In the next hour, Corbin saw the would-be assassin carted off by the chief constable, a huge dusky-skinned orc with one broken tusk. He looked unbelievable in that uniform, though the manacles glowed with blue-white magic, which was a relief. He also noted that Ignatious Featherbottom secured Kyessy the services of the town healer, and finished off their commerce with an ability card called Longstrider, a Wild Aspect card that allowed her to move unfettered through thick forests, and at 50% faster in forests, plains and mountains. He didn’t think it would do him much good, but a more mobile ranger in the forest was a more effective ranger, and that was great news. Last, she bought a cloak with the standard self-healing enchantments, and a minor concealment bonus. It might not do a lot, but a little was better than her plain old cloak she’d had before. Plus, the merchant agreed to have it dyed dusky blue, apparently Kyessy’s favorite color.

Then they headed to the Densmeer lockup.

“I’m full, you know.”

Actually he didn’t. “What are you talking about?”

“Three core cards and seven equip slots. I just put Wight Hood in the inventory, so we can’t use it. Either I’d have to swap out, or figure out what the Deck function is.” She threw up her hands and cried out in annoyance. “This series of windows and boxes could not be more infuriating.”

“Experimentation is the height of intelligence,” he told her.

“Experimentation on the field of battle is the height of stupidity!” she shot back.

“That’s… true. I guess.”

It wasn’t far, though Corbin had had no idea where the jail might be, he found it was under the town hall. A fitting place for criminals, apparently, what with all the records and deeds of ownership, the magistrate and the town councilors. The town hall (above ground) was just a large empty room with all the furniture piled against the walls. Long tables, circular tables, and dozens of chairs were all stacked this way and that. It carried some strangely defensive fortifications built in, including first floor arrow slits, and open guard tower areas at the corners.

They bypassed the goggle-eyed desk attendant and headed straight past some back storage rooms or offices to the end of the hallway to the stairs. Corbin heard the nellwynian call for some guards when they hit the top of the wooden staircase, which hit a stone landing and continued on as a stone staircase.

The cellar level of the place was enormous, like it had been built to shelter a ruling family during a siege. Nine feet deep, which maybe shouldn’t have been surprising given what Kyessy had told him about wizards. Corbin also guessed it had extra rooms somewhere he couldn’t see, because once down the stairs, they didn’t come upon half as many rooms as he imagined should be in here. The jail was only about twenty feet by ten, two cells, and then records rooms after that. They were stopped, though, by the sheriff or constabulary or whatever passed for the law in this city, the broken-tusked orc. He was coming up the stairs, and put a hand out to stop them.

“Ho there,” he said. “What’s this about, then?”

“That little fellow attempted to murder me.”

“That he did, that he did,” the orc said. “And that means you’ll be murdering him instead?”

“What?”

“What’s your name, miss?”

“Kyesiara,” she told him. “Ranger of the north ridges.”

He held a hand to his chest. “Grotok. I tend to the law around Densmeer, so that would-be assassin is my business, not yours.”

“I beg to differ,” she said. “He didn’t stab you in the back, did he?”

“What brings you out this way? Long way from the north ridges, ain’t we?”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Corbin grumbled.

“Interesting… familiar you have there,” the orc responded.

“You can say ugly,” Kyessy said. “The correct term is ugly.”

The law man chuckled. “That’s fair.”

“When did this turn into a dump on Corbin session?”

“Shush.”

“Talkative,” the orc observed.

“I get that entirely too much. He’s also quite defensive.”

“In any event,” Grotok said, “I can’t just allow vigilante justice. He’s an attempted murderer, and he’ll have his comeuppance when the time is right.”

“And that would be… when exactly?” she asked.

“I’ll have a word with the magistrate and arrange an execution date.”

Wow. From prisoner to dead man walking in the space of a few seconds. Corbin wondered if anybody would object to him taking the eyeballs before they got too jellified.

He ruffled his feathers and told his brain to quit doing that. He was in to nice juicy steaks, hot dog barbecues, beer brats and potato salad and… whatever. Three bean casserole maybe. Not eyeballs. And no more bugs either.

“Motive is a thing,” he said.

“I just need to know who hired him,” Kyesiara said.

“Hired him!” Grotok exclaimed. “Well now, someone thinks pretty highly of herself, doesn’t she?”

“What–”

“Look, I’ve seen this a lot lately: quick stabby stab murder, half your inventory falls on the ground, they pick up the loot, bam they’re gone before you respawn and come looking for your gear. He was probably after a quick few items, head to the next town over to sell them off, and that was that. Luckily you had your ugly bird there to come to the rescue in time.”

Kyessy turned a serious amount of side eye Corbin’s way. “Yes, lucky me.”

“In either case, once the execution is held, maybe you can come and have a word with him. We’ll need him to stay the night here, get some sleep, and then we can put him through hell. He might have more in his inventory, some other loot he was planning to fence along with yours. It’ll tell us a good amount of information.”

“And if I’m not satisfied with that information?”

Grotok snorted. He suddenly seemed momentous, astonishingly large and thick with muscle. Like a wall come to life. Corbin noted the axe slung over his back, and the dagger at his hip.

“Some people can’t seem to handle the truth very well,” Grotok said lightly. Now, be on your way.”

Kyessy clearly didn’t like it, but either the Intimidation check had worked, or she just thought better of going toe to toe with this big orc over nothing. She turned to go, stopped, and turned back.

“If someone wants me dead for any other reason, I need to know why.”

Grotok just nodded. “I’ll send for you, Ms. Ranger. I’ve been informed your room is in the tavern.”

***

Kyessy decided to phase through the wall with her Wight Hood and get some sleep out in the forest rather than have somebody know where her spawn point was, and Corbin didn’t bother trying to convince her not to. That gnomish might indeed have been just out for a smash and grab, but maybe not. The situation with the Shardmage was fishy enough without the town guard having a would-be assassin’s back. The question ran possibly as deep as whether the magistrate was also in on the whole deal or not. He seemed helpless and affable and silly enough to warrant further suspicion, but Corbin didn’t have the energy, resources or mental faculties to go after them.

He used Versatility to boost his Strength, so he could lift the key and seal the room off magically. He needed to feel safe too, given that he had far fewer HP than she did, and he’d reappear over by the fireplace if anything went wrong.

“Hey, let’s head for Denspire in the morning,” he also told her through their telepathic link before she’d gotten too far.

“Not possible. I have… a history in Denspire,” came the response, and then she was out of range.

“What if I helped–”

The hotlist ability icons disappeared from his periphery (save for his Terrifying Aura and Mimicry), and he knew she wouldn’t respond now. He had a friend back in college who’d been like that, Brock or Brody or Brayden maybe. Brayden, yeah, definitely Brayden. The guy had been talkative and jokey until some weird undefined moment when he just shut down and disappeared. Parties, small get togethers for board games or drinking, gaming sessions, it didn’t matter. You could almost set your watch by Brayden’s sudden quiet, drawn expression, and his inevitable disappearance within five minutes of going silent.

Corbin really wanted to get Prissy back. Sure she wasn’t as high a level, and didn’t know this world, and was pissed off at him, but at least she listened. She followed his instructions when it was necessary, and listened to his advice.

He hoped they’d get out of this town alive and in the same condition they arrived in. For now, he settled in a bed the size of an aircraft carrier for a lone raven.

His dreams had him writhing, and he woke up with his twiggy little legs sticking up in the air. He bet as a human he’d have been bathed in sweat. Whatever he’d dreamt, thankfully he couldn’t remember it, but it probably involved weird berries, diving through gigantic mushrooms, and a cackling old woman brewing up a pot of void blossom poison. No, wait… he’d had a moment where the wizard they found transformed him in a great runic circle. And it wasn’t a human he changed into. No, the wizard changed him into whatever you’d call a centaur with a spider lower body instead of a horse. And instead of a human’s upper half, he was a gray-skinned elf with extra eyes on his forehead.

Corbin flopped around until he was up, and realized to his dismay that he couldn’t lift the keys to unlock all the magic locks. He also had no way of raising the windows without Kyessy coming back.

“It’s fine,” he said. “This is fine.”

Another of his pre-raven memories came back: a meme. A dog sitting in the middle of a kitchen with a coffee cup in one paw, saying ‘This is fine’ while the entire place was engulfed in flames. This felt very much like Densmeer to him.

Kyessy returned almost two hours after he’d woken up, and a hilarious comedy of errors ensued.

“What do you mean you can’t get out?”

“Uh… no opposable thumbs?” he cried.

“And?” For some reason she was experiencing a serious brain fart. This triggered another of his human memories, and he pushed it aside rather than feeling the embarrassment of not understanding that Bieber meant ‘basketball’ in German.

Sometimes things just caught you flat-footed, okay? It wasn’t his fault the random fact came out of nowhere and blasted a brain fart right into his mind. Moving on.

“And even if I could lift the friggin’ keys, I couldn’t unlatch the window or push it open!”

“I don’t see why this is my problem,” she said.

He took several deep, cleansing breaths, and forced patience upon himself. “Kyesiara, you have to come get the keys.”

“I have to do no such thing. You can stay in there and figure a way to free yourself.”

“It’s a magically secured tavern room built for humanoids.”

“I’ve had breakfast, and the magistrate has agreed to give us the location of the wizard who will help us.”

“So… let me out?”

Eventually shouted at her telepathically until she phased through the outer wall again, grabbed hold of the keys, and unlocked the myriad of locks on the room’s door. She swore the whole time in quiet North Ridges Tiefling language, whatever they called it.

“Come on,” she told him.

“Where to?” She was feeling back to her old self, maybe. He hoped. Whatever her old self was. He didn’t know and didn’t much care until now, when she literally held his entire life in his hands. Oh well, he’d saved hers enough times that he should be able to expect decency out of her. No doubt in his mind, none at all.

“We have a talk with that magistrate Findell about your wizard.”

His wizard. Yes.

The magistrate wasn’t anywhere to be found at this hour, which was unusual. It was just past breakfast. No reason the little guy couldn’t be up and about.

He wasn’t at his porch anyhow. Corbin flapped up and got a look inside the available windows of the magistrate’s house, and found nothing.

“Findell?” she called.

“Maybe he’s walking around the town and doing magistrate-ey business,” Corbin suggested.

“Maybe he’s trying to renege on his deal.” Ah yes, the raging Kyessy had returned and he was kind of glad of it. It was a kind of Karen thing that, in this time and place, he appreciated. Say what you wanted about Karens, they generally got results. Squeaky wheels got grease, even if they got lampooned in sketch comedy every other week.

“Findell?” she yelled again.

Finally, after another three or four yells, a woman appeared, a human with light skin and red-brown hair, wearing simple clothes and holding a broom made of straw.

“What’s all the racket, then?” she asked.

“The magistrate,” Kyessy demanded. “Where is he?”

“What d’you need him for?”

“That’s my business. You his wife?”

“Would that entitle me to some common courtesy?” the woman asked.

“The opposite. Where is the magistrate?”

“I’m the housekeeper.”

Kyessy snarled. “Now, either you tell me where he is, or I head in there and find him.”

The woman seemed affronted. “Just barge into a magistrate’s home, would ya? What kind of manners– Oooh!” The sound she made when Kyessy pushed her aside was fun enough that Corbin chuckled in his disgusting throaty raven warble.

“None,” he said. “No manners. That’s how Karen Kyessy rolls.”

He headed in after her, and found an understated, but clean house full of memorabilia: some oil paintings on the wall of the magistrate and a woman Corbin hadn’t seen yet, some religious symbols on the walls, wallpaper probably made by a garbage wizard, and a staircase Kyessy was already tromping up.

“He ain’t here!” the housekeeper cried. “He–”

“Left already, did he?”

“Y-yeah.”

Hrm.

“He’ll be back–”

“Oh, he’s here already,” the magistrate’s voice called from outside. “Won’t you come out, adventurer, and your animal companion?”

Kyessy barged out of the front door like she was ready to stick him with one of those fae short swords.

“You lied to us.”

Shock registered on the magistrate’s face. “What?”

“We didn’t find a bandit group in the cemetery. Did we Corbin?”

“He can’t understand me,” Corbin muttered. “But no, we didn’t.”

One of those fae short swords appeared. “No, we found ourselves a mage who was stealing the souls of adventurers. The sort of thing that might just be a trap.”

The magistrate’s eye grew wide and he backed away a few steps. “I… I had no idea, I swear! I thought the other adventurers just took a look at the situation and decided not to bother with something dangerous. And believe me… did you say mage?”

“Soul-stealing mage,” Kyessy seethed. “Soul-stealing mage who used mind control.” The way she said mind control, you’d think it was on the same level as a demon, or a cow pie she’d accidentally stepped in.

He took several steps back, quaking in terror. He kept rubbing one hand over the other, like he was washing the blood off them, or just really pathetic. “If I had known, I’d–”

“Next time adventurers don’t come back, send ten times more adventurers,” she said. “Or an army.”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, absolutely.”

“Now, you mentioned something about knowing a wizard.”

“Ah, yes. Yes, of course. I’d be happy to hold up my end of the deal, but…”

“Here it comes,” Corbin said.

“I’m afraid the Fellwroth armies have been seeking out the sorts of wizards you’d be looking for. The acquaintance of mine reported he was stolen off in the night and taken to a Fellwroth camp.”

“Unbelievable,” Corbin muttered.

“Your… bird…”

“Talkative, yes. Everyone seems to have the same reaction. He’s the worst and should learn to keep his beak shut before someone shuts it for him,” Kyessy said. “Now get on with it. We have to go break your wizard out of wizard prison, presumably. There isn’t another wizard with the same sort of qualifications and knowledge.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“It figures.”

“This town’s thick with the buggers,” Corbin complained. “Asshole wizards.”

“This whole war between Fellwroth and Denspire is only winding up,” Findell explained. “They’ve been exchanging blows for the last few months, testing out defenses, and now they’re enlisting the aid of the otherworlders.”

“Earthlings,” Kyessy said. “They’re called earthlings.”

Corbin watched the understanding dawn on the man’s perfectly round, perfectly smooth face. He stared at Corbin for a few seconds, twiddled his hideous mustache, and then returned his attention to Kyessy. “Yes, well, um… I’ve been looking for news regarding his whereabouts. He’s just north of the point where the Fens jut up, where the road swings.”

“The place with the woods on either side, full of brigands and highwaymen,” she said.

“You know the place.”

“Jiddara’s Stretch they call it,” she deadpanned. “On account of all the arrows sticking out of you by the time you get to the other side, you look like a spiny jiddara.”

Findell gulped. “Yes. Well.”

“Lucky for us, the brigands and highwaymen won’t be anywhere near it. They’ll be lying low for now, or conscripted, or driven off with an army right nearby. All we’ll have to worry about are the hundreds of soldiers looking to stop us, and the jail wagons, and the wizard manacles which cut the wizard off from all his power to help us, even if we do free him.”

“I can sweeten the pot a bit,” Findell offered, and produced a card.

“I don’t think a single card will wuuuhhhhh–” Kyessy got no further. This was a mythic. The whole thing glowed with rainbow holographic radiance. The top depicted a griffin with a rider streaming down out of the sky toward the viewer. Several more griffins were in formation behind this one. This was a summon, and not just a single griffin you could right, but three of them. Each one had stats like Corbin, but way better… of course, he had a higher Intelligence, Perception, and a much better Luck, but–

“Hang on, a Charm of 17? Charming griffins? That makes no sense.”

“Unfortunately, as you can see, you can summon them only two more times,” Findell said.

The card did say it was Limited Edition, and Charges Remaining sat at only two.

Kyessy sighed. Hard. “Let’s go save a wizard.”

Hopefully not a garbage wizard.