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The early morning sun lit on Samuel’s windowsill, inching across the floor, then his bed, and at long last his eyes. He opened them.
He sat up as his addled brain also resolved a knocking sound at the front door. The elven sage hurried to get dressed as the customer seemed one good hit away from breaking the whole thing in. He opened the door before anything disastrous happened to it. “Hello, how can I... help...”
Samuel’s words were lost as a wave of pure fear and adrenaline hit him. The customer was a strange one-eyed creature, incredibly muscled and looming just above the doorframe.
He analyzed the situation. Obviously this was some magical influence. The figure hadn’t actually done anything yet, and this was a very disproportionate reaction even given the figure’s appearance.
He took a deep breath. In, and out. One, Two. Calm waters. Peaceful forest. Faraway lands and the bliss of vision.
He opened his eyes again, his heart only beating one-and-a-half time instead of triple. The... person had waited patiently, nodding approvingly at his recovery. They were aware of this effect, then, but perhaps not the cause? He swallowed and tried again.
“This is the residence for Samuel’s Scrying Services. H-how can I help you?” He silently applauded himself for only stumbling once. “I assume you have some magical problem?”
The figure replied in a deep growl. “No. I need to find someone. You will help me.”
Samuel’s eyes widened at the figure’s choice of words, but he rallied. “There is usually a fee...” he ventured.
The figure’s stance changed for an instant, and Samuel tensed to flee, his senses already superheightened. But then they relaxed. “Fine.” They plopped a jingling bag into his open hand. It had a sticky, dark stain on it. “It wasn’t mine anyways.”
“F-follow me then. Pardon me for asking, but I don’t believe I’ve met one of your kind before, for all I’ve seen. Do you answer to he or she or anything else?”
The figure stared at him. “She.”
“Um. Right this way, m’am.”
The hallways loomed and pitched under the stranger’s influence. Samuel stumbled forward, relying half on sight and half on shaky muscle memory.
“I don’t suppose you could turn that off?”
“No.”
“Just checking.”
Finally he reached the room with the scrying array. Normally this was where he would negotiate how much scrying to do and the cost of such services, but she’d probably already paid for a deep session three times over, and frankly he couldn’t wait another minute for her to leave.
“I need to be in a certain mental state. You might have to wait a while.”
“Fine. But don’t you waste my time.”
Samuel swallowed. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He began the meditation, circling his hands over his crystal focus and channeling the mana flowing from the open sky above his mountain and into the sigil taking up the room.
“Show me what you are looking for,” he whispered. His voice echoed.
The customer lunged forward, clutching at the clear crystal like it contained ancient treasure. Images had already begun to swirl but now Samuel was deep in vision. A little girl. Fur white as snow, eyes black as pitch, ears like a rabbit’s. This stranger had a deep connection to the girl. There was something strange about the seeking, like she was beyond even the edge of the world. Mind-melting images shot past, and unfamiliar names and places sprang onto Samuel’s lips. Moonfolk. Plane. Planeswalker. Cyclops. Cirn. Kylem. Valor’s Reach. He saw dozens of brave faces appear between the hunter and the hunted, all tossed aside one by one like so much fodder. He’d never delved so far, seen so much other in all his other sessions combined. The girl was with someone, another planeswalker on: “Regatha?” Samuel saw more. She was afraid. She was being hunted. What is she, where is this place-
He broke the connection as quickly as he could when it dawned on him. “You’re not from here. What do you want with that girl?” But it was too late. The cyclops had seen everything he had.
He choked as a fresh wave of fear overcame him, flopping helplessly over onto the floor in terror. Grii was going to kill him, he was certain. Kill him viciously, like she had so many others.
She leaned over and casually picked up the bag of coins he had dropped. This close, he noticed dark flecks under her fingernails, bloodstains on her hands. How could he let this cyclops anywhere near his services? Now Megumi was going to die too, because despite so many’s efforts he had led the cyclops right to her. She smirked down at him. “Thanks,” she said, and promptly vanished into a greasy tear in the universe.
Even after the fear dissipated, Samuel simply breathed on the floor, staring at the ceiling. After a few minutes he got up. There was something he could still do. He grabbed the crystal again and began concentrating. Megumi. Kuro. Ree- no, Wren. Kylah? The visions were already slipping his mind, too much new information for him to handle. He had to find them, had to send them a message, before it was too late.