CHAPTER 99: THE CON

After Night spent a few days settling in with the new occupants of the Manco Oasis, the previously beat up looking oasis town was starting to look somewhat recognizable again. Rubble had been removed from the streets and been consolidated in only a few areas of the town. Night had assumed the role of the wealthy family leader that watches others work while he just orders everyone about. His actions were looked on with a bit of disgust by most of the new occupants from Nazca City but they didn't really care....they had all seen this sort of behavior many times.

With all the action in Manco Oasis leveling out at a steady pace, Night decided that it was time to begin the third and final phase of his plan. For that phase, he needed the help of Misery, but that wasn't going as planned. Night was now standing in front of the group of women in his soul trying to bring some reason to Misery.

"Now, Misery....you just need to pretend to be Mateo Manco for a few days while I go out to find some people," Night said.

"I know...but I don't really want to be left here alone," Misery whined, "Can't you just leave Grief here so I have someone to talk with?"

"...ugh..," Night grunted at Misery's complaint

'Why is she being so difficult?,' Night asked himself. He could always force the issue, but he viewed Misery as his friend....he didn't want to force her to do anything.

The main part of his plan revolves around using one of the Keres as place fillers so that he didn't need to be around all the time. Although Night and the Keres were all great fighters, his interaction with people in Nazca City had taught Night one important thing....their ability to manipulate their appearance with a weapon that he didn't use enough.

"Grief is refusing to come out because she doesn't like this place," Night tried to reason with Misery. He didn't want to force Grief because he still felt some lingering guilt over what happened to her in the first place.

"Well then...I'm not staying," Misery said as she crossed her arms and continued to pout.

Night was exasperated. He trusted Misery and Grief the most but they were both refusing to get with the program. Of course, he could use the link to their souls to make them comply....but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

Distress and her 'soldiers' were standing off to the side like they were waiting to be ordered to into battle.

'Could I use them?' Night thought as he began to mentally run through the possibility.

Looking at the militaristic foursome, Night had an idea. Maybe it would work....maybe it wouldn't...he was so aggravated at this point that he really didn't give a fuck.

"Distress, do you think your group could carry out an infiltration mission for me?," Night asked the young woman as he tried to act like one of the military commanders that he had seen on TV years ago.

"Uhhhh..," Distress blurted out as she was caught off guard by his question.

Night took that as a yes and proceeded to spell out his idea. Distress would take her three new subordinates and take over the Manco Oasis. Distress would assume the identity of Mateo Manco and lead the other three disguised women to establish a new set of guards for the oasis town. It could be played off like Mateo was worried about safety because of what happened last time.

After a bit of discussion and a brief test run of Distress playing Mateo as she strolled around town....Night was convinced that this method could actually work.

So...with the management of Manco Oasis in Distress's hands....Night slipped away from the oasis to continue with his plan.

Once Night had gotten about a mile away from the oasis, he decided that it was time to try to find some old friends. Night took out the communication stone that he had been carrying for around nine months. When he originally left the Manco Oasis, he didn't have any luck contacting the Manco Oasis escaped slaves. Now that he had a clear idea of what he wanted to do with his few months of remaining time, Night really needed to find the group of slaves to make everything work.

From his time in Nazca City, Night had found out that there was supposedly a small group of escaped human slaves that had been attacking caravans traveling between different oases. The group was even going by the name the "Noche Bandits." Night made a somewhat vain assumption that this group had named themselves after him because they were grateful....he couldn't help feeling slightly proud that the freed slaves would name their group after him....even if he didn't know he was responsible for the name....or even if it was the correct group...

But without any other option to find the escaped slaves, Night began calling out using the communication stone as he moved in a spiral leaving the town. He figured this approach would be the best to ensure he could reach their communication stone range.

After he was about 10 miles from town, he was starting to give up the hope of finding the escaped slaves. Then...with his perception....he spotted several groups of men quickly traveling across the desert. Because this was the most action he had seen in a while, Night decided to move closer to investigate.

As he approached the groups, he realized that it was actually two groups locked in combat on the backs of allocs. The two different groups seem to make a charge at each other every now and then back off.

Seeing the fight, Night smiled considering his luck. He could almost swear that one of the men from the smaller group was a slave that he had freed from the mines.

Night took off on foot to catch up with the dueling groups of men. As he neared the fight, Night used his concepts to sneak into the group to get some more information on the conflict. From what Night could tell, four of the freed slave bandits had attacked a small group of roaming soldiers. However, the group of four was unable to kill any of the soldiers during the initial surprise attack, so now they were left slightly outnumbered and forced into a drawn-out battle.

'Guess, I can help,' Night thought to himself. It was very easy to help. All the combatants were simply late Foundation Stage soldiers.

Night exerted his Shadow Concept and caused the entire group to go into disarray. None of them could see anything and the allocs became startled. With a quick movement, Night quickly knocked the eight roaming soldiers unconscious and released his Shadow Concept. The four bandits were shocked by the sight of their downed opponents and the man now standing among them.

"Hey, Chuck! Remember me?," Night said as he flashed a grin at the former mine slave that he had once freed.

The bandit was left startled for a second before he responded, "Sir....Sir Night?"

"Yep...Just call me Night...I have been trying to track you guys down. This damn communication stone is worthless," he said with a grin on his face.

The group did the usual exchange between old acquaintances meeting, then they all decided to head back to the bandits' base. Night really needed to talk to the bandit leaders. Before they left, Night had asked the men to gather up the soldiers.....he wanted to question them a bit before they were disposed of properly.

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After about an hours trek through the desert, Night and the bandits arrived at an unassuming patch of the sand. Almost as if sensing their arrival, the ground opened up and revealed an entrance in the side of the sand dune.

'That was pretty cool,' Night thought to himself as he went into the hideout's entrance.

As Night entered, the group was surrounded by quite a large number of other bandits. This group included the two original Demigods and two new Demigods that Night was still trying to recognize. He reached out his soul perception to get an understanding of the group.

Omar, the first Demigod of Earthquake in the group, was now a Level 3 Demigod of Earth. Alek and one of his brother, Erik, were both Level 1 Demigods of Earth. And the unassuming smart kid, Nathan, was also a Level 2 Demigod, but his concept seemed to be related to the Truth of Fire.

"Good. Good. You all seem to be doing well. How is everything going? Omar, Alek, Erik, and Nathan," Night made it a point of addressing the four demigods in the group since he remembered their names. He wanted them to know that he could see right through them.

"Everything was going fine until a few months ago. It was all normal caravans and such until something seemed to change. Then we started getting these groups of soldiers mixed in with everything causing trouble. Luckily, we have been able to survive based on our supplies, but caravans are starting to get a little scarce," Omar said with a bit of tiredness to his voice as he walked over to shake Night's hand.

"Oh.....so what do you all think of moving back to an oasis town?," Night asked catching the entire group of bandits off guard.

Since he now had their attention, Night went on to explain about the Diego Family's conquering of the City of Southern Wind, his alliance with the demons, his recent exploits of freeing the slaves of Piedra Oasis and his plot of recolonizing Manco Oasis. The information was a lot to take in for the bandits and Night was eventually done answering the group's questions after about 2 hours of talking.

"I'm not saying you abandon this location. If you have been hiding away from soldier patrols for this long, then this place does have some wonderful benefit to it. What I am suggesting is that the Noche Bandits and Manco Oasis covertly work together," Night said making an offer.

Some of the escaped slaves seemed interested, but most were hesitant to reestablish any contact with the oasis. Seeing the hesitation, Night laughed and said, "Seems like you all are hesitant. Well...to show my good intentions... Let me help you out." He slid one of the many space rings off his finger and tossed it to Omar.

"Here. This should be enough resources to last at least a year. I want you to take care of yourself, increase your strength and prepare," Night said seriously, "Because of the Diego Family's attack on the City of Southern Wind, I would expect a full-scale war to start at any time."

Despite the worry over the future, a wonderful party was held and both the bandits and Night had a much-needed break from the usual seriousness. Night enjoyed himself a bit too much and eventually found himself having a nice restfully sleep laying in a dark private room carved into the side of a tunnel.

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The next day, Night held a meeting with Omar and the three other Demigods over another plan that he had running. He explained how Manco Oasis was being redeveloped and that he was manipulating a few things behind the scenes. To the four demigod bandits, Night had two requests.

The first request was to secretly reopen a passageway to their hideout to Manco Oasis in the mines. This request had some push back from the Greenland Brothers, but Nathan understood the plan. Night wanted to fake like slaves were dying in the mines in order to justify ordering more slaves from Nazca City. In reality, the slaves would be brought away to freedom.

While he was in Nazca City, Night had found out that the Diego Family on Earth had suffered a few setbacks from other clans because their practice of selling slaves was somehow uncovered. The supply of slaves from Earth had slowed to a trickle, but there were numerous native slaves available for purchase. These native slaves included human slaves born on this planet, captured demons and enslaved intelligent beasts. Night wanted as many slaves as he could get to increase the number of freed slaves. He wanted them to be free before any war started. The need for slaves also gave him the chance to have continued interaction with Nazca City.

The second request to the bandits was to cooperate with him on attacks between the Manco Oasis and Nazca City. Night had made several connections in the city that had agreed to ship him additional supplies in exchange for heavenly stones. With the cooperation of the bandits, Night realized he could pull off one of the greatest con jobs ever. He would order supplies from Nazca City then provide the bandits with information on the shipment...so that they could hijack the shipment with ease. He even planned to attack his own caravans to cover up his involvement.

If it was one of Night's heavenly stones shipments to sellers, he would use to chance to kill off a few of Manco Oasis soldiers, set free some slaves, and of course...he would get his heavenly stones back.

If it was a shipment from a supplier, then he would demand that they reship at no additional charge. He would not pay for goods that he never received. So in the end, he was actually getting double the supplies.

Getting a good chuckle out of the idea, the Noche Bandits agreed. It was the start of a beautiful working relationship.....and an epic scam with Nazca City and the Diego Family as the suckers.