Alone on the streets of Inoha, free from his reluctant prisoner, Hirrus stood dumbly just outside the tavern’s door. He had been able to walk down the stairs with purpose. There was no question about what he had to do. But now that he was faced with the task itself, he found himself lost.

His decision tree - the guiding voice of his entire life - was telling him to go back to Yenon. No amount of mental effort could change its direction. He let its siren call fade to background noise.

It was inevitable. Hirrus would have to come up with his own route to find Last of the Strong.

While investigation was definitely a component of his job as a guard, it had never been his personal specialty. Whenever it had been necessary, most of the heavy lifting had been done by his decision tree telling him where to go and what to say. On his own, he was forced to lean on his prior experience and hope it was still applicable to this situation.

His prior experience left him with two options. The first was probably the stupidest. Hirrus could just search the city himself, walking up and down every street to see if there was a giant manor house with a big sign out front clearly labeled. It was a pretty silly idea, to think that Last of the Strong would paint their name on the side of their home. As ridiculous as it was though, Hirrus would still have to look at every building in the city.

Inoha was huge. Too huge to approach in that manner.

Looking at it on their approach, he’d have guessed Inoha was fifty times the size of Yenon. Now that he was down on the street, it seemed hundreds of times larger. He knew he was less than a hundred yards from the gate he’d come in through, but now that he was looking up at the buildings, he didn’t even know which way was north. A glance down the street just showed more streets and buildings. Unlike in Yenon, there wasn’t any one direction he could look and see the horizon.

Searching the city door-by-door was going to take days. If he spent a week looking at every building and none of them had a neat little sign labeling its occupants as purveyors of traumatic atrocities, it would all be wasted.

As such, he had only the one option left: make like an adventurer and ask.

Hirrus picked a direction and started walking. The city was full of people, and it didn’t take long to find a guard on patrol. She was wearing heavy plate armor, which was quite the step up from Hirrus’ chainmail.

“Hail,” Hirrus said, waving her down. “I wondered if you might be able to answer a question for me.”

The guard blinked at him a few times. Despite the difference in uniforms, she still clearly recognized him as a fellow guard.

“Um.” She pushed her plate helmet halfway off her head to scratch the back of her neck. “Sure. What seems to be the problem?”

“I’m looking for a guild operating out of the city,” Hirrus said. “Last of the Strong. Do you know where I could find them?”

She squinted at him like he’d started speaking in tongues. “Excuse me?”

“Last of the Strong. They are an adventurer guild running out of this city.” Hirrus waved a hand through the air before she could open her mouth to ask. “It’s a very long story and it’s not important to get into it right now. But they’ve committed crimes against Yenon. I’m here seeking justice.”

“What, you’re going to arrest a guild?” The guard laughed, a deep-throated thing that reverberated in her armor. It was condescending, almost sneering. “I don’t see how you plan on doing that. Are you going to put manacles on their guild house and try and drag the whole building away?”

Hirrus stood still, trying to let her callous words wash over him. “Can you help me or not?”

“Even if there was something you could do, there’s nothing I can say to help.” She shrugged, settling her helmet back down on her head. The guard briefly paused to tuck her hair back into place under it. Hirrus wondered if the action was part of her decision tree, or just a creature comfort she was allowed access to. “You should know that guild houses aren’t on the list of places I can give directions to.”

“There aren’t any guild bases in Yenon,” Hirrus said with a weary sigh. “I’ve actually never been in a position where someone asked directions to them.”

She shrugged again as if she didn’t care. “Regardless, I can’t help you. Good day.” She turned away as if to resume her patrol.

Hirrus felt panic rise in his throat. “Hold a moment. Please.” The guard continued moving away from him, regardless. “Can’t you give me something to work with? A place to start?”

“I’m afraid not,” she called back to him over her shoulder. There was a momentary pause and then she sighed. “The only people likely to know are adventurers. If they’ve had dealings, they might know the location.”

“Thanks,” Hirrus grumbled as the guard left him behind. “That’s a great tip.” He spat the words to the ground

As soon as the guard was gone, however, he realized that his sarcasm was ill-placed. She could have given him nothing. At least with this he had a direction. Of a kind.

Considering his decision tree was still stuck on getting back to Yenon, any advice was better than nothing.

Hirrus headed deeper into town, hoping to figure out where the adventurers congregated. He let his feet go mostly where they wanted. In Yenon, most adventurers asked for facilities such as training halls and market pavilions. Perhaps where a mailbox could be found.

But he wasn’t sure where any of those things could be here. And even if he did, the adventurers there wouldn’t likely be able to tell him where a higher-level guild could be. They’d be fresh faced and unhelpful.

As Hirrus walked, the homes around him started to grow slightly nicer and he knew he’d reached a new neighborhood. He didn’t see any adventurers, though. This appeared to be more well-off merchants and landlords. Places where Dahlia would be welcome.

Continuing on, Hirrus eventually found himself facing the city’s inner walls.

Inoha had a second layer of city walls that marked where the border of the town had been long ago. The giant wall forced him to divert his course, following the wall until he reached the Cresston River, which bisected the city diagonally. The river gave him his bearings, and when he found a way to cross, he knew which way was north, allowing him to cut across the city to the west.

As soon as the river passed from sight behind him, he started to see the telltale signs of adventurers’ presences. Homes and grocers gave way to blacksmiths and junk merchants. It wasn’t long before he saw someone who visibly had more weapons on his belt than sense in his head.

Adventurers.

Hirrus watched those wandering the street for a moment before picking his target.

The adventurer Hirrus approached was dressed ridiculously, with mismatched patchwork armor and about seven different shortswords arranged along their belt at various angles, some of which would be nearly inaccessible in a proper fight.

He couldn’t have been more obviously an adventurer if he had the word written across his face.

“Excuse me. May I speak with you for a moment?”

The man ignored Hirrus, and continued peering curiously into the display window of a junk shop. He seemed particularly interested in a pile of metal bars arranged in a pyramid on the left side.

“Hello?” Hirrus said, raising his voice. “Can I have your attention for a moment?”

The man stepped a bit to the side, sidling away from Hirrus as his gaze moved from the metal bars onto a row of mismatched empty potion bottles.

“I’m sorry,” Hirrus said, stepping forward, closer to the window to be sure he was in the man’s line of sight, waving a hand to draw his attention. “Are you hard of hearing? I’m just trying to get your attention for a brief questi-”

“What?” the man barked, straightening up and directing a furious glare at Hirrus. “What do you want?” Before Hirrus could answer, he snarled. “What the absolute fuck are you doing?”

Hirrus was taken aback by the sudden hostility. “I’m just trying to ask you a question.”

“Cancel sidequest,” the adventurer said, looking around, as if speaking not to Hirrus, but to the air around him. “Dismiss. End conversation. Whatever. I’m not interested.”

It was an odd thing to say for sure. Hirrus decided to ignore his requests. “Do you know where I can find Last of the Strong? Just that one question and I’ll go away.”

“What the fuck,” the adventurer grumbled, turning and stomping away. “This fucking guild recruitment shit is getting really obtrusive.”

“Please,” Hirrus said, stepping up to follow the adventurer. “You either know or you don’t. Just answer me.”

“I don’t care about this fucking quest,” the adventurer snapped. “Get out of my face!” He immediately started to jog away, abandoning whatever he’d be shopping for.

Anger flooded Hirrus and he had the unexplainable urge to jog after the man. To force him to sit down and answer his questions. Even if he had to ask the hard way.

He ground his teeth together.

In spite of his desires, Hirrus drew up short, letting the adventurer go.

The man vanished around a corner.

Hirrus allowed himself an irritated sigh.

“It’s fine,” he said to himself, trying to quell the boiling rage. “Adventurers are rude as a rule. Always have been. I just have to keep asking.”

He looked around, and was surprised to see that he had plenty to work with.

Following the adventurer had led him towards a market square, where temporary stalls filled a small courtyard centered around a fountain. While the other parts of the city had been sparsely populated, there were scores of adventurers mingling in this area, poking through the stalls and socializing amongst themselves.

“I just need to find one,” Hirrus told himself. “Just one willing to answer just one question. How difficult can that be?”