.

"No. No one was killed but they were firing these weird bullets that made people freeze in an instant!"

Luna huffed again.

"So everyone is still alive?"

"Yes! I think they are being held in the village!" the man answered him. The leader fired his gun into the air and the whole tavern quieted down.

"Round Up Everyone! Ready the walker, cannons and the combat automatons! Some damn dirty farmer’s think they can capture my brother and think they can get away with it?! We will show them what happens when they try to defend themselves! I want everyone ready to leave in half an hour! We'll strike them at night and make sure to burn that place down to the ground!"

Every soldier in the tavern cheered and raised their mugs as they began to arm up and prepare to leave.

"Luna this is bad."

"Focus G. Can you find where they are keeping the women and children?"

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on stopping them from attacking the village? Baldric and the children are in there.”

"We will, but find the civilians first." Luna could see that the slavers were now coming out of the tavern, with them cheering and boasting about what they would do to the village.