The sun shone dimly overhead, illuminating the cafeteria with its warm, golden glow. We were in the tavern hall of the Adventurer's Guild, getting dinner with Lori and Dinah. I leaned against the window, stretching my legs as the city outside bustled with activity.

It was late afternoon, and people moved to and fro between shops and houses, carts and carriages rolling along the cobbled roads. Street vendors sold their wares to anyone passing by, and a gentle breeze blew through the open window. The smell of freshly baked dough wafted filled the air as a young boy hurried by, carrying a tray full of neatly-arranged crusty, golden meat buns that reminded me of the fare you'd find in a dim sum restaurant. Lori sat beside me, eyes furrowed in concentration as she channeled small amounts of mana into a vibrating blue crystal with her eyes closed.

Taking a deep breath, I savored the scent as Dinah eyed the food with apparent interest. In one swift blurring motion, she snatched a bun from the laden tray and tore into it with her teeth as the boy stamped our tab. I giggled, watching her chomp down on the hot, flaky pastry; Dinah chewed loudly as she swallowed. She was visibly bandaged up, but she seemed to feel well enough for an impromptu dinner. We'd planned on talking about it over breakfast tomorrow, but Dinah insisted on getting together tonight.

"How're you holding up, Dinah? Are you alright? I mean — erm, how are those wounds doing?" I asked.

She grinned, her feline ears twitching with delight as she dug into the food. "I'm doing alright, all things considered. My ribs are still bothering me, but the cuts have closed up; and the bruises are fading nicely. A few days of rest and recovery, and I should be back to normal. How 'bout you, Alice? You look like you're in a bit of a sullen mood."

I glanced around at the crowded dining room. "Well, yeah, sort of. Tarrant's estranged, adopted grandmother showed up out of nowhere to interrogate me at his workshop. That was a little awkward. And, she did mention that she knew something about my parents disappearing. Which, of course, she didn't disclose anything on. Just a bunch of vague probes and insinuations."

Dinah's slitted eyes narrowed as she bristled her hair. "Eda Eschathos is in town? That old bat is trouble. She's been battling the demonic threat before any of us were born, but her means are questionable to say the least. If she's involved, then you need to watch yourself."

"I understand that. People have been pretty direct about watching myself when dealing with her." I shook my head, thinking about the encounter earlier. "I didn't like the way she looked at me, either; like she knows something about me that I don't know. It felt like she was there to get a read on my personality—my weaknesses, my strengths. All to use them against me later. I feel like I'm almost certainly on her chess board now."

Dinah licked the last bits of meat bun off her fingers and wiped her hands clean with a napkin.

"Chess? Is that a thing at the academy? Anyway, that's not the first time I've heard that kind of story when it comes to Eschathos. Well, whatever the case may be, she's not going to get anywhere near you or your family. We'll watch out for you."

"Thanks, Dinah. I appreciate it." I smiled. She winked at me and made a cute pawing motion with her hand, eliciting a laugh from me.

As the two of us continued to eat and chat, a vibrating, ringing noise filled the air as Lori fumbled with an intricate-looking, runed crystal next to me. After a few seconds, it went quiet again. Lori's eyes shimmered slightly with a telltale sign of magic, and she sighed in frustration.

"Still nothing. Have you seen Haigha around today, Dinah?" Lori asked, glancing up at her.

Dinah's ears twitched, then drooped as she shook her head, "Why? He didn't answer his link crystal?"

"Yeah, I've actually sent him a few pings over the last couple of hours, and he didn't answer any of them. That was my fifth attempt tonight, and I haven't seen him since we came back from the expedition. I just thought you might know something."

Dinah's tail swished behind her idly, knocking a pile of crumbs onto the floor as she stroked her chin. "Sheesh! Well... I did see him right before the funeral yesterday — he's never been good about saying goodbyes. He said he was planning on staying in to get some investigating done."

Lori bit her lip and stared intently at the table. I furrowed my brows before shuffling over to look over the blue crystal in front of her. While passing over, I levitated Dinah's crumbs off the ground and tossed them all around into a waste bin at the end of the room.

"What's on your mind?" I asked, putting a hand on Lori's shoulder.

Lori sighed. "I'm just worried. My imagination might just be running wild here, but I can't shake the feeling that this has something to do with the other disappearances."

Her eyes glimmered with concern as she stared into space, but she quickly snapped back to reality. "Well, let's finish eating and figure it out later."

I bit my lip and glanced at Dinah, whose face was twisted in thought with an unreadable expression. However, I noticed her ears perked, listening closely as her face contorted in thought. It was easy to write this off as a coincidence, but...

Lori had put the idea in my head now, but the thought of it was a bit worrying. I made eye contact with Dinah, and she nodded at me in affirmation. We were on the same wavelength here.

"Lori," I started, turning to her, "I think we should go out of the way to check his apartment. This sounds like a coincidence, but we should be safer than sorry. What's the address? Do you know?"

She pulled out a small notebook and flipped through a few pages as she took out a pen. "He lives on the fourth floor of a building near the eastern gate."

Dinah hopped to her feet, beckoning us along, and Lori and I followed suit. "Let's get a move on ladies. Now."

We left a handful of silver coins for our tab before rushing outside straight into the busy streets. I hopped on Lori's back piggyback style as we headed towards the gate, and she began to jump across the rooftops; the wind whipped through my hair as I held tightly to her waist.

I looked behind us to see Dinah following close behind, but the distance between us slowly widened. Her long, red hair billowed in the wind, but there was a visible awkwardness to her usually graceful movements. Suddenly, she cried out in pain and slowed into a stumble as we skidded along the rooftops.

"Dammit!" She winced and clutched her chest.

"Are you okay?" Lori called out, stopping in her tracks.

Dinah grunted. "I'll be fine. Just a little dizzy... hold on, though; it feels like there's a knife stuck inside my rib cage or something. I haven't healed up entirely yet." She paused to take a deep breath and leaned against a chimney with an annoyed grimace.

Lori and I exchanged a glance before she turned to speak to Dinah. "Maybe it would be better if you rested up for a while first. Let's keep moving for a bit — we're almost to Haigha's place anyway."

Dinah took a second to catch her breath before looking at the ground below with frustration.

"I'll stay back, then," she grumbled. "You two check the place out — I'll keep an eye out from the outside."

Lori nodded and jumped onto the next rooftop as I clutched tightly on her back.

We arrived at the building; the sun was beginning to set on the horizon. It was a four-floor apartment complex — the type to have three or four apartments per floor.

Lori landed gently by the main entrance, and I jumped off softly next to her. Taking a second to get our bearing, we both rushed past the front doors and entered the entrance hallway. An open archway led further into the living room area, where a staircase spiraled upwards.

The walls and ceiling were covered with wooden paneling, and everything else was decorated in dark wood. A large chandelier hung from above, illuminating the entire complex, and several paintings were hanging around the ground floor. One image depicted an elf knight slaying a dragon, and another showed an angelic woman holding her arms wide, welcoming someone.

Lori and I cautiously approached the stairs and began to walk upstairs as quickly as possible.

The sound of the creaking of the steps echoed throughout the stairwell. I huffed, struggling to catch my breath; I had been exercising a lot, but my body still wasn't used to exertion like that.

As we walked up to the last step and peeked down the hall, Lori moved her head to the side and spoke to me under her breath, "His door’s open..." she whispered to me.

I peered around her and saw that the door to Haigha's flat was ajar. While Lori and I crept closer, a strange smell hit my nose. It smelled of sulfur, and it was coming from somewhere inside.

As soon as Lori and I got to Haigha's door, I could see that the handle was dented. Lori and I stepped cautiously and quietly into the pitch-black third-floor apartment as she pushed on the open door.

The door to Haigha's apartment creaked open, revealing an ominous and eerily unsettling space.

I raised my hand, and a soft light floated out of my palm into the room, illuminating our path. Then, I followed close behind Lori as she unsheathed her sword. Lori held it tightly in front of her as we made our way inside.

As soon as we entered the spacious living room, I knew something was wrong; the atmosphere in the air was thick and oppressive, and a sickening smell hit my nostrils as soon as I stepped into the room. My stomach heaved violently as I struggled to breathe through my mouth.

The living room was covered in bloodstains and broken glass scattered everywhere like snowflakes. The cel-shaded walls had been splashed with crimson streaks of paint that resembled claw marks. A massive hole had been torn in the middle of the wall, and its jagged edges glistened wetly in the dim light cast by my hand.

There were no signs of life inside the apartment, and the stench of death filled the air — as did the unmistakable scent of rotting meat and sulfur.

All the furniture in the living room had been wrecked — only torn-up pieces of wood and shattered shards of glass littered the ground. A huge hole gaped in the far wall where a window must have been located before it exploded outward from the force of whatever had caused it to break.

Lori took one step closer to the center of the room and scanned the surroundings with her gaze; she didn't seem shocked or surprised by the devastation we were seeing. I felt like throwing up, but Lori's body language was loose yet guarded in contrast to mine.

"This happened recently," she muttered softly under her breath while studying the carnage surrounding us. "The blood's still fresh." She turned toward me and flashed a grim frown. "Looks like we're not the first people here today. Shine some of that light on the floor; let's look closer."

I complied and directed the beam of light downwards; a large set of bloody footprints led straight from the front door to the center of the room, and another smaller group appeared to lead away from the center of the room towards the hole in the wall leading out of the apartment.

"Multiple people broke in here recently and fought with Haigha." Lori observed aloud as she knelt down and picked up a pair of glasses from the floor beside the doorway. They were coated in blood — and they hadn't even been broken during the fight. "One goliath-sized creature; two human-sized creatures," she added matter-of-factly as she stood back up.

Lori walked around the room's perimeter slowly while I continued to shine light from my hand in every direction possible; she stopped at several points to study different objects lying on the ground or resting against the wall. She paused when she came across what looked like a small pool of red liquid near the center of the room, but she quickly shook her head after sniffing and walking over to examine it further.

"There's more than one set of prints heading inside; none lead back out the door," she remarked as she crouched low and examined them closely. "Knowing how Haigha likes to work, my bet is there's at least one body here somewhere."

"This gives me the creeps," I spoke with a shiver; my voice trembled slightly as I mumbled. I'd never seen such violent destruction in my entire life — not even in anime, movies, or video games.

Lori lifted her head slightly and glanced around the room again; she seemed completely unaffected by the grisly scene surrounding us. After a few seconds, she stood back up and began walking down a hallway as I followed her, wand at the ready.

When we reached the end of the hall, I saw what looked like an entrance to a bedroom. Lori opened the door without warning and I gestured to shine my light inside. "Haigha's bedroom," she muttered quietly as she stared at the disheveled bed sheets on the mattress.

A sudden groan of pain echoed inside the room; Lori immediately jumped backward and pointed her blade in front of her chest in a thrusting posture. I followed suit by shining my light in the same direction she was looking. There was nothing to be seen except darkness inside the room. The light revealed nothing but shadows in the area visible from the hallway.

"What was that?" I yelped as Lori took a cautious step toward the doorway. She kept her eyes trained on the dark corner of the room where the sound originated. "Any idea?"

She hesitated for a moment before continuing to edge towards the doorway. "I don't know," she replied curtly. "Let's go check it out, though."

We both rushed into the darkened room together, and my heart nearly leaped out of my throat when I heard the faint sound of someone gagging; it sounded like they were struggling to breathe.

I aimed the light directly onto the source of the noise and illuminated a single figure sprawled face-down on the floor on the other side of a shredded mattress — no, there were three people sprawled on the floor, one hooded man slumped gagging against the wall, and another breathing heavily and unconscious next to him.

I pointed my light at the two against the wall and instantly recognized the unconscious man as Haigha. He was in pretty terrible shape, but it was hard to tell how bad beneath his bloodsoaked clothes. He was wearing a winter jacket with bleeding puncture wounds all over it, and he had a bloody red gash across a pair of navy sweat pants.

The other man beside him was bleeding profusely; his clothes were soaked with blood, and a large chunk of flesh was missing from his lower left arm, which hung limply beside him. His skin was pale white in comparison to the deep red of his shredded arm. Like Haigha, he also had rabbit ears, but unlike Haigha's brown coloration, his hair was deep raven black.

Taking a closer look at him, I felt a deep, sudden anger well up within me. I reached down into my holster and pulled out my wand, pointing it at him as we approached him. I recognized him at sight from a bounty book I'd flipped through at the Adventurer's Guild.

The man slumped in front of us was none other than Fals Lapine, the Bandit King — head of the Picaroso gang in the flesh.

Lori glared at him, her expression hiding a tranquil fury; she then looked back at Haigha with narrowed eyes before turning her attention to the injured man with a glare. "What happened here, Fals?" she asked in an tranquil, furious tone. "And what in the seven hells are you doing here? You have some nerve showing up in Halton after everything you've pulled."

"Why hello there, old foe of mine," he murmured weakly. He flashed Lori a cheeky grin and tired, bloodshot eyes. "Thank the bloody gods, you've arrived right on time. Get on right 'ere and help him, please." He raised his right hand to gesture at Haigha, lying beside him, who was gasping for breath with grievous wounds. "I can explain everything once you get us to a safe place. We need get out of this location before the next batch of uglies arrives."

He breathed an exhausted sigh as he shifted slightly to see us better. "Now, would you kindly hurry up and do your hero thing already? Haigha and I are bleeding out here, and if you keep standing there like that trying to murder me with your eyes, we won't last much longer. Now come on — you're a knight, aren't ya?" He chuckled softly under his breath before coughing loudly.

Lori scoffed and rolled her eyes before kneeling beside Fals with her sword held firmly in her hands. "That bounty on your head is looking mighty appealing right now, and I'll be helping myself to it if you don't start talking sense soon," she growled coldly. "Now tell me why the fucking King of Bandits is in Halton, or I'll save myself some trouble and lop off your head right now."

Fals blinked slowly at her; his eyes were wide open but exhausted as he stared back at Lori. "Heh, you really haven't changed a bit since our last couple of run-ins, have you?" he whispered hoarsely, with an undertone of urgency. "Well, for one — I haven't actually been in control of my former gang for the last year. This bloody cult has been digging its roots quite deep I assure you. And Girl — that's beside the point. We have to get out of here NOW. My sworn brother's location was tagged with the group's damned troublesome magic. He's a mark right now. If we don't leave right n—"

Wait, sworn brother? Him? Haigha?!

He didn't finish his sentence. Before he could continue, something exploded in the foyer behind us. A flash of light blinded me temporarily before I shielded my eyes with one hand while pointing my wand at the explosion with the other.

When the light faded, a giant shadow began to coalesce along the walls; it was like a black mist rising from the ground and growing larger with every passing second. It grew to the size of a human being, and a pair of glowing yellow eyes appeared as it turned its head to look at us.

As the creature's gaze locked with mine, I saw the flickering image of a person's body with its arms and legs spread apart and a sword sticking out of its open ribcage. They wore a golden mask and a crimson cloak with a pulsing heart visible from the ribcage, and the shadowy form stood upright, towering above us all.

With an ear-splitting screech, the beast lunged forward, making it seem like it was going to grab me. My mind went blank, and my vision blurred as I froze in horror—and fear. I couldn't move! I needed to move!

A loud bang startled me from my sudden trance-like state.

As my vision returned, I noticed that I was extended off to the side in a wide stance with my wand arm extended. A watermelon-sized orb of purple and gold spiral of energy was now grinding into the monster as it struggled in vain.

Then, the monster went crashing through the window.

It didn't stop.

The creature hissed and howled as its cloak was shredded, and its mask shattered and split in half from the force. A mask fragment fell onto the bedroom floor with an anti-climactic clanging noise.

My spell continued to travel into the sky above as the spiraling energy exploded into a bright but contained explosion. Off in the distance, I saw blurs of movement as a red and yellow blur began to head over to us on the rooftops. It looked like Dinah was on her way over.

What just happened?

I blinked in confusion as I stared down at my wand; I hadn't cast any spells and lost a few seconds of my time. It felt like what'd happened when I vomited fire my second day here after I'd been drugged, but only for a brief moment.

When I snapped my head up, I found that the room around me had gone entirely silent. I looked to my left and saw Lori staring straight past me with narrowed eyes. I followed her line of sight and realized she was looking past me, so I turned my head to find what she was staring at.

Two glowing blue doors were forming along the walls of Haigha's bedroom. They slid open slowly to reveal two figures standing in front of a background of pure, painfully bright light.

One was a tall, barrel-chested powerfully-built man with elf ears wearing a red fez on top of a black crew cut hair style. He wore a tattered open vest, armored gauntlets, and four short, curved swords strapped to his hips. His face was painted like a clown with red stripes running vertically up each side of his cheeks and chin and a stare shape over his blue eyes. A jagged golden harlequin mask covered the right side of his face.

A second later, a young elf woman stepped out the other door onto the bedroom floor. Her skin was pale white with dark blue tattoos covering her entire body—she wore a short skirt and tight black tank top with long black gloves on her hands. She had bright pink lips and black hair styled in short pigtails with purple ribbons tied to them. The woman also had clown makeup painted on like the man; however, hers was much less elaborate than his. She, too, had a golden harlequin mask covering the left half of her face. The girl also had a comically large, Chinese-style mace slung over her shoulders.

Both wore a prominent tattoo that was awfully familiar to me — the symbol of a sword hilt with a broken blade. A cold chill ran down my spine as I remembered where I'd seen it, followed by an overwhelming, nagging sense of frustration.

It was the same symbol I'd seen on the evil-looking book on my second day here. Because of course it was.

Why does it have to be clowns?!

Before I could think about anything else, the man's smooth, strangely gentlemanly voice broke the silence: "Well, if it isn't little Alice Liddell. How serendipitous of you to join us here tonight." He took a step towards me with a predatory grin as he reached for his swords. "I'm afraid we won't be having a pleasant reunion. It's quite an opportune time now for payback, I do assure you."

I flicked my wand again out of reflex, and quickly launched myself to the back of the room with a wind spell, narrowly avoiding the girl's blindingly fast horizontal swing at my head. Without thinking, I conjured one barrier after another in a web, like pattern between us, stifling her movements. With one frustrated grunt, she span like a tornado and shattered each and every one of my barriers. Then, she stopped to roll out her shoulders in a lazy stretch.

...How did I just do that? And what I did to that creature before for that matter?

I definitely didn't cast that wind spell properly, nor did I know exactly what I'd cast.

The girl giggled in excitement before she walked closer to me as she twirled her oversized mace with one hand. "Ah, yes, brother of mine. We owe this meddling academy welp dearly, do we not? What say you? Shall we go and kill her instead of capturing her? Oh, and you can have a piece of her pretty sister when I'm done if you'd like. She will be a thorn in our side sooner than later."

...Well, I wanted nothing to do with cultist nonsense from my first day in this world, but here we are, I guess.

I have so. SO. Many. Questions right now.

But those questions would have to wait.

Getting out alive against the murderous clowns had to come first, after all.