Location:The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
Seele waited as the group divided itself. There was an instinct to rush over to Kazuki when the ale finally did him in—which seemed to happen…fast—but Benkei got him back to his feet. The two of them, along with Rael and eventually Alja, departed. She heard the words
Mystic Prophecy on their way out, and felt just a smidgen of anxiety bubble up for Kazuki. Part of her wanted to follow along, make sure that if they did go there, that he would be okay. But that would be irrational, overbearing, and maybe even a little bit rude; after all they’d talked about, and the progress he’d made, perhaps it was best to simply have faith in him and the people around him.
Besides, she couldn’t just abandon the investigation now. Remaining at the table was Graves, Alex, and the new girl, Artemis. That was more than enough. Half of them had been researching the disappearances already, and she had the utmost confidence in the other half. She listened intently while the waters of the issue were tested, and when questions were asked and there was silence, she spoke up.
“I agree with almost everything you all have said. Whatever’s doing this is doing it with intent, and I’d like to believe that at this point, wayfarers are beyond griefing one another like this.” She thumbed through the stack of missing wayfarers, to a divider she’d placed, and split it into two uneven piles.
“The smaller one is the list of missing people who belonged—belong to guilds, the bigger one is solo players. That shouldn’t be too surprising, but that along with the fact that we know they’re mainly targeting spellcasters from Drox tells us that we’re dealing with something that has access to information. But, like Alex said, we really can’t know what’s behind this quite yet and, frankly, I’m not so sure it matters. What’s important is finding these people—we can deal with the why later. That said, actually, we do have a bit more than just papers.”From her stash on the chair beside her, Seele produced a few rolls of trace-paper, so thin as to be nearly translucent, and cut to the exact size of the sprawled-out map. She unfurled one atop the map, pinned it down, and spent several moments aligning it. Scribbled on it were dozens of red and blue circles, spread out all across the city. Some were clustered together, others were spread way out. It looked as though she had dipped brushes in ink and flicked them at the page. However, inside each circle was a number, and each red circle had a corresponding number in a blue circle.
“These are the solo players. The red circles are wherever the reports listed as their places of residence—some are the fraternity house, some are inns, but plenty are actual houses and tenements. The blue circles are the listed last known locations. Some of those seemed a little redundant though, unless we’re looking at home invasions, and some just weren’t listed at all. So, I stuck my nose back into the files, found out what some of their professions are, and circled some of the most popular hubs for them, depending on what part of the city they live in.”She unfurled another sheet and pinned it atop the first. Under both, the map was still perfectly legible. The circles on this one were green and purple, and were numbered the same way. Though fewer altogether, the green circles were much more clustered together.
“These are the players in guilds. As you can probably guess, the green circles are the residences, and almost all of them are, unsurprisingly, at registered guildhouses. Same deal with the purple circles as the blue: last known locations and, where I could find them, profession hubs.”Next, she unfurled a third sheet and settled it on the other two. Even with three sheets pinned over it, the map was still clear, the titles and street names were still easy to make out. This one had no circles on it, only mass of black lines connecting each red circle to its corresponding blue circle, and each green to its purple.
“These are the most-trafficked routes in the city. Biggest roads, most people—safest. There isn’t much to glean from this, honestly, but it’s just for reference. Even at night there are people on these roads, as well as guard patrols. But if we assumed everyone always took the safest routes home, then I doubt we’d have very many missing people at all. If there are three things people like in games, it’s ‘fun,’ ‘winning,’ and ‘efficiency.’ So…”She removed the third sheet and replaced it with a fourth. This one’s lines were a lighter gray, and like the previous one, connected the various circles together. However, this time there was…almost a pattern. It wasn’t perfect, in fact it was hardly less chaotic than the circles alone, but it
was less.
“These,” Seele said.
“Are the quickest routes. Smaller, narrower streets, cuts between alleys. If I was going from here to here, and I wanted to save time, this is how I’d do it. As you can see, locations and residencies in the same districts seem to overlap in only a handful of routes. These places are dark, largely unpatrolled, even abandoned in some places. Perish the thought, but, if I was going to…do something like this, take someone, these are the best stretches to do it.”She stood back from the table, eyes scanning the circles and lines. She’d stared at the thing all night, scratched and scribbling and torn and read and scribbled again and again and again. But did it make sense?
“It’s incomplete, but there was much more here than the fraternity seemed to think. I believe if we turn our attentions towards finding out where these abductions are happening, we could find who’s doing it. More importantly, we could find where they’re taking these people and help them. Which brings me to the plan.”“We do like Alex suggested: we approach some of the people related to our abductees, we get information on their habits, their work, whatever we can. We solidify this map, and these routes. With the basis we have, I don’t even think it would take us long, but we do need to act before this happens to anyone else. So we do what we can today, and then, tonight, we try to make a move. Or, rather, we provoke whoever or whatever is doing this into making a move…”cold feet,Seele looked pointedly to Graves. Bruiser, bounty hunter, bloodknight. Blood
hound. She reached into the manifold layers of her witchy robes, and set a small, glass vial of blood on the table before him.
cold hands.
“Then we follow them.”
