“Snozzy, No!” Was the only warning I got, before my hull was invaded by a whirlwind of movement and noise. Snuffling and sniffing around, the creature managed to fully explore my entire insides in seconds, and it stopped only once it found Jim’s sausage sandwich that he was saving for later.
“I’m so sorry.” Was the somewhat strained apology that the woman chasing her pet gave. She had an accent that definitely wasn’t from this area, and made me think of Scotland if we were still on Earth. Her alto voice was husky enough that she had clearly gone through a lot, though it wasn’t clear if that was life or smokes. In short, she was already unusual enough that Jim would certainly try to strike up a conversation to learn more about her. Sometimes I wished that I hadn’t told him that unusual talents could help us with our heist in the making, but there were certainly worse paths to revenge that he could have gotten fixated on.
Jim immediately proved my prediction right by putting his hands to work scratching the animal while he cooed at it, before he turned his still developing charm towards the woman who had managed to catch up and was standing on the edge of the canal, trying to catch her breath.
“I wasn’t all that hungry anyways, and at least it looks like Snozzy here enjoyed it. I can't say I recognize the breed of dog though.” Jim immediately forgave the animal for stealing his lunch.
“Not surprised at that. He’s a miniature Copperhair, and neither of us are local to these parts.” The woman answered with her voice pitched to carry even though she was only a few feet away. She probably didn't spend a lot of time inside with a voice like that on her.
“A miniature, you said? He’s almost as big as I am!” Jim was shocked at her answer.
“”He’s small compared to the copper wolves they started with. Those stand seven feet tall at the shoulder, and will try and bite anything they happen to come across. Given the fact that their teeth and fur are made of metal, and they usually are in a pretty good position to be doing that biting.” She explained. Jim jerked back a little when he found out he was petting an animal that was likely part wolf, but Snozzy wasn’t about to let their newfound source of pets stop that easily. I could hear Snozzy snuffling all over Jim, insistent that he put his hands back where they came from, and since Jim wasn’t actually being attacked by the large canine, he was convinced by the dog’s enthusiasm to resume his scratching.
“Is his hair really made of copper, then? It doesn’t feel like it at all!” He marveled as he ran his fingers through the fur in question.
There’s still a bit of it there, mostly just to give it that distinctive color, but not enough for him to always be a constant thicket of metal needles. If he’s feeling threatened or aggressive they can stiffen up a bit, but his real talent is his nose.”
“I wondered, considering you named him Snozzy.”
“He came to me with that name already in pace. Something about an early run in with a beehive. They couldn’t sting him anywhere else, but his nose was still vulnerable.” She laughed as she shared the story. “Still, he’s earned it and then some. “He’s a great tracker, and the best partner a bounty hunter could ask for.” Her tone switches suddenly. “Snozzy! Come here, boy!” Her companion is reluctant, but eventually scrambles out of the boat in an awkward lunge that barely carries him to shore while leaving me rocking crazily.
“A bounty hunter? I haven’t heard of any of those around here. It must be an exciting job. I’m Jim, by the way.” My partner managed to keep the conversation going instead of letting the unusual pair walk off back the way they came from before Snozzy smelled Jim’s lunch.
“Themis, pleased to meet you.” The bounty huntress returned the greeting before she addressed the question Jim had posed. “The four cities do not sponsor any bounties themselves, and have quite the negative view of my profession. I’m surprised you do not share most people’s disdain for my overly zealous activities.”
“It helps that I’m not local either,'' Jim interjected quickly.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Ah. As to how I came to be here, I was chasing a particular criminal who had established quite the reputation as a thief of some renown. He managed to avoid attention for a while by spreading his crimes out over a large number of cities, but eventually he slipped up enough for the various mayors and lords to put the pieces together. The individual bounties from the various towns aren’t that impressive, but together they made him a target worth pursuing. Snozzy here managed to track his scent from his latest target to the harbor in that city, and I was able to determine that he had boarded a ship headed here to Dirint. Not knowing anything about this city, I decided to follow him, only to find out that his trail had gone cold, thanks to all the water in and around the city. “
“Normally I would have simply called it quits and returned back to Frost Hill, but the voyage was more expensive than I had expected, and ships headed back that direction were intermittent at best. I resolved to wait nine days patiently until a ship arrived with a matching itinerary, but It was only a few days later that a thief managed to break into my room and steal most of the coin I had while I slept.” Themis cut herself off short, not wanting to talk about what had happened between the theft and her arrival here. Jim wisely doesn’t push..
“That’s rough.” He sympathized. “My family came here after leaving our home behind due to a brewing fight, but my father was able to get work as a carpenter pretty quickly.”
“It is good that he managed to find himself a place so quickly.” Themis agreed. “I’m afraid that most of my skills aren’t in demand, and the places that are willing to hire me for bodyguard positions or the like seem more interested in my status as a woman than instead of desiring any actual demonstration or proof of my ability in combat.”
Jim answered, but I didn’t hear what he said. My focus was inwards, putting together what I had just heard with everything that I already knew. High profile thefts, spaced out between cities, where the thief is travelling by boat Dirint, with its role as a city of trade, with quick trips to multiple other locations in this world. The regular timings of the midnight meetings, where mysterious goods were sold for large amounts of money. It fit together surprisingly well, but I needed more information.
Throwing caution to the win, I spoke up. “Excuse me, but could you tell me just how often this thief stuck?”
“Who’s that!” Themis demanded, as she reacted surprisingly quickly to my arrival on the scene.
“Jim managed to smooth things over. “You have your partner, I have mine.” He slaps a hand against my hull to emphasize he was talking about me.
“A talking boat? That’s certainly unique.”
“We all have our stories.” I retort, before rephrasing my question. “I believe I have knowledge of when and where your thief hands off his goods, if the timing fits together. Every eight days there is a midnight exchange, where large amounts of money change hands. Would that fit the timing of what you know was stolen?”
“Eight days?” She murmured. “It’s not a perfect fit, sometimes there was a theft only a few days after another one, and I believe there was one two-week period where no one reported anything stolen. They could have just not reported or noticed that theft though, and it would take different amounts of time to travel to Dirint and back…” Themis trailed off as she thought it over.
“It’s certainly possible, but I’d hate to say so one way or the other without gathering more information myself. “What else can you tell me of these exchanges?”
I shared what I could, and then Themis asked some rather insightful questions, and I found I had more information to offer her. My lack of sight did hinder things to some degree, but she was a bounty hunter used to following the scent of her quarry. She was able to work with the seemingly unconnected audio observations I had collected and find connections I hadn’t.
“I do believe you are onto something. When is the next exchange? I’ll need to find a way to spy on it myself, if I can.” She said slowly, once we had thoroughly gone over everything that the three of us knew. Jim might not have had immediate knowledge to share, but his general knowledge of the city was beneficial in its own way. More than that, he provided a degree of common sense that kept Themis and I grounded in reality instead of running away with our theories.
“Can’t you just have Snozzy scent around the area later? Even if you’ve lost the trail of your thief he probably still remembers what it smells like, right?”
Themis thought it over for a bit. “Maybe.” She hedged. “It has been a few weeks since I introduced the scent to him, and I do not have such a straightforward line of communication as you share with your boat.”
“But it doesn’t cost you anything but time to try, and you can always move onto something riskier if it doesn't work, right?’
Themis exhaled, the sound somehow carrying with it half of the tension and stress she had been carrying around. “Right.” She agreed, then she repeated herself with more force. “Right. Let’s see if we can chase this thief down.”