Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

“Had any luck?” Ren asked when Alfre walked through the pub door.

“Maybe,” Alfre said. “Depends on what this one has for me.” She jerked her thumb behind her at Traveler, who smiled. 

“Who’s that?” Ren questioned.

“She calls herself Traveler,” Alfre explained. “She wants to join the guild. If she does, then she’ll give me whatever info she has.”

Ren’s brows furrowed at the agreement. “I guess she can join. It’s an odd arrangement, though.”

“She’s a hero, or whatever.”

Ren’s eyes narrowed. “Well, that explains a lot.” She sighed dramatically. “Whatever, it’s not like I care. And if any one is bothered by her joining then they can bite me.”

Traveler beamed serenely at that. “Thank you kindly, guild master.”

Ren snorted into her sake. “Call me Ren, hero. Now you better start talking, Alfre’s made a promise to a god, and that’s not really a promise she wants to break.”

Traveler nodded, sitting down at the table as Alfre wandered around to sit at Ren’s side.

“I have the name of the person you’re looking for,” Traveler said. “He used to be a beta tester along side me. He joined pretty late in the game, however, so he didn’t get the Hero offer like I did. He always resented that, I think, because he’s been doing minor cheating ever since the full game was published.”

Alfre couldn’t bring herself to be surprised. “Yeah? What’s his name?” 

“His real name is Trevor,” Traveler informed them. “But online he goes by Lokki.”

“Sounds like a real tool,” Ren muttered, taking a sip of her drink.

“Oh, he is,” Traveler grumbled, resting her cheek in her hand, looking like just mentioning the guy made her tired. “I can’t count how many times he tried to get me to cyber with him. He’s gross. He sent me a message a day or two ago trying to convince me to ‘meet up’ again. Tried to impress me by mentioning the direwolf thing. That’s how I knew about it.” 

“Do you know where he is now?” Alfre asked.

Traveler shook her head. “Sorry. I reinstated the block I’d put on him right after he messaged me. Turns out they didn’t carry over after the Incident.”

Ren scowled at that. “Going have to bring that up with the others at the council meeting next week.”

Traveler turned to meet Alfre’s eyes directly. “If I had known you were looking for him, I would have waited.”

Alfre waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. At least I have a name I can ask around for. Was he part of a guild?”

“He used to be,” Traveler said, tapping her chin in thought. “But I think they kicked him out for harassing their female members, particularly their hunters.”

“God, I haven’t even met the guy and I want to punch him,” Ren said with a chuckle. 

“Well, get in line, Canus has first dibs,” Alfre reminded.

Alfre passed the name on to Doremi and Lance the next day. After that, there wasn’t much progress. Lokki or Trevor or whatever he was called didn’t hang out in the city much, it seemed. Most guilds and guild run businesses had long since figured out that he was a gross guy and had banned him form their places of business. While that was probably a good idea, it made things much harder for her. 

And as much as Ren and Ran and Silver liked her, she couldn’t access all of the guilds records and other resources without actually joining the guild. Which, honestly, she didn’t know why she hadn’t already. She lived in their guildhall and ate food at their pub; she might as well be an official member of the ‘family’ as Ren put it.  

“I want to join the guild,” she announced at breakfast.

Elias choked on his tea, not expecting that sort of announcement. Spica nodded, like she’d been waiting for this eventuality. Ren’s lips split into their signature wild grin.

“Well it’s about damn time!” she shouted happily. “I’ll get the book!”

She disappeared up the stairs, coming back several long minutes later with a large, leather bound tome tucked under one arm and a fountain pen tucked behind her ear. She slammed the book down on the table, causing cutlery to bounce comically. She flipped through the pages before coming to one that was only partially full. She turned the book around and pushed towards Alfre, handing her the uncapped fountain pen. 

Alfre’s eyes scanned down the page, reading the unfamiliar names with vague interest before her eyes stopped about halfway down the page. Izo’s was there, written out in flowing cursive script. Of course Izo would have amazing handwriting. Traveler’s name was just below his, in a more causal, but still very nice looking print. Alfre set the pen down on the page just below Traveler’s name and carefully wrote out her own name. The ink glowed on the page. 

Without warning, Spica snatched the pen from Alfre’s hand and wrote her own name in some overly fancy, loopy cursive that was almost illegible, despite how nice it looked. Elias sighed, sounding almost fond of them, and took the pen from Spica and scribbled his own name down. Ren grinned at them all, slamming the book shut before they could change their minds.

“Three in one day,” Silver mused. “That’s the most we’ve had since that initial flood after the Incident.”

“Hahaha!” Ren laughed triumphantly. “I’ve finally got you. It’s official.”

“We are free to leave later, though, right?” Alfre asked in a small voice.

“Pfft, of course you are,” Ren assured. “Just don’t go joining Atticus’ guild or nothing. I finally have more members than he does. And I’m gonna rub it in his face that I’ve got you three. You’re pretty popular, Alfre. People just seem to like you.”

“I don’t know why,” Alfre muttered. 

“Probably ‘cause you’re so obviously a main character.”

Alfre raised a brow at that. “I beg your pardon?”

Ren gestured at her. “Look at you. You even look like an anime character. Like a magical girl or something. Obviously you’re a main character.”

“You’re talkin’ mince,” Alfre informed her.

Ran reached up and smacked at his sister’s head. “Ignore her, she’s a weeb. She even does the Naruto run out in the Wilds.”

“Says the guy with the swimming anime body pillow!” Ren shot back. 

“Hey, even you have to admit Makoto is prime boyfriend material.”

Alfre stood from the table. “I’m gonna leave now.”

Elias and Spica rose from their seats with a chorus of “Same.” 

Ren flipped through old guild records, trying to find anything she could about Lokki. He’d applied for guild membership once a few years back, not long after being kicked out of his first guild. Though he’d apparently had immediately revoked his application when he found out the guild leader was a girl. The more Alfre learned about him, more he seemed like the worst kind of gamer. She’d even gone to his old guild, the one Cherry the Rabbit Familiar now ran, and asked about him. He’d left the guild long before Cherry had even joined, before the old guild master had left Wonderland permanently. Any information they could have given her was terribly old. 

She didn’t know how he was able to avoid being found for so long! It’d been weeks by now. He’d pop up as a blip on the radar only to disappear before she could even reach the place he’d been spotted. He obviously didn’t live within the city walls; there were only so many places a guy without a guild could live, after all. But that left the entirety of the Wilds for him to be in. There was always the possibility he was a farmer and lived in the farm lands just outside of the city walls, but if that was true than surely he’d be seen by the patrols more often then he was. 

She was getting tired and frustrated. All she had was a name! Traveler even admitted she hadn’t seen Lokki face to face since the game went public. And changing character appearance, while fairly expensive, wasn’t hard. 

“Maybe I can at least give Canus his name,” Alfre muttered to herself, leaning back in the library’s comfiest chair. 

“It’s worth a shot.”

Alfre squeaked loudly, nearly falling out of her chair in surprise. She turned to see Elias leaning on the back of her chair, smiling encouragingly at her. 

“Don’t DO that, dumb bunny!” she snapped, though there wasn’t much bite in her words.

“Do you want us to come with you?” Elias asked, ignoring the insult. “Probably better that you don’t go alone, yeah?”

Alfre sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

Alfre was starting to notice that she had a ‘standard party’ that she adventured with. Elias and Spica went with her everywhere. Elias because for some reason he felt responsible for her. Spica because she didn’t really have any other friends in the guild. Izo tended to come along too, which was good because they needed a healer. Recently, however, Traveler had been tagging along. She was a big damage dealer just like Alfre. She held back, however, because she was almost at maxed level anyway. It was good to have her along anyway, in case something unexpected happened. 

Ren would joke that they were going to be famous one day, like the Seven Samurai or something. Alfre highly doubted it, even as they got stares as they walked through the city on their way out into the Wilds.

They didn’t make it very far into the woods before they heard the howling of wolves. Alfre swallowed thickly and led them deeper in. Leaves crunched under their feet as they walked, filling the silence that hung over them. They came across the entrance to the Briarwood Thorns just as the sun was starting to set. A new direwolf sat at the entrance. Unlike the first direwolf, this one growled at them as they approached, fur standing up on its shoulders. 

“We’re friends, I promise,” Alfre whispered to it, stepping forward with and outstretched hand. “We’re looking for Canus. I need to speak with him.”

The wolf eyed her cautiously, sniffing at her. It seemed to recognize her, its eyes sparkling for a brief moment before it tipped its head back and howled. 

Alfre felt him before she saw him. The heat up against her back, the energy of the woods and land radiating off him in waves. She turned slowly, looking up over her shoulder at him. He stared down at her, anger barely hidden in his eyes.

“Where is he?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“We don’t know,” Alfre admitted. “But we have a name. We’re still looking.”

Canus growled, stepping away from her, his fists clenched. “How hard is it to find one man?!”

“In a city of thousands? Pretty hard,” Alfre said. “And we’re pretty sure he doesn’t even live in the city, which leaves the entirety of the Wilds. But we have made progress. We know who he is.”

“Who, then?” Canus snarled. “Who killed my packmate?”

“He goes by Lokki,” she told him. “He’s a hunter.”

“Of course he’s a hunter!” Canus shouted, throwing his hands up in frustration. “What else would he be? Why are you wasting my time with this when you could be hunting that bastard down?!”

“We’re trying, okay!” Alfre shouted back, feeling anger boiling in her gut. She was trying her best. She was putting her all into this, couldn’t he see that? It was hard! She wasn’t a detective; she didn’t have any experience in finding people who didn’t want to be found. “I’m sorry it’s taking so long, but there’s only so much we can do! I’m not giving up until he’s found, but I’d like it if you didn’t shout at me.” 

Canus drew a sharp breath, flexing his hands in agitation. Despite his anger at her lack of progress, he had to admire his little snowbird for her guts. Not many people, Fell or Wonderlander, would talk back to him like that. The only ones that ever did were his wolves. 

“You-“ whatever he was going to say was cut off by a loud, panicked barking not far in the distance. “Not again!” 

He bolted off into the woods, the direwolf that guarded the dungeon taking off after him. Alfre spared her friends the briefest of glances before they too followed.