Faye did not expect to be called out in the middle of the road by someone that looked very impatient. She was told to go find Marin Awadin in a nearby restaurant as the guy went back, not even giving her a chance to ask what was going on. Besides, who was Marin anyway, she wondered filtering through all the faces and names she knew of in Era. Nothing came up except for a slight recognition of the name. He was some old Rune Knight lieutenant or something in these parts. She didn’t know much about him but she guessed he was calling her in to give her some kind of job. Ever since Faye had arrived in Era and started helping people around with this and that, it occasionally happened so that she would get assigned to certain jobs by Rune Knights who thought they could boss her around as long as she was paid. But nevertheless, she did not care. She would go check out what the situation was and decide what needs to be done. Perhaps it would be something interesting. With a shrug of her shoulders, Faye took to the path leading to the restaurant the messenger had talked about.

Inside the restaurant, the situation seemed to be quite serious. It was silent and the few number of Rune Knights surrounding Marin seemed to be staring back to back at each other’s faces in confusion and uncertainty. Hearing her come in, they turned their attention to her and attempted to look somewhat composed. Marin was the first to speak. He curtly welcomed her in and told her to take a seat before turning his imposing look back onto five different people gathered there. They all looked rather puzzled themselves, not knowing why they were summoned to the restaurant just like Faye. She gave them a once over, her gaze gliding from the old man to the young woman, the man, an older woman, and another man. They all had varying degrees of expressions on their face when Marin began to explain the situation to Faye, justifying her presence there to the fact that she was an outsider and she was a good candidate for the questioning. The questioning they meant here, Faye realized a little later, was about the case of a missing child. Some six or five year old girl had gone missing and these people were the ones that apparently last saw her, hence why they were currently suspected to have kidnapped her.

Faye raised an eyebrow at this. She couldn’t quite grasp why they were suspected by merely the fact that they had talked to the child that day. For one, if they had truly done something like that, she doubted they would have been so easy to find and gather. Besides, none of them seemed to even have a clue of what child Marin was talking about. They all looked as equally shocked or more as the other one along the line.

She sighed. Alright, so what did she have to do? She asked the old lieutenant, hoping badly that he wouldn’t pass over the whole case over to her, like some other Rune Knights oh so conveniently did, and make her do all the work. But again, her instincts proved to be right. The old man pushed all of the tougher part of the work onto her, again claiming she is better as an outsider, and went off to some other room after only leaving one suspect alone with her. The first one seemed to be an old man who looked very much confused, shocked, and puzzled at what was going on. In fact, just as the others stepped out, he began to hesitantly ask her what he was doing there. To the best of her abilities, she tried to explain it to him, having to nearly yell at the top of her lungs so that his aged ear could hear her. Seriously, she huffed in her mind, what in the world about him made Marin think he could kidnap a freaking girl? The man looked weak. He was aged, and his hands clasped over his walking stick was slightly trembling.

Once he realized what was going on, he looked dumbfoundedly at Faye and immediately started denying the claim, saying he indeed did meet the young girl earlier that day but they had had no such interaction that could even be considered remotely suspicious. He looked a bit frightened and appalled at the accusation, as if he never thought someone would even consider that about him. She agreed with his inner thoughts entirely. Marin was being an idiot, just like any other Rune Knights she had had the oh so great fortune of knowing ever since she arrived in Era. All of them were one degree of foolish or another. Seeing how he was close to having a panic attack, Faye quickly dismissed him, asking him to let the next woman in as he did so.

Now this one turned out to be a bit of a piece of work. She had started hollering insults at her from the moment she entered through the doors. In fact, she was already starting to chew Faye’s ears off with how ineffectively and inefficiently they were doing their job now that they even began pulling ordinary citizens out of their life to spend their valuable time being interrogated. Again, Faye agreed. She did find it as ridiculous as she did. But then again, she was going to be paid for her services, so she just asked her to suck it up as politely as she can before giving her a set of questions Faye already planned inside her head. She asked her where she was when she came in contact with the child, where she went afterwards, if she had seen the child somewhere afterwards, and so on. The woman gave her the answers she wanted but never forgot to include one curse or another at either the start and end of her sentences. In fact, ten minutes in with this woman and Faye was already starting to gain a massive headache just from the shrill voice of this woman alone.

At the end, she nearly shouted at the woman to get lost and send the other person in. Completely unlike the other two that left, this boy, in his twenties perhaps, looked far too excited to be there. He was, apparently, a Rune Knight fanatic –something Faye found disgusting- and rather than fully cooperating with the questions, he seemed to have started talking about how Rune Knights were his greatest heroes, how he had always looked up to the fact that they give it their all in protecting the people of Era and Fiore itself. He went on for almost half an hour until he started answering her question, again interjecting her queries with words of justice, honor, and all that crap on the Rune Knights that Faye truly did not give a damn about. She had probably learn more than half about Rune Knights’ history just from his babbling alone. He even began speculating about the missing child as time went on. In fact, seeing as she couldn’t exactly stop him, Faye simply rested her head on her arms and let him talk until all his breath ran out and he was ready to send the next person in. But even so, he did not leave until he gave her a great and rather long speech about how he was going to become a future Rune Knight. Very well, she did not care.

The next one was an older lady. She looked serious and troubled at the same time. But with some voice of authority and suspicion, she started to shift the blame onto the Rune Knights themselves, that she believed it was them that was doing all the bad. Now, she was delusional, but with some of the thins she said, Faye agreed. Especially on the corruption part. Rune Knights indeed took bribes and worked against the better conscious of the society. In fact, her last mission had been all about finding a few of them. While she did not know if they were engaged in big crimes, there was no doubt in her mind that some of the bigger fish, inclusing some members of the Magic Council had dirt on them that could never be washed off. They liked to play the righteous heroes outside, but there had to be more than meets the eye about them. The fact that they are so secretive with their operations also bothered her. But no matter, that was not part of the problem right now. Now, Faye had to somehow passive this woman before she went off hollering at the Rune Knights outside and get herself into more trouble. She found herself engaged in a conversation with one of the suspectd for the first time, although it was mostly just expressing their mutual distrust of the Rune Knights. Nevertheless, she did not think Marin and the other guys were responsible for the missing kid. They had no reason for it. This kid was not that valuable that someone would want to kidnap her, especially a Rune Knight who would essentially be putting his position at risk by doing so.

The very last one of the suspects, for once, was actually suspicious. He seemed to be hiding something and never lifted his face to look at Faye while speaking. Even as he did answer her uestions, most of his answers were simply dodging the bullet. Every now and then, he even tried to distract Faye’s attention off the case and onto the various other matters she did not want to know about. While she got to know of more than half the rumors in Era, she did not hear anything productive or crucial to the case from this man. Besides, his eyes were always trained at the door, as if he was contemplating whether he should run or stay. He was, indeed very suspicious, but not enough to be fully ruled out as the culprit. In fact, even though he was the last one to see the child, there was nothing about him in appearance that looked capable of doing it. He had no magical abilities and his meeting with the child was in a very crowded place. Even if he did go and kidnap the kid, he couldn’t have done it at the time Marin was claiming he saw her. His shifty nature, she wondered, if it was because of something else. Perhaps his crime was not exactly kidnapping. Maybe there was something else, or maybe it was just his nature to be so shy and nervous. She couldn’t rule out that possibility either. Anyhow, their conversation, out of all the suspects, took the least amount of time. Though Faye had pressed on with certain probing questions, he had either stayed silent or, like mentioned earlier, tried to shift her attention on to something else. Seeing as she was not going to get anything else out of him for that day, Faye asked him to go out as well and let Marin and the others in. She would tell him what he thought of the interrogated suspects so far. She did  not want to but for the sake of some easy money and peace, she would do it. Marin seemed to be in a hurry as he rushed in, Faye guessing that the kid’s parents were starting to make a ruckus or something at him to find their child. Again, she wondered why these Rune Knights tended to pass on their job to someone else. How did they ever progress within their ranks when all they knew was to push all the work to others, particularly mages and travelers like herself who had no connection whatsoever to the Rune Knights and the Council unless you counted the fact that she belonged in Blue Pegasus, a guild under the control of said council.

Marin was the first to speak. He curtly welcomed her in and told her to take a seat before turning his imposing look back onto five different people gathered there. They all looked rather puzzled themselves, not knowing why they were summoned to the restaurant just like Faye. She gave them a once over, her gaze gliding from the old man to the young woman, the man, an older woman, and another man. They all had varying degrees of expressions on their face when Marin began to explain the situation to Faye, justifying her presence there to the fact that she was an outsider and she was a good candidate for the questioning. He started asking her what she thought about all the suspects so far. Again, he looked impatient and ready to almost swallow her whole if he could receive his answers. She wondered what it was bout the kid that made him this serious. Nevertheless, she gave him a brief account of what she thought about all those people brought in as suspects. From the top, the old man who looked very much confused, shocked, and puzzled at what was going on. In fact, just as the others stepped out, he began to hesitantly ask her what he was doing there. To the best of her abilities, she tried to explain it to him, having to nearly yell at the top of her lungs so that his aged ear could hear her. Once he realized what was going on, he looked dumbfoundedly at Faye and immediately started denying the claim, saying he indeed did meet the young girl earlier that day but they had had no such interaction that could even be considered remotely suspicious. He looked a bit frightened and appalled at the accusation, as if he never thought someone would even consider that about him. She had started hollering insults at her from the moment she entered through the doors. In fact, she was already starting to chew Faye’s ears off with how ineffectively and inefficiently they were doing their job now that they even began pulling ordinary citizens out of their life to spend their valuable time being interrogated. Again, Faye agreed. She did find it as ridiculous as she did. But then again, she was going to be paid for her services, so she just asked her to suck it up as politely as she can before giving her a set of questions Faye already planned inside her head. She asked her where she was when she came in contact with the child, where she went afterwards, if she had seen the child somewhere afterwards, and so on. The woman gave her the answers she wanted but never forgot to include one curse or another at either the start and end of her sentences. Now, she was delusional, but with some of the thins she said, Faye agreed. Especially on the corruption part. Rune Knights indeed took bribes and worked against the better conscious of the society. In fact, her last mission had been all about finding a few of them. While she did not know if they were engaged in big crimes, there was no doubt in her mind that some of the bigger fish, inclusing some members of the Magic Council had dirt on them that could never be washed off. They liked to play the righteous heroes outside, but there had to be more than meets the eye about them. The fact that they are so secretive with their operations also bothered her. But no matter, that was not part of the problem right now. Now, Faye had to somehow passive this woman before she went off hollering at the Rune Knights outside and get herself into more trouble. She found herself engaged in a conversation with one of the suspectd for the first time, although it was mostly just expressing their mutual distrust of the Rune Knights. He was, indeed very suspicious, but not enough to be fully ruled out as the culprit. In fact, even though he was the last one to see the child, there was nothing about him in appearance that looked capable of doing it. He had no magical abilities and his meeting with the child was in a very crowded place. Even if he did go and kidnap the kid, he couldn’t have done it at the time Marin was claiming he saw her. His shifty nature, she wondered, if it was because of something else. Perhaps his crime was not exactly kidnapping. Maybe there was something else, or maybe it was just his nature to be so shy and nervous. She couldn’t rule out that possibility either. Anyhow, their conversation, out of all the suspects, took the least amount of time.

Once the briefing was done, Marin seemed even more confused as to how to handle things. He simply gave Faye a part of her reward and tried to send her away, claiming it was up to the Rune Knights jurisdiction now. She wanted to ask them why the interrogating part wasn’t under their jurisdiction either, but decided against and just went out in time to hear a child weeping in a nearby alley. Looking at her and matching her with the descriptions of the girl Marin had claimed to have gone missing, Faye was able to put two and two together and immediately carried the girl up in her arms and into the restaurant. She handed her over to a sheepish and somewhat embarrassed looking Marin before collecting more of her rewards. Now that things were finally settled, she could be on her way like she was supposed to until she was stopped by the messenger. Faye had more to prepare towards the war that was coming closer and closer to them. She decided this was probably the last mission she would be doing in Era by herself. She would, as soon, as things were settled, move.

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