“I would like something easy,” I said to the receptionist of the Seeker’s Guild. “Something really, really close if you’ve got it. Like an easy fetch quest.”

  “Sure. There are plenty of deliveries we can contract to you just freelance, even if you’re not a guild member. The nearest one is to a house on Strawberry Hill.”

  I accepted the quest. It paid 5 gold, which was probably not a lot, but a lot more than zero. The parcel was a small tied satchel with an address affixed to it. Leaving the guild, I went to fly to Reed’s grove to look for this address around there, but suddenly thought the better of it. Val and Lorlux had told me pretty sternly to keep it quiet. I resolved to walk. Then suddenly I slipped over something.

  It was an egg. I picked it up, its dripping shell. This could be a lead. Brufo had bought eggs. Could it be a signal? Perhaps he dropped one in a scuffle when ‘they’ came for him. I wished I asked more questions about what ‘they’ I would be dealing with. The only detail I had was a regular man.

  I glanced around suspiciously. People walked around me. There were several dark-clad men. I balled my fist, but they were just shoppers it seemed. I was in a corridor between market plazas. This was a place where if Brufo got jumped at the wrong time there could be few if any witnesses.

  I hurried on through a plaza filled with furniture vendors and at the next intersection found another egg. This one had been trampled a few times, but I now knew what I was looking for. I followed it like a car, like I was turning, and took the left hand road. The road here grew narrow and quiet. I found the next egg tossed right before the street turned.

  A man wearing a black hat reading a newspaper sat at a bench. He stood and looked at me.

  Someone grabbed me from behind. “What’re ya looking for, kid?”

  I flew, instinctively. I carried them--him--up, a greasy man in an unbuttoned shirt. He fumbled for a sword or something at his side but when he did lost his grip on me and tumbled to the pavement with a smack. I winced. I had not meant to seriously hurt him. But it was just time to go.

  “Sorry,” I called.

  The man rolled over. Then the other man with the black hat shot at me with a pistol. I flew away. My heart pounding. Did he shoot me? I felt myself then realized I could check the menu and sure enough my hit points were full.

  I landed by the harbor and walked briskly back to the ship. That delivery commission would have to wait. I found Val sitting with Lorlux and the monkeys in an unlit dining room with the curtains drawn.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “They know I’m here,” Val mused. “They just don’t know quite where.”

  “So you’re hiding out?”

  “Did you get a lead?”

  “A pretty good one I think. I found where Brufo bought his groceries. Someone was following him. Then I found some dropped eggs, like Brufo was sending me a message. Yeah, he bought eggs, yeah. So I followed the dropped eggs and found a road where a guy shot a gun at me!”

  “Muck,” Lorlux cursed. “Very well then.”

  He stood, glancing around at each individual directly. The monkeys hooted at him.

  “If they shot at Daniel, we’re close, and Val may not be wrong. This may be our one chance. We strike at once!”

  Lorlux hopped into the hall. The force that assembled and departed was me, Valietta, Captain Lorlux, and Kola and Brufo Junior.

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  A man in a black hat read a newspaper. Beside him a shadow coalesced into a frog-faced man, all dressed in black. He pressed a black pistol to the man’s head as he carefully disarmed him.

  I watched the other man try to run in at Lorlux from above. I had carried Val up here too, so the four of us (including the monkeys) watched this battle like gargoyles. I hopped down behind the guy as he did so and tripped him. The two monkeys flapped at either side of us, screeching.

  “Time to run, man,” I advised.

  Kola Junior pointed back to the nearby plaza. The greasy man that had fallen off of me earlier ran away. I flew back up and grabbed Val. She was somewhat upset we did not utilize her. In good time, I thought. I was a little worried about this one. I still wanted to ask Val who the people hunting her (and Brufo) even were.

  We turned the corner on foot and found a red three story house in a walled yard. It was pretty fancy and fantastic looking with curving aquatic inspired architecture. Some trees grew in the yard. It was otherwise quiet.

  “Shall I go ahead?” I asked.

  “At this point I think we should all go our fastest,” Lorlux agreed.

  I flew in and perched upon the roof. I peeked down into some of the windows. There were people here. Several, maybe more. I offered a silent shrug to Lorlux and Val as they approached. I felt they could be ambushed at any moment, but I guess our surprise attack paid off.

  The two monkeys stayed afoot in this march. When they all arrived, Valietta walked up and knocked on the door. A man answered, polishing a mug. She sliced at him with the already humming laser drill. He [Dodged] the attack though! Beside him, Lorlux hissed into form from the darkness and fired a dark bullet.

  These guys likely had guns. The one keeping watch had for sure. I needed to just rescue Brufo. I didn’t care about the rest of them. I turned away from the melee unfolding below, as shouts rang out from the entryway.

  I began to look through the upper windows. They wouldn’t be dumb enough to put him in a bedroom facing the outside, would they? If they even still had him? I was also looking for an interior door I had to check out. There were people stumbling out of sleep, none of which were looking out the window as the shouting was coming from downstairs.

  A dark-bearded man sat up. I stopped. Brufo! I braced with my arms and smashed through the window.

  He broke into a huge smile.

  “Daniel!” he whispered. “Wow I am glad to see you.”

  “Me too. Come on. Let’s just get out of here.”

  Brufo paused. “With the Hunters it’s personal.”

  “We gotta go man.”

  I carried him down. They were fighting in the house. I saw the monkey Kola Junior fighting with some success on the porch against two of the Hunter guys, wielding his telescope like a staff. I joined him and charged up [Adaptive] some.

  “Time to go!” I yelled into the house.

  There was a rainbow explosion from a further room. Val emerged carrying the pulse hammer, and Lorlux appeared beside us. We hurried away and did not see them again.

  Later, deep into the night, Lorlux stood on deck keeping a late vigil when I found him.

  “We’ll depart in the morning. We do need those supplies that the svark lady would not part with until tomorrow, unfortunately, else I would cast off tonight.”

  “We could fish?” I suggested.

  Lorlux croaked. “My fisherman is off on some crazy dream quest. But perhaps we shall see him when we go to the Maw, aye?”

  “What is it anyway? This Maw thing?”

  “Imagine it, Daniel. The floating earth goddess opens her mouth to share her bounty with Weywyrd. Imagine a waterfall, greater than you have ever seen, but of lava and lightning.”

  I nodded dumbly, and slept poorly that night. I know Tamiro was fishing. I saw him in a great pillar of light casting the [Amber Rod] to the winds and reeling in something glowing like a sun. I tried to get closer to it, a glowing clamlike thing shaped like a goblet.

  [Tech Appraiser] does not work in Dreamwyrd, Tamiro said sadly.

  “It’s tech!?!”

  This is a hyperpearl. We have in Weywrd--well it’s kind of like this--this is an ancient tech wizard thing that stealths itself as a clam. That’s not quite right. It is a clam, or pretends to be. But it is quite different, and quite valuable.

  Tamiro looked sad.

  It is not edible however. Will you be bringing friend Brufo to pick me up at the Maw of Gaia?

  “I am SO happy to report that we definitely will!”