Felicity’s Shop of Wonders is the first place I head, as suggested by Abuza. Right around the corner and halfway down the street, I step up the three stairs onto the porch and close my eyes, expanding my senses. Something had once been here, I could feel, but I couldn’t specify what or when.

Opening my eyes, I look around in hopes of finding something, but nothing sticks out to me in particular. Not finding a trace of any hair or hide out of place, I push open the shop’s door, the bell above tinkling my arrival, and step through. Gently, I let the door slide closed and look around.

As always, her shop intrigues me, but I don’t have time to window shop. Vance will start to get uppity if I keep him waiting much longer, and I only want to get a good idea of what happened before looking into things deeper with my magic senses.

“G’mornin dearest Sifa!” a thin woman, probably twice my age, says as she struts over, three different vials of who knows what in hand. “Could I interest you in laurelblood, seasoned albrosian, or evendew today?”

I wave the products away. “Not today.” Or ever, I silently add. Whatever she put in those sets my senses on edge. “Abuza told me about the missing goods, so I wanted to ask if you found anything that would help me track down the culprit.”

“So no charmberry cookies today either? I can’t help but notice you came without that handsome young fellow today.”

I pointedly ignore that.

Out of the corner of my vision, a tincture drips into a cage with some kind of scaled rodent. It sniffs once, laps up the small blob, and then falls over dead.

I look at the vials in the shopkeeper’s hand with renewed concern. “Are those safe?”

Felicity looks at the vials and then shrugs. “Maybe?” Her face breaks into a grin. “I’ll give you a discount if you buy all three. Maybe don’t mix them together though.”

“To each their own,” I say. If someone bought them without knowing what they were getting into, can’t fault her for earning her keep. Doesn’t mean I want anything to do with that particular mixture. “What can you tell me about the stolen goods?”

The shopkeeper puts the vials on a shelf alongside other also nameless vials and then crosses her arms. She shrugs again. “Dunno.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded. “What?”

She lifts a hand to eye level and looks over her nails, completely ignoring my inquiry. “Dunno.”

“You gonna keep giving me a hard time?” I ask. When she stares at me over her well-maintained fingernails, I roll my eyes. “Not my problem then. Good luck!”

“Do tell me if you change your mind about the cookies!” she shouts after me.

Making my way out the door, I wave over my shoulder and hold back a sigh. Felicity. What a character. Hit or miss, and endlessly greedy. I figured such would be the case the second Abuza mentioned her, but I had hoped.

“Let’s see if Butch will be more helpful,” I grumble, doing my best not to stomp my way across the street. “Hey Butch! You got a sec’?”

The sound of a cleaver’s chop accelerating met me as I rounded the corner to Butch’s Alleyway Butchery. A weird place to do business, I say, but the front of the shop was where they did their real business.

“Didn’t see nuffin, Missus Sifa,” a burly boy a few years younger than I called back, his head peering over the counter at me. Probably twice my size, the boy waved with hands like meaty bear paws. Made him good at his job, all that muscle. “Pops mighta. Be needin’ me to run back to check?”

“If you’d ever so kindly.” I give him a soft smile, and the boy nearly falls over, swooning. “Thanks, Butch.”

“Yes, Missus Sifa, you’re ever so welcome.” He grabs a bloody rag from who knows where to ineffectively wipe his hands then disappears through the door leading inside.

Splayed out on the counter, there’s gator bone, jarred eyeballs, Lenartzin cores aplenty, claw, tooth, and so on and so forth. Despite the boy’s looks, his meticulous nature really impresses each time I see his work. Not an ounce of waste when he puts himself to a task.

I spend a minute admiring their product while waiting. There’ll be a good few packages of their meats in the pile Vance is currently loading without me, but it’s somehow more impactful spread out across a counter than bundled into a cart.

“Ey, Sifa, need extra teeth today?” Butch the Third, father of Butch the Fourth, brother of Birch the Wanderer, emerges from his back room with a wide grin.

“Not today, Big B. I’m after information.”

“Bout the thief?”

“Aye, so you’ve heard?” I thumb behind me towards Felicity’s and grumble, “Just came this way and hoped you'd be more useful than her.”

His sardonic grin is all-knowing. Stroking his chest-length beard, he nods wisely. “One should not entertain donkeys, you know?”

“Do I?”

“You should by now.” His smirk peeves me, but I can’t disagree. I did know better. “All I know ‘bout the thief is they have a hankering for gator stock, not actual thick and juicy.”

My nose turns up. “Yuck.”

“That’s what I said,” young Butch agrees, pinching his nose and playfully gagging. “Weird ones, they be.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Can’t imagine what they’d want gator stock for. Not good for nothin’ but slop. Even the vultures avoid the stuff,” Big B said, scratching his head. “I just hope they’re okay, ‘cause it seems to me they might be a bit confused.”

I ponder what they said for a few seconds before looking over at the stock bucket. “Is that where they took it from before?”

“Psh, heck naw, Missus Sifa,” young Butch nearly shouted. “I’d never keep that stink near me and my work, nope. Never, ever.” He holds out his hand for mine, face red.

Big B gives me another knowing grin and covers his mouth to stifle the barely contained laughter. He gestures us off, and I begrudgingly take young Butch’s dirty hands. Ew. He leads me away from the alleyway, out the back, and down a worn path away from the small town.

I’m impressed and say as much, “You really come out all this way to keep the gator stock from stinking up your pop’s shop?”

He shakes his head. “Naw, Missus Sifa. I bring it out here to keep it from stinkin’ up the whole town. Pops tanned my hide the last time I didn’t take it out far enough, sayin’ I shoulda known better. Not like I meant to, and surely didn’t appreciate waking up to the smell of… Well, you know.”

“I don’t and hope to never find out.” I’m not sure why we still held hands, but I didn’t think too hard on it and just let myself be led in hopes of finding some answers. If I don’t hurry up a bit, Vance will get impatient and come looking soon. “How much farther?”

Young Butch points. “Just down yonder, Missus Sifa.”

Surely enough, the closer we got, the worse the smell. A stench so bad, I nearly gag. The enhanced smell rune really isn’t doing me any favors, and I kill any and all power running to it. Temporarily, at least.

Sure enough, an outline fitting the bucket’s bottom had indented the ground and left an imprint. “Thanks, Butch. I'll be good from here, so go on and head back.”

“You sure, Missus Sifa?”

Pitiful is all I could describe the hopeful, pleading eyes that stare back at me. I nod, and as if his soul is extinguished, he nods and turns away, slumped as he walks back the way we came.

What a sweet kid, though I’d be a lot happier without the infatuation. Then again, I am pretty awesome. He isn’t the first, definitely won’t be the last.

Now free of the awkwardness of interacting with other people, I look around and easily find hints of someone, or something, passing through the area. Specifically, faint footprints lead away toward the less-populated section of town, before disappearing in the chaos of others’ passage.

“Hmm, what to do?” I ponder, but the steadily rising frostsun beckons my return back to Vance.

“Hey…” a timid voice calls, and I turn on my feet in a stance, prepared to defend myself. A pretty thing, a girl older than I but far less confident in stature, waves sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” She bows. “I pay my respects to the Servant.”

“Please don’t bother with all the formality,” I grumble, heart nearly jumping out of my chest.

Battlelust races through my veins, as does shame. I hadn’t heard her following us until she spoke. Deactivating my scent rune must have weakened the whole sensory formation. I hastily release the hold on its energy flow, restoring it to full strength.

“What can I help you with?” I ask, barely maintaining my calm.

Her cheeks redden as she chews on her lip. “Vance… Did he come with you today?”

“What?” I can’t help but grumble. “That’s what you’re out here for?” I shake my head. “Go back to the town, head to the waiting supply depot, and then search there. You might be able to find him if you hurry.”

“I-I know that’s where you stage, but I… He hasn’t contacted me since I saw him last,” she said, barely more than a whisper. She rests a hand on her stomach and looks away. “I-I need you to tell him something for me.”

The pieces snap together, and I hold back the urge to drag her to the supply depot myself, have him kneel before her, and then smack him for playing around with the mundane locals. “Go tell him yourself. Integration Code three-nine-six, all Unruned of familial orientation, by blood or covenant, will be accepted under the responsibility of the Runic disciple.”

“I know the codes!” the girl nearly shrieks, eyes glaring at me. “But…”

Something seems off, so I try a new approach. I take a soft step towards her and reach out a hand, not moving too fast so as to not frighten her. “Hey, it’s okay. Wh-what’s your name?”

“It’s Tu-Tulia…”

“Well, Tulia, let’s go to the supply depot together, okay?” I ask, wondering if I could convince her to make her way there where I could have a few others help me out. “We’ll be able to get you help for whatever’s going on there.”

“I just wanted to ask you… has he mentioned me since last time?”

My heart breaks. If I don’t know of her, nobody would. Vance and I aren’t remotely close to being friends, but we work together enough to be well acquainted with each others’ lives. Whatever she thought they’d had, it likely didn’t exist. Vance doesn’t talk to anybody more than me, meaning…

I don’t know what to say.

“I see,” she says, nodding. “It’s okay. I expected as much.” Her head drops. “Please tell him to come see me next time, just as a friend.”

She turns away, and I reach out to grab her. But her form blurs in a way my eyes can’t track, and then she’s gone. Completely, utterly gone. I try to track her magic presence, but none remains. I look around, but even the ground beneath her feet tells me nothing.

“How…?” Nothing remained of her presence, yet I knew exactly what I’d seen and heard. “I guess there’s only one way of knowing. I’ll have to talk with Vance… at some point.”

Anyways, back to what I was doing before… whatever that had been. There’s a faint trace of a presence, one familiar but not distinct enough to identify, and I call it a day there. The acts of petty theft seemed harmless enough, and Vance really will come looking any moment now if I didn’t return.

A problem for future-me, I suppose.

Turning away from the two odd mysteries, I jog away and back towards where I left Vance with the supply wagon.

I know Vance won't be too pleased with me for immediately running off when we arrived at Lenartzin Bend, and I’m sure he'll give me an earful about it once I show myself.

But I'm not even halfway to the depot before I sense a ripple. Nothing urgent, nothing major, the sort of thing that even I would generally ignore. But, with Abuza’s recent warning about trouble ringing in my head and the odd interaction with Tulia, I decide the detour could be worth pursuing.

Even if Vance has to wait a little longer. I’m sure it’ll be okay. No need to rush back.

I slow my steps and reach a hand out to either side. Allowing my arms to drift, I slowly turn until the ripple of recent magical disturbance flows smoothly around me. Upstream is where I'll find the source of the anomaly. I turn to follow.

The trail fades almost immediately. Beside one of the single-story urkas, the trail of magic no longer leads forward. It's so faint, it takes me almost a minute to realize it abruptly shifted upwards.

On the roof? Makes sense for a thief.

I launch myself upwards, nimble as a gymnast, catch the edge of the roof, and flip myself atop it. Yes. This is the trail, stronger here away from the muddying presence of anyone else. It leads across the roof in rapid bounds, far too quick and light to be anything but a child.

There isn't excessive poverty in this region, so I'm curious what would drive a child to thievery on the scale that would be noticed. A few things here and there, sure, but enough that Abuza assumes it to be a raid? Not to mention the obscure nature of some of the thefts.

No. Something's not right here. The ripples grow stronger as I think that, my perception attuning better to its reason. Someone has been acting out of desperation. But a small desperation. The kind of desperation that remains entirely localized. Not one that will cause wars, only the most mild of chaos.

Still, I feel compelled to continue investigating. Even if not for the specific request, desperation is never a good thing to ignore.