“Keep an eye on him,” Saxon requested, handing off Desmond to Lya, “I need to make a quick call.”

Creepy as he was, Charon made moving around undetected easy; an abandoned subway station was never far in Fable. Unfortunately, Lya’s experience with Charon hadn’t been the greatest--no thanks to Saxon. To top it off, her foot was busted in the scuffle. As it stands, the only way they were getting out of there was slowly, and in full view of everyone.

Saxon knew dragging an arrested worker through downtown, especially one from Midas would draw a lot of ire. Luckily, the workday was wrapping up, and that allowed Saxon to procure a ride. He whipped out his phone, and rang up an old friend.

“Hey Cleveland, how was work?” Saxon asked, attempting to exude curiosity.

“What do you want?” Cleveland responded with a heavy sigh.

“You know one time, I’m actually gonna be asking about your day,” Saxon joked, trying to lighten the mood before making a request. “But for now I need a ride.”

“Where and why?” Cleveland shouted, the sound of an engine revving obfuscating his voice.

“Midas Millionaire Incorporated. Downtown,” Saxon answered, looking over his shoulder to see Lya standing Desmond to their feet. "Herman paired me up with a rookie, and they're still adjusting to Charon.”

“They show any promise?” Cleveland asked.

“Good heart, strong skills, powerful mythos,” Saxon listed, playing up Lya best he could. “But she still lacks …”

“Experience,” Cleveland cut in, “ain’t that your job.”

“It is now,” Saxon said melancholically.

“So, do it well,” Cleveland said. “Be there in five.”

Snapping his phone closed, Saxon pivoted around to take Desmond back from Lya.

“Alright, hand him back,” Saxon commanded, superposing himself between Desmond and Lya. “Just worry about walking yourself to ground level.”

“And after that?” Lya said, begrudgingly stepping back. “We didn’t take Charon here, so that means we’ll have to walk back to the precinct.”

“I called a friend,” Saxon said, beginning to walk Desmond to the elevator. “Name is Cleveland. Good guy. Should be here by the time we’re out the door.”

It’d been harder not to notice the sigh of relief that Lya let out.

“He say anything while I was on the phone,” Saxon asked, jostling Desmond’s cuffs as the elevator doors shut.

“Silent as a stone wall,” Lya said.

Arriving back down at ground level, the eyes of everybody in the building turned. Even people outside, heading home after work, stopped to stare through the glass walls. Hands over the mouth did little to hush the cacophony of murmurs. Saxon would’ve told Lya to tune it out, but he knew the words would be empty, and that things only got quieter the more you heard them.

Upon exiting Saxon swiveled his head around, trying to spot Cleveland. It was only when he started moving, did people begin to part, though they still kept as close as they felt they could.

Saxon popped open the passenger door without thinking.

“Hold on,” Lya interjected, “this rustbucket is our ride?”

“You mentioned she lacked experience,” Cleveland said, stepping out of the car, “never cross your mind to mention she didn’t have any manners either?”

“Well she was plenty respectful to me,” Saxon bragged. “Maybe she’s just a good judge of character.”

“Ah, would you look at the time,” Cleveland said with immense over-exaggeration, looking at his wrist as if he had a watch. “I’ve gotta go. Something important just came …”

“Damn it Cleveland,” Saxon complained, “fine you win, now help get this gorilla in the car.”

After fitting Desmond through the door, Saxon sat alongside him, while Lya rode shotgun.

Glancing around the car’s interior, Lya concluded this would be the second ride today with a chance of sending her to the land of the dead. The shift stick was taped together, the leather on the seats was torn, the steering wheel creaked as it was turned, and the wipers were unusable since they scratched the glass.

Driving downtown was a mostly silent experience. The rain drowned out most of the exterior noise. Small chat was made, but nothing that wouldn’t be forgotten by tomorrow morning.

Arriving at the FMPD, the car skidded along the asphalt to a screeching halt.

“Here we are,” Cleveland spoke through the grinding of his breaks.

Heading into the precinct, Lya cracked open the door, allowing Saxon to drag Desmond inside. Quickly, two of the other officers, noticing Saxon’s muscles about to burst, each grabbed one of Desmond’s arms, and guided him into holding.

“I’m gonna start working on the paperwork,” Lya said. “I’ll probably pass out halfway through.”

Saxon’s eyes narrowed. “Medical first, then the report,” Saxon ordered. “E-man should be able to check you out, though his mythos won’t do much for your foot.”

Lya, struggling to find a good argument against Saxon, found herself forced to comply. “What will you be doing, in the meantime?”

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“Gonna hit up the archive, see what I can find,” Saxon replied. “Even if Alex is busy, their domain still has a lot of knowledge stockpiled.”

While Lya went to fix her foot, Saxon made his way toward the archives.

Nearly a third of the precinct was taken up by Alex. Alex’s mythos manifested itself as a domain, so the FMPD were forced to build around it--good thing their neighbors were looking to move. However, despite the amount of area it took, it might just be the most valuable place per square foot in all of Fable.

The Library of Alexandria’s scale meant, unless you were Alex, the place was a maze of knowledge. The bookshelves were stacked so high, and placed so close together, that Saxon found himself lost the first couple hundred times he was in there, and ended up running around like a lab rat looking for the exit.

Thankfully, Saxon didn’t have to risk entrapment anymore to find what he was looking for.

Combing through the list of hypothesized mythoi, Saxon found himself perplexed at his remaining options for Desmond. The files were fogging Saxon’s brain until a voice broke through his cluttered thoughts.

“What’s bothering you, Saxon?”

Saxon brought his head out his hands, to see Alex leaning over his shoulder.

“Tryin’ to put mythos to man,” Saxon said, looking back at the mass of files and opened boxes that cluttered the ground, “and clearly failing.”

Saxon knew he couldn’t ask Alex to figure this out. Although they were the archivist, Alex had too many cases already and by their own admission isn’t some super genius--even if everyone else disagrees. They knew how to use their mythos better than anyone else, and since pretty much anything can be found in the Library of Alexandria somewhere, given enough time, Alex could crack any case.

“Just put everything back where you found it,” Alex requested. “Took me forever to get this place organized after everyone’s complaints.”

“No problem,” Saxon said, having already forgotten which files belonged to which boxes.

“Our culprit save a damsel in distress?” Alex joked, glancing over one of the files.

Saxon chuckled. “His mythos seemed to transform him into some sort of, half-human, half-ape. The transformation made him grow hair all over his body, and gave him enhanced strength.”

“Big, hairy, and strong leaves a lot of options left,” Alex observed, their statement evident given Saxon’s lack of progress. “Well, let’s start looking for things he didn’t have.”

Alex sat down beside Saxon and began running through the list of mythoi. “For starters, I’m assuming he didn’t have any connection to a maze, or particularly strong memory.”

“Didn’t seem like it,” Saxon answered, relieved he would finally be getting somewhere.

“So let’s throw the Minotaur out,” Alex replied.

Continuing down the list of candidates for Desmond’s mythos, eliminating those that had a core aspect of their stories aside from their physical capabilities and appearances, Saxon and Alex found themselves with few remaining.

Alex reached for another file. “Well considering you caught him it’s probably safe to rule this one out as well.”

“Hang on,” Saxon objected, grabbing the file from Alex before they could put it away, “this answers a lot of questions.”

“But asks twice as many,” Saxon muttered under his breath.

“You really think you caught …” Alex cut themself off. “You know what, you’ve been right more times than wrong, so you do you.”

“Thank you,” Saxon said with a smile, “for the compliment and the help.” Storing the file in his coat pocket, and standing from the floor, Saxon went ahead to depart from the Library of Alexandria.

Alex outstretched their hand in opposition, trying to stop Saxon. “You still have to,” the door to Alex’s domain shut, “put everything back.”

Alex gave up and just sighed. “I’m the only one who knows where everything goes anyway,” Alex said, justifying to themself why they had to clean up Saxon’s mess.

Meanwhile, Lya had found her way into the medical room. Contrary to her expectations, the room was filled to the brim with medical equipment, similar to a hospital. She had anticipated this medical room to be more akin to the one at the academy: more like a personal office than a proper medical room.

“Dr. Emmanuel Cadet,” Lya spoke aloud to the empty room, “are you in?”

“I am now,” Emmanuel replied, stepping through the door Lya had left ajar. “I’d ask what the problem was if your struggle to stand was a little less obvious. Please sit down.”

Lya grinned and took a seat in the office. “You think it's broken?”

“You wouldn’t be able to stand on it, let alone walk, if it was,” Emmanuel answered, propping the foot on a stool for proper inspection. “From what I can see, there should be no need to put you in a boot.”

Lya’s eyes widened; she had never even considered that a possibility. She pondered what Emmanuel's mythos could be, that he would need a boot to fix her foot?

“This should do the trick,” Emmanuel said assuredly, pulling out a bag of ice from the refrigerator inside his office. “Ice the wound regularly, and …“

Lya cut him off. “Why are you prescribing me ice? Just use your mythos!”

“Apologies,” Emmanuel responded, having seen similar frustrations before, "but my mythos isn’t like that.”

“No offense, but the doctor at the academy could do this in a second,” Lya rebutted, trying and failing to be respectful. “What kind of avatar doctor can't use their mythos to heal a foot?”

“A damn good one,” Saxon retaliated, leaning against the door frame. “E-man’s mythos is the best fit for this job. Hope my partner isn’t hassling you too much.”

“Not as much as you did,” Emmanuel joked back.

“How so?” Lya questioned, refusing to accept Saxon’s words.

“There was definitely consideration between me, and Dr. Eliza who works at the academy,” Emmanuel acknowledged, validating Lya’s confusion.

“Simply put, Dr. Eliza’s mythos is better suited for physical injuries, which are more common during academy training. On the other hand, mine is better for dealing with dangerous avatars, especially those we have little information on.”

“And that mythos would be?” Lya asked.

“Baron Samedi,” Emmanuel answered. “He is the loa of the dead in Haitian Vodou and specializes in curing diseases, hexes, and injuries, but only for those on the brink of death. My mythos has granted me similar abilities, but with the restriction that I can only use it on those close to death.”

Saxon, sensing Lya’s remaining hesitation, decided to back Emmanuel up. “Couple of years back, a criminal with the mythos of the Black Death appeared. His mythos infected people with a horrific plague. Without Emmanuel, half of Fable, including a good chunk of the people in this building, would’ve died.”

“Sorry about that doctor Emmanuel,” Lya said, hanging her head in shame. “I’ll take the ice, thank you”

“You’re welcome,” Emmanuel responded, handing Lya the bag of ice. “You could learn a thing or two about respect from your partner Saxon.”

“Or, I could teach them to not give so much respect, that it goes to the person’s head,” Saxon replied, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out the file he had taken from the Library of Alexandria. “While you’re icing that, I think I may have discovered Desmond's mythos.”

“Shoot,” Lya said, icing her foot.

Saxon placed the file into Lya’s lap. “Bigfoot.”

Lya chuckled at the thought. “You’re telling me, we caught Bigfoot? That’s pretty funny.”

“It is,” Emmanuel agreed, “but you don’t seem too excited.” Emmanuel noticed Saxon’s stoic expression. “What’s the matter, Saxon?”

Saxon let out a sigh. “I think he let us catch him.”