Jehan walked slowly towards the city guard's headquarters, thinking. Something was bothering him about the morning.

It does not surprise me that we didn't find anything this morning, I certainly wasn't expecting too. But something seemed off.

Jehan knew the sergeant who oversaw the evening shift at the guard house, Bennett. Jehan had known him for years in fact and was optimistic he might be able to convince the man to let him see the investigation files the guard was making on the corrupted summoner case. While waiting for evening, Jehan had gone back to his smithy and spent some time hammering out some horseshoes. Doing some physical labor relaxed Jehan, and he had made so many horseshoes over the years he could practically do it in his sleep these days.

Not that there's likely to be much there, but I agreed to help Richard with this, and I'm going to see what I can find. Stranger things have happened.

Jehan had encouraged Richard to try his idea of “investigating” to try to find the corrupted summoner. Not because he thought it was likely it would work; he was pretty sure it wouldn't. But it was the kind of quest that he would expect a Champion of Ikar to want to get involved in, and the fact that Richard took the lead on the investigation was a good sign.

I have to guide him towards being a true Champion of Ikar, with all that entails, while keeping him safe until he's ready to face challenges himself. Jehan pondered. I need him to take initiative while guiding him in the right direction. I need Richard to get in the habit of taking crazy Ikarian risks while not actually doing anything too dangerous yet. I need to teach him literally everything about this world without letting him forget whatever traits from his own will make him the unpredictable chaotic factor Ikar probably wants him to be. Later, I'll need to let Richard do things I may think are impossible without letting him try to do anything that actually is impossible, and without letting him think I'm controlling any of it.

A small smile raised in Jehan's lips as he considered the impossibility of the task in front of him. Fortunately, Jehan had read many of the Sacred Texts of the Vizier, including the secret ones that those outside the faith were not allowed to see, and a big part of those had been in the delicate art of guiding a leader in the right direction while letting the leader think that everything was his own idea. Jehan had never been the kind of Ikarian priest who personally whispered in the ears of kings while standing in the shadows behind them, he had never been anywhere close to that level and that kind of power had never really interested him, but he at least knew the theory.

Truth is, part of the reason I encouraged Richard in this direction was that I didn't think he would find anything. Oh, it would be more than nice to eliminate a corrupted summoner before he does any more damage, but more important is just giving Richard time to interact with this world before anything really bad starts to happen.

Still... Jehan's thoughts come back to where he started. Still, I feel like something was off this morning. Richard seemed distracted or confused about something.

Jehan arrived at the guard headquarters. The guard sitting behind the desk recognized him right away.

“Padre! Good to see you again. How are you?”

Jehan smiled and shook the man's hand while patting him on the shoulder. “Excellent, thank you.” Jehan wished he remembered the guard's name; he had certainly seen him around town, but either had never been told or couldn't remember his name.

“I was hoping to get some information about the attack made against me yesterday,” Jehan said with a smile on his face.

They wouldn't normally share information about an ongoing investigation, but sometimes they will give something to the victim of a crime, and sometimes they'll give information to an adventurer who might help them stop it. I can play either or both cards here if I must but let me try the “victim” card first since they think this attack was targeted at me.

“Of course. Let me bring you to my sergeant.” The young guard left his desk by the door of the guard headquarters and led Jehan back to the main room.

The town guard was both the town's main defensive force and the only real law enforcement in the town, and they were quite busy on that day. More of them were on duty than usual, in case there was another monster attack in the city, and the atmosphere was tenser than Jehan usually remembered it being. But the sergeant in charge seemed to be in a good mood when he saw him anyway.

“Jehan! Good to see you. I heard you helped deal with our little monster problem.”

Sergeant Bennett was a large man, and he always had a smile on his face. He wasn't of the Ikarian faith, but Jehan had known him for many years, and they had gone drinking together more than once.

Jehan smiled. “Oh, I only played a small role. I was hoping to find out what might have been behind it all. Do you guys know who it was yet?”

Bennett shook his head. “I heard that you and your adventurer friend were looking into it. We haven't had any luck, so I hope you do. I really want to find this guy before he summons anything else into my city.”

“Yes. Well, we haven't had any luck yet, I'm afraid. Did your guards find anything?”

The sergeant shook his head. “Nothing worth mentioning. I can show you the reports the guards wrote up yesterday, if you'd like. Maybe you can find something in there.”

Jehan smiled again. “Thank you, I would like to see that.”

The sergeant gave a couple of quiet orders to another man working for him, and he walked Jehan into a small room deeper in the guard house, and then brought him the file for the case. “You can't take anything from this file out of here” the man said, sounding somewhat bored. Jehan nodded, and the man left.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The room had only one door at the front, and one table in the center with benches on both sides. A small window up above let some light in, but the room was still kind of dim, especially this late in the evening. It looked like the kind of room where the guards likely conducted interviews of the people they suspected of crimes. Jehan sat down at the table, lit a candle so that he had enough light to read by, and started flipping through the file. Most of the guards’ reports said similar things; they described what the warped men looked like, talked to different eyewitnesses. Several eyewitnesses said similar things, and more than one said they had seen the warped men coming out of that dark alley.

As Jehan skimmed the guard's reports, something strange caught his eye. There was some kind of pattern that seemed to be repeating. The report he was currently reading was written by a guard named Peter.

“Spoke to witness, Abigail Woods. Interview attached.”

“Investigated warehouse area. Nothing interesting there.”

It seemed a strange choice of words for a formal written report of an investigation, and Jehan flipped back to the other guard's report, and read a report signed by a guard named “Ronald”.

“Checked out back alley area in response to witness testimony. Nothing interesting found there. Nothing interesting there.”

Jehan flipped to the report of a third guard, Gregory, and skimmed through until he found what he was looking for.

“Nothing interesting found at the warehouse. Returned to inn.”

A fourth guard, John, a fourth report, and...

“Witnesses stated that the monsters came out of alley, but nothing important found back there. Nothing interesting there.”

Jehan closed the files for a minute, thinking. The pattern was strange, but there was clearly a pattern.

If the guards hadn't found anything at the warehouse, then why had Richard said that there were still guards investigating there today?

And when Jehan had asked Richard about the warehouse, he had said...

“Nothing interesting. Nothing interesting.” Jehan whispered to himself, remembering.

Jehan quickly cast a spell, Divine Messenger. “Harry Hatch, Harry Hatch, hear me,” Jehan whispered. “Richard may be under a mind affecting spell. Don't let Richard know, but tell Bertrand and Evelyn. Keep Richard calm, don't get him excited, don't let him know anything is wrong if you can, but whatever you do don't let him leave the house. Hold him physically if you have to. I will be there as soon as I can.” He hesitated. “Some of the city guards might be compromised as well, be careful.” The spell expired, and he hoped the message that he had whispered into the wind would travel to its target.

Jehan quickly packed the file up and moved towards the exit. Four guards were standing by the door, waiting for him.

“We have...questions for you,” one of the guards said, with an almost monotone voice.

Jehan looked down at the file. “Let me guess...you gentlemen would be Peter, Ronald, Gregory, and John?” he asked. The men nodded, seeming unsurprised he recognized their names.

“We have questions for you.” It was a different guard this time, but the tone in his voice was exactly the same. “You need to come with us.”

Jehan nodded and started to follow them. As soon as he did, he saw them all relax slightly and start moving down the hallway, and Jehan suddenly turned and sprinted the other way, away from them.

“Ikar, please grant me Cat's Grace,” Jehan whispered, and felt himself suddenly running more quickly as the divine spell sped up his movements.

Jehan had no intention of trying to run through the main area of the guard headquarters while fleeing from four guards, and he didn't think it was a good idea to try to talk his way out of this until he knew who was and wasn't under the influence of mind control, so instead he ran the other way down the hallway. He ran past several small rooms, towards a door, while the four guardsmen chased him. They were being oddly quiet; he would have expected them to usually yell “stop thief” or something similar, but perhaps they were trying to avoid attention.

That doesn't bode well. Jehan thought but kept running.

Jehan ran past the armory where the guard had weapons stored, and past the barracks where a few of the guard members sometimes slept (although these days most of them just stayed in town except in emergencies). By the barracks was a door, and Jehan ran out into the evening, the guards only a few steps behind him.

As soon as he got out the door, there were a group of merchant guards standing by it, seemingly waiting for him. Many of them had black spots or marks on their face, noticeable signs of the beginnings of mild corruption.

The guards wanted me to run this way. This was a trap. I should have known.

Fortunately, the guards weren't standing directly in front of the door, which probably would have been too obviously suspicious, instead they were lurking in the shadows to the right of the door. The guard closest to the door tried to reach out and grab Jehan, but he managed to dodge around the awkward grab and run to his left. Which unfortunately led down a dark, narrow street that Jehan knew didn't lead anywhere much.

Jehan ran down the street, now being chased by both the city guards and the merchant guards. He sped up, breaking into a sprint as he ran around a corner and down a narrow alley, hoping to put a little distance between him and his pursuers before he tired out.

Instead, in that alley, Jehan almost ran directly into a wall of Warped Men, led by a very unusual looking woman, and he had to stop short. The woman in front of him a full foot taller than any of the men, he could feel that she practically oozed corruption, dark waves pouring off her skin through her leather outfit, but she wasn't mindless like the warped men. She smiled, and he could see that behind her back she seemed to have grown a full set of leathery bat-like wings that didn't quite match each other. Her arms seemed longer than they should be as well, and in addition she had two long fleshy tubes under her arms that looked more like the tentacles of a sea monster than like anything else.

“Welcome, Jehan. I'm glad you could join us here tonight,” the woman said, with a predatory grin. Jehan had come to a stop, and the guardsmen and merchant guards had filled in the alley behind him. He had nowhere else to go. “My employer has some questions for you.”

"Ikar's Blessing,” Jehan whispered, and his skin started to glow, a purifying light that Jehan knew could drive back corruption and that seemed to hurt the twisted men he was fighting yesterday. The woman flinched back away from him and hissed, and he saw that it looked like not only were her teeth much sharper than a person's normally would be, but she seemed to have several rows of them.

“Guards, hold him.” The soldiers willingly complied, and they grabbed Jehan's arms from behind, holding him still. The light didn't seem to hurt them. Jehan could have struggled, but there didn't seem to be much point, and he would rather wait for a better chance than make a meaningless show of defiance. “Take this and wrap it around his forehead. Let's hope that bitch made something that worked this time.” With the long tentacle under her left arm, she reached forwards and handed what looked like a leather belt to one of the guards, careful to not get too close to Jehan's still glowing skin. The guard took the belt, which Jehan could see was covered with arcane runes, and wrapped it around Jehan's forehead.

The corrupted woman smiled. “Sleep now,” she said, and Jehan could tell the belt wrapped around his forehead started to glow. An intense tiredness suddenly overwhelmed Jehan; he resisted it for a few seconds before slumping to the ground.