Looking at the freshly signed paperwork, I was initially excited about the amount of money they offered.

As promised, I was indeed given four times the usual rate, which amounted to 8 Bils a day, 240 a month. The payment for caravan guard contracts was 2 Bils a day if the owner was absolutely terrified of being robbed, and that was still more than what the caravan workers made. And it would be paid a month in advance! Additionally, I was entitled to the bounty of one-fifth from the prize of recovered shipments, which could easily make thousands if not ten of thousands Bils, assuming I found them in the first place.

Then, as I read it more, I felt I should’ve checked the fine print before I accepted the deal. Not only do I have a month, exactly until the next scheduled Gate opening, to “deliver results”, as vaguely described as they were. Additionally, it had a lot of complications that usual deliver-person-get-the-money work wouldn’t have. As I was directly hired by the Federal Government of Hesperia, albeit temporarily, there wasn’t an option to run for it during the assignment. There were precautions private contracts wouldn’t and couldn’t have. Trying to dodge the job now would result in me being charged with a variety of crimes, including but not limited to theft, misappropriation of funds, sabotage, or high treason - virtually, anything the federal judge would feel like. Better not think what the subsequent bounty on my head would be should I fail…

I looked at the Bounty Office worker handling the papers that, now I thought about it, signed too hastily and unwisely. She seemed awfully pleased, which was quite suspicious in itself too, suggesting a whole endeavor was somehow profitable for them. Which meant either more money for them, or it got the government out of their hair if they provided a suitable sacrificial sheep for this mission - I opted to not think about it.

“Best of luck in your assignment, Mr. Wicht,” she said and tapped on the now neatly arranged paperwork.

I, once again, stayed silent and pocketed the money on the desk, stashing them safely in the inner pocket of my jacket reserved for carrying my money. No rest for the wicked.

Then, with a brief “ma’am” accompanied with the tipping of my hat, I left.

The duo of agents waited for me outside, inside the horse-drawn carriage they had brought in for the occasion. It was a coach, with an enclosed body and two doors allowing some passengers’ privacy. It surprised me they didn’t have an automobile, but since those were new, and cost quite a lot, and though the state could certainly afford it, I assumed it would draw more attention. And if one has to travel farther away from civilization, the fuel may potentially become an issue as well.

The footman opened a door for me with a military salute. It totally ruined the impression of the civilian manservant which his clothing was supposed to give.

I ignored it and nestled into the padded seats inside. Agent Cato and his dryad partner, who didn’t bother to introduce herself to this point, sat on the opposite side. The carriage started moving immediately; I felt the wheels rattling on the pavement.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, somewhat begrudgingly considering the situation the deal put me into, especially the dire consequences in case of failure.

“We expect you to inspect the reports Governor prepared for us regarding the missing shipments, and pick ones which you feel you can likely catch the trail of and recover, based on your experience. We will arrange your credentials for being able to work on the matter now you signed the agreements,” the dryad explained calmly, albeit with a trace of annoyance in her voice as she doesn’t seem to like being the one educates me on the matter.

“Aren’t you expecting me to get all of your goods back? You got me to sign the deal with pretty nasty consequences out there,” I said, gesturing towards the curtained window.

“We are fully aware some of the shipments may be lost forever,” the human agent said, “You pick which ones you feel you can find, as per your experience, and we will expect you to keep up to your word to it.”

“And if I can’t promise to find any?” I grumbled.

“Then we will send you after the largest of shipments. Bigger the cargo, less likely to be bought by fences.” The dryad said. The man and the dryad seemed to be working together quite well, I observed, considering they took turns with answers.

“Hm, I can’t imagine the fence that buys the first-grade, high-quality potions. Just one dose costs an awful lot of money...” I growled angrily. I had a close experience with that. The legal purchase was by far the best choice I knew - but the two appeared to ignore my reaction. I decided to follow up with the question quickly: “So, when did it start?”

“According to governor Verus, six months ago,” Marcus, the human agent, took a turn in explaining, “Supposedly there was a ‘crime spree’ in this city, as he puts it. Multiple local manufacturers, especially the potion-makers, reported repeated and widespread break-ins and thefts."

“And law-keepers did nothing?” I asked. It was strange. Policing remote regions was an issue, that was the reason why people like me had a job, but the main cities were something different, well-connected, with a trained law-keeper force, they showed notable effectiveness in actually solving the crime and catching the perpetrators within their areas.

“They did show an honest effort,” the agent confirmed, and with a nod continued: “Lawkeepers arrested over sixty people from 1st of Pluvois to 11th of Venois. More than a half of them were found guilty and imprisoned, but barely half of the missing goods were recovered. Rest was never found, and Governor ordered confiscating portions on public markets to fill in the quota for the shipment to the Old World.”

In remote regions, with weak and distant local authorities, it was possible to pull out the series of robberies, but even then such occurrences were increasingly rarer, and those that did happen almost always resulted in the knee-jerk reaction involving bounties that kept people like me in business. Or what remained of it, at very least. In the large cities, though, big raids were practically unheard of. I had a feeling there was more to it than simply one guy running with the goods before law-keepers came knocking.

“That’s why prices rose?” I guessed.

“Yes. However, once he had put this so-called ‘crime spree’ down, shipments from the other regions started disappearing.” That was the answer.

“And I never heard of it?” I asked, quite puzzled. Bounty Hunters’ job revolved around crime. Even if information traveled slowly, and we spent our lives chasing the next runaway, too busy to follow the latest and even important developments, all transgressions involving a lot of money were proverbial blood in the water.

“As far as we understood, Governor Verus did his best to keep this a secret. When he couldn’t get the potions from the public markets without raising more suspicion, he left it as it was and simply lied about production problems,” Dryad took the turn in explaining, disdain in her voice showing. I wasn't sure if it was directed at the Governor, or against me and the necessity to tell me all of this.

“At that point, the Federal Government became tired of the excuses and sent us to investigate.” she continued.

I raised my hand and moved the sheer curtains in the windows slightly aside to check where we were heading, while still keeping the attention to the conversation. From the usual landscape of the city’s walled-off dryads’ groves sandwiched between multi-store houses, we moved towards the warehouses and trains marshaling yard with rows upon rows of rails where cargo from all over New World would be sorted. There was a soft tingling of magical energy in the air too, even if the close proximity to the dryad turned that into fleeting sensations.

"Just before our arrival, the Governor mobilized the cavalry regiment and dispatched it to Lacertia province to make sure cargo from there arrived unscathed. They got lost," Agent Cato added.

This took me away from peeking out of the window at the changing scenery.

“Are you telling me you somehow lost over five hundred men?” I asked in disbelief. Who would attack the entire regiment? No normal bandits would try to steal from something guarded that heavily. They rarely had the means, or guts, to pull something like this out. It would be suicide.

“Not exactly,” the Dryad took the turn to answer my question. “The colonel in charge split the unit into the three squadrons, tasking each one with recovering and guarding one of the shipments. He returned with one squadron, and with the caravan that they escorted, to Bosona. They shipped the cargo they had over to the Old World with the same connection we arrived in.”

“And the rest?”

“We never heard from the rest. Considering they were escorting cargo that was supposed to be there when Gate would open, they had more than ten days of delay,” she told me.

“And they all either died, or supposedly lost their way in Lacertia, or otherwise vanished, along with the cargo they were escorting. None of the remaining… Say, two or three hundred men… found a way to the nearest telegraph station to send a message about what happened.” I summarized the situation, giving emphasis on the troop count. I was certain they didn’t hope to solve such a state of affairs by hiring one Bounty Hunter, the state wouldn’t be that stupid, and even though I wasn’t entirely certain what they tried to do here, I felt more and more that this was some kind of setup.

“I can’t rule out that all cavalrymen will show up in Bosona in the coming days.” Agent Cato shrugged. “But considering it isn’t the first case when shipment went missing. And since even military escort didn’t discourage further losses, I call this situation very questionable.”

I grimaced and stayed silent. Lacertia was a marshy province to the deep south, home to a species of reptilian humanoids that called themselves Mijusi, natives to the New World. But they weren’t hostile. They weren’t even tribals. It was technically a Hesperian member state, with their own Governor and means to maintain order in their territory. Individual travelers could still disappear there, supposedly, but caravans and military units?

I hadn’t been there for years, but I heard that railway construction was supposedly still unfinished due to difficult terrain. While I couldn’t imagine cavalry fighting in marshes, swamps, and forests of the south, it still wasn’t total nonsense to send them there. They just had to keep up with the wagon train following the main roads…

My trail of thoughts was interrupted by the carriage stopping and its door opening.

A pig-faced head of an orc dressed in the military uniform peeked in. He saw me first. The gaze of his small, deep-set eyes pierced me, and his snout moved almost as I reeked of something unpleasant, even if his species was known to have a rather abysmal sense of scent. Then he looked at FDA’s agents and froze. He obviously knew who they were, as he didn’t bother to ask for any documents whatsoever.

“Ma’am. Sir.” He retreated, with a military salute, before agent Cato even showed him his badge that wasn’t even asked at this point, and shut the door.

I grimaced at this, saying nothing, and briefly looked at the military checkpoint outside we just passed. Security was heavy here, complete with the machine gun nest and a barbed wire, and a lot of soldiers guarding the train cars lined on the tracks parallel to the road.

The carriage moved once again, only to stop a minute or two after.

I got out of the cabin after the two agents and looked around. We were at the train yard built in the shadow of the monumental, monolithic Precursor’s Gate, an old, mysterious structure allowing the direct connection between the Old and New World at regular intervals. As all Precursors’ structures, it emitted magical energy at an astonishing rate, even though the effect of this particular one was greatly dampened by the large number of dryads living in the nearby Bosona city, not to mention individual dryad merely several steps away from me, reducing it output to merely a weak buzz I’ve felt when we approached.

Even so, it was impressive, towering above all other more mundane structures surrounding it, dwarfing even the massive cranes they used to align the train tracks once the connection was established, allowing them to send the entire trainloads through the Gate back and forth.

While I marveled at the structure unlike any other, agents were approached by one of the soldiers, and I brought myself back to focus. I had business to attend to, and I have already seen the Precursors structures scattered across the New World, even if they were tiny compared to the Gate.

The agents appeared to be heading towards the house overlooking the yard, which most likely was the office of the local commander. However, an orc soldier, a captain judging from the insignia on his uniform, saluted and stood at attention. He, like most of his kin, was large, built like a brick outhouse, but the dryad didn’t look intimidated by his height and mass.

“Ma’am! Caravan from Lacertia. Arrived while you were out. We are unloading the carts,” He reported. His speech patterns were a little weird, but his species were known to be quite peculiar anyway. I paid attention to the group of workers, the mix of humans and orcs, as usual, unloading the crates from the nearby horse-pulled carts, and piling them up before they could be sorted and transported elsewhere.

“Good. Put them in storage, make sure they are ready to go with the next scheduled transit…” ordered the dryad.

Didn’t they say that they dispatched the cavalry regiment to escort those shipments? There were plenty of armed men around for security, but none had cavalry uniforms distinctive of those from different units.

“Did it come with a cavalry escort? Or perhaps Mijusi brought it in?” I asked the captain. He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked rather confused at the two FDA agents who seem to outrank him in this situation.

“Ma’am?”

“Answer him, captain,” Dryad said. Her expression was unreadable. Even though she didn’t like me, I assumed she at least gave me the benefit of the doubt at this very moment.

“Yes, ma’am! No, no escort. Just civilians who brought it in. And handed it over to us and left…” the captain barked out. Despite the fact he was reacting to something I wanted to know, he spoke to the dryad instead - not me, not even Agent Cato, which gave me the vague impression she outranked them both.

“What civilians? Were they humans? Orcs? Mijusi? Vatu?” I tried to interrogate him. The Vatu, being canine humanoids, and the Mijusi, essentially lizards, were hard to miss.

“Just humans. I think. They had documents for the delivery.” That was the answer. I didn’t wait for him to finish and made a few steps towards the crates, stopped, and turned towards both agents and the military officer.

“And you let them just walk away?” I had to ask, and after a short pause I added: “And they left you with wagons and horses too?” It certainly seemed so, considering it was the military who did all the unloading, instead of some hired caravan workers.

“Yes. All documents were in order, as per orders,” the officer insisted. Orcs have their particular way of thinking sometimes, even if it was certainly legal to do so, no one who moved goods around for living would just leave their livelihood - wagons, and animals - behind.

“You said you dispatched a cavalry regiment to Lacertia. Divided into three squadrons, which means they were to guard three separate shipments, each going separate routes getting goods in different places? But only got back, correct?” I asked.

“Governor Verus ordered that, not us. But yes, they were three shipments expected.”

“If this is your high-value convoy that needed military protection, then where is its escort?”

Without further explanation to my reasoning, guided only by gut feeling, an intuition perhaps, I went towards the nearest crate and tried to force it open. Initially, with my bare hands, but as it was nailed shut, I kicked the container in frustration and looked around until I spotted the crowbar left lying on one of the crates further away. I went towards it and grabbed it.

The agents waved away the soldiers who already approached me, raising their rifles, without a doubt not liking my abrupt behavior at all.

“You told me you are losing shipments left and right. And here it is, a valuable shipment no one guarded, but no one stole, despite the Governor deemed it necessary to get the military to fetch it. I want to know what is inside,” I spit out quickly, justifying my abrupt action.

I pried one crate open. A struggle with the tightly sealed lit reminded me I wasn’t the youngest anymore, but it gave away with the right tool. There were sealed potion bottles inside, arranged neatly in the wooden rack padded by the hay to prevent them from breaking. So far, it was normal. I grabbed one of the potions and opened it. It smelled strange for what it was supposed to be, and I opted to taste it, albeit with caution, spitting it out afterward. It left a slight burning taste of the cheap booze on my taste, but none of those sensations the potions left, no strange tingling of unnatural power in the substance.

“Mr. Wicht.” Agent Cato seemed a little confused by my behavior, but they did nothing to stop me.

“That was just alcohol. There was nothing magical about it,” I said while grabbing another bottle, unsealing and uncorking it, tenaciously smelling its content before offering it to my “employers.”

“Check and tell me if you can sense any magic from it.”

“I am unable to sense magic. I am no sorcerer,” the human agent answered.

“But she can.” I pointed at the dryad, watching us with her hands crossed at her chest. “Dryads can essentially eat magic and are born with their powers.”

She took the offered vial without the word, first inspecting its content against the light, then cautiously smelling the liquid inside. It made me wonder if dryad can drink alcohol or even how they even perceived the world. I never actually thought of it in years, despite the fact that you can find others of her kind everywhere in Hesperia, even in smaller villages. She opted not to taste the mixture in the end, though, pouring it into the palm of her hand instead, rubbing it a little bit. She raised her hand. The counterfeited potion left visible irritation on her skin, forming small blisters even after short contact. She obviously meant it as proof it had no healing properties whatsoever. Seeing it created an unpleasant taste in my mouth even if it didn’t have really adverse effects on me.

My thought was interrupted by her giving orders to the soldiers.

“Captain!” she said. “Put all the boxes that came along with this one aside. Open every one of them, check randomly one potion from each box. Get the Gatemaster’s sorcerer to help you, if necessary, to confirm they are genuine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the captain said with another salute.

“How did you know potions would be fake?” Agent Cato asked, eyeing me with the expression of slight mistrust.

“I didn’t,” I admitted with a shrug. "I just guessed. Call it a sixth sense.”

Truth to be told, I did make a wild guess that was more likely to fail than not, followed it through, with only circumstantial evidence of my assumption, and got lucky.

“I didn't know it had to be booze. You could probably fill it with water or something if you want to fake the potion. People able to sense magic would inevitably notice, but one can still sell a few…” I theorized,

“Vatu’s shamans originally didn’t know how to make their concoctions long-lasting. They figured it out after Hesperian colonists sold them a distillery. Misunderstanding the process and without the proper guidance and work from one of the Shamans would result at very least in strong alcohol, in the best-case scenario, if not something inherently toxic,” the dryad explained, albeit reluctantly, examining the damage the liquid left on her palm. “If it comes from our manufacturers, the Governor has a lot to explain.”

I didn’t know that, and it wasn’t for the lack of interest in the matter. However, if they are on the top with the process that makes potions inherently magical and imbues them magical restorative properties, what does and doesn’t work, they must know how to strengthen them too. Which is something I needed, personally, too.

“I suppose we will need this ‘six sense’ of yours to advise on the rest of the remaining shipments,” Agent Cato brought up.

“No,” I said. Both glanced at me at the same time at my refusal.

“There is no point,” I explained, “I might find your other cargo, I am not sure, but your fake potions are probably best to lead that is best to follow before it gets cold, and I have a hunch they are connected to all of it.”

I didn’t know that for certain, and I had no way to confirm any of that at the moment, but following the clue, albeit a flimsy one, was better than alternatives. They spoke of a period of six months, and I had doubts I would find any clues. I gestured towards the crates of cargo.

“I suggest following the trails of those shipments. Could you please instruct your soldiers to give me the best description of the people who delivered them, and I’ll start with that, and some information I can work with. I don’t know what is going on here, but I am good when it comes to finding people.”

And with a pause, I summarized,

“If I don’t find anyone here in the city, I will go to Lacertia.”