It had been a rough dozen of days for Garrett. While he had still been doing jobs for the few rich in Doessenhof, he had received a letter from Elissa via a contact of his. She told of three thugs searching the hut. While it was initially thought to be a ploy by the Communion of Sanctified Trade to intrude upon the Lodge's territory, she also had the suspicion that the girl's former owners were behind the attack, as well as the spirit. He hurried along to get from Doessenhof to Prannten as fast as possible. Every day he was away from the girl and Elissa without having solved the mystery of who was behind the attacks put both of them further at risk. Now he was back in this stinking hole of a "city".

Prannten had nothing a city should have. The walls were old and ruined, the wards no longer existed, not a single building rose higher than three or four floors, and in absence of even a rudimentary sewer system, human refuse was just splattered onto the street and maybe cleaned up by an enterprising night soil peddler. It did have a trading post though, which was frequently used by slavers, for this was one of the most southern and western of places that still allowed slavery on this continent. Compared to Prannten, Doessenhof was a clean jewel of virtuous values and newest magical applications.

Here he had planned most of Nannade's extraction. And so far, it had worked out almost completely flawlessly. But his oversight caught up to him. His insistence on not killing except when necessary has made him forget that sometimes, an enemy cannot be allowed to live or even retaliate. He wouldn't make that mistake again. But the enemy's engagement to get the girl back also meant an entire apparatus had been engaged. An apparatus Garrett had to find and disable as well.

The man who used to own the girl and her parents was a local crime lord and mage known as "Doraleus the Pompous". He ran almost all crime and most legal business in the city as well. Cities without powerful people educated by the virtuous and strong would quickly fall to its own demons: corruption, greed, anger, vengefulness, lust. And Prannten was no different. Similar to the great Pachu, Doraleus would simply extinguish all competition and then just carry on as any other crime lord with a monopoly.

It was night, still warm despite fall having come a while ago. He would probably miss the festival of Harvest Thanks, but this was more important. Garrett was sitting on the roof of the inn where Nannade was originally held. Soon, a fat guy with a whacking stick would come back out. When he did, Garrett would be prepared.

The fat man eventually came out, yawned and made his way home. Garrett followed him on the rooftops, carefully to not make a wrong movement and risk detection. Without any high buildings, it was also hard to spot anyone climbing around on the roofs from above, so Garrett felt safe, for now. Eventually, the man entered the dilapidated hut he called his home. It was just one room with a corner to crap in a bucket, a table with a single chair, and a bed.

Garrett put on his mask and went in through a small glassless window directly under the roof. From his perch on the ceiling beams, he spotted his target in the dim light of the candle on the table. Without a sound, Garrett landed behind the man and drew a cloth from his belt. Tightened his grips around it and put it in the man's mouth from behind. Garrett's victim wanted to cry for help, but it was already too late for him. Garret held the gag from behind with one hand and put a knife to his throat with the other.

"Alright, fatso, here's the deal." He said with an aggressive whisper. "you either tell me everything that happened that night I took the crolachan girl away or you die here and now, understood?"

The man nodded hastily with eyes wide open.

Garrett let the gag go, but put his blade closer to the man's throat, already poking the skin. The man started talking immediately.

"After we broke down the door to the storage room, we tried to follow you, but we couldn't find you. Then a guard on the wall said he's have seen two people walk down the path to the forest to the southwest, but when we got there, we couldn't find anything in the dark. The boss had used some magic but couldn't find anything either. He put out a bounty on you two, you dead or alive, the girl alive."

"Who picked up the bounty?

"I don't know, only the boss would know that."

Garrett moved his face closer to the stinking mouth of the stinking man. "I warn you, lying will not help your longevity."

"I swear, please, I'm just the guy who takes the coin and opens the door, honest, please don't kill me, ser!"

Garrett came to the conclusion that he was a too low-value henchman. "What happened to the mother's body?"

"We buried her in the old graveyard."

"Bring me there!"

"Yes! Of course!"

In the darkness they walked to the other side of Prannten, where a scuffed field with toppled gravestones marked where once maybe people had been buried properly, long ago. The man had obvious trouble finding his way around, but finally he led Garrett to a spot where only the churned-up earth indicated that someone had dug a while ago, no headstone or even a grave marker.

"There, we put her in there!"

Garrett found a shovel nearby and shoved it in the man's hands.

"Dig her up. I want to see her!"

The man's face showed dread of what might come after, but he turned around and started to dig, holding back sobs. It was not deep that they dug her grave, maybe two or three feet. It was obviously the mother's body; Garrett could even still somewhat make out the collar of scars amidst the rot and decay. He pulled an extra flask of flux from his backpack, poured its content over the dead body, then threw a spell paper on it was well. With a SNAP, the carcass lit up in white flames and was completely consumed within moments, leaving not even soot behind on the moist soil. Her body may be rotten and her blood dried up, but he would take no chances anymore. Now nobody would be able to use the mother's flesh, blood or bone for tracking the girl. Or the amulet she wore. Not to mention that this was a more dignified way to leave this world than through rot and decay in a shallow grave.

Garrett turned to the man. Both knew what would come next.

The man's body was quickly covered in dirt and the ground sealed back up even without magic. Now Garrett would have to find more concrete info on what Doraleus had done to find the girl and how much he knew. For this, he'd have to drop by Doraleus' place. The mage would long have gone to bed, so Garrett could hope to dig through his diary and business ledgers.

The richer area of Prannten was almost city-like. There, surrounded by a small garden with a proper wall stood Doraleus' house. Garrett knew he would face tight security, but he had made it up on the roof. With an inspection spell he had searched almost every square inch of the mansion for a proper entry point and he had finally found it. A window in the scullery was not covered by the alarm spell.

Doraleus' mansion was tight and small, made even tighter with all the paintings, trophies and tapestries on the walls. Doraleus sure was pompous, although he preferred the title "Diligent", and there was a reason for that. When Garrett was planning the girl's extraction, he made sure to get a proper look at Doraleus. He even bribed the manservant to get more info. In the end, Garrett had found it unnecessary to break into Doraleus' house, but he still kept all the notes. According to them, Doraleus' study was secured with an extra layer of security that required the manservant to ring a bell and then wait until his master opened the door from the inside every time he brought tea, baked goods or letters. From this Garrett could deduce a few points.

First, the door to the study was most likely sensitive to touch, otherwise the manservant would have been instructed to knock. Second that Doraleus' himself had some sort of cipher or object to suppress an alarm or reaction. And third, that the security spell could not be disabled by anyone else.

Garrett managed to sneak his way to the door of the study. He took out his various inspection spells and a large sheet of paper. Then he got to examining and writing down.

He found exactly what he had expected; an identifying component that reacted to something Garrett had no hopes of reproducing; an entire array of trigger components, which all had to be held in place if he wanted to crack the spell; an array of effects ranging from loud sounds, bright lights, to shocking bolts and searing flames; the last big component was a large central control component that could disable single parts of the spell based on separate conditions. Smaller spells by less diligent mages often contained only a few of those component and only once, and so Garrett could rely on a series of standard spells he always held at the ready like the picks in his lock-picking set, or he could even do it all in his mind, thanks to his Arcane Gift. But Doraleus the Diligent would not be outdone by any simple two-bit intruder. Sitting on the hallway floor with a sheet of paper before him, Garrett got to sketching down what he had found out. When he was done, he had a very rough sketch of the basic outline of the spell that blocked him out.

Garrett looked at the sketch a few times. He had no hopes of constructing a fake key, because he didn't even know what shape or nature the original was. It could be a ring Doraleus wore on the hand he opened the door with, it could be a special word whispered to the lock, or it could be intricate details of the surface of his palm, as he grabbed the door knob. So Garrett had to go to option number two: breaking the spell. Like breaking a lock, it would make it painfully obvious that someone had gotten in, but it was Garrett's only way in for now. He would still have a few hours before sunrise and he hoped to be out again with all the information he needed. An assassination would have to wait until he rested, it had been a rough night already.

He knelt in front of the door, leaning close but careful not to touch it. Then he got to work. Carefully he extended the arcane fingers of his mind into the woven mechanism that was the complex spell. He had to hold parts back, push others out of the way until he could feel that slight click in his mind. A sudden understanding came to him and he knew what he needed to know.

SNAP

Every bit of tension in his mind was gone as the spell broke apart like a glass filigree. Everything seemed a lot calmer within a heartbeat, the hallway was more silent than before, even Garrett's thoughts weren't as loud all of a sudden. He dared to touch the door. Nothing happened. He reached for the doorknob. Nothing happened. He turned the doorknob. Nothing happened. He opened the door. Nothing happened.

He exhaled. After he had gotten inside, he quickly applied a Door Seal to make sure he would not be surprised by anyone.

The study was a tidy room. Nothing was crammed in here, even the few adornments on the wall seemed modest compared to the rest of the mansion. The desk was simple and not extravagant. It made sense when Garrett thought about it. This was a room Doraleus never showed to anyone. No need to be pompous here.

Garrett sat down in Doraleus' chair and started going through his stuff. He found mostly legal and superficial dealings in the paper, but Doraleus had indeed booked a 'loss of personnel' for the inn the day after Garrett had taken the girl, but no bounty appeared in the paperwork's anywhere. Garrett would have expected Doraleus to set aside that money so he would not forget or could pay it out faster. There must be other paperwork somewhere.

Garrett checked the bottoms of drawers for hidden compartments, behind the paintings and under the carpet, but he found nothing. Then he decided to look at the underside of the desk. There he found four metal latches that kept a cover on the underside in place. He swivelled them out of the way and caught the thin wooden plate that fell down, as well as the thick leather-bound ledger it held in place, then he sat back down at the desk. He carefully examined the pages. On them, Doraleus had written down all his dirty businesses. Although he needed to fear no police in a place as run-down as Prannten, he still knew to cover his tracks.

Indeed, Doraleus had set aside a paltry sum of ten communion silver, a year's earnings for a skilled labourer, but not at all enough for a girl slave, a crolachan one at that. The bounty on Garrett's head however was twenty-four Communion Silver. A hefty sum for revenge. Nobody had even tried to claim either of those however.

It did not tell Garrett anything he wanted to know. He went back and forth through the journals and the ledgers and noticed that many businesses had notes attached on how they were coming along; but not the issue of the missing crolachan. Could it be that Doraleus truly had no idea where Nannade was? Did he maybe have an even more secret ledger? Not even the most diligent of criminals would bury information this deep. Unless there were some things that Doraleus' never put on paper. He could try a spell to scry invisible inks or secret script hidden with magic.

Before Garrett could to so however, there was a rattle at the door. Somebody violently tried to open it. Garrett didn't know what mistake had make to wake Doraleus and he didn't prepare for this either. He drew his dagger and got ready to weave a spell, but before he could even think of one, the door shot through the room, tearing half the frame with it and leaving a dust cloud in its path. Doraleus stormed in, staff held in front of him. His small face on his big head on his small body was furious.

"GOT YOU!"

Before Garrett could bring his fist forward, Dorlaeus had already swung his staff above his bald head and an unseen force slammed Garrett back against the wall, pushing all air from his lungs. He focused his mind, weaving an Invisible Fist while his arms and legs were pinned against the wall, incapacitated.

"I have no idea who you are but you must be an idiot if you thought I wouldn't notice someone forcefully breaking my security."

Garrett released the spell with a forceful grunt, but all resulted was a spectacle of sparks flying off into all directions as if a fine glass goblet was shattered on a stone statue.

"Damn bounder, coming in here like a common thug, rummaging through my stuff hoping to find my wealth, stop your idiotic attempts at resistance. Tell me who your associates are and I will grant you a quick and painless death."

Garrett was still struggling, physically and mentally, against the restraints, but it was hopeless. Without an Arcane Lens he wouldn't be able to inspect the barrier that protected Doraleus, and without proper knowledge he couldn't counter or bypass it. So he had to fall back on a much cruder and brutal method of battering through the barrier in a single swift spell he just needed a bit of time.

"The only associate I have is a little girl you once called Fibi, and neither of us will get a quick and merciless death tonight."

Doraleus' face showed anger and sneer as he stepped closer to the wall. "Who do you think you are, sneaky plebian?!"

"They call me the Purple Paw, and you will learn the full dread of that title!"

The villain's face showed confusion, then disbelief, but it was enough time for Garrett to conjure that which was never written down, only remembered and repeated in mind. He saw success in his endeavour as a drop of purple energy pooled at his fingertips. He fixated his gaze at Doraleus' left side, hoping to avoid killing him outright, then he closed his eyes.

TZWAENG

The air was torn apart, splinter and chunks splattered on Garrett's mask and when he opened his eyes again, Doraleus' was screaming. His entire left arm was gone, a large gash running down his side.

Time was of the essence; Garrett knew he had an applicable spell in his book. He found it quickly and with it, he let a sheet of ice grow over the mage's wounds, stopping all bleeding before it could prove immediately fatal.

Doraleus was still screaming in pain, and would soon expire, so Garrett quickly went through his palm book again. A spell to stabilise him was quickly found and one to suppress pain just as easily. Exhausted from pain, Doraleus was panting on the floor, shivering from the coldness of the ice.

"Answer me and I will let you go without any further pain. Do you understand?"

Doraleus nodded slowly.

"What did you do to find the crolachan girl?"

"I put up a bounty. Ten Communion Silver for the girl alive, twenty-four for your head."

"Who did you sent to go after her?"

"Nobody. She wasn't worth that much. Just a stupid little girl."

"Did you utilize the girl's mother's body for any sort of tracking spell?"

"No."

"Did you contact the Communion of Sanctified Trade or any people posing as such?"

"No." Doraleus' face showed more and more exhaustion and wear. He was quickly losing his strength. Garrett had seen what he had come here to see, there was no reason to assume otherwise. He flipped through his palm book one more time, to find something that didn't cause any pain, when he paused and decided to ask one more question.

"Have you ever considered that she could have been a very valuable asset if you had just taken care of her?"

"Yes. But none of the idiots I told to do so ever did. They said she was creepy." He paused for breath. "They said that she was giving them the evil eye, or that something invisible threatened them." Another pause, longer this time. "So all they could do is tell her to clean the inn."

Not the answer Garrett had suspected, but then again, he didn't even know why he asked it in the first place. He shelved it in the back of his mind, tore a paper from the book and...

SNAP

Doraleus' skull and its content were splattered sideways all across the carpet. No need to leave a clean scene after all this screaming and casting. All that mattered was that all the ties were severed, even if it hadn't been the ones who sent that spirit or those thugs after the girl. Another dead end of a cold trail.