"I swear to you, I'm not making this up," the litte tannish otter said, perching on the barstool and licking the beer off his fur between sentences. He'd climbed out of his tunic immediately, of course, since he was planning on getting dry as quickly as possible, and putting clothing back on is easiest if you don't start tangled up in it.

"Please, spare me," said the husky-patterned Cani woman, sipping the remainder of her drink. "I don't think I can take another Fishwish fable tonight." She motioned to the bartender, who refilled her mug for a few bits of seashell. "Just promise me you'll never skip out on me like that again." She paused for a few seconds to take a long draught. "Oh, and copy me out that teleport spell. Could come in handy."

"I don't even know locador," Fishwish protested, nibbling at the last bits of his fur until he was completely dry, at which point he returned to full size, a naked orren man sitting at the bar. His thick tail quickly curled around to hide his personal regions, and apparently that was enough for him for now, as he didn't make any motion to actually put his clothing on, much to the amusement of the other patrons. "And before you ask, it wasn't a veil either. I'm telling you, Candy, I was kidnapped by monsters from another dimension!"

"So why are you back here now, then," Candy said, carefully not looking in her companion's direction. She'd seen more of him than she'd ever cared to on numerous occasions before this, and with her nose as sensitive as it was she could certainly smell more detail with his clothing on than most people could see at the worst of times. Like now. But it still didn't help her reputation to hang out with him when he was acting this way. Or rather, it helped the reputation that she wished she didn't have. "Did you cavort around naked until they threw you back?"

Fishwish looked down, noticed he was naked, and leapt to his feet to start getting dressed. Great. He was rushing. "Well, yes, I was naked, but they didn't seem surprised by that, and I was in water-form anyway. They made me attack this hideous flaming beast with my teeth and claws! I was lucky the flame was magical, and I could resist half of it, but there was something solid in there, because it flattened me in a couple blows. I think they just had me there as a distraction while they ran off."

"So you were kidnapped, abandoned, and now killed. That doesn't really explain what you're doing here embarassing me in public." Candy went to take another swig of beer, and paused, taking a bite of the tavern's odiferous 'noontime special' instead. It was too early for serious drinking, no matter how crazy one's Orren companion might be.

"Well, after I was killed, I woke up this morning in my own bed -"

"Aha," Candy said, "Now we come to the truth of the matter. You had a Go Home cast on you, somehow, so when we were jumped by those Mewellicaps you buggered off, fell asleep, and dreamed about monsters from another dimension."

"No no no no no no NO!" Fishwish said, jumping up and down and glancing around the room desperately, as if one of the other customers would have something on hand to prove his story. "I don't know any spell like that, and I would have known if someone gave me a bound spell to do that, and I wouldn't abandon you like that ever, Candy! I love you!"

Someone giggled. Candy just let out a gentle sigh. "So is this going to happen again, the next time we get in trouble? I need someone who'll watch my back, not disappear at the first sign of trouble. Or I'd still be venturing out with Grackle's band."

"I don't know!" Fishwish protested, "I don't know why it happened the first time, so I don't know if it'll happen again! You have to help me! I need to get someone to - that's it!" And he ran off to find... someone. Candy went back to her meal. She wouldn't be able to keep up with him when he was like this, and he wasn't likely to get into too much trouble inside the city.

"So how did you get away from the mewellicaps?" asked a gentle voice next to her. Candy turned, and saw a young Rassimel man, his eyes and fur bright and clean, his tail rings and mask well-defined and symmetrical. Attractive, if you were into that sort of thing. And drinking nicely scented herbal tea, after a meal of spiced cheese and whole-grain crisps.

Candy glanced at the bartender, "You serve tea now?"

Kestrel shook his head, slowly and deliberately. All his movements were careful, when he was behind the bar, and even so Candy found it amazing that in all the times she'd eaten there, the massive bear of a Gormorror hadn't accidentally broken anything once. "No tea," he said, "From me. His own, from home. I make him pay me anyway."

Candy gave the Rassimel a strange look, but he shrugged. "I can afford a few terch, for the chance to sit in this place and listen to all you adventurers tell your stories -"

"I'm not an adventurer," Candy objected, her ears flattening, "I work for the guard. They hire me to chase away monsters, sometimes to go into the verticals and retrieve something. Usually some damned fool of an adventurer who thinks sticking meng swords in a Scawn is a fun day trip."

"From what I've heard," the Rassimel replied, still smiling at her ingratiatingly, "you're one of the best at it. So I'd think the gods disagree with your assessment." He held up a hand to wave off her rebuttal, and, still smiling, asked, "At any rate, how did you escape from the mewellicaps, after your partner abandoned you?"

Apparently, there was no escaping it... but that was okay, without Fishwish to aggravate her she'd get bored just sitting around waiting for another job to find her. "Well," Candy said, turning to face the Rassimel, setting her arm on the bar, "I could have just killed them all, but that's not my style. I leave that to the stupid kids who still think that being a Prime means never having to say you're sorry to the monster's children. And I could have run away, if I wanted - left them struggling in a solid mist while I lost myself in the orchards. But who knows how much of the Countess Lupe's apple crop would have been eaten by those ruffians - or worse yet, licked and left on the branch?"

The Rassimel sitting before her just smirked at the joke, although Candy spotted an orren at a nearby table making a disgusted face at the thought.

"Normally," Candy continued, "I'd have had Fishwish annoy them until they ran back home with their tails between their... well, their fins?" Someone chuckled. "But apparently he was busy being kidnapped by monsters from another imagination, so I was on my own. I had no choice but to surrender."

She had them now.

"Now, normally," Candy said, glancing around the room and counting the eyes looking back at her, "a group of mewellicaps like this would have just taken me back to their lair, stolen all my worldly posessions, and made me perform what manner of lewd acts they could think up, before forgetting they had me prisoner and allowing me to make my escape. Not the most pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but it's all in a day's work, and it would have kept the apples safe, which is the important part.

"These mewellicaps had heard of me before, though, and decided that I was too dangerous to take alive. They were going to kill me on the spot, but I reminded them that the guard had sent me, and knew who they sent me to run off, and if I was found dead by lashtail or destroc, they'd know just who to come down on, and to send a bigger group. No, if they wanted me dead, I told them, they'd have to make it look like an accident.

"Now, mewellicaps like nothing better than a convoluted plan, so just like that they were off thinking up ways a Cani could accidentally kill herself in an orchard. They had half a dozen variations on 'a tree mysteriously fall over and...' before I helpfully pointed out that a tree cut down with destroc - how else were they going to knock one over? - would be almost as damning as my blood on their tails. There were a few experiments with falling apples..." Candy reached into her pouch, pulled out a young green apple, and took a bite. "Anyway, they eventually decided that the orchards just weren't a dangerous enough place to make it look realistic, so we headed off into the Ginko Wood, towards the verticals.

"It wasn't a very pleasant trip, I can tell you that. Every time we got near a gully or deadfall, the mewellicaps had me 'slip and fall', or clamber around on a pile of broken sticks. I got bruised, and scratched, and one time chewed on by a wild guntry they had me taunt with a stick, but there just isn't a whole lot in those woods that's all that dangerous, 'cept maybe to kids.

"It was almost sunout by the time we got to the verticals proper. The mewellicaps had some sense, and had taken me up to the Loser's Leap - that little stubby branch that goes two hundred forty three feet or so before it got snapped off, a good drop that really could snap your neck if you fell to the bottom. 'Chase us off the edge!' they said, and although I was sick to death of falling, I'd given my word to do as they said, so I had no choice but to follow.

"Of course, I hadn't fallen more than twenty seven feet before the bound levitation spell kicked in. 'Look,' I told them, as we all floated in midair, the edge of the world-branch far below us, 'This is hopeless. I do stuff like this every day of the week, and if I was going to get killed by accident it'd have happened a long time before now.'

"'We'll have the scawn kill you,' one of them said - I think it was Findler. We used to play cards back when I was on the other side of the law, although I had to hold his cards for him. 'Then the guards will come after them, not us.'

"'Oh please,' I said, 'Even if the scawn wouldn't turn you all in in a heartbeat, they know that if they hurt me, they can't go to Fishwish for lessons on how to be godawful annoying anymore.' I don't know if they believed me, but based on the looks I saw on their faces, I could tell that they were as glad as I was not to go over to the scawn's lair to try it out. I swear, for all that I look down on those damned bloodthirsty adventurers, I have to admit that it's impossible to spend five minutes with a Scawn and not want to stab it to death. Or failing that, yourself."

Candy took a drink of beer, to wet her throat. The Rassimel next to her used the pause to get a word in edgewise, "Do you know all the monsters that live around here by name?"

"Yeah, most of them," Candy said, shrugging, "We're lucky to have a good population of mewellicaps and scawn and... those slug things." She grinned. "I suppose I don't know all of them by name. Anyway, they mostly keep the really dangerous things away, makes my job a lot easier.

"But it made for a hard time for the poor mewellicaps, who couldn't think of anything dangerous enough to take me down, that I could have accidentally wandered into. It was getting dark, though, and I had to go report back, so I told them I'd meet them over at Loser's leap the next day around noon."

"So what happened the next day?" the Rassimel asked.

Candy got up, walked over to the window, and looked up at the sun, which was already starting to wane. "Damn," she said, "Looks like I missed my appointment."

She kept walking out the door, but the Rassimel followed her. After a couple blocks, and a couple unlikely turns, she turned and waited for him to catch up. "Who are you, and why are you following me?"

The Rassimel breathed heavily as he jogged over to speaking distance, although he was trying to put on a nonchalant face. "I didn't expect you to run off like that," he said pleasantly, still smiling. "My name is Cary. Carriage Justin. And I meant to ask you, before you left, if you'd seen anything... unusual in the orchard."

"You mean, aside from my partner running from a bunch of silly mewellicaps?" Candy asked, staying alert. There wasn't anyone else around in the alley she'd turned down, which in one sense was good (no one to jump her if this Cary was up to something) and in another was worrying (no one to see what happened if Cary was up to something).

"Yesyes, aside from that. That was a nice story, by the way, even if it didn't really bear much relation to the truth...," Cary gave her a significant look, so Candy smiled back, somewhat less nicecly than Cary had earlier. "It's just that I was sent to this city to find something, and I really expected it to be in the orchard, right where I didn't expect to find you and those ruffians."

"I don't suppose you could tell me what you were looking for," Candy said, expecting exactly the pained look the Rassimel gave her. She shook her head sadly, "Someone else might have taken it?"

"They could have," Cary replied, "Except that just this morning, I was told that it was in the tavern, where I found you, just a few minutes before I arrived."

"Ah," Candy said, "Fishwish must have it, then, and Pararenenzu only knows where he's got off too, rushing off like that." She smirked. "Maybe he's been spirited off to another dimension, again."

"Oh!" Cary said, looking startled at the thought, "I hope not!"

Candy sighed. "Well, I've got nothing better to do 'till tomorrow, at least," she said, "Why don't we ask around the city, and see if anyone saw where he ran off to? Unless you can arrange to get 'told' where he is."

Cary smiled. "Not until tomorrow, I'm afraid, and I haven't had much luck relying on what I'm told so far anyway. Besides, what could be a more pleasant afternoon than wandering the fair streets with a lovely young lady?"

Candy grimaced. She hadn't been young, or especially lovely, in ages. "Well, if it's pleasant you want, you should hope that we don't find Fishwish. The Scawn might not come to him for lessons, but that's only because they can't stand his company."

They didn't find Fishwish. In fact, after a few leads from merchants and other working folk near the tavern, they didn't even find mention of Fishwish, which wasn't that unusual - there were certainly no shortage of Orren in the city - but worried Candy nonetheless. She wasn't sure which was a more frightening prospect - that monsters from another dimension (or unscrupulous mages from this one) really were snatching people off the street, or that Fishwish was hiding something from her. There weren't very many people she trusted, and crossing even a pest like Fishwish off the list would be painful.

So, on the theory - or was it a pretense? - that Fishwish really did cast 'Go Home' at some point during his rush, as night fell over the city, and the less helpful members of society took to the street, Candy took Cary back to the apartment she shared with her Orren companion. But no, everything was exactly as she'd left it, right down to the trap on the door, which was still the very same one she'd set herself that morning, without a touch of Fishwish's aura. And there was no one sleeping in Fishwish's bed.

Although Candy and Cary soon put an end to that.

In the morning, Candy woke up feeling a little fuzzy, and rolled over to put her arm around Cary... but something wasn't right. "Oh... Candy..." moaned the furred form cuddled up against her, under the blankets... in Fishwish's voice.

It took her near on ten seconds to stop screaming, cowering in a corner and clutching the blanket to her chest. "Seven staring gods!" she screamed, when she was calm enough to form words, "What are you doing there?"

Fishwish cowered at the far end of the room, looking absolutely crushed. "You act like you just woke up with a Nendrai and found yourself with three extra limbs," he said, sulking, "Is it really that awful to think we might have -"

"We didn't," Candy said, forcing herself to regain control. "I'm sure of that. You can't be Cary -"

"Who's Cary?" Fishwish asked, then blinked, looking around the room. "And who trashed our apartment."

Candy took her eyes off Fishwish, and took in the general destruction of their living space. "That bastard!" she screamed, dropping the blanket and stalking naked from room to room confirming that, yes, he'd trashed the entire apartment. "I should have known he'd try something like this."

"Weird," Fishwish said, "It doesn't look like your boy toy actually took anything. There's two-dozen lozen sitting out in the open that he didn't even bother to knock over." Candy heard the clatter of amber scattering across the floor, and stalked back to give Fishwish a look. "What?" the orren said, "It was out of place. Oh, wait, here's a note. 'Sorry about trashing your place, thanks for the help, here's some money, blah blah blah.' I'm paraphrasing."

"He left a note?" Candy asked, confused.

"And money," Fishwish pointed out, bitterly, "Hey, you got paid this time. Working on a third career?"

"Where in Here's domain were you yesterday," Candy asked, picking up the note and trying, unsuccessfully, to focus enough to read it. "If we'd found you, none of this would have happened. We looked for hours."

"Well," Fishwish said, "My memory's a bit fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure I got three blocks out of the tavern before getting kidnapped again."

"By monsters from another dimension."

"Right."

"Who sent you to fight more of Flokin's children."

"No. This time they had me setting off traps. Over and over and over again! I thought it'd never end! I'd get sent to step on an obvious pressure plate and get stabbed by a dozen pointy spikes shooting out of the walls, then have to stick my tongue in and kiss a poisoned lock until it ran out of juice, and THEN! Then they sent me into the SAME magical deathtrap eight times! And when that stopped killing me -"

"We've got to do something about these nightmares," Candy said, shaking her head, "Where were you trying to go yesterday, before you lost track?"

"Oh! Right. Right," Fishwish said, running up to her and holding up his hand. "I thought this shiny thing I found in the orchard might have something to do with it, so I was going to take it to Adirondack to see if zie knew what it was."

Candy stared at the shimmering jewel on Fishwish's finger. Not just shimmering, beyond glittering, it was - impossible. Implausible. All colors and none. It was... not of this world. "Wow," she said, reaching out to touch it, then stopping short. "So that's what Cary was looking for. If you don't mind me asking, though... if you think it might be the cause of these blackouts, then why are you still wearing it?"

Fishwish gave Candy a look like she was insane. "What, and take the risk of losing it when I get kidnapped again, if I keep it in my pocket? I come back without clothes, in case you haven't noticed."

"You could set it down."

"Well, I was taking it to Adirondack, so no, I couldn't set it down, okay?"

"You could set it down now," Candy clarified.

"I really... I really don't want to," Fishwish said, twisting the ring nervously. "I mean, it's kind of fun, being in a creepy world with all that stone, and metal... the whole door, with the poison lock and all? It was made out of metal. A whole door! I just wish I didn't lose the whole day every time it happened."

"Fishwish..." Candy said, somewhat impatiently. The Orren cringed back, still twisting the ring on his finger. "Give me the ring, Fishwish," Candy insisted, holding out her hand to receive it. "I need you as a partner, not as some sort of Extradimensional Junkie."

With his tail curled up until it touched his back, Fishwish reluctantly removed the ring and dropped it in Candy's palm, which closed around it like a trap.

"Right," she said, "Now let's find Cary. If he was willing to pay us two dozen lozen to apologize for trashing our rooms, I wonder what he'll pay to actually get what he was looking for."

"So you're not mad at him for making all this mess anymore? For a second there I thought you were going to storm off and gut the poor guy." Fishwish chattered away while gathering the lozens back up off the floor. "Hey! Here's my armor. I thought that was lost when I got snatched from the orchard!"

"Eh, if there's anything I've learned, it's that people are crazy," Candy replied, shaking her head, "There's no choice but to accept it and move on. So you'd better put that armor on. No sense going unprepared."

The waited for Cary in Notchwood park. It was a good, public location to make a swap without too much risk of violence - there was even a small crowd gathered watching Candy and Fishwish specifically, wondering what they were doing in full battle getup in the middle of the park. "Are you going to fight a duel?" was the most common guess, but no matter what people suggested, she gave them no more than a smile, or occasionally, for the least complimentary suggestions, a scowl. She wanted them to stick around, after all, and a few did. By the time Cary actually showed up, just before noontime, there was a good dozen gathered to watch.

"So what should it be, Cary," Candy said, as he walked up to her, smiling the same smile he always had, "Did you bring the money?"

"What money, my dear?" Cary asked, standing before her. He gave a quick glance to the crowd, then ignored them.

"The money to convince me to let you have this," she replied, holding up her hand, still clenched around the ring, "even though you skipped out on me last night and left my apartment in a chaos."

"Ah, that money," Cary said, smiling especially wide. "I thought I left that money on your dresser."

"Can I kill him now?" Fishwish chimed in, fingering his spear. Candy glowered at him and he grinned mischievously, "Just a little."

"I must have the focus, Candy," the Rassimel said, his smile faltering somewhat. "I won't let it slip away from me this time."

"If you were a friend, I might just give it to you," Candy replied, "I mean, it's worse than useless to me. But I imagine to you it's worth a worthy price, and friends don't go through friends' underwear without asking."

"You have to understand," Cary said, "I never meant to hurt you. I think you're a very charming young lady. But I woke up in the middle of the night, and I couldn't help wondering if you were telling the truth about those door locks. Maybe Fishwish had been there, and you were covering for him? So I decided I'd just take a quick look around while you were sleeping, and things got a little out of hand. I said I'm sorry. Can I have the focus, please?"

Candy turned to the crowd, and help up her hand, "What am I bid, dear citizens, for this Rassimel's obsession?" She opened her hand and let the shimmering light shine across the park. "The bidding starts at," she glanced at Cary, who wasn't saying a word, "Zero! Zero lozens, to the Rassimel himself. Do I hear -"

"Enough! I'll pay you for it," Cary said, getting out his pouch, and tossing it towards Candy. Fishwish snagged it out of the air before it could hit the ground, and peeked inside. Candy could see all she needed to from the look on his face. "I trust that's sufficient?"

Candy grinned. "Certainly," she said, turning to hand him the ring, "Good doing business with -"

And then she disappeared.