Wolfe Bite Chapter 2
By Captain Gaul
Captain Gaul leant back in his chair. Having nothing in particular to do, his mind was beginning to come up with ideas for various forms of recreation…but none of them were particularly suitable to a day like today. The rain kept coming down, showing no signs of letting up. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed in the distance, but it was of no concern. Idly, he ran his hand through his hair. Then….
He heard just the smallest pop, too quick to give him a chance to react. The air behind him exploded outwards, shattering the window and scattering paperwork everywhere. “Dammit, Magus!” He turned around in his chair. The dark wizard pulled a form off his face. “Your style of travel really bugs me, you know that?”
Magus tried to look dignified, though, with another piece of paper caught in his hair, it wasn’t coming off too well. “Did you expect me to walk?”
“You might try it sometime. Um, Magus—” Gaul made a gesture of pulling his hand back over his head. “—hair.” Magus blinked twice before he caught the meaning and pulled the letter out of his purple hair. He cursed in the Zealian language for a second, then stopped for a moment.
After a second’s pause, he evidently remembered what he was going to do. He reached into his cloak and handed Gaul a thick envelope. “Evidently, the boys in clerical administration never got your change-of-address form.”
Gaul frowned. “So that’s what I forgot. Thanks, Magus.” Gaul took the envelope and was in the process of setting it on a pile of papers on his desk when Magus said quickly—
“It’s urgent.”
The captain raised an eyebrow. “What, did you open it or something?”
Magus shook his head. “Read the front.”
It DID look urgent. Eyes-only, top priority, emergency missive—all common labels on serious messages. Still, he was not intrigued.
“Evidently, clerical administration also forgot that I was dismissed from the patrol six months ago. If they need someone’s help, they can get someone on their payroll.”
“Shouldn’t you read it anyway?”
Gaul turned the envelope over. The seal was still there, but deformed—“You did open it, didn’t you?”
“Oh, please. If I was going to read your letters, do you think I would do as poor a job as that of resealing it?”
Gaul grunted a reply that could have been either a yes or a no, or possibly both. He opened the letter and scanned it. Quickly, he realized that it was more serious than he had given it credit for—it was handwritten, not block-printed, meaning it was personalized and addressed specifically to him.
Line after line discussed that an ‘incident’ had occurred, that the ‘assailant’ was nowhere to be found, that the ‘scene’ had evidence, but bizarre and inexplicable evidence. Unfortunately, nowhere in the double-talk and legally sound document did it mention what exactly had happened. And for that information, he needed to report to Truce immediately.
“Truce? Oh, right, Guardia’s not rebuilt yet.” Gaul got up and started to put together his journey bag. After a moment, he remembered Magus was still standing there. “Anything about this case that you know which I should?”
“Yes…it’s Crono.”
The captain finished packing much faster than he started.
.