"Fetch quest."

"Escort quest."

"Fetch quest."

"Escort quest."

"We're following a trail of information that leads from one thing to the next. It's a fetch quest." Mamoru plants his feet in the ground stubbornly.

"We'll have to bring her home somehow. It's an escort quest." Izumi crosses her arms.

"What's this about escorts?" I, predictably, have very little idea of what they're talking about. "That sort of thing is legal here?"

"An escort quest," Izumi sighs. "When you find someone and guide them back to where they're supposed to be. Not a quest to fetch a person. That's just treating her like an object."

"I thought it was a search and rescue mission."

"Not everything has to be something out of your detective stories, Hiyori."

I'm put on the defensive. "Not everything has to be something out of your fantasy stories, Izumi!"

She gives me a look that takes the wind right out of my sails. The kicked puppy look on my own face is probably apology enough.

We both know what I've said is a lie. Everything's gone down just as she and Mamoru have expected since the beginning. I'm the only one left out, constantly two steps behind, desperately trying to find some sort of logic and order to this place. I'm ashamed to say that I'm coming around to the demons and their ways. Being "Lawful Evil," I think it's called?

So maybe I played D*ngeons & Dr*gons once.

But that's beside the point.

"You don't find them. They find you," Izumi repeats, dropping the argument she's basically won anyway. "That was so lame."

"Who goes around advertising they're a member of the Thieves' Guild, anyway?" Mamoru asks. "With the demon police force out all the time, you'd think they might want to consider being subtle."

"Maybe they're like, you know..." Izumi trails off, awkwardly folding her hands. "Like high-ranking yakuza or something. Untouchable."

"You could be onto something." I'm interested again now that we've got a real-world parallel. Then again, if we're trapped here, isn't this the real world now? "But not everyone's going to be as willing to talk as Bran was."

Finding him is like having a secret informant. Cops are allowed to have rocky relationships with their pet snitches, so I guess I'll let his attitude slide.

"So we just have to find people who don't want to be found. Great." Mamoru's not going to be winning any awards for his chipper attitude.

"How hard can it be? Maybe we just need to hang around the Bard's Guild a little more and they'll show up for a drink. We can have a stakeout!"

I expect the cold shoulder from Mamoru, but even Izumi doesn't humor that with a response.

"What? It's a perfectly normal thing to do!"

The sun begins its descent and we travelers have nowhere to go. There's nothing of value to report to Lord Windwood; we've already collected our belongings from the Silver Turtle; we're at an impasse with finding out suspects. Conversation turns back to argument, then back again to conversation as we try to find a place to rest our heads for the night.

We're still in what I understand to be the bad part of town. Storefronts look shabbier, buildings are more dilapidated, and dirt-caked people roam the streets, begging for a copper. It's not like I've never seen poverty before, but this seems a little overexaggerated.

Mamoru's horse whinnies and rears up. I'm suddenly aware of some masked figures in a nearby alleyway. Each mask, large enough to cover the entire face, is patterned to look like a snake. They're a dazzling black and gold.

"Izu—"

Before I can utter her name, I feel the clammy touch of someone's hand clasp around my mouth.

I bite down hard, pinching furry skin between my teeth. My assailant hisses and pulls their hand away. Next, I jab backwards with my elbow, eliciting a string of curses.

The voice is deep and feminine.

The woman lunges for me again and I can get a general sense of her – athletic, adult, moving with an inhuman kind of speed that I might easily attribute to the bushy tail swinging about behind her. Don't tell me there are animal people in this world, too. I'm still getting used to the halfling maid.

Beastwoman (level 2)

"Hold still!" she yells.

"Not on your life!"

I notice that Izumi and Mamoru are in a similar predicament. The three of us struggle, making some headway against our opponents, but a chant begins to rise from behind us. More masked figures approach. We're surrounded.

The mysterious words are in another language that compels me to listen more closely. It's not the common tongue, and it's certainly not Japanese. The harder I listen, the more I'm caught up in its spell.

Wait a second. I think it is a spell. That would make the most sense, right?

It doesn't have that purple energy I'm used to seeing from demons. Instead, it's a soothing pastel blue. If I squint, I can see a thick fog that slides and slithers like an eel, wrapping itself around myself and my companions.

"Good night, kid. No hard feelings," the beastwoman says, launching a whirling kick that lands squarely in my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs.

Unable to catch my breath, I start to see double, then quadruple, and then I'm out for the count.