Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 12 (Patreon)

It took them hours. The two of them were extremely thorough in their reading of the reports, not wanting to miss even the most passing mention of the direwolf situation. Lance, at one point, stuck his head out his door and shouted for two lower leveled guild members to help them out. At some point, Alfre had sequestered herself in a corner of the office, tucking herself into a very large pillow with two stacks of reports on the floor before her. One that had been read, the other those that still needed to be read. So far, she’d found nothing. 

“Hey, Captain?” one of the lower ranked members, Alfre thought his name was Leo, called from his seat against the far wall. “I think I might have found something.”

Alfre and Lance were on their feet and flanking him in a flash, staring at the paper in his hands. 

“It’s not a lot,” Leo admitted, “But one of our patrol officers mentioned seeing a hunter entering the city wearing a very large wolf pelt, larger than usual at any rate.”

“Is there a description of what he looked like?” Alfre asked, eyes scanning desperately over the page.

“Not really,” Leo apologized. “He saw him at a distance.”

Alfre cursed under her breath. But at least she knew for a fact it was a hunter who’d skinned Canus’ wolf. And there were only so many hunters in the city. 

“We’ll put out an order to keep an eye out for him,” Lance assured her. “He won’t get away with it.”

Alfre nodded, the wind taken out of her sails. Two steps forward, one step back it seemed. She thanked Lance for his time, helped him pack the reports back up into a box, and then left. 

It was dark out at that point. The days were slowly getting shorter and the nights longer. Fall was coming soon. Alfre wandered back through the streets of Spade towards the Crystal Moon guildhall. 

“Hey, you the girl looking for the hunter who skinned a direwolf?”

Alfre’s hand went to her sword as she turned cautiously towards the voice. Leaning against a building, dressed in greens and gold, was a young woman with a sweet looking face and wavy brown hair.

“Who’s asking?” Alfre demanded, her voice calm but her eyes fierce.

“A potential friend,” the woman assured. “I’ve got info for you, but I want something in exchange.”

“What kind of something?” Alfre asked, her hand never leaving the handle of her sword.

“I want in at your guild.”

Alfre blinked. She hadn’t expected that. “It’s not my guild.”

“It might need to be,” the woman said mildly. “If you wanna find the bastard that made Canus cry, you’ll need a guild behind you.”

“And you can’t just ask to join the guild the normal way because?”

“Mmm, you must be new to Wonderland,” the woman said with a hum of amusement. “You see, I’m what’s called a Hero, a beta tester who decided to take the easy way instead of just starting over like everyone else. Because our accounts didn’t carry over from the beta to the full release of the game, we testers were offered the Hero class, which not only gives us the ability to access abilities from all of the warrior and rogue classes, but we gain levels far quicker than normal players. Normal Fell didn’t like that very much.”

“I don’t really care,” Alfre admitted bluntly.

“Regardless, I need someone’s good word if I’m going to get into a guild,” the woman said. “And you seem pretty popular.”

“Why do you need to join a guild anyway?” Alfre asked.

“Even Heroes get lonely, little one.”

Alfre scowled at the endearment. “Whatever, fine. I’ll introduce you to Ren. But you better have good info.”

The woman smiled. “Wonderful. Call me Traveler.”