there, a warm smile spreading across his weathered face as he recognized the dragonborn. A young woman with a mop glanced up at the doorway, looked back at Travic, and returned to her work. Otherwise, the place seemed deserted.
“Roghar, thank you so much for coming.” Travic stood up and bobbed his head in greeting. A lock of salt- and-pepper hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it aside.
“Good morning, Travic.” Roghar stepped to the side and let Tempest enter before him, then followed her to Travic’s table.
“Tempest, lovely to see you,” the priest said. “Thank you, as well.”
Tempest took his outstretched hand and started to sit.
“I have to apologize,” Travic said. “I planned to meet you here, buy you breakfast, and discuss the situation while we ate. I did not plan on this establishment’s excellent cook being abed at this hour.”
Roghar laughed. “Fortunately, we have eaten already.”
“I’m glad. And I believe it’s to our advantage to get an early start. I’ve heard a report of another couple gone missing, so perhaps we can look into that while it’s still fresh.”
“Very well,” Roghar said. “Shall we leave right away?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on as we walk. Or at least as much of it as I understand.” He patted the mopping woman on the shoulder as he walked to the door. “Thank you, Jesi.” She returned his smile.
Outside, Travic started walking in the direction of the ruins. “The cases I’ve looked into so far have had much in common, things that set them apart from the troubles we normally see near the ruined part of the city.”
“Gnoll attacks and such?” Roghar asked.
“Exactly. When gnolls raid the city, they leave an unholy mess behind them. Blood everywhere, bodies half eaten and mutilated, stores of food plundered, that sort of thing. It’s obvious there’s been an attack, and quite clear that gnolls were responsible-few other creatures are both so savage and so cunning.”
“How common are gnoll raids like that?”
“Actually rare. The watch patrols those neighborhoods pretty heavily, and when gnolls do attack, the watch strikes back fast and hard. Otherwise, no one would live in those areas.”
“But you said these cases are different?”
“Yes. No blood, no bodies, nothing missing or plundered. It’s like these people just disappeared-just got up and left, taking nothing with them.”
“Maybe the gnolls have new leadership,” Roghar said. “Maybe they’ve started carrying victims back to their lair, making offerings or sacrifices or something.”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose. But I’ve never heard of gnolls behaving like that.”
“What does your god tell you?”
Travic stopped walking and sighed. “Nothing clear. But the whole thing feels wrong to me. Dangerous and important.”
Roghar closed his eyes for a moment, letting his thoughts settle and fall still. His spine prickled at once, and a sense of urgency rose in his chest. At the same time, a gnawing dread took root in his gut. He opened his eyes and nodded. “Lead on,” he said to Travic. “Dangerous and important is about right.”
Travic led them around a corner, and the ruins emerged into full view. The street, a broad thoroughfare that once must have carried carts and wagons to the city’s finest homes and markets, sloped gently upward and then suddenly dropped off into the crater that marked the site of the fallen palace. Majestic stone buildings lined the sides of the street, but the ones nearest the crater were only crumbling facades over ruined husks, the gutted interiors visible through gaping windows and empty doorways.
“I dream about this street sometimes,” Travic said. “I see it as it once was, flowers and banners in a riot of color, the wealthy and powerful of the empire walking along its smooth cobblestones, the palace rising in majesty at the crest of the hill. Except instead of the emperor in his palace, I see Erathis, bathed in glory, the sword of her justice in hand and flames of inspiration around her head. Her eyes pierce me, and she commands me to rebuild.”
“That’s not a calling you could easily ignore,” Roghar said.
Travic sighed. “It makes me so tired. I’m just one man.”
“Today we are three. And we’ll shine the light of the Bright City into this desolate street.” Erathis, the god of civilization and law, was said to live in a celestial realm called the Bright City of Hestavar.
“Thank you, my friend. Bahamut’s work will be done as well.”
Roghar noticed the cleric’s gaze wander, a little uneasily, to Tempest. Travic understood why Roghar was helping him-as a paladin of Bahamut, Roghar had a divine calling, just as Travic did, and the goals of their gods were aligned in many cases. But Travic didn’t know what to make of Tempest and had no idea why a warlock whose power ultimately came from the powers of the Nine Hells would participate in this work.
Tempest wasn’t like them, it was true. Her power didn’t come with a divine mandate-it wasn’t granted on condition of service. In fact, as far as Roghar understood it, Tempest had stolen the power she wielded and used it without permission from the powers of Hell. And he had made it his mission to make sure she used it in ways that would infuriate the devils it came from, which brought him a perverse sort of pleasure.
“It’s just up here,” Travic said, starting toward one of the more intact buildings. “This street’s not entirely desolate. Many of the poorer people of the city find homes here, living in buildings whose owners are long dead. It’s dangerous-between the gnolls and other creatures that haunt the ruins and the risk of collapsing floors or ceilings, there’s a lot that can kill you. But it’s better than a lot of the other options the city offers to the poor.”
“I lived here,” Tempest said. Her voice startled them both-she hadn’t spoken since she entered the tavern. “For a little while.”
Roghar studied her face, but couldn’t read any emotion in her expression. Her eyes were turned toward the crater at the top of the hill.
Travic nodded. “Then you know what I’m talking about.”
“I know.”
Tempest fell back into silence, and Travic, apparently lost in his own reverie, led them off the street through a doorway draped with a tattered curtain.
The space inside had once been a grand entrance hall for a stately home. The morning sun poured down through an open skylight, warming the ancient stone and illuminating every corner of the room. A graceful stairway swept halfway up the wall on one side before dissolving into rubble. A moldering tapestry that might once have been a carpet hung askew over another doorway opposite the stairs, the hinges of the original doors still visible at its sides. A pile of straw and rags in the far corner must have served as a bed, though it was too thin to offer much protection from the hard marble floor.
As Travic had said, no sign of violence marred the scene. If gnolls had attacked this place, Roghar thought, they would have torn the curtain they came through, for starters. They would have killed the residents of the home, and gnolls prefer to kill in ways that leave blood all over the floor, the walls, and sometimes the ceiling.
“Who lived here?” Tempest asked.
“Their names were Marcan and Gaele. An older couple, humans in their fifties. Marcan was a cooper, but he lost his arm at the same time as they lost their children, about fifteen years ago. Gaele earns a pittance washing clothes and linens.”
Roghar growled, a low rumbling deep in his throat. “So the weak become prey for the ruthless,” he said.
“Indeed.”
“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Tempest said. “Maybe they found a better place to live. I don’t see anything here that I’d take with me if I left.”
“If they had simply moved, I’d have heard about it,” Travic said.
“Are you sure?”
“I spend a lot of time with the people on this street. They know me and trust me. I was with Marcan and Gaele when they lost everything. They’d share the joy of a new home with me.”
“Then I say we venture into the ruins and look around,” Roghar said. “Maybe we’ll find a threat other than gnolls lurking there.”
