Throne of Steam

A few minutes later, the duo decided to end their investigations for the day. Even if the initial intention was to continue and deal with both problems in the area, just the event that seemed safer had already been problematic enough! Garett didn't even want to imagine what could happen if they attempted to deal with the other phenomena.

The duo wordlessly nodded to each other before walking towards the burning building. Their only job now was to wait for the firefighters' squad and give a proper ending to the source of the events.

"Should we really just burn it?" Garett still felt conflicted about this course of action, his brows locked in a deep frown as he continued to inspect the plush toy. "I'm sure the church has some artifact that can help us track the owner of this... stinking toy."

"Yeah, you could ask the Old Keeper about it." Alice concurred with Garett, her short red hair matching the yellowish radiance that came from the ardent flames. "But our first priority is to destroy the item, to prevent it from creating even more problems."

Seeing that Garett still had his brows furrowed, she sighed and continued the explanation.

"Besides, the night is still long. We don't know if it will project those things again before dawn."

'I understand that, but...' Garett shook his head in defeat. Even if they rushed all the way to the diocese and requested assistance, it would be very problematic to suppress the effects of the plush dog until then.

"So... do I just throw it at the fire?"

"Yeah, why not?" She shrugged her shoulders and looked for a place to sit in the sidewalk, the blazing flame warming the surroundings and keeping the cold winds at bay. "You burned the whole building anyway, so we should at least take advantage of that."

'Why are you blaming me for that!? I saved our lives! It's not like your gauntlets were of use tonight...' Garett complained inwardly, he felt that he deserved praise for his quick thinking!

Refraining from responding to her mockery, Garett looked at the plush toy one last time before throwing it at the building's front door, a place where he could see and ascertain if the toy had truly been incinerated.

"Now, we wait..."

...

Not much time passed before the duo could see a group of ten men running in their direction, every single one of them wore a strangely loose jacket with thick black gloves and boots made out of a rubber composite.

A black-haired middle-aged man stood at the front of the group, his expression serious as he looked at the scene in front of him. A young couple sat right before the fire, on both of their chests he could notice an emblem that belonged to the Church of Mists, the young woman almost dozing off before noticing their arrival.

"Hello, sirs." Garett rose and gave a perfunctory greeting before looking at the direction where he had thrown the plush toy before, only ashes remaining at the location. "We work with the Church's patrol, and we happened to be crossing the street when we noticed the fire. Luckily, the whole street is deserted, so no one got hurt."

Alice looked at Garett and nodded at his choice of words, as it wouldn't look good to the church if the general population knew two members of its clergy had initiated a huge fire right in the middle of the city.

"Yes, we decided to wait for your arrival before heading off to continue our patrol." Alice complemented his lies. Only the church needed to know what truly transpired here!

The middle-aged man looked at the pair of hunters with an uncertain expression, and only after a few seconds had passed, he opened his mouth.

"Then I should be thanking you for staying and making sure the fire would not spread." The man said with a compliment; even if he had seen the lady almost sleeping, the young man by the side was looking intently at the burning flames. "We shall take it from here onwards, there's no signal about why the fire started?"

"We weren't able to discover anything, sir." Alice shook her head and glanced at the building. "Of course, most clues should have been reduced to ashes by now."

'Yeah, the only people here are ourselves anyway...' Garett scoffed internally at her words, even if the both of them were the most suspicious ones, no one would poke their noses into the church for information on something like this. Even more so on a city with close to no influence of the royal family.

"We must beg our leave then, sir." Garett wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. "I don't want to disturb your job with our presence."

"Not at all, we will be getting to work, then."

They were only responsible for putting out fires! They weren't responsible for investigating the source or interrogating suspects. In Lhûn, this job was left to the various churches, so he wouldn't make things difficult for patrol members; it was their job, to begin with!

The duo of hunters slightly nodded and started to walk away. Garett took only one last look at the place where he had thrown the plush dog and left without worrying.

"Boss, do we really just trust what they said?" Another voice sounded after Garett and Alice disappeared in the distance.

"No, but we are not paid to ask questions." The middle-aged man answered without much thought, his expression changing when noticed the

"I understand."

The team of firefighters soon threw the earlier encounter to the back of their minds, only focusing on their task at hand and making sure that no one would get hurt.

...

Returning to the hotel, Garett dropped at the bed and stood looking directly into the white-painted ceiling, his thoughts flashing back to when he was running inside the house.

'Well... Alice should bear the brunt of the punishment anyway...' He didn't feel any guilt in thinking that way! She was the one that refused to seek reinforcements, it was only proper for the veteran to pay for it, even more so as Alice had been sent to monitor him.

"The letter wasn't a V..." Garett mumbled to himself while still musing about the initial on the plush toy's paw. "It would be a lot simpler if it was..."

He would be able to link things directly with Vincent if that was the case! After all, the whistler's drawing would be conclusive evidence if they could link the plush toy to the Almir kid.

"They were fleeing... from what, exactly?" He mused while remembering the kid's words, every detail of the encounter being repeatedly analyzed in his mind. "From the whistler? But what's the connection between the whistler and those weird dogs?"

Garett's mind was too active, impending all his attempts of sleeping; giving up all his attempts of figuring the mystery, he rose up and left his room, making way to the kitchen of the hotel.

"Thankfully this place is open even late into the night, It's not like those cheap hotels that only open the kitchen at a fixed time..." He walked along the corridors with a pensive look on his face while subconsciously whistling the same tune he had played on the flute a few nights before.

"You shouldn't whistle, sir." A meek voice sounded as soon as he entered the kitchen, causing chills to run throughout Garett's whole body. "He follows those who like to whistle like him."

'F**K! Who follows those who whistle...? Hell! It's not like I don't know who he's talking about..' Garett's smile twitched as he turned to look at a table on the side, Vincent's figure sat before a bowl filled with all the more diverse kinds of candies.

"Vicent... shouldn't you be asleep by now?" Garett forced his voice to sound as neutral as possible, replying with a warming smile at the young boy.

'Yes! That's the only reason that I dared to come in here, you know...' While Garett's expression was very warm on the outside, his thoughts were screaming on the inside! He already had his suspicions that there was something wrong with the Almirs, and Vincent's behavior only added to his worries!

"I'm not sleepy... I was very hungry, so mom said that I should ask the hotel staff to give me something to eat, but they only gave me sweets..." Vincent sounded oddly dejected, one would expect a child would be ecstatic at the huge amount of candies inside the bowl, but Vincent was the exact opposite.

"What do you want to eat then, Vincent?" Garett asked in passing, as it was only polite to continue the conversation.

"Huh... Mom said there was something called souffle in the royal court..."

'I don't even know what that is, kid. Is it even edible?...' Garett rambled inwardly, just like an old man late on his years.

"Sir, you smell a bit odd..." Vincent's childish voice turned the rude comment turn oddly normal.

'Yeah, I was inside the sewers...' Garett felt that he really needed to shower again after hearing the comment, luckily it was just a child, who said that without any malice.

"Yeah, our dogs used to smell like that!" Vincent complemented after some time of remembering, his childish voice coupled with his golden hair made the scene weirdly incoherent!

Garett's smile stiffened after hearing Vincent's words, his passive perception stretching to limits and his instincts telling him to flee!