"Thou'rt so stubborn, Samantha. Yet the Spirit of the City doth bid thee well and saith, 'The name of the man thou seeketh is Dante Frisk.' I shall accompany thee, lest thou lose thy way."

  Sam had asked Trashwater to return to the Spirit and ask the name of the former city soldier who the Spirit suggested she could learn investigation from. Sam had stubbornly refused, thinking again this would be a simple missing person case. Her ultimate enemy, the doorman, prevented her from performing any investigation at all. So she ate her crow and would have to thank the Spirit the next time they saw each other.

  Sam wondered if the Spirit was someone she should bring a gift to when she visited, like Emil. Would a floating pile of trash shaped like a woman enjoy a bottle of wine? What sort of gift would you bring a spirit? Maybe all the defeated zombie summoners and vampires were enough.

  "Thank you kindly for your help, little friend. Let's go."

  Sam made her way from the nice part of town back into the bad part of town. Most parts were the bad part of town. There were pockets here and there where the wealthy holed themselves up against the city's decay and corruption. Those peaceful green pockets were few and far between. Most of the city was black and gray, covered in shadows and dirt.

  Sam had never left the city before the war. When she finally did, the only places she saw were war zones or places that were war zones before she got there: large muddy pits that still stank of the bodies that had been cleared away, or places where more bodies were going to be lying after Sam visited.

  She only saw a few other cities and their buildings had been torn apart. Some of the city did look like that, like a war zone where a battle had just been fought. Boarded up windows, terrified eyes gazing out from every crack and hollow. But those were the worst parts, where the truly desperate lived. Everyone else sort of wallowed somewhere in between, not completely destroyed and never really happy. Just enough food to live but never enough to be full.

  The rich folk liked it that way. They kept the divides sharp and made sure they had enough fat on their bones to last through any lean times that came. They told themselves it was to protect them from hunger or war that could visit at any time. But Sam knew the smell of naked greed when she saw it.

  Donnie lived in a squat little building, four stories tall. One of those apartment buildings where she was sure nothing got fixed when it broke. She went inside the small foyer where a few mailboxes lined the wall. No doorman stopped her this time. The hallway was dark because the electric lightbulb had burned out. The walls were plain white and scuffed as every piece of furniture moved in and out again had left its mark.

  She found the man's apartment and worked out what to say if he answered or not. She supposed, "Hi, the ghost of the city sent me to talk to ya because I'm so bad at my job everybody thinks I need training," wasn't really gonna cut it.

  She decided to go with a simple lie. If she was gonna tell a lie, it was best to keep it straightforward, simple, and, ideally, unverifiable.

  She rapped her knuckles against the tan metal door. After a few moments she saw shadows shift in the peephole. She heard the floorboards behind the door creak. Chain latches were undone. Locks slid out of place. The door opened.

  A middle-aged man with dark skin and bright eyes stared at her through the opened crack in the door. He had long hair pulled into dreadlocks whose tips were black but whose roots were gray. He looked like an old wolf, lean and smart.

  "Can I help you, miss?"

  "Fontaine, Samantha Fontaine."

  "Can I help you, Miss Fontaine?"

  "Yes sir. Actually you can. I was referred to you by some soldiers who lived near my house. They gave me your name and said you were an investigator for the city regiment before you retired. I myself am recently retired from the military. I decided to hang up my shingle as a private investigator and I was wondering if I could hire you to help show me the ropes."

  "Hire me, huh? Well, why don't you come on in? Tell me what you think I could do for you."

  "Oh, well I appreciate you hearing me out Mr. Frisk."

  "Donnie."

  "Donnie, right, yes sir. I hung out my shingle as a private investigator. In the military I was an interrogator."

  Donnie Frisk's eyebrows went up at the mention of the word interrogator. Sam had chosen to reveal this particular detail because the truth is easier to maintain than a lie. It would help that she had the eye patch and it would harm if Donnie ever came to learn what was underneath it, depending on his loyalty to the Empire.

  The man's apartment was immaculate. Exotic decorations hung on the walls, from countries Sam didn't recognize. The single room smelled of spiced food. It was a small studio: the kitchen off in one corner, a bed off in another corner, and in the third corner a small seating area. Donnie gestured towards the seating area and Sam sat herself down.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "You, with your interrogator skills, felt you would be able to take up private investigation. Now from what I heard they don't teach y'all how to conduct a proper investigation. Unless I'm mistaken your job was to get information out of enemy persons of interest. Is that right?"

  "Yes sir. That's the long and short of it."

  "And they fished out your eye and gave you magic with which to conduct your interrogations. Is that also right?"

  "Right again."

  "Well there's no magic and no shortcuts to being a good investigator. You wouldn't want them if they did exist. It's all about drawing conclusions and testing assumptions. You understand?"

  "Uh, no sir. I mean I recently learned a bit of sorcery. Part of what I learned was the art of the Diviner is to ask a question and receive an answer. Isn't investigation all about that? Why not just create a contract that gives you the answers to the questions that you seek?"

  "Hmm, well, that gets into the realm of teaching you. What are you thinking about in terms of compensation?"

  Interrogation and negotiation were similar arts. Also, growing up poor after her father's death, Sam learned the value of coin and the right way to go about asking for it.

  "What's your time worth, sir?" she asked.

  "I would teach you everything I know for just one gold coin. Now I'm not too proud to admit that money's been tight since retiring. I saved well. One gold coin would go a long way to much more comfort for me in these trying times. I am not uncomfortable enough, however, to bundle myself up and venture out into the cold winter air to teach anyone for a lesser sum. So, I must confess that any attempt to negotiate on your part will see you sent away."

  "Why Donnie, that's an awful lot of words to say 'one gold coin or fuck off'."

  Sam wondered if the Spirit of the City knew she would end up spending every single gold coin she ever got in compensation for the work she did. She had had to spend two to acquire an entire mansion, a bargain price but still expensive from her perspective. She spent another gold coin to get Emil to teach her how to be a proper sorcerer. Now here was Donnie with one non-negotiable price in his mind, and Sam with one gold coin in her pocket.

  "Well, Ms. Fontaine, I wouldn't have put it in those terms. In fact I didn't; however, I can't say you're wrong."

  "Well in that case let's discuss what one gold coin would buy me. That's an awful lot of money and I want to be really clear on what you'd be offering."

  "I will be your mentor on as many cases as you need for up to one year and available for questions for one year after that. I will physically bring myself to any crime or client location that you are investigating and I will provide my advice as appropriate to your skill level."

  Now that she heard Donnie's offer, it was actually a pretty sweetheart deal for her. According to the Spirit of the City, Donnie was one of the best investigators the city soldiers ever had. His advice would be invaluable. His mentorship would set her on a path to being secure for her future, as well as being able to properly conduct herself in the many strange situations she seemed to end up in.

  "As it happens I have a case right now that prompted me to come and see you. If we can strike terms, I'd appreciate your advice today."

  "We can strike terms right now for one gold coin."

  Sam shook her head and produced her gold coin. "I do expect you to live up to your word, sir," she said as she handed it to him.

  "I am not offended that you are worried about my sincerity. I am curious, though, why you don't ask for more proof of skill. The soldiers you talked to must have put in a good word if you are willing to part with one gold coin so easily, with no verification of my ability."

  "Those I spoke to spoke of you very highly, sir."

  "Well you'll have to let me know who it was so I can properly thank them. Maybe even take them out for a drink, given that I am now flush with gold."

  "Oh I didn't catch their names sir. I just went and asked at the local regiment and they passed me along to you."

  "Right, well, Ms. Fontaine, let's start off our relationship by clearing the air.

  "I don't know why you're lying to me. I imagine I'll figure it out eventually, seeing as how we're going to be spending some time together.

  "I quoted you an astronomical price; you barely batted an eye and paid it immediately. I know you ain't spoken to no soldiers. I can tell by the way you're terrible at lying. That's something that you're going to need to work on. I would think, as an interrogator, you'd be a little bit more practiced at verbal deception."

  "Remember how I said I was learning to be a sorcerer? It was that way. I paid a price and I was told who to ask. Simple."

  "Then why lie?"

  "I didn't want you to know I was rich."

  "Well, my mentee, please don't lie to me in the future. If I'm to teach you, there has to be a certain amount of trust. You've paid me. I'm now your teacher. I want the best for you as my student and I want the best for your clients. Now my reputation is going to be connected with yours so please be honest with me. Okay?"

  "I'll be honest with you from here on out," said Sam.

  "Alright well, to answer your question from earlier. The reason you don't use sorcery to answer questions in investigations is because many times you do not know which questions you do not know. Investigation is a process: hypothesis, experiment, discovery. It is an intellectual process that begins and ends at the desk. Never at the scene. It wouldn't do to have answers pop into the world from nowhere, because what if you ask the wrong question?"

  "Well, sir," began Sam. "I do wonder if you're conducting a murder investigation, say for example, and you have sorcery available to you. You ask, for example, 'Who killed this man?' by, you know, contracting with a demon for the answer. Would this not provide you with the necessary answer?"

  "Let me ask you this, Miss Fontaine."

  "Sam."

  "Sam, let me ask you this: would that answer be admissible in court? Would you then ask that demon to provide proof that is admissible in court? Would you keep paying blood and silver for these answers? How much are your clients paying you? Do you aim to make a profit or do you have a ready supply of blood on hand? The judges will not accept the word of a demon unless you get the demon to produce themselves in the courtroom, which last I heard they would not do.

  "How many sorcerers are there? There is not enough knowledge of sorcery out there that it can be relied upon in every situation. There's your answer. We investigate because we need proof. We find proof carefully, methodically, and with our own minds.

  "And let me further put this thought into your mind. If, in the case you mentioned that brought you here, your sorcery could take the place of proper investigation, why do you need my help?"

  "Well," said Sam, sighing and shaking her head at the ground. "See, there's this damn doorman."