So, I ate a quick breakfast, checked in with the sheriff to get a little more information, and then set out with the others. Cerberus was happy to go for another walk, dashing ahead while Percy and I took up the rear. Not that we were taking our time at all. We were all running along the path that Millersby would have taken to get to his fishing site. Both of them were capable of keeping up with me even when I used my speed boost, so we crossed the distance much faster than anyone else from the town could have. We weren’t going full out, considering we had to watch for any sign of the man, but it was still pretty damn fast.
Obviously, I was worried about what this could mean. Not to mention about whether or not me going in investigating would cause some sort of problem in the future. After all, what if he was supposed to run into something bad and if I interfered, it changed things so that my dad never came here or never met my mother? Yeah, that was unlikely, but still. I felt like every time I stepped on the wrong blade of grass, it was going to cause a time related catastrophe. It’d been one thing to just do my training here, but being sent out to actually potentially interfere with a historical event, no matter how minor? It could quickly spiral out of control.
On the other hand, I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. I had to try. I left myself a pretty firm mental reminder to get Ehn to leave some sort of message on our way if this ended up being a bad idea. Basically, if doing this did alter things too much, the potential future version of me would convince Ehn to leave some sort of message that I would understand to say I shouldn’t do it. Or that I should find a way to fix it.
Yes, I was taking time travel advice from the Bill and Ted movies. But hey, there had to be worse sources for that. The idea that I would warn myself if things went wrong by doing this was basically the best I could do without just sitting on my hands doing nothing the entire time. After all, I had already been involved in two major time loops, so what was one more?
We didn’t find any sign of the guy on the way to his camping site. I had hoped this would be as simple as just running into him along the path, with Millersby simply saying he’s gotten held up or decided to stay a bit longer. Even though that didn’t really make sense because if he was just delayed, he would have responded to the magical messages his wife was sending. They had been communicating through a couple stones that were able to pass their voices back-and-forth. It wasn’t quite like using a telephone. He just held the stone up and spoke a sentence into it and then a few minutes later the other stone would broadcast his voice to whoever was near it. But it was still enough to connect them. His wife had been sending messages for the past twelve hours or so with no answer. She said it wouldn’t be the first time he had lost his stone or walked off without bringing it, and yet, that didn’t make her feel any better.
So, we searched all the way up to the lake where he had pitched his camp. I had visited him the first time he set it up, back within the first week of my time here. So I knew where it was, and sure enough, as we slowed to a walk in front of the two large boulders that he liked to sit on while fishing right at the edge of the lake, we could see his tent. He hadn’t taken it down yet. Which wasn’t exactly a good sign. Nor was the fact that we didn’t see him anywhere much better.
Cerberus started sniffing around, searching for any other sign of the man while I cleared my throat and called out for him. There was no answer, so I called again, raising my voice. Again, nothing.
Percy went to look in the tent before turning back to me. “His pack and hiking boots are still here. So is his sleeping roll. He wasn’t planning on leaving.” She paused before adding, “But I don’t see any sign of a fight.”
Well that made me even more worried. Even the fact that there wasn’t any sign of a struggle didn’t help that much. There were way too many things that could’ve taken him without leaving a sign of it. Hell, I almost would’ve preferred if there had been a sign of a big confrontation. Maybe not blood or anything, but at least an indication that he’d been able to fight back. For him to just completely vanish like this? Yeah, I was worried.
But hey, maybe I was just overreacting, and he had simply lost track of time or something and wandered off. Or maybe he got lost on a hike and dropped his communication stone. That could be it, right? He could’ve gone last night and was out there wandering around completely lost with no idea of how to get home or call for help.
Was there something wrong with me if that was my idea of a good option?
While I was thinking about that, Cerberus came bounding up before shaking all three of his heads. He hadn’t been able to find a trail. And that made this whole thing even worse. If Millersby had just wandered off and gotten lost, Cerberus would’ve been able to sniff him out. This was looking more and more like he had just been teleported out of here or something. And I really didn’t think there were any good reasons for that to happen.
Trying not to worry too much about that just yet, I summoned a few dozen ghosts and sent them out to search the surrounding area. If there was any sign of this guy anywhere within ten miles or so, they would find it. Among other obvious benefits of this sort of necromancy, having what amounted to a search party in a can was another. Especially considering they could fly through all the trees and rocks without being impeded at all, and get aerial views. Between all of that and their coordination, ghosts were incredibly effective at this, and I had to highly recommend them if they were an option.
While the ghosts were searching, with Cerberus helping by sniffing for any interesting scents, I looked toward Percy. “Do you have any idea why someone might abduct him? I mean, you talked to the guy a bit too, right? Did anything stand out?”
Percy, however, shook her head. “No, Flick. He is a very ordinary man.” After a brief pause she amended, “I did not mean that in a disparaging way. But he does not seem to be the sort who would ever be abducted by someone willing to put in the effort to do so this quietly and imperceptibly. If he has been taken, I’m afraid it must have been random.” She looked away to scan over the lake intently for a moment before turning back to me. “Which will make him more difficult to find.”
She was right, if this guy really didn’t have any enemies that would deliberately target him like this, it was going to be harder to figure out. Grimacing at the thought, I moved back to look through his tent once more, to no avail. I couldn’t find anything more useful through a physical search than by simply focusing on my item sense. He hadn’t left any sort of note behind secretly detailing his plans to go on a weeklong skiing trip or anything like that. Sure, that was unlikely, but so was the man just vanishing like this.
Of course, there was something else I had to check. I was reluctant to come out because I was afraid of what I might find. But, with a soft sigh, I closed my eyes and stretched with my Necromancy. I was searching for any recent ghosts, any sense of death here in this area. To my immense relief, I couldn’t find anything important within the past few months. There were plenty of dead animals, but I didn’t pick up any sapient deaths. It didn’t mean the man couldn’t have been killed a bit further away, but at least that was something.
That was good, but we still didn’t know where he was. And… and there was something else. Dead fish in the lake. Well, obviously there would be dead fish there, but in this case there were a lot of them, all out in one spot toward the middle. A bunch of dead fish and a missing guy. How did that fit together?
And please let this remain a ‘missing man and dead fish’ mystery and not a ‘dead man and dead fish’ one.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The ghosts and Cerberus were searching in an outward pattern for any sign of him, as I shook my head. “I wish we had his wife up here talk to about– oh my God, I’m an idiot.”
Tilting her head, Percy politely yet firmly informed me, “I would not want them to claim that you have any mental inadequacy, Flick. That would be very rude, and I’m certain they don’t think that.”
“No, I mean that–hang on. You guys keep looking, I’ll be right back.” With that, I focused on the town once more. Obviously I hadn’t used my teleportation power before because we’d needed to search the entire trail along the way just in case he was on it. But now that we knew he wasn’t, I simply transported myself back to town with a thought. One second I was by the lake and the next I was standing on the edge of the village. I didn’t like to teleport directly inside, because that tended to set off alarms. Instead, I appeared right near the gate and waved at the watchman there, greeting him by name before heading inside.
From there, I made my way first to Alder Salumson, then to Sheriff Dune, then to Millersby’s wife, Katya. The latter was a smaller woman, just under five feet tall, with bright, lime green skin and butterfly-like wings. I had to tell them that, unfortunately, we hadn’t found the man yet. But I also told him there was no sign of any struggle at all, so it was just as possible that he had wandered off on his own and gotten lost or something. That was why I headed back to town. I was asking the sheriff, the alder, and his wife if they knew anything about what else Millersby might’ve been doing up there that could have distracted him aside from fishing. Or if they knew anyone else I could talk to who might.
Unfortunately, none of those three knew what he might do. He was only going up there to fish. He loved the relaxing activity, along with the fact that it allowed him to bring back food. He had a very special spell his great-grandfather had taught him that would keep fish fresh for a full month within any box it was used on. Sort of like a portable freezer. Only without the actual freezing part.
Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything else about where he might’ve gone. But she did tell me that I should talk to one of his friends, a man named Teadoa. Apparently they liked to play cards together, and sometimes Millersby would get pretty drunk and ramble at the other man about things he might not have said to Katya. As she put it, with a tired, worried, yet loving expression, all husbands had their secrets now and then. She thought hers might have been planning… something for the two of them, but she wasn’t certain. And if he would have talked to anyone about that sort of thing, it was his gaming buddy.
When I found him, Teadoa was sitting against one of the main meeting hall buildings. He was a very tall man, a full nine feet whenever he stood up straight, though a solid foot and a half of that was his long, giraffe-like neck. Even as I approached him, the man was sitting with his shoulders leaning forward, his head down as close as it could get to the ground as he watched a bright blue beetle crawl on the dirt, murmuring encouragement to it. “There you go, buddy,” he murmured. “See, there’s a delicious delicious leaf right over there away from people. No one’s gonna step on you over there. That’s right.” Sensing me coming, he looked up. “Oh, hello, Felicity. How can I help you?” He had a sort of slow, drawling way of talking. It was like he was always just a few seconds from falling asleep. But, through a few long talks with the man over the past couple months, I knew he had a very silly sense of humor. Shiori would’ve liked to meet him.
Putting aside that thought as a slight pang passed through me at the thought of just how long it had been since I saw her, Valley, or any of the others, I focused on the issue at hand. “Hey, Teadoa. Uh, Millersby went fishing, but now he’s missing.” I told him the rest of what we’d found, and that the man wasn’t anywhere along the trail. “So I was just hoping if you knew anything at all about what he might have been up to, if he had some other place around there he might’ve gone to visit, or someone he met.” Even as I said that last part, I knew how unlikely it was. There was no other town or settlement within any reasonable distance in this area. And unlike me, Millersby didn’t have phenomenally useful teleportation powers that could take him anywhere.
Fortunately, though Teadoa didn’t know anything about any person his friend might have met, he did have an idea of what the man might be doing. Apparently Katya had been right about her husband planning something in secret. It seemed that he had invited her sister to come visit. It wasn’t supposed to happen for another month or so, but he had been communicating with her on his fishing trips so his wife wouldn’t find out and ruin the surprise. She and her sister had been close for a long time. They were twins, and had been basically inseparable until they grew up. Now the other woman, Laena, lived in Britain with her two mates, a wife and husband, and their five children. The two still used magic to talk a lot, but they hadn’t been in the same physical location for several years by this point. Millersby knew how much his wife missed her sister, so he had been arranging for that entire family to come over here and visit.
“He should’ve asked me to bring them over,” I muttered. “I would’ve done it, no problem.” Even as I said that, I realized one of the issues. Transporting a whole group clear across the ocean might’ve been easy for me at this point, but it was also a pretty big change. If I had done that, what would it have altered in the future?
Fuck, this whole thing was so annoying to keep track of or think about.
“We don’t like to bother you, Felicity,” Teadoa informed me gently in that slow way of his. “You have already expended so much effort in helping us, have risked so much. It’s unfair to expect you to do even more simply for our small comfort.”
There was a lot I wanted to say to that. Not all of which I even understood, and much of which was conflicting. Part of me wanted to insist that I would do anything for them after these past couple months, but I still had a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to slow down and not do so much. It was too risky.
Finally, I just asked if he knew the area where Millersby would have been communicating with his sister-in-law. Unlike the simple magic stones he used with his wife, talking all the way across the planet required a more elaborate set-up. Especially for someone who didn’t have the level of magical skill and resources I was used to seeing. He needed space and time to carefully put something like that together. Which kind of explained why he only did so on these fishing trips, if he didn’t want his wife to stumble across them.
On the plus side, after a bit of thought, he was able to tell me where I should look. Apparently, Millersby hadn’t wanted to always tear down his magical communication set-up every time he left that area, because it was too hard to put together again. But he also didn’t want any random person to stumble across it. Or for animals to mess with it. So, he had told the man about some sort of cave he had found right at the edge of the lake. It was really easy to miss, considering the entrance was pretty low down so you had to crawl through some tall weeds between this old dead tree and a boulder that was halfway in the water. No wonder we had missed it.
Thanking Teadoa profusely, I promised to come back and help him with his bugs soon. Then I transported back to the camp by the lake. Percy was carefully examining Millersby’s bag and looked up when I appeared. “Oh, hello, Flick! I think we found something.” She pointed at Cerberus. “He says he found the man’s trail over that way. It goes toward the water, but then it disappears. I was afraid he drowned, but I checked. There are no bodies there. I mean, no people bodies. So many fish bodies though.”
“Yeah I think I know what that means,” I replied while heading that way. “Err, the trail, that is. Not the dead fish.” Taking a moment to thoroughly congratulate Cerberus on finding the trail, I sent a message to my ghosts, calling them in. Then I led the way over to the edge of the lake where the old tree was.
Standing right at the edge of the cave entrance, I could sense a bag full of magical tools inside, stuff you would use to make an elaborate spell. Giving a look over my shoulder to the others with a murmur to wait until I saw what was in there, I got down and crawled through the hole. Boy did this bring back unpleasant memories. I wasn’t exactly happy about going into an underground cave so soon after the last one. Let alone another one that had a bunch of magical runes drawn all over it. But at least these wouldn’t be made out of living veins.
Please, please don’t let them be made out of living veins.
To my surprise as I climbed through into the relatively small chamber, it wasn’t empty. As expected, there were magical runes drawn on the walls for the communication spell. And the bag was there. But there was also a person. A person who very much was not Millersby and was invisible to my item sense. The back was to me, and yet I recognized them immediately, before they even finished pivoting toward me. As they turned, I did the only thing I could. I shifted into my male body, the one that had come thanks to that whole incubus thing. I also darkened my hair and changed my face just a little with the old shifting power. It still insisted on making me as attractive as possible, but I could at least change the specifics.
By that point, the person in the cave had finished turning to face me and I saw their face. Her face.
“Gaia?”