Nym waited for Analia to explain. Instead, she just glared at him. When he didn’t say anything, she said, “I don’t need your help with this.”

“Didn’t say you did. Just wanted to know what’s going on.”

The glare faltered, and she said, “It’s complicated.”

“Okay. Are you going to be in any trouble for this?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not with the law or anything. They’re criminals, so it’s not like they’ll go running to the bluehats.”

“And… what is a bluehat?” Nym asked.

“Local version of the city watch or guard. Look, I’m kind of busy right now. Did you need something?”

“Nothing pressing,” Nym said. He noticed one of the men, the one she’d pelted with a giant hailstone, was climbing back to his feet. “You want me to get that for you, or…?”

“No, I’ve got this,” she said. Arcana flowed out of her into a paralysis construct that struck the man. “So why’re you in the city? You’re a few days early.”

“Oh, just doing a favor for someone and needed Cern’s help. I’ve got a job way up north to take care of, so I’m going to be gone for a bit. Hopefully not too long. Depends on how the searching goes. Could be a week. Could be months.”

“Oh. I can’t… it’s a really bad time.” Analia glanced over at the four men. “Want to help me bust up a local gang of smugglers?”

“You don’t need any help. You just told me.”

“Don’t be a jerk. That was before I knew you were going to be gone for a while. I have to take care of this, so come with me and we can spend some time together before you go.”

“Okay, as long as it’s really quick. I have to get back to the workshop to be the arcana battery for Cern in a few minutes.”

“I don’t know if it’ll be that fast. I’ll just send him a message and tell him I’m borrowing you.”

The spell formed around Analia, but then unraveled before it could finish. “Huh, that’s odd,” she said.

“Oh, there’s anti-messaging wards. No wonder you weren’t answering me,” Nym said. “One second.”

He sent a kinetic slash through the wall, destroying one of the runes in the sequence that was lining the room. A few more slashes went out in various spots, mostly randomly. He wasn’t worried about explosive feedback in a place like this, and he doubted the runes were boobytrapped. “Try now,” he said.

A second message formed, and this one shot out as intended. “Okay, that’s done. Let me catch you up on what’s going on here,” she told him. She gestured to the men, “These four guys are known as the Green Beach Gang. They like to run a route from Shu-Ain across the archipelago and up to the continent.”

“Okay, I’m with you so far. I’m guessing you have a problem with them.”

“Not so much me, but they like to use mules to get the product through the city rather than do it themselves. They can be really aggressive in their recruitment methods, and they absolutely love to target the really, really young kids to do it. I’m talking about kids that are younger than seven.”

“I’m familiar with the tactic,” Nym said, his face darkening. When he’d been living on the streets in Abilanth, there were a number of the smallest kids who’d done similar work. They were exploited to the extreme and the job had a high mortality rate, not because they were often caught, but because the types of criminals who used them as mules usually killed them to maintain their operational security.

“So my neighbor has two kids, both in the age range. Both are missing, and these guys are being uncooperative about telling me where they send their mules.”

“What’s the next step in your plan?” Nym asked.

“Ask them some more questions. Get mean about it if I have to.”

“Do you speak the language now? You’ve only been here a few weeks.”

Analia shrugged. “I’m conversant, I guess? Translation spells help bridge the gaps.”

“Well by all means,” Nym said with a gesture.

Analia started speaking in halting Byramese, helped by a bridge of arcana linking her to the one she’d pelted with ice. She released him from the paralysis spell while she talked, and when the man pulled himself back to his feet, Nym readied a greater telekinesis spell just in case he needed to grab the criminal.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He also cast the truth seeking spell he’d picked up from Analia’s brother so long ago, though he wasn’t sure if it would work when he didn’t understand what was being said. The two chattered back and forth, tempting Nym to cast his own translation spell, but he didn’t want to interfere with her connection. She hadn’t included him in it, possibly because her second circle version wasn’t strong enough to add extra people.

Truth seeking pinged off something the man said, though Nym wasn’t sure what. “What did he just say?” Nym interrupted.

“Hmm? He said he doesn’t know where the alchemists who supply them make ocean tears at.”

“He’s lying.”

“Is he? That’s very interesting.” Analia said something else to the man in a much harsher tone and he paled.

Nym didn’t understand the words, but he knew vigorous and frightened denial when he saw it. Whatever the man knew, he knew what was going to happen to him if he told Analia about it. There was of course the obvious intimidation tactic to that: what Analia was going to do to him if he didn’t talk. Just the body language alone was enough for him to read that exchange.

It probably helped give her argument weight when she started forming new hailstones in the air, each one the size of her fist and spiked like a sea urchin. They hovered with an application of telekinesis, slowly bobbing up and down in a very deliberate and controlled manner. Nym had to admire the sheer performance of the threat, even if she wouldn’t go through with it.

That admiration turned to shock when two of the spiky ice balls shot through the air and struck the man in the chest. The ice had no problem piercing the cloth of his shirt and he started bleeding immediately. He opened his mouth to scream, and she slipped a gag of air in.

“Huh. That’s… vicious.”

“He deserves it,” she said without turning to look away from the man. Two new spiked ice stones formed in the air to replace the ones she’d struck him with. She said something else, and the man whimpered before reluctantly talking.

“Lying that time?” she asked.

“No,” Nym said. “That one you hit with a force lance is trying to use magic though. I’ll take care of it.”

He fired off a few second circle arcana injections, completely breaking up the spell and causing the man to shriek in surprise and pain. Nym wrapped him in greater telekinesis and brought him over to the other two. “Would it be better to question this guy without the other ones in the room? Might talk more freely without the audience.”

“Good idea. Will you hold them in the back room please?”

“Sure.”

Nym lifted all three of them up and floated them out of the main room. He leaned in the door frame where he could keep an eye on them while still watching the interrogation. Analia didn’t have to hit the man again while she was questioning him, but on three different occasions truth speaker pinged and he raised a finger to signal to her that he was lying.

Finally, she ran out of questions and told Nym, “I think we’re done here.”

“What are we doing with them?”

“Should kill them. They deserve it. It’ll make problems for people I care about if I let them live.” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t suppose you picked up anything for erasing memories.”

“I’ve been a lot more focused on restoring them,” Nym told her dryly.

She let out a quiet little huff of a laugh. “That’s fair. No real choice then.”

“You could turn them over to the, what did you call them, the bluehats?”

“I might as well just kill them myself. That’s likely what’ll happen when their boss finds out they talked, even if they’re in jail.”

“So they need to disappear,” Nym said. “Not necessarily killed, but… not here.”

“Anywhere else you send them, they’ll just cause problems there,” she said. “They’re thieves, slavers, and murderers. They deserve death.”

“Up to you. I did see a few smaller islands in the chain that didn’t have people on them. We could add four people to the island’s population.”

“Can you get them there in under five minutes?”

“Ehhhh… maybe ten? I won’t be able to teleport them directly there, but I can fly them over.”

She considered it for a minute, then gave a short nod. “Okay, let’s do that. You’ll be using that overland flight spell?”

“Yeah. Otherwise it’ll take me over an hour.”

“You do that. I’ll go ahead.”

Nym wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but Analia didn’t look like she was in the mood to argue. “Where should I meet you at?”

“They keep the kids in one of two places,” she explained. “The first is the place where they make ocean tears. That’s the location this guy didn’t want to give up. It’s outside the city, on the north coast of the island. That way they don’t have to worry about smuggling in the narosin coral they use for it. It’s all manufactured in a hidden villa where they keep a stable of kids to smuggle the stuff into Shu-Ain.

“Once the kids have run the first leg, the shipments get split up. Some of it stays local, or gets loaded onto small boats to be moved to other nearby islands, but the bulk majority of it goes overseas to other countries where it’s far, far more profitable to sell. This is the part where the kids are needed. Despite the lax attitude of the city, they do not joke around about their customs. Ships are rigorously inspected, and ocean tears are very illegal.

“The ocean tears get sealed up, the kids are forced to swallow them, and then they go on the ships to be used as living transport containers. The smugglers will get the tears back out, one way or another, well before they reach the port of destination. Usually the kid doesn’t survive the trip.”

“Why use kids though?” Nym asked.

Analia shrugged. “Easier to control. Easier to threaten. Disposable. Cheaper than a slave.”

Nym turned to look at the man she’d been questioning. “And these guys are part of it?”

“They work as handlers. They kidnap the kids, coerce them into doing the runs, keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t lose the product. Unfortunately, killing them wouldn’t even be a blip in the operation. It’s so big, with so many people doing exactly what this group is.”

The more she talked, the quieter and angrier she got. “I don’t have time to talk about this anymore,” she said. “Moda and Shan could already have their guts full of pellets. They could be getting loaded onto a ship right now. I’ve got to go.”

“Let me drop a heavy paralysis on all of them, blind them too. We’ll go together. When we’re done, we can come back and deal with them.”

She bit her lip, but nodded. “Nym, you know I’m going to be killing people today, right?”

“I know. Have you ever killed someone before?”

Analia shook her head. “I don’t want to. But for this, to stop it, I will.”

“I’ll help,” he said simply.

“Thank you.”