‘Make her a member of the Midnight Crew...’
I have dealt with many very complex cases in my time. When the local authority is about as brilliant as a dithering Dosor snorting up clacker leaves, it's not difficult to find a place where the law simply can't lay it down, as it were. Oh, I've made my way up the proverbial ladder of evidences to find many a fascinating lunatic at the top. I once had a conversation with a fellow while tied to a chair, listening to him introduce the various personalities supposedly sitting around the dinner table. It would have been more endearing if they hadn't all been representations of the people he'd ritualistically murdered. Needless to say it was an entertaining evening.
Nevertheless, I digress. Despite my rather lengthy and, some might say, questionable career of rounding up random ne'er do wells, I was not precisely prepared for the case that wandered in and plopped itself into my lap one unfortunate evening. There are certain truths that investigators like myself can typically rely on. Most criminals have a particular method to their madness. They follow specific patterns and threads, many of them revolving around some type of religious zealotry. Or if they're not totally insane, they have set goals like any common person, they just tend not to care who they trample to get to them. The point is the case is tractable, traceable, and if you work hard enough at it everyone makes those little mistakes that you can find and figure out. Within the parameters of certain magics, sometimes you get thrown a few curve fireballs, but in the end it all tends to work out.
Sadly this wasn't so in this particular situation. It would appear that this project wasn't going to follow the typical guidelines, the typical stereotypes, the typical criminal mindset. Or, you know, the laws of physics. It wasn't going to follow the laws of physics either. Which is horrifically frustrating to someone like me, who tends to operate best in such situations in which there are at least the loose definitions of our world's “reality.”
Oftentimes I have actually wondered to myself if I have not jumped off the edge of my own sanity. I tell you it would have been a long time in coming. Frankly I'm not entirely sure how my psyche has managed to handle as much as it has. If it has. Certainly not without cracks. Perhaps it's simply held together with badly watered down mortar and that sticky resin that pine trees generate. It might be in small pieces by the time I'm finished here, but at least I shall be able to say I finally got to face a challenge that really engaged what's left of my mind.
It would involve things like an endless void inside of a large conical hat, setting atop the head of a bard who was either a complete buffoon or too brilliant for me to understand. A man far too large for his or anyone else's good that could break through walls at will, and another whose own history remains shrouded in mystery even to my prying eyes, though I think I know who might hold that knowledge even if I'm too cowardly to ask. And of course the one with that blasted rapier. Good gods I hate that one. What I wouldn't give to get the chance to bugger him with his own over-glorified pointy stick.
Where was I? I fear the rambling is becoming a poor indication of where this series of events has left me. Oh yes, right, that was how it started. With the elf and his goofy grin, silly accent, and voluminous travel cloak. I'm still not sure what that instrument of his is supposed to be. Looking back I probably should have fled for the hills at first contact, but I mean, who would be afraid of a greeting like...
“Evenin' scalemarm.”
Gah, manners. Some people like them, I find their disarming quality most unfortunate. But that's beside the point. I should really begin this tale before I leave you drooling over the pages. I know the average attention span is minimal at best, and mine is worse. Let's see.
It all began with a song...