Linnie pushed through the crowd of heavy and drunk people, eventually reaching the center of the circle where Liora was standing. Somehow, a pint of beer was in her hand.
'Weren't the guards breaking this up? They're completely useless,' he thought, snickering.
Liora was lost in the moment, and right as she was about to bring the beer to her lips, she was yanked into the crowd by her arm. The pint dropped to the floor, spilling across the ground.
Naturally, she struggled.
"Hey! Stop—stop! It's me, idiot!"
"Oh! Why're you pulling on me like that? Wait, did you see me, Linnie? They were all—"
"Come on, we gotta go before the guards get us!"
They broke from the crowd, moving to the back door. It seemed that another distraction had taken up the crowd's attention in place of Liora. Maybe it was even the guards. They weren't sticking around to find out.
The two of them reached the exit, where Marielle and The Prince were waiting for them. For some reason, though, the two nobles were completely frozen.
"What're you doing? Let's go before your little army catches... up with us...?"
Linnie furrowed his brows, and slowly turned around. His heart nearly stopped, thinking that there was a massive beast that had somehow snuck into the tavern.
It was, in fact, Gerry, the very owner—and quite a large man. Without his friendly exterior, he assumed the crushing presence of a... monster. There was no other way to put it.
"Gerry, this... haha..." Marielle chuckled nervously. "I'll pay for all the damages. You know I'm good for it!"
"I know your father's good for it. Mari, you—" his deep voice rumbled like a lion.
But it was cut off by the harsh sound of the door bursting open. Where the lady and The Prince were standing seconds prior, there was only empty air.
'S-she ditched us!?' Linnie thought, wincing.
"Oh, aha, Mr. Geralt... you'll forgive me for that small accident from before, right? I just got caught up in the moment. You know how it is!" Liora's face shone, and she even gave him a friendly tap on his shoulder.
Of course, she had to go on her tippy-toes—and even then, it was a reach.
'That's not his name you moron!'
"Sorry, what my friend here meant to say, Mr. Jerry, is that—"
"Forget it, you two. I've got nothing against you guys," he laughed, his dark presence suddenly nonexistent. "Or Little Mari, either."
'Phew! But, 'Little Mari'? Really? She's bigger than me!'
He continued: "Just... make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble for me, okay? She's in a bit of a difficult spot as of recent, and it's been hard on her."
"Yessir!" Liora vowed.
The three stood in a slightly awkward silence before he shooed them out the door. As they ran away, they heard the guards questioning the tavernkeep.
He knew nothing, apparently.
"Wow, he's a nice guy!" Liora said.
"Yeah, yeah..." Linnie said dismissively
'I could probably only beat him if I went for the eyes. Well, without magic that is. One fireball would definitely take out that bear of a man.'
Eventually, after a couple of minutes of aimless wandering, they spotted Marielle and The Prince. They were standing in front of a big message board—facing away from it, that is.
"So you two made it out," she said, almost annoyed.
Linnie noticed that she was only pretending to be pissed, for whatever stupid reason. He wasn't very emotionally or socially intelligent, so she must've been even worse at masking her true emotions.
Linnie's only question was why she would even act like such a... not-so-nice word.
"What even was that, back there? Why'd those guys attack us?"
"Just some overconfident cretins. It's nothing out of the ordinary, these days... ahem, you don't have to worry about them, anyhow," she 'explained,' looking at her nails.
"I wasn't worried," he replied flatly.
"Well—I don't care if you're worried or not! Tch!"
Linnie's eyes drifted to the papers behind her. He had noticed them before, in other places. Plastered on the sides of buildings, against poles—anywhere that was solid and flat enough, really.
He hadn't paid them any attention until now. Well, here, he simply thought they'd be requests and missions for adventurers.
That's what this specific board was for, after all. But the local guild had long abandoned this board. And every other public board, too.
What Linnie read wasn't a request. At least, not the usual one.
************************
MISSING — Celine Rias
Age: 17 Gender: Female
Last seen in Tulana park, wearing a pink and white tunic. Of average height and weight, has sun-kissed skin, long and curly brown hair, and bright green eyes.
Last seen: 12/20
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT CELINE PLEASE CONTACT THE GUILD
************************
In the center was a crude drawing of the supposed girl. It was eerie.
For a moment, Linnie assumed that the family of this poor girl had gone crazy or something, plastering her poster all over the board and around the city.
Upon closer inspection, that was... clearly... not the case.
Each and every paper had a different face, name, description, and details. He was yet to see a single repeated poster by the time Marielle called out to him.
A sharp chill ran down his spine.
"What are you looking at? We're waiting for you, let's go."
She looked extremely uncomfortable. Was it with the posters, or was it with him looking at them so closely?
"What's up with all of this?" Linnie simply asked, pointing to the visage of the missing girl.
"Tch, those silly things? Just forget about them—if we don't want to wait in lines for hours, we've gotta go now. And I don't like waiting!"
"Yeah, okay..." he said, turning away and catching up with the rest of them.
'What the hell...!?'
Linnie was no detective, but he felt that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
'Ahh, that's exactly it. I'm no detective, so I don't have to care about these things! Sweet, sweet, freedom...'
"So, what're we doing first?" Liora excitedly asked.
"I'm going to get my fortune told," Marielle answered.
Linnie laughed at her.
"Fortune? What kind of crap is that. Everyone knows fortunes are scams!"
"Maybe in whatever hole you crawled out from, but Corvailles fortunes are real. If you go to the right place. They're an important part of the festival."
"Isn't it about some guy's boat? What's fortune telling got anything to do with that?"
"Some guy's boat!? The Feast of The First Voyage celebrates the founder of Corvailles and his, ahem, voyage. It was a harrowing adventure, filled with danger and enemies at every turn. Naturally, before he left, he got a fortune. Fortunes are very important before long and dangerous adventures."
"They are? I didn't know that..." Linnie nodded his head while stroking his chin. Very inquisitively.