My initial thought after visiting Dunlin and Khatur was to return home. Evening was fast approaching, the light was fading, what there was of it to start with, and crowds were starting to appear on the street. They were leaving work, some heading back to their homes, others making their way to cafes and restaurants and clubs. Back on the thoroughfare, the trolleys were packed. It was standing room only on the one I boarded.

I decided against it. It was still early enough that I could continue to look into the case, and I did have one lead that I could chase down, despite the time of the day. Instead of stopping off at Baybury, my level of the city, I rode the trolley down a couple more levels, to Heathpool. It was still a respectable, middle class area, inhabited mostly by humans and dwarves, not much different than Baybury.

It was also home to the Blue Butterfly nightclub. If I could find anything out about the location of Stefan Rex, it would be there, as he had played there often in the old days. I had spent many an evening back then, watching him play while nursing a drink or two.

There was already quite a crowd gathering as I entered, humans, dwarves and many others mingling together. A band played up on the stage, the trumpet and the piano leading a swinging tune, one that you could tap your foot to, while out on the floor before it couples danced and swivelled about, enjoying the evening out.

I crossed over to the bar, picking my way through the crowd. "A shot of Tennerson," I ordered, placing a couple of coins down on it.

The barkeep pulled out a glass and a bottle of clear liquid, pouring a drink for me.

"I'm looking for Stefan Rex, Charlie," I told the barkeep as he pushed the glass across to me.

"You and me both, pal," the barkeep replied, his voice deep and rumbling.

Nobody could pronounce his real name, so they had settled on Charlie as it was as close as they could manage. He was of some species I had never encountered before or since. It may be that he is the only of his kind that has found their way to Spire, which I would imagine must be a lonely way to live. He seemed to be some form of reptilian creature, short but broad in stature, with scales instead of skin. They were mostly green, edged with purple. He had no hair on his head. Instead what he had was a ridge of horns, starting off dark red towards the front and fading into deep purples the further back that they went. A pair of deep yellow eyes looked at me as I took the glass. He was an odd, though well known, sight in the Blue Butterfly.

"Not here then?"

"Hasn't been here for a number of months. Just up and vanished one day and no one knows what happened to him. Shame really. Best bandsman we ever had. This lot are good but they ain't no Stefan Rex."

I nodded as I turned to look at the band, my drink in hand. I took a sip from it as I watched them. So, Stefan Rex had disappeared as well, if not as recent as Hanes had. "Any word on where he might be?"

"You could try Graveside."

I turned back to Charlie. The district of Groveside was known to most as Graveside, so called as it housed large tracts of cemeteries, mausoleums and other places of burial.

"So, the rumours are true then, about him being dead."

"In a manner of speaking, yeah."

"One of the Departed?" I asked before taking a sip of the clear, smooth liquid in my glass.

Charlie nodded. He picked up a cloth and gave the bar a bit of a polish.

Death wasn't necessarily the end for everyone, as I was personally later to discover. A rare few come back as the Departed, and of them many of them tended to live down in Graveside, among their own kind, as it were. While most in Spire were accepting of the many and varied races that lived there, the Departed at times found it harder going. That helped explain why they kept to themselves as much as they did.

"You could try The Broken Chain," Charlie went on. "There have been rumours that he appears there from time to time. If you do bump into him, let him know that he is welcome back here at any time. It'd do the place good to have the old Stefan Rex magic on show again."

"Will do, Charlie," I replied and tossed back the rest of the shot of Tennerson.

I set the empty glass down and made my way back out of the Blue Butterfly, through the crowds, and onto the street. Walking through the swirling drizzle, I headed towards the autotrolley stop. The lights of the street really lit up the place, caught in, broken up and reflected by the puddles of water that lay around. The gloom that marked the day had only marginally deepened; there wasn't much difference between day and night for the most on the thoroughfare. Only if you headed to the back streets did it really plunge into dark.

Once more I caught the trolley car, packed as it was. Rather than head home, I rode it down further. Graveside is a good three quarters of an hour trip, a fair decent into the mists. It would be a late night before I made it home. The Stefan Rex link intrigued me though and I couldn't let up on it. Did he fit in with Hanes' disappearance or was I simply chasing down a dead-end lead? I had to know.

It took a while for the trolley car to clear enough for me to find a seat, the humans and dwarves filtering out, leaving behind those who were mostly of the Departed. I settled into a seat and let my eyes shut again. The pie from earlier in the day seemed like an age back and my stomach reminded me it was time to be eating again soon.

The trolley rumbled onwards and downwards, deeper yet into the mists, stopping here and there as passengers got on or off, arriving, in time, at its destination; Graveside.

I hopped out, into a sombre quiet. While it appeared much like any of the other districts above it, it was not as well-lit and nor was it as active. There were residents out and about, but not the crowds of earlier and higher up.

Mixed in with a scattered few humans and dwarves were the Departed. Most of them were revenants and wights, those that in a bad light could pass as human, but there were others as well; ghouls and ghosts, zombies and banshees and others besides, none of whom had a chance of disguising their nature.

The drawn-out call of a bird rang out above me and shadowed wings rustled near silent as a pair of ravens darted above, disappearing into the mists. Ravens are ubiquitous Spire over, and yet there, in the melancholy of Graveside, they seemed somewhat different. More foreboding.

The grinding of stone on stone came from behind me and a gargoyle knuckled on by, heading down the thoroughfare. The gargoyles are reclusive creatures as the best of times, seldom seen down on the streets. They mostly keep to themselves, up on the ledges of buildings, carrying on a life separate from the rest of the population as they watch the world go on by below them. I watched as this one moved on ahead of me for a while, his head turning this way and that. Then it clambered up the side of a building and settled on a ledge above the street, as still as a statue.

The shops in Graveside are often not of the type to be found elsewhere in Spire, catering, as they do, to a vastly different clientele, one that did not necessarily eat as others do, and ones that had other demands and desires as well. I passed by a jeweller that was named The Living Touch. Advertising was plastered across the windows, promising magical accoutrements that would disguise the afflicted's true nature so that they could appear as a living person once more, to move among them without the stigma of being a Departed. It did make me wonder just how effective it was, given that there were plenty of Departed visible, and if it was, just how many of the Departed actually used them. Even then, before my own affliction, I could well understand why many of them had the desire to not stand out.

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I had not run across The Broken Chain prior to then. I didn't have much call to come down to Graveside. Given how the Departed did tend to keep to themselves, their world and mine seldom had the chance to cross, and any troubles that happened down in that part of Spire were handled by others. I asked around of a few of those passing me by. The directions they gave led me deeper into the district, leaving behind the main thoroughfare. The lights in those parts were even more feeble. Cemeteries began to appear around me, with tall iron fences around them. Through them, and the misty drizzle, I could make out many headstones and monuments, vast fields of them, the last reminders of those who had gone before, and had not returned. Here and there a figure moved about between them, though I could not make out who - or what - they were, or what it was they were doing in the cemeteries at that time of night.

I pulled down my hat further over my face and made sure my coat collar was up. It paid not to stand out too much, not down there. There were always tales to be heard about the backstreets of Graveside, especially at night time, of the less civilised of the Departed and what they did to lone strangers they stumbled across. I didn't really put much credence in the stories but it never hurt to be safe though, just in case.

Between two of the cemeteries, I came upon a building, one that looked much like an old mausoleum, with a marbled entrance way between tall columns. Around the edge of the roof, like some grotesque frieze, stood sculptures in pose, or perhaps gargoyles at rest. In the grim light it was not easy to tell. A sign hung out the front of the building, bearing the image of a chain snapped in two, and the name of the place; The Broken Chain.

I climbed up the stairs, in between the imposing columns, and through a set of heavy doors, ones that had been covered in bronze sheets and iron nails. It certainly had an impressive, if funereal, grandeur about it.

Compared to the dark outside, the interior was surprisingly well lit and rather loud. After the gloomy exterior and the melancholy of the district, I had expected the inside to match. Turns out even the Departed like a good time, to let it all go and enjoy themselves as much as the next person. It showed how little I actually knew about some of my fellow citizens.

A band was playing a toe tapping tune and people were talking and laughing all around me. The place was a mix of both mortals and Departed, mingling together. Here all were just citizens of Spire, regardless of species or mortal status.

My first thought at looking upon the crowded interior was to how I was going to find out anything about Stefan Rex. Then a tune came to me, one both familiar and yet different at the same time. Up on the stage, leading the band, was the man himself, Stefan 'The King' Rex. The rumours had been true about him. He had died, but had come back as one of the Departed, in this case a revenant. While both they and the wights could pass as humans, they did so in different ways. The wights had pale, stretched skin and dead eyes. With the revenants, they retained the colour of their original skin before they had died, except that it appeared as if had dried out and cracked, while their eyes had a faint red tinge to them.

The tune that Stefan Rex was playing was one of his old ones, yet it had changed, much as he had. Now there was a darker, more frantic pace that tinged it. The crowded dance floor seemed to like it, though for myself I preferred the older, more mellow version.

Seeing as how it was obvious that he was busy, there wasn't a chance that I would be able to speak with him for a time. I looked about for a diversion while waiting. While there were many people dancing away to the music, plenty more were seated around the nightclub, drinking and eating. That reminded me that I really needed some food myself. I approached the bar, where a dwarf revenant stood.

You don't see a whole lot of dwarven Departed, for whatever reason. No one knows why exactly people come back as the Departed. There are various ideas, almost as many as there are Departed. They range from those who still have unfulfilled business left over from before they died, to those who have committed grievous sins in their former lives and they are being punished for it. I couldn't say one way or the other, and even now I am still in the dark about it, despite all that has happened to me. The dwarves, being the practical, no nonsense people that they are, seem unaffected by such matters. It may be as simple as that as to why they tend not to be Departed.

Whatever the case, there was one there at the bar. I placed an order with him, for fries and a lemonade. Not having been to The Broken Chain before, or to Graveside much, I was not too sure what they had on offer there, and more so, what might exactly be edible for me. A short while later my order came back, the fries wrapped in a paper cone. I took it and the glass of lemonade and found myself a quiet spot. There I waited, eating the fries and sipping the drink, listening to the music and the crowd.

Stefan Rex played on for some time before his set came to an end. I left my seat and headed over to him as he came down off the stage.

"Mister Rex, do you have a moment?"

He looked over towards me with his red tinged eyes as I neared and for a moment he frowned. "I know you, don't I?"

"I visited the Blue Butterfly now and then back in the day when you used to play there.”

He nodded slowly. "Of course. Mister Stone. You helped out with the problem Swifty Malone's dame had, didn't you?"

"That was me."

"Is this man bothering you, Mister Rex?" a deep voice asked from behind me, one that brought to mind dusty, ancient places.

I turned to see two large forms lumbering over to join Stefan and I. They had that bulky look of goons and hired thugs, with their ill-fitting suits over which they wore long coats and with fedoras on their heads. These two were a touch different, as on the parts of their bodies still exposed, such as their faces, could be seen burial shrouds wrapped about them. A pale red glow came from empty eye sockets. Mummies. Unless you have a ready source of flames handy, it is best not to upset them. They are stronger than they appear and resistant to almost any attacks short of fire.

"All is fine," Stefan Rex told them. "This is an old friend."

The two mummies shuffled off again, leaving me alone with Stefan.

"How can I help you, Mister Stone?" he asked.

"I am undertaking an investigation into a missing man," I told him, "And it may be that you can help me in it."

"If I can. Who is this man."

"A young accountant by the name of Nathan Hanes."

Stefan gave me a sharp look. "Hanes is missing? That is most distressing to hear." He waved me over to a nearby booth where he took a seat. I slid in opposite him, taking out my notepad.

"How did you know him?"

"Same as you," he told me. "Through the Blue Butterfly. He came in from time to time. I hope that you can find him, Mister Stone. The boy could really play."

"He was musical?" I had not expected that, even though I had heard people say that music and maths were closely related.

"That he was, bud, that he was. One of the best"

"I never saw any indication of it at his place," I mused. "No instruments or music scores."

"No room for it there, he used to say, which is why he came to the club. Do you know what happened to him?"

"Not yet. He just vanished about a week ago without word. Out of character according to all that knew him. When was the last time that you saw him?"

"Before all of this happened, bud," Stefan told me, motioning to his new body. "Haven't been back to the Blue Butterfly since."

"You are welcome back there at any time," I told him. "Charlie asked that I let you know if I saw you."

Stefan sighed and part shrugged his shoulders. "I am not sure about that, bud. I don't really belong uptown anymore. You aren't always welcomed, not my kind."

"You are Stefan Rex. You would be welcomed, and going back could bring about a further understanding of the plights of the Departed."

"I'll think about it," he replied. I could see that I had given him something to mull over, which was a start.

A thought came to me as I looked at my notes. There was a convergence of threads upon the Blue Butterfly. "Young Mister Hanes didn't get out very much by all accounts. The Blue Butterfly appears to be about the only place that he did get to. Given that he was introduced to his lady friend by another friend, it would stand to reason that it happened there. Did you happen to have met her?"

"He didn't have a young lady the last time I saw him. Sorry bud."

I scratched at my jaw, uncertain as to where to head to next. Stefan had been helpful and yet it hadn't exactly helped in pushing forward my investigation any. I had expected more, especially after the note that Mister White had left behind for me. Unless that had been a means to distract me, to delay me.

"Have you by any chance come across a wight who goes by the name Mister White?"

A brow shot up from Stefan. "Is that meant to be some kind of joke?

"That is the name that he gave me," I replied.

"Can't say that I have. There are many of us down here, more than you would suspect, and I haven't met them all. Is there anything else that I can help you with, bud? I've got another set coming up soon and I need to prepare for it."

"That is all for the moment, Mister Rex."

Stefan rose from his seat. "Sure thing. Just let me know if there is anything further that I can do to help find Hanes."

Stefan left and so did I. It was time to call it a night and to pick up on the case again in the morning. I just hoped that a good night's sleep would help me see things in a different light, and help me move it forward.