I liked the simple solutions. The older I got, the more I sought the most straightforward solution to the matter.

 

And I hoped this was it.

 

After a brief discussion with the men guarding the warehouses around the Precursor’s Gate, I was looking for the man who went by the name of Wolfgang Fitz. This “Mr. Fitz”, which I guessed wasn’t his real name, but it was one he had stated when he had shown up at the gates of the compound, with five wagons loaded with crates full of potions that were later shown to be fake. In hindsight, it had been obvious that there was something wrong with this shipment. Despite the fact they did have proper, valid documents, it appeared this “Mr. Fitz” seemingly had known that he couldn’t attest to the quality of the goods he had been delivering. He and his five men had hastily departed when the soldiers guarding the place had been too slow in unloading their cargo, leaving everything behind, wagons and horses included.

 

Unfortunately, the soldiers believed them, satisfied with the provided paperwork, not minding the unusual behavior of deliverymen.

 

I left FDA agents to their own little investigation where so-called “Mr. Fitz” got his genuine shipping documents for counterfeited goods and went to the city to look for the man himself, something I was confident I could do with relative ease. At least, comparatively easily. Bosona was a large city, but finding one man was significantly better than somehow divining who was “disappearing” all that cargo in a period of six months without any tangible leads or witnesses. I am not pressing my luck in guessing where all of that went, and rather hunt the one man, and leave authorities to interrogate and blame him all they please. And it would leave me out of the further issues, hopefully, with me essentially delivering the person they asked for, arguing he would lead them to their lost shipments too. Of course, I didn’t know “Mr. Fitz” had anything to do with the other crimes - fraud and thefts may be unrelated, but it wasn’t that much of a stretch to assume a connection, and no one could not blame me for not assisting the government’s agents.

 

That this “Mr. Fitz” supposedly had dark blonde hair, green eyes, which weren't a common trait among Hesperians, simplified it a lot and assured me I could find the man even without anyone drawing me a picture of him. His name wasn’t typical either, but neither was mine.

 

When I had ridden the carriage towards the city center, I had felt a certain assurance that finding the man wouldn’t pose a significant problem. Searching for a person with easily recognizable traits people would remember usually makes the work easier.

 

Now, having to ask around several places that provided accommodation within the city limits, and pubs where people gathered for a drink, I wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t usually a bad source of information, but in this particular case, it was of no help.

 

I was tired, as my body once again reminded me I wasn’t the youngest, and more importantly, a little bit poorer. Since the carriage was for the need of two agents when they felt like playing the well-off citizens, I was forced to pay the hackney-coach for moving me around, which in turn costs money I had to sign this unfortunate contract for. And I wasn’t any closer to finding the guy.

 

No one has seen him, and no one was a familiar name, even though a few establishments straight away refused to talk with me after I introduced myself, grumbling something about “not getting involved with Estezian mercenary business” which I wasn’t sure how they made that connection. I thought it was a reference to how similar my and “Mr. Fitz” names were. It could be something else, but it didn’t strike me that they knew who the guy was, and just guessed based on the name.

 

Then more than a dozen other places where people knew nothing and saw no one.

 

And I was certain they would remember. Bosona was in a way typical Hesperian city, with a diverse population, but it mostly came from the different intelligent species. Humans lived next to dryads, orcs, and occasionally other species. The human part of the population, however, came from a few states in the Federation where people were pre-dominantly dark-haired with tanned skin tones, and where blonde hair suspect supposedly had shone like the beacon. A beacon no one saw yet.

 

Disappointing, but finding one man in the city would take more than a day. It was still easier to find him in the big city than finding the origin of the fake shipment in the entire state. I wanted an easy solution, even if chances were low, realistically.

 

When I was leaving yet another pub on my tour around the city without any information or lead on my target, I was half-annoyed at the whole endeavor, and half-certain that the guy that I was tracking was aware someone would look for him and left the city.

 

I looked at the darkening skies above and realized that this “Mr. Fitz” and his fake caravan must have arrived in the city yesterday and stayed through the night, as they handed their falsified cargo to the soldiers in the morning. They weren’t local, someone would recognize them, and guess something fishy with those potions. They must have arrived very recently. People who rode horses around didn’t do so during the night, since the roads out there didn't have the benefits of the city's gaslamps. And even if the train was by far, the most effective way to transport goods and people over the large distances these days, I very doubt they used it - it wouldn’t fit the narrative with the freight from the region where railworks wasn't finished yet, not to mention it would put the crates through far too many hands and offer a lot of complication for what was essentially a fraud…

 

“Hey ya!” Accented voice with a noticeable trace of drunkenness in it brought me from my thoughts.

 

“We don’t like yer kind ‘ere!”

 

“... and we don’t like ya sniffin’ around!”

 

I sighed and looked behind my back at two local drunkards shouting at me. Both humans, with darker skin, slightly bloated faces due to too much alcohol, black unkempt hair, dressed in slightly dirty work clothes, didn’t look like the person who I was looking for. And even if he had accomplices which I couldn’t identify, those two didn't exactly strike me as being thinking, let alone competent, types.

 

“Diz is our neighbrr..bor…neighbourghhood…” One of the drunks babbled, while gesturing with the bottle of cheap liquor he was holding supposedly to threaten me with it. He only managed to spill the remains of the booze inside.

 

I rolled my eyes. Right now, the orcs, who all had tusks and snouts, would be able to articulate better than him, not to mention being much more intelligent.

 

“Diz’ yer faul’”, He protested, throwing the now emptied bottle in my direction. Roughly, as he missed me for about two meters, if not more.

 

I was about to simply leave without a word. Those two idiots weren’t possibly going to be a source of any useful information. But it didn’t harm asking.

 

“Did you, by chance, know someone named Wolfgang Fitz?” I asked.

 

“Wat dat?” One of the boozers spat out, confused. This was pointless, I thought.

 

“A man, blonde hair, green eyes. Really stands out.” I tried anyway.

 

The answer was only the blank stares. They fail to form the answer to the simple question. I was done with it.

 

I left. One of those two barflies shouted something about me stealing his booze, probably after he realized he doesn’t have the bottle anymore, despite the fact that he threw it away all by himself.

 

“Idiots.” I sighed and continued walking, ignoring them.

 

As the skies were slowly darker and I was already close to where I had my horse stabled, and room rented for the two days even before I got this contract, I headed straight there.

 

A sensation of magic pinged on my senses, and I instinctively looked over my shoulder, almost expecting someone or something to be there.

 

Streets here close to the city limits were wider, darker, with fewer street lamps, and even though there were fewer people being present, there were still quite a lot of them, appropriate for the fringe district of a large city.

 

There was something wrong. A vague sense of magic wasn’t a huge boon, and occasionally jolted me with sensations I wouldn’t be able to explain to ordinary people, except to sorcerers or species magically gifted. But it has applications. Now strung on my nerves. There was something. And it wasn’t another dryad. There were more than a few of them in the city, but they mostly felt like the absence of something, a drain. This was the opposite. There was a sorcerer nearby.

 

I scanned the street, narrowing my eyes. Luckily, people weren’t bothered by me staring this time.

 

Eventually, that strange, magical sensation disappeared. I waited for a while, slightly tense, but that was it.

 

With a mental shrug, I left it be. Even if sorcerers were relatively rare encounters due to the difficulty in becoming one, still one can still easily run into one in the street, and it wasn’t illegal to be one either. It just gave me an annoying pinching sensation.

 

Even if I was being followed, it would be unlikely that they would waste someone with excessive magic training on that, and the training process that opened magic to humans was rigorous, to say the least.

 

After this brief interruption, I headed to the last destination of my today’s round, the inn where I had rented the room just two days prior hoping for the new jobs from this area, except back then I didn’t have the idea it would be this kind of work.

 

Republic Road Inn was quite a shoddy establishment, and even if someone obviously attempted to keep it in good shape and patch it up, it was obvious that repairing the old wooden structures wasn’t the best solution, at least in terms of aesthetics. It was converted from originally enormous stables that went into disrepair after more and more traffic shifted to railroads, now allowing accommodation for people as well as keeping their riding animals. It worked for me.

 

I trudged into the main room, which doubled as both a bar and reception of sorts. The door slammed behind me as I entered, and wooden boards on the floor screaked, but only a handful of people turned or raised their heads when I entered. Unlike in other establishments like this one, the room had an almost sleepy atmosphere with tired travelers that planned to down some drinks before hitting sleeping pallets.

 

I didn’t expect to find the person I was looking for there. If I did, I should consider becoming a professional gambler with that kind of luck - but I looked around, anyway.

 

Mostly humans, none of which had features I was looking for. The bar was tended by an orc with the usual traits of his kin - weighty and muscular, but with thicker fur and mane than usual. He caught my stare and frowned at me. Either he remembered me renting the room here, or was all too familiar with people who might start trouble.

 

The only guest that stood out was a female faery, sitting on one of the barstools, but it wasn’t due to her size. She, like all of her species, was roughly the size of a human child and would reach to my upper waist when standing. This one was notable by being completely drunk and babbling to herself while hugging the bottle of whiskey. She occasionally flapped her large insectoid wings growing from her back, but I doubted she was going to fly anytime soon in her state. Or walk, for that matter.

 

I opted to ignore her as I sat on the bar counter. Faeries were hard to deal with, even when they were completely sober. Luckily for me, very few had chosen to come to the New World, so I was only seldomly forced to interact with them.

 

“Did you get the root beer?” I asked the barman.

 

“Root beer? Really?” Orc bartender asked, wiggling his snout in disbelief.

 

“There should be no alcohol in it. You would rather have me babbling after too much of the drink like she does?” I replied, pointing at the faery. So much for ignoring the most annoying species known to man.

 

“She at least paid in advance for more than she actually had.” The barman replied, eyeing me suspiciously with his small orc eyes.

 

I put a banknote on the counter. Perhaps it was good to put some of the money I got towards getting the information, which I did very rarely, but being on good terms in the place where I stayed wouldn't hurt either.

 

The bartender reached for it, but I pressed my finger against the bill so he couldn’t pick it up.

 

“I want to know something,” I asked. “Do you know someone by the name of Wolfgang Fitz?”

 

The orc struggled with picking up the money with fat fingers, a nice example their kind had sometimes issues with fine motor sometimes, but he remained calm.

 

“Your relative?” He squinted at me.

 

“No. I am just looking for him.” I answered briefly, not ready to divulge details about why and how.

 

“Why?” He asked, staring at me.

 

“I have my reasons,”

 

“Reasons....” He almost scoffed, but then he shook his head and added: “Nope. Never heard that name. What is he supposed to look like?”

 

“A man, human, tall, blonde hair, green eyes, he stands out.” I gave the description. The orc just shook his head in response. It didn’t strike me that he was lying.

 

“He arrived with a caravan from Lacertia.” I added,

 

“Carrying what?”

 

“Goods,” I stated flatly. It was possible that people knew about disappearing shipments of the most valuable substances in the forms of all those potions already. But if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get that from me. I could’ve almost imagined agents would lecture me about revealing secret information.

 

“Horseshit. No caravan arrived in the last 5 days, at the very least.” The orc snorted.

 

“How do you know? People go in and out all the time. It’s a big city, and you can’t count them from here..” I argued.

 

“They do. With stuff needed for running the city. Like, normal stuff,” he replied while inspecting the 1 Bil banknote against the gaslamp hanging from the ceiling, with the undeniable expression of victory on his pig-shaped face even I could read. Since I gave him enough to buy a keg and not a pint, I couldn’t blame him, but I still frowned.

 

“Only trains arrive on time here. And airships, actually, but I haven’t seen one lately. The big thing in the sky is hard to miss,” the bartender said and walked away a little bit towards the kegs he had racked in the corner, and returned with the tankard full of dark beer, putting it in front of me.

 

I waited patiently, as he obviously had something to say, and I did pay for more than I was given.

 

“You are a bounty hunter,” he said.

 

I grimaced. It wasn’t even remotely a secret what I did for a living, but I didn’t like the tone.

 

“Caravans with stuff… your kind… are interested in, and anything worth selling to the Old World must be expensive…” He continued leading on the counter which squeaked under the weight of an orc, extra emphasis on “your kind” in his wording: “...they aren’t like the guy who leaves me with a new cask of beer every so often, or supply groceries, or whatever. Important caravans are like a small circus. They always arrive roughly a ten-day before the gate opens to sort their shit out. It is not worthwhile to even arrive if you don’t do it early enough.”

 

As the bartender spoke, I glanced at the drunk faery, sitting almost next to me, now staring at me with her jet-black eyes lacking sclera. It was normal for her species, just as were her sharp facial features and oddly shaped ears, but it still bothered me. She said something in her language I didn’t understand and gestured wildly with one hand while holding her bottle in the second. Perhaps, in a way, I bothered her, too. I returned to my conversation with the orc.

 

“And you know what those caravans were carrying?” I was curious.

 

“It isn’t hard to guess. Sometimes they do bring captured animals, sorcerers working for the state want them for something, I don’t know. But mostly, luxury items manufactured by Vatu. They don’t live by the tracks, hence caravans.” He answered, “The Ardi Tribe are the only large group of Vatu living here near the city. They are all working for that crazy rich dryad, and if anyone wants to compete, well…”

 

Interesting. The faery had something to say to that too. I didn’t understand any of it though, even though she looked agitated, though I couldn’t tell if it was the topic or the fact I stared at her that set her off. She took a sip from her bottle and coughed…

 

I didn’t have a chance to reply to anything that was being said as suddenly the door flew open with a loud bang,

 

“Dere he is!”

 

The two drunk idiots from before were back, and they brought two more of their buddies. One of them had a weapon, a cavalry saber, which certainly wasn’t his. Which wasn’t technically illegal or awfully difficult to get, but raised some questions in times of disappearing military units. I stood up, determined to interrogate him about that.

 

“No fighting in my bar!” Orc bartender growled.

 

“I’ll take care of it,” I said and with a sigh, I whispered. “At the very least, I paid for damages already.”

 

A strange sensation was back, magic, the sharp ping I’ve experienced before. It wasn’t the thugs, and orcs were absolutely incapable of magic. I glanced at the faery, as there was a lot of contradicting information about how it worked for her kind…

 

By doing so, I made the rookie mistake of looking away from the enemy and was immediately punished for it as one of the drunks closed the distance between us and punched me straight in the face…

 

Sharp pain reminded me I was getting too old for all of this.

 

My guard was up for the second punch, but even as I parried the blow, I took a step back and hit the bar chair behind me, almost falling back over it. This time, however, I was able to react much more swiftly, grabbed the tankard on the bar, and splashed its content into the attacker's eyes.

 

As he took a step or two back as he tried to get the beer out of his eyes, I used the opportunity to regain my footing, distracted him with a quick jab, then kicked him into the shins. When he bent forward, I landed a blow behind his neck, knocking him down.

 

Only then did buddy come at me with his saber, trying to stab me with the weapon intended for slashing.

 

I sidestepped his attack, caught and twisted his arm to force him to drop the weapon, then elbowed him in the face. He collapsed back.

 

When he tried to scramble back, I kicked him down and used the opportunity to grab the saber left on the ground as the last two of those four thugs decided it was not worth joining the fight.

 

They were hesitant. Even those two I knocked down went at me one by one, which meant they weren’t expecting me to fight back.

 

I pointed the weapon at them. My hand shook, my heart raced, and I was breathing heavily, not to mention the burning in whatever the hits did to my face - I was getting too old for this, but I wasn’t giving my opponents an inch.

 

Two remaining drunks, the same two cretins that pestered me back in the alley, gave up and quickly retreated out of the bar. Few guests decided to do the same if they didn’t during the fight.

 

I looked back at the barkeep, who was certainly going to say about a brawl he explicitly was against, but I never heard what that was.

 

Then, all of the sudden, a surge of magic, followed by the jolt of energy slamming into me, sends me down on my knees as my muscles spasm, accompanied by the sharp pain in the chest and general weakness pinning me down. My slightly blurred vision spotted the source of the attack. It wasn’t anyone in the bar, but the figure in the door, still concealed within the shadows due to dim light outside.

 

Focus, I told to myself, trying to stay awake - the sorcerers need to maintain concentration for lasting effects.

 

With a great effort, I tossed the saber I seized previously at the sorcerer. It harmlessly bounded off the doorframe with a clang, but the spell caster did lose his focus, and the painful effect his power had over my body stopped, at least for a short moment.

 

I drew my revolver and shot.

 

An invisible force pushed my hand aside, the bullet burying itself somewhere in the wooden wall.

 

I was thrown back at the same time, slammed against the counter, and the weapon slipped out of my grasp.

 

It hurt even worse, and I thought I was done for as my vision once again became blurry. I felt my vitality fleeing.

 

I hear the voice of the barkeep protesting against the violence in his establishment, or calling for law-keepers, but I couldn’t make up individual words. My mind still buzzed from the attack.

 

But suddenly, a drunk fairy tossed her bottle of alcohol at the sorcerer, and the stench of whisky filled the air. It hit the sorcerer, distracting the sorcerer's attention once again.

 

Gathering all my strength in the struggle against my aching body and weakening muscles, I went for the revolver lying on the floor in front of me.

 

I almost blind-fired it in the attacker’s direction, again and again, until the helpless click signaled the cylinder was empty.

 

Sorcerer, still in the shadow of the doorway, collapsed to the ground as my own consciousness slipped away, and everything went black.