"So, why are you trying to see this princess chick?" the Halfling woman, Stella as she'd introduced herself, asked Markus while they waited in a small yet fancifully decorated parlor.

"Picked up a job at the Hunter's Guild," Markus told her. "Seemed like it would be easy work to do. That or it would end with her sending me away like she did the other's that tried to take her job."

"What's that mean?" Stella asked.

"Apparently, the Princess keeps sending people that accept the job away, telling them that they're not what she's looking for to complete it," Markus said. "It's been a fixture on the Guild's board for a while. Enough time that the secretaries started a betting pool."

"Wow," Stella said. "What's the payment look like?"

"No idea," Markus told her. "The sheet didn't say any amount of coin, just that we'd have to talk with the Princess about it."

"Any idea how much longer we're waiting for her?" Stella asked after a moment of silence.

"Nope," Markus answered. "Could be hours, could be minutes. She could be watching and judging us or she could have just started a bubble bath when we showed up. All I know is that the Palace Guards told us to wait here for her and I'm not about to face off with guys that have four inches and at least thirty pounds of muscle on me, just because I got bored waiting for the Princess."

"I don't blame you for not wanting to face those Guards," Stella agreed. "Don't think I've seen anyone decked out in such clearly enchanted armor while I've been here. Nevermind that it was all full-plate armor."

"Our kingdom's Artisans show their national pride in so many interesting ways," a woman's voice, soft and soothing yet firm and clear, told them before Markus could speak. Belatedly, he moved to his feet and faced toward the voice to see who had spoken.

A Human woman stood just inside the closing doors with two others behind her, both of them dressed as servants. She had honey-colored hair that was pinned carefully behind her ears, leaving her face unobstructed as it fell in loose, natural curls down her back. Her eyes reminded Markus so much of chocolate as she looked at him that he nearly drowned in their dark depths. Her skin showed that she had spent much time in the sun and she offered him a smile as he forgot everything he was told by the Guards to do when the Princess arrived. Her smile only made his mind blank further. Undoubtedly, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and it showed.

"Princess Marianne?" Stella asked as she stood next to Markus and attempted to stamp on his foot.

"That is me," the Princess said with a smile toward the red-headed Halfling. "Who might I be speaking to?"

"I'm Stella," she answered. "The lump was Markus, but I think he's gone dumb. Could be anyone now."

"It is a pleasure to meet the both of you," the Princess said as she approached the couch across from them and sat while her servants took up position standing behind her. "I was informed that you are here for the Job I offered the Hunter's Guild. Is this something you are still interested in?"

"I am," Stella said. "Give me a moment with Markus here before we continue."

"Of course," the Princess nodded. "Do you need me to leave the room?"

"Nope." Stella said, grabbing one of Markus' hands and doing her best to drag him from the room. After a moment of tugging, the young man followed after her, nearly stumbling. Once out in the hall and the doors having shut, Stella jumped up and with a heavy pull of her arm, cracked Markus across the face.

"Snap out of it!" she hissed at him as the Guards, more of them than before, tensed at her sudden violence. "So what if she's pretty! That's no reason to stand there like an idiot! You came here for a Job you said, so get in there and discuss the Job's details! Or do I have to grab you by the balls and drag you around?"

"You didn't have to hit me," Markus said blearily. "I think you knocked a tooth loose."

"I'll do worse than that if you don't get it together," Stella promised. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Markus said. "Felt like I'd seen her before."

"Because they probably modeled certain characters after celebrities and models!" she told him, dropping her voice in an attempt to not be heard by the Guards around them. "Don't freeze up like that again in there! Just get the Job's information, tell her what you have to, and get out. Simple!"

"Right, sorry," Markus said "I'm good now. Let's get back in there and do this."

"Thank you," Stella said. "Don't freeze up again or I'll hit you in front of your new crush this time."

"Is everything alright?" the Princess asked as they reentered the room.

"Of course," Markus offered her a reassuring smile as he and Stella approached the couch they'd vacated. "I'd never seen such a beautiful woman before and I was considering becoming a bard to spread word of your beauty further across the world."

"Oh boy," Stella muttered to herself so quietly that Markus barely heard her.

"Unfortunately, just as Stella was pulling me into the hall, I remembered that I can't carry a tune for the life of me and I'd probably just end up confusing people if I tried a new career path," Markus said.

"I feel quite lucky then, that you decided to continue your current career," the Princess said with a smile of her own.

"And speaking of that career," Markus said, leaning forward, his voice losing its levity, "could you tell me more about the Job you want me to do Princess? The posting on the Board was light on details and if I don't know what you're looking to learn, I can't help you."

"Most of the other Guild members at this point spoke of rewards, not the Job's details," she said, looking at Markus as though deciphering him.

"I'd rather know what I'm doing before I try to ask about money," he told her bluntly. "Let's me know if you're trying to kill me in a roundabout way or not. All money tells me is that you're willing to pay well. And that won't matter if I can't do the Job."

"Several days before I posted the Job," the Princess began, "a group of children went missing from one of the villages that pay their taxes to us. Members of the Army's Scouting and Investigative Division, determined that the children were no longer in the area and they had lost their trail. I posted the Job, thinking that perhaps this was the work of cultists or even slave traders. Then, one month after the children had gone missing, another village lost their children. Again, members of the Army investigated and found nothing. Since then, each month, a village loses its children in a single night and they are never seen again. Each time there is no trail and each time there is nothing we can do to help them. The kingdom has already lost too many children and, from the grief of that loss, we've lost several villages that are critical to our kingdom's food production."

"And what exactly do you want us to do?" Markus asked.

"I want you to investigate these events as best you're able to, and either report your findings back to me, or end these happenings," the Princess said firmly, her mouth set into a line. "Should you succeed, I offer to you a sum of fifty Bronze coins, training with the instructors of the Royal Guard, and an item of your choice created to your specifications by our Royal Artisans."

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Job Updated

Information Wanted: You have spoken to the Princess Marianne and she has informed you of several villages that have lost their children. The Princess has tasked you with uncovering who is taking these children, where they are now, and either informing her of their location or stopping them yourself.

Reward: 50 Bronze coins; Training with Royal Guard Instructors; Personalized item made by Royal Artisan.

"Fifty Bronze doesn't seem like that much," Stella said.

"It really is actually," Markus told her before the Princess could speak. "Plus, think about it. Royal Guard Instructors will train us if we finish this and we'll get items for us made by Royal Artisans. This Job isn't paying in Silver like some of the others I saw. It's practically paying in Gold. And if Gold coins do the way I think they do, that's a hundred Silver per Gold."

"Are you saying that it's a hundred Copper to one Iron?" Stella hissed under her breath at him as he finished speaking. "You mean I got ripped off by one of those scammers in the city with the food carts!?"

"I'll explain in a minute," Markus promised before turning back to the Princess. "Can you offer any information about the missing children or the villages? Potentially where the next one's might go missing from?"

"I'm afraid not," the Princess shook her head sadly.

"Can I see a map of the kingdom, some see-through paper, a pencil, a ruler, and a list of the affected villages?" Markus asked. "And I'll need the map to have the villages marked on it."

"Jess," Princess Marianne turned her head and spoke to one of her servants.

"Right away, Your Highness," she said with a simple curtsy before leaving the room. A few minutes later she returned and offered the items to Markus.

"Thank you," he said, placing the map on the cleaned center table. "Stella, can you tell me which villages we're looking for?"

"Sure," she said as he placed the thin paper over the map and prepared the pencil and ruler. "Do you want the first one first?"

"No," he said. "Let's just go down the list and see if I'm thinking on the right track for this stuff."

"Looking for a pattern?" she asked, picking up the list.

"Exactly," Markus answered. "Fire away."

"Abby's Village, Charlieville, Falcon's Flight, Stork's Rest, and Travellerton," Stella read the list off. "That's all on the list here."

"Okay," Markus said, placing marks where the villages were on the map, before outlining them in a circle that encompassed them all. "Now, what's the order?"

"Charlieville, Travellerton, Abby's Village, Stork's Rest, and Falcon's Flight," she said "Looks like Abby's Village was the first one to disappear after the kids went missing. Falcon's Flight was the next and the others are all on the way there."

"If things work out for us, then we can keep them around," Markus said, drawing lines across the map from village to village. As he drew, he noticed that several of the lines seemed to come close to one another at one place on the map.

"What's here?" he asked the Princess tapping the spot.

"That is the location of the Merkona Swamp," the Princess told him as she looked at the map. "None of the trails that lead out of the villages went toward it though."

"Which ways did they go?" Markus asked, readying his pencil.

"I don't know," the Princess said. "Ellen, please go and fetch Major Albricht."

With a nod and a curtsy, the second servant left the room quickly and returned after a few minutes with the man in question.

"You wished to see me, Princess Marianne?" the uniformed man asked with a bow as he entered the room.

"Please tell this man which directions the missing children were taken," she told him, waving her hand toward Markus.

With a nod, the man approached Markus and began to point at the map and detailing the trails that had been tracked by the Army's scouts when they investigated.

"Thank you, sir," Markus said as he marked those trails himself. "And you're sure that the directions are right?"

"I am," the Major said bluntly as he watched Markus carefully fill in the trails on his paper.

"Do you see it?" he asked Stella, offering the paper to her.

"The trails all lead almost directly away from the swamp," she said. "You want to start looking there?"

"I do," he nodded. "Especially because it looks like the only two villages in the area that can still be hit are here and here."

Stella nodded as he pointed them out before she looked at the Major.

"What are the chances that you can send some people to these two villages to keep an eye out while we make our way to the swamp?" she asked him.

"None," the Princess said, her voice taking on a horrified note as she spoke. "If the pattern is repeating itself, then the children of either village will disappear tonight."

"Even if I send my fastest men, they'll still arrive by morning at the earliest," the Major nodded, his face taking a sour note. "The best I can offer are mounts from my personal stable to carry the two of you toward the swamp with all haste. Come to the West Yard, I'll inform a guard to guide you while I prepare the mounts for the journey."

Spinning on his heel, the Major left the room with a hurried bow to the Princess as she waved him off.

"Jesse, inform the Alchemists that I require multiple Potions of Healing be prepared and packaged for travel through a swamp," the Princess said quickly as she stood, prompting Markus and Stella to rise as well. "Inform them that I will not take no for an answer. Ellen, find General Smith and bring him to me, I'm going to the king's study to inform him of what I feel must be done. Markus, Stella, please make all haste toward the Merkona Swamp and I pray you arrive in time to save the children. Good luck."

"Thank you, Princess Marianne," Markus said as they both bowed toward the woman. "Let's go Stella."

Stepping out into the hall, a guard approached the two of them quickly and spoke.

"Please follow me," he said, offering a salute to the Princess as she rushed out of the room and down the hall. "The Major was very clear as he tore through here."

Practically running at the sense of urgency that seemed to fill them, Markus and Stella followed the guard as he took them through the halls of the palace before he lead them through a pair of double doors that were opened to reveal even more people rushing around as a pair of large reptiles were saddled securely by the Major as he barked orders and saddle-bags were packed.

"You're here," he said as he tightened a final strap and turned to them. "Good. Halfling, you'll be on Naroo, she's smaller and faster than Garun so it's for the best, you'll be able to move across the canopy if the trees are close enough together. Human, Garun's yours for this. Now, both of you listen to me. A breeding pair of Isle Monitors like these are rare as can be this close to the center of the continent. Get them hurt and I'll take it threefold out of your hides. Understand me?"

"Yessir," Markus and Stella answered the man's question as his eye took on a violent note as he made his promise.

"Good," he nodded. "Isle Monitors are fast, hardy creatures on land, but where they thrive is in swamps. They'll get you to the Swamp by midnight and they'll keep you from being swallowed by the waters as you move through it. Don't let them run away from you and things'll work out for you all. Good luck."

"Thank you," Markus said as he approached the larger of the two massive reptiles. "Garun, right? I'm Markus. Help me out with this and I'll make sure the Major treats you to your favorite food. Deal?"

As though understanding him, the massive salamander eyed him critically before blinking at him and flicking a tongue out to taste the air. Deciding it liked what it smelled, the beast seemed to squat lower toward the ground for him.

"Thanks buddy," Markus said, climbing easily into the saddle. "Reminds me of my grandfather's horse farm."

"I don't think mine likes me," Stella said as she eyed the other one warily. "Wanna switch?"

"She knows you're nervous," Markus told her. "Offer the back of your hand and ask if you can climb into the saddle. Have you ever ridden a horse before?"

"Never seen anything bigger than a Husky," she said as she followed his advice. "Never thought I'd have to worry about this sort of thing."

"It's easy," Markus assured her as the other Isle Monitor lowered itself to the ground for Stella, still eyeing her as warily as she eyed the beast. "Even my buddy Pear can do it and he's terrible on a horse. Managed to fall off a really gentle one that was standing still everytime he shifted in the saddle for a while."

"That doesn't inspire confidence," the Halfling woman said as she settled into the saddle and gripped the horn.

"Take the reins and hold them loosely," Markus told her as the Major offered them to her. "I'll lead and she should follow Garun. If it's standard training, then you'll use your thighs to guide her. Squeeze them together or press one into her side and it'll tell her which way to go."

"What?"

"Come on, let's go," Markus said. "We don't have that much time."

With audible hisses, the two salamanders set out at a steady pace while the Halfling woman tightened her grip on the saddle in front of her and Markus moved easily with the mount's motion as they set out from the city.