Creak!

Draxl opened the door to The Hangmen’s suite on the second floor of Wishful Wanders. He was greeted with the sight of the other Hangmen strewn about the room.

The entire room was a carnival of chaos. Rugs were upturned, cushions were scattered about, and the bed sheets resembled tumbleweeds more than blankets.

Ace sat in one of the beds next to a window, nestled in a mess of sheets, staring blankly at a book whose pages he hadn’t turned in several minutes. Riven hung over the bedframe of another bed. Halvor laid on the ground too far from her. Kai was slumped on the couch at a 45-degree angle with the ground. Galina leaned against her staff in the corner, slowly slipping lower and lower. Cili hung from the ceiling upside down, clinging to the wooden beams with her feet.

They were all fighting to keep conscious; they were all, also, rapidly losing that fight.

“Sorry about the wait,” Draxl said.

Kai barely managed to lift his head to glance up at Draxl through half-shut eyes. “Two and a half,” Kai glanced up at the clock in their room, “my bad, three and a half hours.”

“We didn’t have a set meeting time,” Draxl said.

“No, no, we talked about this,” Riven said.

“While technically we didn’t specify a precise time to meet up, we did say later today, and given that it is currently 3:36 in the morning, that means you are late,” Ace explained.

“So am I gonna be punished?” Draxl asked.

“Yes,” Kai said.

“And that punishment is?” Draxl asked.

“Never got that far,” Kai replied matter-of-factly.

“Oh, Cili had a good idea,” Halvor recalled aloud. “What was it again?”

“Death,” Cili said bluntly.

“Oh, oh, why did I think that was a good idea?” Halvor asked.

“I still think it is, to be fair,” Riven said.

“Seconded,” Kai added.

“Okay, before I get executed, you might wanna hear about the information I gathered,” Draxl suggested. “You know, the reason we’re all here in the first place.”

“Are we finally getting to the productive part?” Ace asked, shutting his book with a loud thud. “I guess I can start.

“I ended up going to Siren’s Song along with Halvor and Kai. If either of them have anything to add feel free to interject, because I came up pretty empty. Ended up playing a game of Rebellion with a pirate to get some gold. After that, it looked like Kai used the gold to pay the bartender for some information. You wanna elaborate on what he said, Kai?”

“Sure.” Kai pulled out his notebook.”By the way, for anyone wondering, we’ll get to where this went.” Kai gestured to the area where his locket once hung. “Anyway, the bartender, Diego, explained that there was going to be an auction at a barn just outside of town tomorrow night. Good chance Elric is there, either to be bid or be bid on.

“After that, we followed the river out of the city. Once the river stopped, we continued in the same direction until we reached a clearing in the woods where the barn was.”

“Do you mind if Ace and I go first since it seems you went through a lot more?” Halvor asked.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Kai agreed.

Halvor stood up. “Thank you. The owner of this barn was an older man, who was also a golem hybrid, named Brixton. I went with him on a walk, since he offered to share some information on golem culture, and stories, which I didn't get a lot of since my dad wasn’t a hybrid, and my mom … wasn’t around a whole lot.

“I managed to ask him some questions about the auction tomorrow night. For starters, it was pretty clear Brixton didn’t know it was an auction. He told me people came to set up at night while he was in town and asked him not to check inside the barn, since he might mess something up. He couldn’t tell me who rented out the space because of the contract, but he could tell me that people had been coming to prepare for the past two weeks. Also, tomorrow they asked him to stay in town all day.”

“Diego mentioned that the auction was happening at night,” Ace pointed out. “If they wanted Brixton gone all day that likely means they’re going to take the rest of the day to entertain guests and get the last bits of inventory inside.”

“Might be worth staking out to see who, and what is coming in and out,” Draxl suggested. “In an ideal world, we grab Elric before he even reaches the drop-off.”

“Wait, the auction is at a barn?” Cili asked. “How big is that fuckin barn?”

“We’re getting to that,” Ace reassured Cili. “In my case, I didn’t find out much. The land around the farm hadn’t been able to grow anything for a while according to Brixton. I wasn’t a farmhand by any means, but I grew up in the country so I still know enough about farms to give it a once over. Nothing seemed wrong with the land, which means there’s something supernatural going on, likely a poison, curse, or some monster.”

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“Now that I think about it, didn’t Simon mention someone named Brixton?” Galina asked. “Wasn’t he the one who supposedly had his land attacked by that shadow griffin?”

“Again that’s not possible!” Cili exclaimed. “The griffin’s eyes weren’t red, meaning it wasn’t hostile. If it attacked his land it was probably just hungry. Also, it can’t make stuff not grow on the land.”

“Well, I have my own theory,” Riven muttered under her breath.

“Okay, we’re getting off track. One thing at a time. There’s a lot of information, so let’s try to keep it streamlined, before we go into planning,” Ace pleaded. “Speaking of which, Kai, care to explain what happened in that barn?”

“Yeah, it was, a lot.” Kai sat upright and cleared his throat. “Okay, so, starting from the beginning I picked the lock to the barn to try and scope out the inside. The only thing was the moment I stepped into the barn I was transported into an opulent series of hallways. It was like a cross between a theater and a hotel.

“When I came in I encountered somebody in a suit with a skull mask, but managed to knock him out. I tried to find a way out of the place, but the halls seemed like an endless maze. I tried opening the doors, but everything was locked. They seemed to go around some central area, though I couldn’t find a way inside. If I had to guess, that's where the auction is going to be held, and they’ll somehow open it up tomorrow night.”

“Did you try picking any of the locks on the doors?” Draxl asked.

“I was honestly about to, but then I ended up bumping into somebody else. He helped me find the way out. Apparently, in that central lobby area I got dropped into there were a ton of paintings; behind one was a sigil that once I touched it took me back.

“The dude who helped me back was super nice. He was a dragon hybrid like you, Cili, but he was even more dragon than you: two-thirds to three-fourths. The craziest part was his scales. He tattooed his scales in all different colors.“

Halvor sat down and leaned back in his cushioned chair. The creaking of the wood rumbled through his back, as his face sank. “Did he tell you his name?” Halvor asked, his voice uncharacteristically heavy.

“Uh, yeah, it was Osiris.”

Halvor felt as if a giant were using his body as a drum. “Osiris is—”

“That’s my brother!” Cili exclaimed excitedly, cutting off Halvor. A loud thud echoed through the room as the sudden surprise caused her to lose her footing, and fall from the ceiling.

“Really?” Riven asked.

“Yeah! Oh my gods, I haven’t seen him in fucking forever. Bastard went on some great adventure a few years ago and never saw him since. You’re telling me he got tattoos?! Mom is going to murder him, when she finds out, it’ll be so funny.”

“Halvor, were you gonna say something?” Galina asked, not allowing Cili’s giddiness to completely overshadow Halvor’s masked dread.

“Oh, I’ll save it for once everyone is done,” Halvor said. “We should stay on track, like Ace said.”

“Alright,” Ace said. “Well after that, Kai ended up teleporting outside the barn, and we had to grab him to make sure he didn’t say anything, because the representative from the Armistice Order showed up. Kai was missing his locket, but we had to go, so we decided to come back for it later. We came back later, but couldn’t find it.”

“You good man?” Draxl asked.

“I got the numbers written down, so it doesn’t matter.” Kai’s thinly veiled lie didn't hide anything, but everyone knew it wasn’t the time to push the topic any further.

“Did you see the representative? Any defining features? What sect is he from?” Riven asked.

“We pretty much dipped the moment we saw him. The only notable thing was shiny red hair in a bowl cut,” Ace replied.

“Eh, there are strong people with red hair and weak people with red hair, so we’ll just play it by ear I guess,” Riven said.

“Why’d you look at me when you said ‘weak people with red hair’?” Kai asked.

“I think that’s it from all of us,” Halvor said. “At least for now anyway.”

“It’s a good baseline,” Riven said. “I’ll go next. As said before, Simon mentioned that the only real incident that happened recently was a shadow griffin that was spotted in the woods. I agree with Cili that it likely wasn’t hostile, mainly because it took Brixton’s food, but never attacked Brixton. Probably just hungry like Cili said due to it being away from its natural habitat.

“Anyhow we thought it might be related to Elric, since a shadow griffin all the way out here might be him experimenting with turning a normal griffin into a shadow griffin. A long shot, but we didn’t have any other threads to go on.”

“Oh, also, THE Artemis from THE Ambition was the one who took down the shadow griffin!” Cili exclaimed.

“Don't know what either of those are,” Ace said.

“Artemis is the ranger for the adventuring group Ambition. In terms of power, they’re one of the strongest, but their most defining characteristic is their adventures themselves. They’re always filled with hijinks and heroics, far more so than even the most powerful adventuring parties,” Riven explained.

“They’re also the most powerful,” Cili said.

“Objectively not true, but continue,” Riven shot back.

Cili furled her eyebrows. “Riven I will fuck you u—”

“How about I continue?” Galina interjected. “We tracked down where the shadow griffin was killed, and found another griffin, normal not shadow, descending into a cavern. Following it, there were a few of its young. Importantly, the young were a mix between shadow and original griffin. Based on how long Cili said it would take the eggs to hatch, and our knowledge of when Elric arrived we know the shadow griffin was here before him.”

“However, I ended up finding out that there were a ton of signs of creatures that shouldn’t be here. You can applaud, now,” Cili said.

“Please just continue. I want to sleep,” Kai pleaded.

“Okay applause can wait,” Cili said. “We ended up following a trail of monster parts and found a caravan where a ton of people were leading these carts filled with creatures from all across Fable. They mentioned a phoenix and a frostbite basilisk. It sounded like they were planning on selling them at the auction.”

“Also, they were planning on trying to bid for something if it did show up. Anything that could cure Mrs. Willow’s affliction.” Riven explained. “Now can anyone think where we’ve heard that name before.”

“Riven!” Galina whispered.

“That’s your best friend, right Cili?” Ace asked.

“Okay, yes, but I can’t talk about it,” Cili said.

“Well, why is that?” Riven asked.

“I just can’t!” Cili exclaimed.

“Oh, okay, well can you talk about Xander, the dude you recognized, who was leading that caravan?” Riven asked in the same annoyed tone.

“I told you I can’t!” Cili shouted.

Ace reached over to the book he had set aside and opened it to the page he left off on.

Just tune it all out.