The job sounded straightforward at first, which really should have been a warning. Still, bills need paying, and standing around in the Nightside's Great Auction Hall (famously neutral ground), keeping bidders in line with glares and his reputation, didn't sound too bad. The catch turned out to be that this particular rich lady was trying to sell a Chaos Butterfly: a tangible metaphor, supposedly granting the bearer the ability to identify and manipulate every existing 'first domino in an event'. What it actually did was draw the attention of psychenauts (beings from lower and higher dimensions, who cannot be turned aside by human magics because they're either not real enough or too real to be affected), so while they were tearing the place down around them just through sheer exposure (and John did not want to think about why he was the only one not terribly affected), John freed the butterfly from its stasis. 

Freeing it should have just restored it to its normal, non-mystical state, and convinced the psychenauts there was nothing interesting for them here anymore. So it's really unfair when the world melts into a kaleidoscope around him after it beats its wings, and resolves into... Daylight? 

The priestess will find a man in a scruffy white trench coat and black hat standing in the middle of the alley, squinting his eyes like he's half-blinded.

She steps forward in a half daze, drawing the knife. Er... More like a short sword.

And stabs.

At the air to his side, staring at something not quite here. She swipes up and over and down and under in a rough circle.

And then, shake off the daze. 

"The rift will remain open for a time... Ah. You should be able to understand me."

People do not last long in the Nightside if they just let people stab them, and John is no exception. Half-blinded he may be, that's still enough to leap backwards, elbows aimed to catch anyone behind him sharply. He finds only air there, though, and sees this lady with a fox mask finish her motion as a circle rather than an attack, so apparently this situation is not actually a mugging. And then she talks about a rift, and everything becomes clear. Fucking chaos butterfly.

"Excuse me, any idea how long that rift will last?" John inquires. Obviously he doesn't want to leave himself stranded here, but he doesn't exactly want to deal with the Authority's questions about the incident right now either. 

"It is oft difficult to tell. More than some hours. Perhaps a few days..."

She circles a patch of air that does not appear to have anything special about it. If he's particularly observant he might notice something odd about how the robes are moving.

"More days than hours. It punches straight through the Spirit Realm and off into places I cannot see, or at least, that the goddess does not design I see..."

John's eyes have adjusted to the light now, and he always keeps his situational awareness up in unfamiliar situations. Her robes are moving oddly how, exactly?

If this rift is going to last for entire days he might want to stick around and keep an eye on it, make sure the Nightside doesn't leak out too much. No place deserves that. 

"Yeah, the Nightside's pretty dark. Thanks for telling me about the rift, though" John replies

There's a subtle bulge up the back, with a few accoutrements and decorations - embroidery, ribbons - designed to break up the suspicious shape. Possibly a concealed weapon and/or appendage. Also, they seem heavier than ordinary cloth, falling straighter and steadier where they dangle, not trailing in the air or with motion as much.

She turns to face him, mask still on.

"Galasa sent me here, specifically, and I believe it was not merely to tidy up the edges of that rift."

"So why did she send you here, and why are you telling me about this?" John asks. 

"Sometimes the designs are obvious; A man has disappeared this very morning, the guard is meant to kill monsters and not investigate crimes, and I am not skilled in that particular skill myself. Are you an investigator of sorts, sir?"

There it is, that's how circumstances are conspiring into making him take yet another damn unpaid job. He sighs internally and answers with a professional voice

"Yes, I'm John Taylor, private investigator. Why don't you show me to the last place this man was seen while you tell me about him?"

She will nod firmly and start walking. Out the alley, down the street. It's a vaguely-medieval pastiche, though very much on the nicer side of that. No street lights, but it's clean. Glass windows, wrought iron fences, nice cobblestone street. A solid majority of people are human but there are a few lines of standouts; Furred and snouted and tailed hyena-people, scaled lizard-people, and humanoids with great feathery wings are the most common.

"Archibald Gassul is a local wizard who has lived in the same house here, in Grissom's Rest, for eleven years or thereabouts. He makes and sells scrolls for a living, pre-completed spells that are easier and faster to use than casting the ordinary way. I do not know him well, I have seen to him at services but not otherwise. He was last seen entering his home last night around dusk, by a neighbor, Lorai-Neits. He was reported missing when his housekeeper, Hans of no family name, attempted to enter to receive his weekly pay, and found the home empty with half completed wizardry work on the desk. That's notable and what makes us believe that something has happened- He is notorious for NEVER leaving a messy desk, and carefully guarding his notes and research."

He'd never been much of one for high tech, despite Cathy's efforts, so its cleanliness makes it nicer than 80% of the Nightside (though he's ready to downgrade that assessment depending on their plumbing).

He absorbs the information with a thoughtful air as they walk. "So who are the obvious enemies, and how scary are they implied to be by taking down a wizard? Also, do you know when Hans entered to collect his payment, or should I save that for his interview?" he asks.

"I have no obvious enemies. If he was surprised, it is not so unreasonable. The type of wizard who is middle aged and lives in a town would take five to ten seconds to cast something, and that is eternity in a fight. I don't know when Hans found the house empty."

So somebody planned this, but didn't have a very difficult task to plan ahead for. Damn but he hates trying to investigate quiet people.

"I'll just have to keep an eye out for non-obvious enemies. I'll ask his neighbors about his friends, but do you know if he has business competition in this town?"

"Hmm...? Well, I know he was passed over for patronage by local houses of note again and again, and eventually gave up that endeavor and started selling mostly standardized scrolls to a merchant concern. He barely tries to sell any directly, it all goes through the reseller. I hear that it's considered a bit shameful in higher circles of wizards to do that, compared to a patronage from a noble or a church or some other organization- They call them 'stampers'. Ah, as far as the church goes, there are a few other people I can call on to help, if it may indeed help, but the needs of the rest of the town don't stop just because a man is missing."

And now they are coming up to the house. The ring of neighbors and looky-loos parts and quiets around the intense, determined, masked priestess. A nervous guard in chainmail with a sword (sheathed) and a crossbow (not loaded) stands at the house entrance.

"Um, uh, Priestess Kymar, uh, hi... No trouble? Who'zat?"

"There is no trouble. This is John Taylor, a private investigator. I have been given a sign that he may be able to find Mr. Gassul, and so I would request that he be given access to the scene so that the truth may be sought."

"...Right, uh, well you'd know a sign more than I would."

John is deeply tempted to startle this guy as he walks past, but manages to stomp down the impulse to give a big "Boo!", instead merely tipping his hat. What does he find inside?

There's a small front garden with many footsteps and cart tracks in the muddy grass. Then a mud room, a place for shoes and coats to be hung up. Past that it's spacious and clean. Kitchen and dining room, a great armchair near a hearth, and open doorways to a large study and to a bedroom. There are papers and notes on the desk in the study, and a number of bookshelves and scroll cases that are quite neat in comparison to the cluttered desk. There is a chair knocked over and a broken teacup on the floor, along with two intact ones and a decorated brass kettle of cold tea. A plate of cheese and crackers has also been left out, as if serving guests, but it's starting to smell a bit rank.

Two other guards are looking around the place, in big stompy boots. A woman with cat ears and a tail, scars on her face, and a bored sullen expression, and a human man getting on towards middle age, who is looking over the desk papers. (The woman looks at both the priestess and John as if evaluating how she would fight them.)

John tips his hat to the guards within the house as well, then grabs a tiny little perfume bottle from his pocket to spritz the air in front of his face. An observer paying close attention might notice small glints of light lingering under his nose. 

"Hello there sir, have you found anything interesting in those papers?"

"-Hmm? Oh, you must be the help the priestess mentioned. I'm no wizard but I recognize some of the patterns here as elements common to some utility scrolls. Message, Deep Slumber, Shield Bubble, and an older variant of Fly. It looks like our missing wizard was trying to develop improvements, going by the notes in the margins. There's nothing about business or money here, it's all- Spell development stuff."

"What's in that bottle?" The woman demands.

(Priestess Kymar has followed him inside, silently.)

"Just a little something so I don't have to smell that cheese, ma'am", John replies to the woman first. 

"Thank you, sir" he nods to the man. He then looks around to check where the windows are, if there are any, or any other places an assailant could hide in wait. 

(The cat-woman definitely doesn't believe him, but gets a quelling glance from her partner and goes back to her boredom.)

It's a fairly small single-story affair. There's an attic door, and a small cellar, both next to the kitchen. There's a pantry and an ice box in the kitchen, and a closet in the bedroom, and another closet near the mud room. The bedroom has an attached bathroom with modern-ish plumbing, which looks like it may operate via magic. Every room in the house save the bathroom has at least one window, slightly discolored and irregular off-green glass. There's a small nook in the mud room which is currently hosting empty coat hooks and might be out of sight if you enter the house in a habitual, familiar way that one who lives there might.

So there's lots of options for someone to hide, but he'll start with checking the places nearest that study desk in the probably vain hope somebody has left behind a Clue or three to use, not that they tend to do him much good but appearances must. He's also going to check the window mechanisms, see if they're easy to pick from the outside (or at least easier than the door locks), some people get sloppy about that. After that, if the paperwork guy doesn't beat him to it, he'll try to find the business ledgers and see if they tell him anything helpful. 

The windows are all latched shut and don't seem especially resistant to being forced or finessed open. But the door lock was equally crude.

Paperwork guy reports that almost all of his business is with Kinger, Yates, & Red Distributors, and he found a contract describing bulk purchases of scroll ink in exchange for a quota of completed scrolls, and set purchase rates for any excess scrolls, too. This has been Mr. Gulliman's almost exclusive source of income for two years; KYRD first did business with him five years ago, one of many merchants at the time and only became his main partner after the ink-for-scrolls deal. There are also a number of ledger entries for a lawyer in the year before that. At any rate, the distributor is an obvious group to question.

The study desk is filled with a number of mathematical tools for quickly measuring out geometric shapes, as well as two book stands and a bright quartz magic lantern. Whatever local wizardry does, exactly, it clearly involves a lot of math around circles, angles, and intersections. It's clearly set up to facilitate his work, all the cabinets and supplies are within easy sitting reach. There are two rows of ink bottles, one labelled 'personal' and the other labeled 'for sale'. The neat row of completed scrolls in little wooden scroll cases in a locked cabinet (with a magic alarm on it) are similarly divided. There's a number of letter exchanges describing some sort of intellectual property dispute and threats of stripping titles or Wizards' Guild sanctions, and a number of form letters informing him politely that his submissions of spell improvements have been rejected.

There's a thin haze of lingering magic through some parts of the house- A bit in the kitchen, a bit in the bathroom, and a lot in the study. The completed scrolls and bottles of ink glow faintly with power to those with the eyes to see (though some of the bottles on the 'for sale' side are dimmer).

Things that might be Clues:

The dining room, tea and snacks for three all set up on the table, suddenly interrupted.

A patch clear of dust in the mud room closet, as if something was moved or dragged there recently.

A dropped twine cord in the bathroom, matching the ones that the 'finished' pile in the study are all bound with.

A scrap corner of parchment, singed, on the edge of the hearth. It also matches the material the magic scrolls use. No markings visible.

Broken glass on the cellar floor, in the back corner. It smells of wine.

So anybody could waltz in at any time they pleased, is what this house is telling him. He's seen better locks on cheap gym lockers! He is happy to be distracted by the paperwork guy though, and pulls out a little notebook to write a couple of lists in (and thrilled he gets a chance to actually use it, normally happenings are far too hectic for such things).

People To Talk To:

Kinger, Yates, & Red Distributors

Wizard's Guild (and any individuals named in the correspondence)

Hans, housekeeper

Neighbors

-tea and snacks for 3, who were other 2?

-mud room dragging

-finished scroll tie? bathroom - magic glow cause?

-burnt parchment, corner remaining - was it used?

-scuffle in basement?

-selling dimmer ink? (squint to see it)

Actually, he has this convenient priestess here to ask "Priestess, would you tell me what happens to magic scrolls of this type after they're used?" 

The two guards don't seem optimistic about finding the guy. They do note down the names of every fellow wizard he's been having heated letter exchanges with though. Most of them are in other towns or cities, but Valerie Whitewall lives in town and does magical security for one Baroness Lavender, presumably among other things.

Priestess Kymar treats this question with the same utter seriousness she has treated everything so far. "Once expended, scrolls are useless for magical purposes. It is more trouble than it is worth to try to re-infuse them. Often used for scratch paper, packaging or wrapping, or simply disposed of."

John's building a picture in his head, of a scroll desperately unwrapped in the bathroom, a scuffle taking the combatants into the study, the scroll finally cast, and then burnt... 

"Thank you. I was just trying to determine if the scroll was burnt to keep it from being cast, or to avoid letting us investigators know what the spell even was, though you'd think if they burnt it on purpose they wouldn't have left that scrap... Though sometimes people are sloppy".

Her head tilts.

"Frequently, people are sloppy. Scrolls that have been cast from are obvious. There's a sort of - outlined paleness to them. I could see someone burning a cast scroll, but why not just keep it and dispose of it somewhere else? Panic or monofocus? Sloppy. Hrm. Like I said, I can track and kill a monster, but this is out of my experience. So too with the guard. They are not meant to solve crimes more complex than a knocked-over market stall. I am attempting to leave it to the one with relevant skill. Is this wrong? Should I be volunteering more speculation and information?"

"Oh you've been perfect, if you tried to tell me absolutely everything we'd be here all week! Do feel free to volunteer whatever you think is useful, especially if I'm looking stupid, of course, but it's my job to ask questions. That's really what investigating is all about, mostly, asking questions and tugging loose ends until something useful falls out", John explains before tapping his notebook. "I think I've seen everything I need in here, so now it's off to question more people. Oh, do you know where that housekeeper Hans might be found?"

Another sharp, focused nod. "Hans lives in Soup Row but may also still be praying at the shrine. Shrine is closer."

"Might as well check the shine first then, if you wouldn't mind directing me?"

Another sharp nod.

On the way out the guards mention that there's not much they can do. They'll leave the trainee to watch the place and make sure nobody robs it, knowing it's empty, but they have other work to do.

The shrine is two blocks over, past a bunch of one and two story housing, some stores and artisan workshops, and a few gardens (the kind you grow actual food in). It has Japanese aesthetics. There is a lot of symbology around the number nine- Nine altars with different symbols, a three by three square of dots on things, and so on.

Hans proves to be here, having waited for the priestess to come back.

"So you haven't figured anything out yet? And yes, I'll tell you all I can. Old Gulliman is a good sort and I want to help. Saved me from being scammed for a magic charm once."

John nods agreeably about the guards announcement that their trainee is specifically the guy they've designated as getting their "dues" before moving on. The scenery on route to the shrine is really quite pretty, and he appreciates the chance to be in a nicer neighborhood without having to shrug off various scowls from security types.

John smiles at the story before getting into his questions. "Yes, I'd like to know what time you came into the house, and if you knew him to have quarrels with anybody besides those Wizards Guild fellows".

"Uh... I head over around noon on cleaning days, which is twice a week. Eriusday and Otenaday."

"Today being Eriusday," the priestess adds.

"Uh, right. As soon as I hear the noon bells I head over so it's probably around twenty minutes after that. I have a spare key and a little tag that makes it so the spell on the house doesn't scream, so I just let myself in and started cleaning. But when I noticed the mess in the study I knew something was wrong. Mr. Gulliman never leaves spell stuff unlocked. I think his worries about other wizards are... Well, paranoia more than actual concern, but he always locks up his notes and says it's so nobody can copy them. But they were sprawled out clear as day. I looked around the house for him a bit and asked the neighbors, who hadn't seen anything concerning, and then I went here, to priestess Kymar, and asked for Galasa's blessing. If he has quarrels with anyone... Well, he complains about noisy neighbors sometimes, and he goes on rants about bad products from merchants sometimes. In addition to the ones about nobody appreciating his spellwork."

Twenty minutes after noon, not much use there. Though if the neighbors hadn't heard the house scream, then they defeated the alarm somehow, and he'll make a mental note of that. "Thank you. Oh, one more question, do you know if he took social calls with anyone?"

"What, like with a lady or something? I don't think so. He gave up courting years ago. Says he's married to magic. Meets with friends at the cafe, not at his house. It seems a bit sad to me but who am I to deny a man his castle, especially if I'm being paid to keep it up to shape?"

"And which cafe would that be?" he asks with pen at ready.

"Juniper's place, with the cat sign. Occasionally somewhere down in the wealthy district, but mostly there."

"Oh, is it the one just a block over?"

"Unless another one opened up when I wasn't looking, yeah. You can ask for Juniper to be sure. I hope you find him. I hope nothing terrible has happened."

"Me too, lad, me too. Off I go, then!" he says with a wave of his hat as he strides down towards that cafe. Can he find any friends or acquaintances in there?

The owner (a cat-person, but a different kind of cat-person than the other one) noticed that he didn't come for his usual dinner last night. There are a few acquaintances here: Nicar, Gannett, Sami, and Jules. Playing cards and sipping beer. 

He's popular for consistently losing coppers on card games and explaining foundational magic concepts when asked by the room at large. Everyone's heard that he's missing.

First he'll ask the owner what time Gassul's dinner generally is, then he'll ask the acquaintances if they know anybody he'd invite over to his home. 

No wonder he's popular, John kinda likes him too now. Hopefully he can fit in a card game after he finds this guy.

His usual dinner is creamy potato soup in a bread bowl, with a glass of wine and a small platter of cheese, nuts, crackers, and fruits.

The card acquaintances have various opinions. One says they heard his brother was heading in this direction. One says he swears he was seeing a- Er, that he was celebrating Otena with one of the night priestesses if you know what he means. The others are pretty sure that's incorrect as he doesn't actually have a sex drive. He'd totally invite important magic-heads to his home if any of them would accept, and they have a few names there. Mostly ones that match names from the letters. There's a bit of a side-track discussion about a wizard named Sinnah, famous for the eponymous Sinnah's Fly, which to hear Gassul tell it was like the combined work of Jesus Christ and Albert Einstein in wizardly achievement. He's tried to explain how beautiful that spell is to people several times and they only barely get it.

(It's an elegant swoop of symbols each dependent on every other symbol with absolutely no redundancy or wasted space, that takes a lot of staring at until it makes sense. It's already optimized to Hell and back and there is no room for so much as a 1% improvement no matter who tries; The little tweaks you can usually do to make a spell a bit more powerful or a bit easier to cast all make stock Sinnah's Fly worse. It lasts much longer than older Fly spells. It doesn't require holding focus to keep the spell up, unlike older Fly spells. It lets you go much, much faster. And it casts another spell when the first one ends, Feather Fall. The two big downsides being: It's much harder to cast (in skill, not raw power), and more dangerous to use; It has no protection against slamming yourself into things accidentally like older versions.)