“So, you’re saying the thugs are getting bolder?” Sarah asked as she stood before Samuel and his gang of misfits — ‘former gang of misfits’, she corrected herself. They were an almost respectable police force these days, especially considering they’d been nothing but thugs themselves barely a month before.

“N-no, ma’am,” Samuel said with a stammer. He was still afraid of her, it seemed. Sarah couldn’t blame the man. She had stabbed him, after all.

“There’s more of them, too,” the man continued, shaking off his fear to give his report. “At first, we found a gang every few days. That was okay — with the gold you gave us, we could go to a healer after and we’d be ready for the next one in a day or two.”

“Then, we started running into them every day or two. Very tiring, but we managed,” the scarred thug explained, sweat running down his brow. “But now,” he swallowed drily, “they’re hunting us. Jumping us when we’re resting or ambushing us in the streets. We almost lost Vinny in the last fight,” he said, pointing to a scrawny man in the back. One of his arms ended at the elbow, with an angry, red stump poking out of his sleeve — a recent wound.

“It does sound like that Every guy is accelerating his plan,” Shiro commented from behind.

“Aye, sir,” Samuel said. “And it’s been getting worse since the kidnapping—”

“Kidnapping? What kidnapping?” Sarah asked, interrupting the man.

Samuel blinked, confusion spreading over his face. “Uh, the Vintier kidnapping? Everyone knows about it.”

“Tell me all about it,” Sarah ordered tersely.

“Well, Teagan Vintier — he’s one of the richest merchants in town, he sells, uh…”

“Clothing,” one of his underlings interjected helpfully.

“Clothing.” Samuel continued, “His kid — she’s about 8 — went missing two days ago, and Vintier promised half his wealth to anyone who could find the girl.”

Shiro whistled. “Damn,” he said softly.

“Aye, sir. Damn,” Samuel agreed. “Whole town’s been abuzz with trying to find the lass, but there’s been no news yet.”

Sarah furrowed her brows, deep in thought. She couldn’t leave Samuel and his fellows undefended — by the looks of it, they were barely holding on as they were. But if the kidnapping was related, she had to look into it.

She turned to Shiro, ready to ask for his help, but he was already one step ahead of her.

“Go. I’ll keep these guys safe,” he said with a nod.

She smiled at him and, mouthing a silent word of thanks, ran off towards the Traders’ Plaza.

Finding the Teagan Vintier’s home turned out to be a walk in the park — the neighborhood consisted of an array of elegant stone houses, each with its own garden and encircled by well-kept hedges.

Gilded plaques revealed the name of the households within, and at number seven, Sarah waited before the door with bated breath.

How does one even approach someone about their missing kid? I’m sorry for your loss, maybe? Wait, no, that’s stupid. The kid is probably still alive. Whatever, I’ll just wing—

The door opened with a creak before she could finish the thought, revealing a pale, haggard man, his cheeks still wet with tears.

“Oh, damn,” Sarah sighed softly as she took in the emaciated form of Teagan Vintier.

“Yes, miss?” he said tiredly, though the barest hint of hope was audible in his voice. A hope that must have been squashed again and again as people came to offer help only to fail.

“I—” Sarah hesitated, unsure how to proceed. She’d imagined herself the heroine of an investigation show, striding in to question the parents, find the clues, rescue the child and apprehend the bad guys — but now, faced with the raw emotion of the man before her, she realized how silly her idea had been. She was no investigator — she was completely out of her depth. But, still, she had to try; it was her duty, one she’d picked by herself when she decided to involve herself in Ravenrock’s problems.

“My name is Sarah,” she said, steeling herself. “I’m the Dark Lord’s Knight, and, um, I would like to assist in finding your daughter.”

Here’s hoping I learned something useful from all those crime shows.

Teagan blinked, surprised. He’d clearly not expected any kind of official to come and investigate, especially since there were barely any officials left after the baron had died.

“Of course,” he said, opening the door the rest of the way and motioning for the knight to enter. “Please forgive my appearance; the past few days have not been kind to me,” he said wearily.

Sarah winced in sympathy and followed after the man. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Vintier. Now, um, could you tell me what you’ve discovered so far about the kidnapping?”

He let out a long sigh. “Next to nothing, I’m afraid. And that’s the problem — I was expecting a ransom note, blackmail, something.” Teagan slumped on a nearby sofa and cradled his face in his palms.

“When did you last see, uh—”

“Laura. Her name is Laura,” he interjected, gripping the armrests forcefully. “Three days ago. I tucked her in, kissed her goodnight, and when I checked in on her in the morning she was gone.” Tegan’s voice broke at the end, and he barely held back a sob.

“Were there any signs of a struggle?” Sarah asked, removing a notebook and a pen from her armor’s pocket dimension.

“Not that I saw, but even if she did struggle, she’s only 6. There was little she could have done.”

Sarah nodded, jotting down this information.

“Is there anyone who’d have reason to try and use her against you?”

“I’m a tailor,” he scoffed, a bit of color returning to his face. “My rivals would do many things to undermine me, but kidnapping?” He shook his head.

Sarah raised her hands defensively. “Just covering all possible avenues.”

His visage softened, and he closed his eyes. “I apologize. You are only trying to help.”

“So, you don’t know how they might have broken in or how they left?” Sarah barreled forward.

“How they entered, no. But the door to Laura’s balcony was ajar in the morning.”

“Tracks in the garden below?”

“It was the first thing I looked for; I even asked an old hunter to give it a look, but he couldn’t find any traces.”

A hunter — right, there’s supposed to be a lot of adventurers in Ravenrock. Shouldn’t it be easy for a mage to track down a missing child?

“Um, did you try, by any chance, to have a mage find Laura?”

“I wish,” Teagan sighed. “The majority of them left town a couple of weeks ago — there’s some important convention that happens only every few decades or something. And the ones who remained are the ones who only care to use magic to kill things.”

Sarah winced. “That’s a nasty circumstance.”

“Indeed. I sent a letter to the Adventurers’ Guild in Canneria, but it’ll be days until I can get any help from there. By that time… I dread to think what could happen.”

The knight scribbled down the last of her notes. “Do you think I could take a look around the house? I might be able to find something your tracker missed.”

Teagan raised his right arm in a welcoming gesture. “Feel free. It’s not like you can make matters worse.”

Sarah’s lips tightened in a sympathetic wince, then headed for the stairs to begin her inspection. She would search every nook and cranny, starting from the basement. Who knew, maybe she’d even find something like a secret tunnel.

The basement had not yielded any secret trap doors that led directly to the enemy base, and neither had the bedrooms revealed any hidden passages or servant corridors forgotten by time.

The chimneys were decidedly too tight for anything wider than a particularly fat cat to fit through, and there was no scuffing on the outside walls to suggest that they had been scaled.

She did, however, find a significant hint in the attic. A thick layer of dust covered the boxes and drawers, which showed how little traffic the room tended to see. On the floor, though, the dust had been disturbed, and recently. A single set of tracks coming from inside the attic leading towards the door.

Ah, thank fuck, at least the kidnapper was a little bit incompetent. Would have hated to come up completely empty-handed.

Following the tracks was simple enough, with a magic lamp for lighting, though she understood how the kidnapper might have missed covering them in the dark. Not that they could have done much — a completely clean attic floor would have been suspicious in itself.

The tracks stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, and Sarah was puzzled for a moment before she thought to look up. They came through the rooftop trapdoor.

Unlatching the trapdoor, she climbed her way to the top, stairs creaking ominously, and found herself on the building’s flat roof. Sarah released a whoop of joy as she realized the kidnapper had failed to — or not bothered to — hide any traces of their passage. Somebody had clearly disturbed the leaves that had collected on the roof by cleaning their muddy boots off them, and recently.

Sarah spent the next half an hour combing the roof for further clues but came up short. In the end, it simply looked like the kidnapper had just appeared near the edge of the roof.

It made little sense for the kidnapper to go to crazy lengths to cover some of their tracks while completely ignoring the others. The only other option that remained was—

Sarah smacked herself when she realized what a fool she had been. Of course, the kidnapper had teleported to the roof, and then off the balcony — it was fantasy land, after all.

Unable to suppress a joyful smile, she returned downstairs to update Teagan Vintier on her progress.

Teagan Vintier had been ecstatic at the news — it was the first solid lead he’d gotten so far, and hope bloomed yet again in his heart.

“Um, I don’t want to be a downer, but aren’t you a bit too excited? They could have teleported anywhere from the balcony.”

Teagan grinned. “If they had gone by the streets, they’d have been easily spotted — so they must have kept to the roofs. And unless their mage is very powerful, they couldn’t have teleported more than twenty meters at a time, maybe even less.” He calmed himself, taking a breath before continuing, “We just need to check each rooftop for signs of passage, and we should be able to at least get closer to where they took my Laura.”

Sarah smiled wryly. “Your neighbors won’t be happy to see us barge in and trample on their rooftops.”

“They won’t mind, given sufficient money,” he retorted, rolling his eyes.

“No time to lose, then.”

“No time to lose,” Teagan agreed as he began stuffing a bag with gold coins.

The plan had turned out to work quite well, with few people minding the intrusion as Teagan and Sarah systematically went from door to door asking for access to their rooftops. After a while, the shape of the trail became increasingly clear, especially as the style of the buildings changed and flat rooftops became less common. At that point, Sarah began merely checking the rooftops every once in a while to see if they were still on track.

The sun was beginning to set when the trail finally ran cold, but they had managed to narrow the location down to just a handful of buildings.

It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the poorer areas of the town, and not far from where Sarah’s men had been ambushed, from what she recalled. This did not strike her as a coincidence — it did seem to fit with Lord Every’s tactics to kidnap a high-profile target.

Teagan’s eyes sparkled with hope as they overlooked the neighborhood from the final rooftop, but Sarah put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head lightly.

“We need to go back, now,” she said softly, eyeing the surroundings warily.

“What? Are you mad? But we’re so close—” Teagan sputtered indignantly, his eyebrows forming into a frown.

“Quiet. We don’t know how many people are involved, or even where exactly they’re hiding,” she said, motioning for him to keep his voice low. “Do you know how to fight at all?”

Teagan’s frown deepened, but he shook his head.

“See? There’s not much I can do alone, especially in a hostage situation. We’ll go back, regroup, find us some more people to help, and then we’ll go in with a proper plan.”

“Fine,” Teagan said, closing his eyes. Slowly rubbing his temples, he continued, “But who’s going to help us? If you go around trying to recruit adventurers, word will definitely go out. I don’t want that scum to catch wind of it and flee with Laura, not when we’re so close…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sarah soothed him. “We don’t need to go public about it. Don’t worry, I have just the right people in mind…”