“I hate kids,” Syril as they sat in the inn the next morning as he found more prickly buds in the folds of his cloak.

  “We know,” Grom said. “You keep saying that.”

  “How can you hate kids?” Bill asked, not being present for the previous utterances of the complaint.

  “What’s to like?” Syril asked back.

  “They’re fun,” Bill said, smiling.

  “Their boring,” Syril

  “They’re insufferable.”

  “They’re adorable,” Bill said.

  “They’re sticky,” Syril countered.

  “You really don’t want kids?” Bill asked. “You don’t dream of settling down after all this and starting a family?”

  “No,” Syril said.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a half-elf for one,” Syril said. “Nearly infertile—which I see as a blessing, not a curse.”

  “Aren’t you ever lonely?” Bill asked.

  “Often,” Syril said. “But that’s a problem with a quick and easy remedy that doesn’t require settling down.”

  Sensing Bill wasn’t going to be happy with that answer and continue to pester him, Syril continued.

  “If I don’t die tragically young, I have at least another 400 years ahead of me. I don’t need to surround myself with people I care about only to watch them slowly die. It’s not worth it.”

  “You can’t live like that, all alone,” Bill protested.

  “I’m not all alone,” Syril said. “Grom has at least another 200 years in him.”

  “I want to start a family someday,” Grom said.

  “Want to and will are to different things,” Syril said.

  “Shut it,” Grom said. “We grew up in an orphanage. I’d like to adopt some kids, give them a good home after I retire.”

  “When would that be?” Bill asked.

  “Hells if I know,” Grom said.

  “What’s all this blithering about?” Linar asked, showing himself for the first time that morning.

  “Bill was being nosy,” Syril said.

  “Syril was being melodramatic,” Ellen said.

  “Glad I missed it,” Linar said. “So where are we with Duke Keavon?”

  “Count!” Syril shouted in frustration.

  “Count what?” Bill asked, looking confused, but that was difficult to recognize as his default facial expression was a vaguely confused one.

  “Never mind,” Syril said, dropping it and taking the correct name as a win.

  “Not any closer to figuring it out,” Ellen answered finally. “If we could find the trail on any of the actual missing people, we can see if he’s connected.”

  “Okay,” Syril said. “Let’s each take a missing person’s poster and try tracking down some leads.”

  A groan went around the table.

  “What?” Syril asked.

  “That’s super boring,” Ellen said.

  “I have a date,” Grom said.

  “I just don’t want to,” Linar said.

  “I’m not good at this type of thing,” Bill said.

  “Fine,” Syril said, grabbing the stack of sheets. “I’ll do it all by myself.”

  There was a long silence, until Ellen finally broke it.

  “I suppose, I can have Newt look around for the missing people as a rat in the city’s basements,” she said. “I can also pursue some magical leads.”

  “I can ask around my associates,” Linar offered. “We don’t do human trafficking, but if that’s the explanation, then someone there would probably know about it.”

  “Oh, glad to see your business associates have a line they won’t cross,” Grom said sarcastically.

  “And how will you help?” Linar asked Grom, smugly.

  “I’ll pray about it,” Grom said with a smile.

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  Everyone sighed, except for Bill, who seemed quite optimistic on the idea’s prospects of success.

  “Nothing else?” Syril asked.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I have a date. Remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” Syril said, dropping it.

  “I can go with you Syril, so you don’t get kidnapped and murdered,” Bill offered.

  “Thanks,” Syril said, deadpan.

  They discussed some details before Linar excused himself to go do some “unrelated business,” and the rest departed shortly after to pursue their own avenues of investigation.

  “Just don’t kill anyone,” Syril said as Linar left.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I only kill things when I’m with you guys.”

  “Great,” Ellen said. “Same time tomorrow?”

  ***

  “Hi,” Syril said to a grizzled and portly man who opened the door to great him. “I’m Syril and this is my associate Bill. We are he looking into the missing person poster for Feona Butcher. This is her home, right?”

  “I didn’t put out any poster,” the man said, moving to close the door.

  “Be that as it may sir,” Syril said, his words halting the action. “We would really like to come in and examine her room.”

  The man’s eyes went from the pair at his door to the street as he decided how to handle the situation. Ultimately, he chose to let them in and opened the door.

  “Her rooms in the back,” he said. “Don’t go poking around elsewhere.”

  The inside of the house was rank with pipe smoke and rotten meat, and Syril took a perfumed kerchief out of a pocket to breathe through. After that, he cast a spell and the homeowner collapsed, asleep.

  Bill spun around at the noise in the narrow hallway, drawing his throwing axes in the confused space.

  “Relax,” Syril said. “I put him to sleep. He killed his daughter and sold her to his customers.”

  “What? That’s horrible!? How do you know!?” Bill said.

  “I cast detect thoughts,” Syril said. “He’s probably responsible for a few of the missing people, but we can let the guard settle that.”

  Syril sent a message via spell to the guard captain he knew, and then the pair continued on with their investigation.

  They solved three more murders that day, found two missing people, and after consulting with the guard who had interrogated the butcher, narrowed down the stack of missing persons posters down to two. Both of whom had last been seen two days before a devil attack on the city.

  “I don’t see why these were all unsolved, it hardly took you any effort to figure it out,” Bill said.

  “The guard doesn’t have the time nor inclination to look into these cases,” Syril said. “They are too busy with monster attacks, adventurer nonsense, and whatever else their lords require of them to look into the missing poor.”

  “What about other adventurers?” Bill asked.

  “It’s not worth their time,” Syril said. “There’s no money in it, and being an adventurer is expensive.”

  “That’s horrible,” Bill said. “It’s not right.”

  “That’s just the world,” Syril said. “We can’t solve all of its problems.”

  “Well, maybe we should at least try.”

  Syril had nothing to say to that. He didn’t disagree in sentiment, but he was a realist. If they spent all their time doing this, how many more lives would be lost by their lack of aid elsewhere.

  The bard college taught about opportunity cost. Being doing a thing came at the cost of all the other things one could be doing. His and Grom’s families had been killed by rogue monster attacks, something a guard had no chance of stopping, but they did.

  While they couldn’t spend all their time doing this, Syril resolved there was more they could do, he just wasn’t yet sure what that was.

  ***

  “Can sacrifices be used in devil summoning rituals?” Syril asked Ellen the next morning at their meeting.

  Ellen laughed and then said, “If you’re a D class hedge wizard casting magics via ancient, outdated rituals.”

  Syril stared at Ellen.

  “So… is that a ‘yes?’” he asked

  “Yes, you can use sacrifices to summon devils—if you suck ass at summoning. I could do it right here in this inn, but I won’t because summoning devils is always a bad idea.”

  “Oh, is it?” Grom said. “What about summoning other things?”

  Some of the smugness dropped from Ellen.

  “Devils are some of the worst thing you can summon,” she answered, dodging the question.

  “Hmmm, don’t I know it as a cleric of Cland,” Grom said, “But what about other things? Demons? Fey?I dunno… outsiders?”

  “You must prepare appropriately for whatever you plan to summon. Many beings resent the summoning and must be controlled, while others—like devils—want to make a deal and have thousands of years more experience at making deals than any of us.”

  “Grom, drop it,” Syril said, “We need to focus.”

  Grom complied and stopped needling Ellen.

  “We suspect the attacks are tied to the disappearances, but that doesn’t tell us whether the Count has anything to do with it,” he continued.

  “If it is the Du—Count,” Grom began, then glared at Bill for getting the title in his head, “Why would he be summoning devils? Assuming he’s a bloodthirsty evil vampire, how does paying us to kill another vampire help him? Wouldn’t it have been better to leave the other one alive as an excuse to hide his summonings? And why summon them to attack his own party?”

  “That could be a ruse throw off suspicion,” Ellen suggested.

  “I think…” Syrill began, “that the Count is not apart of the devils.”

  “Why not?” Ellen asked.

  “Orcam’s Blade,” Syril said.

  “Whosit’s what?” Linar asked.

  “Orcam’s Blade,” Syril repeated. “The simplest plan is often the best plan. Orcam was a very successful barbarian adventurer. He advised against overly complicated plans. The Count is a smart man. Whatever his plan is, he seemed genuinely happy when we slew that vampire. If he did have all those slaves in his basement—and now there are gone… errr on his staff and no longer captive then why would he draw attention to himself with an attack?”

  “So where does that leave us?” Bill asked.

  “We need to investigate missing people before the trails grow cold,” Syril said, and the rest of the, group save Bill, let out an exasperated groan.

  ?

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