Women, You Can't Live with them and You Can't Kill Them
Shade addresses the party. Torvi, Timm, Titus, Sympos and the cook, they are all there. "I wanted to give everyone an update on something I've been working on. I hired a bounty hunter out of a backwater place called Ghent. She came highly recommended and is nearly the badass that Torvi is." He gives a nod to the big lady. Her name is Esmeralda. I was thinking of recruiting her for the Carnival, as a bouncer. Or possibly her own freak show." Shade cracks a rare grin.
"I hired her to track down Famke, the witch. My investigation took her to the cliffs of Emerald Bay. There had been some unusual activity on the caravan road near there. Easy targets being robbed while they were sleeping. Why they were sleeping, who knows? But, the thieves didn't take money, only food. Speaking from experience, that smells worse than Sympos."
"And what else doesn't add up, is that Esmeralda has gone missing. I haven't heard from her in over a week. Either she gave up the Hunt, or..." Shade trails off.
Sympos finished Shade's statement, "Or, she fell victim to Famke's list of murders and is in the ground, serving Rukin."
Timm offers another hypothesis, "I've seen this Esmeralda in the bars. She is a piece of work. I wouldn't want to cross her. She is a real man hater. Maybe they hit it off, teamed up, riding the same horse, sharing the same oar?" Timm can't contain himself and busts up laughing.