Simon and Chloe were seated beside one another on one of the several cushioned benches spanning the walls of the waiting room.

  The room had a melon-like curvature to it on account of existing as a cubic partition in the colossal spire megastructure towering over the surrounding capital.

  It was gargantuan, built with a combination of magic, alchemy, and sheer architectural insanity.

  The continental palace housed three hundred floors above ground and a further dozen disproportionately larger floors below ground.

  The Continental Palace was a palace in name only.

  It was an ergonomic labyrinth of government facilities.

  It was where the Continental Congress was held.

  Birth certificates, property ownership, taxes. It was all handled somewhere inside the continental palace.

  It was a place nobody wanted to have to go.

  Especially not an alchemist.

  “Stop that,” Chloe hissed, gently swatting Simon’s hand away from his bandaged neck.

  “You’ll mess up your stitches.”

  “This is my neck,” he fought indignantly.

  “Well, then those are my stitches.” Chloe countered, momentarily stumping the alchemist.

  She looked and anxiously flipped the grey envelope she was holding over a couple of times.

  It had the black wax seal of the plague-seekers.

  The alchemist groaned in frustration.

  “Fine…!” he acquiesced with a grudging sigh.

  Simon reclined further in his seat. Any more and he’d slide onto the floor.

  “I’m sure it will heal quickly,” she said, trying to comfort the afflicted alchemist.

  “It’ll heal even faster with a bit of metabolic accelerator,” countered the alchemist, to the plague-seeker’s chagrin.

  “OR you could let it heal on its own in, like, a week,” Chloe countered with a disapproving edge to her voice.

  “I’m a busy man…!” Simon drawled lazily.

  “Speaking of, what’s taking them so long?” he asked, annoyance creeping back into his voice.

  “We’re meant to go next,” Chloe recalled, taking comfort in the thought ever since the arrival of the other visitors seated around the waiting room.

  The large door they initially entered through opened slightly, spilling two elves in alchemist garb.

  As they sat down, Simon’s eye lit up.

  “That’s the guy I was talking about back in the ruins…!” Simon whispered to the plague-seeker conspiratorially.

  “What guy?” Chloe whispered, sneaking a brief glance at the visibly anxious elf and his straight-faced partner.

  “The one who studied those little toys, with the clay soldiers duking it out, remember?”

  Chloe’s masked expression soured as she recalled the violent gadget from the warehouse.

  Before the plague-seeker could respond, the other door – the door to the actual meeting room – opened partially.

  Eight speakers of various races and sexes escaped the bureaucratic arena; a few grabbed a complimentary candy from a bowl by the door on their way out.

  A moment later, as Simon and Chloe exchanged nervous ‘Do we go in now or do we wait?’ looks, a fishman with a head of coarse blond hair tied back into a ponytail poked his head out of the door.

  “Plague-seeker Chloe and alchemist Simon?” He scanned the room, to which the duo immediately got up, Simon with a couple extra steps on account of being practically melted onto his seat.

  The continental congress had eight wings, arranged in familiar wedge-shaped benches surrounding the central podium.

  One wing was the alchemists’, and it was around half full.

  The wizards’ wing across from theirs was the same.

  Next were the plague-seekers who regularly filled every seat.

  Beside them were the druids, only three of whom were present.

  Opposite them were the warlocks, who only filled around a dozen seats.

  The artists’ guild was packed. This wasn’t so much a regular occurrence as a seasonal one. There were always more artists in when some sort of event was happening.

  Last was the council of blood. A blend of craftsmen, farmers, and a few watered-down royals who might just have enough influence left to have a door held open for them.

  The doomsayers in uniform were present by the doors for security.

  A few of the plague-seekers gave Chloe a discreet nod or wave, which she quietly reciprocated on the way to the podium.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  In contrast to the plague-seekers’ polite conduct, a few of the alchemists immediately began hollering for Simon’s attention.

  To Chloe’s shock and embarrassment, Simon ran off to the alchemist bench to shake hands with his colleagues before jogging back to the podium.

  She heard a collective groan of disapproval from the wizards’ bench.

  The plague-seeker was the first to address the council in an official capacity.

  “Hello and good morning, everyone,” Chloe began pleasantly.

  “I’m here today with an urgent report of a number of unusual injuries sustained in the woods around Malacro.” She held up the envelope and broke the seal.

  Chloe began going over the list.

  “In the last two days, three hunters were injured with improvised weapons…”

  “Five individuals, including two children, sustained minor burns from some kind of magical trap scattered around the woods.”

  “The doomsayers also have a longer list of damaged or stolen property.”

  Whispers erupted among the congress as blame was immediately passed around like a volleyball.

  Chloe glanced at Simon out of the corner of her eye.

  He gave her a half-hearted shrug-nod.

  Hardly reassured, the plague-seeker looked back at the council.

  “As agreed upon internally among the plague-seekers, we would like to temporarily close the woods to the public.”

  “As well as to form a few search parties to find the perpetrator.”

  “Simon of the alchemists’ guild in Malacro-…” A cheer erupted from the alchemists; it was immediately challenged by a boo from the wizards.

  “He is here with me to articulate the situation we are in better than I am able to.”

  She took a step back from the podium and looked at the alchemist.

  Simon gave a reluctant nod and waltzed up to the centre of the podium.

  “Hey everyone, um, I’ll keep this short and sweet,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “On the morning of the day before last, we were exploring a ruin around Malacro.”

  Every long-eared head snapped towards him the moment he mentioned the old military facility.

  Elves hated archaeology.

  From their perspective, at best – you were wasting time that you could spend making something new. At worst – you might unearth something horrible, something that had already taught all the lessons it could and had only misery to offer.

  A collective gasp filled the room as Simon went on to explain their initial findings. The canned feed, the urns, and the skeletons within.

  “The last thing that happened was me getting attacked by something tiny in the dark.”

  He hovered his hand around his throat at a distance that wouldn’t set off the plague-seeker.

  “Whatever attacked me also used improvised weapons…” he explained, taking a small, rusty fork out of his pocket.

  “A-Are you suggesting that you have found a living fairy?” Asked a hopeful elf from the council of blood.

  Going off his clothes, he was a tailor.

  “Yes,” Simon answered simply.

  “The crack in the crate with the urns, the missing skeleton – the little bastard itself…” he grimaced, an expression made more painful by his injury.

  Every elf across all wings of the Continental Congress began to discuss amongst their peers.

  Around a third of them were old enough to remember the same world as the fairy currently on the loose.

  The mortal races quickly followed.

  The alchemists volunteered for the search parties; so did the wizards.

  The plague-seekers speculated on the injuries a fairy might sustain alone in the woods.

  The druids stayed largely uninterested in the affairs of the kingdom of man.

  The warlocks ranged in reaction from cryptic whispers to giddy sniggering.

  “We’ll make posters!” proposed a dwarf in the artists’ guild, to an outcry of approval from his colleagues.

  A fishwoman artist leaned over to her human colleague.

  “I’m making this whole thing into a play if it’s an actual fairy…” She whispered conspiratorially.

  Before long, the Continental Congress reached its verdict.

  The woods would be closed to the public until the fairy was secured.

  The alchemists, wizards, and plague-seekers would be contributing members to the search parties.

  And the artists' guild could make some art about the whole thing.

  To focus all their efforts on the matter of the fairy, the rest of the meetings for the day were cancelled.

  Finally, after what felt like forever, Simon and Chloe accomplished everything they set off to and were able to leave just as the congress went into recess.

  “Did you hear the wizards that entire time?” Simon asked annoyedly under his breath and glanced over at the plague-seeker behind him.

  Chloe thought the wizards and the alchemists made the same amount of different noise.

  She offered a diplomatic shrug.

  “Everybody seemed pretty chatty today,” she surmised.

  Before the duo could depart and join the other search parties in scouring the woods, they were approached by the elf from the council of blood.

  “Excuse me,” began the elf with a head of golden hair.

  “I was hoping for a quick word with you two in private,” he explained, convecting his hand anxiously.

  “Of course,” Chloe complied seconds before Simon would have refused – citing the urgency of his mission as his excuse.

  Still in the emptying congressional chamber, the elf led the alchemist and plague-seeker to a secluded nook.

  Inside was nothing except a water fountain and a tray of biscuits with the best ones picked out.

  “My name is Victor,” the elf introduced himself, the short name betraying his relatively young age.

  “I don’t know much about the fairies personally…” he began with a conspiratorial scan of the area.

  “But my uncle, ‘Edward the sculptor of blue marble and oil painter of Roehill’ used to tell me stories years ago about working for the elven military…” he explained vaguely.

  “With the fairy catchers specifically…” Victor clarified.

  Simon and Chloe’s faces lit up with intrigue.

  “That’s great for you, but old elves never help historians or archaeologists,” Simon said saltily.

  “Most of the time you can’t get an elf on the continent to even help translate recovered works.”

  Victor donned a sympathetic smile.

  “Well, that’d be like translating somebody’s diary for a stranger…” Victor countered politely.

  “For a lot of strangers, actually.”

  Simon answered with an indignant groan and a roll of his eyes.

  “Anyway…” Victor turned to Chloe for a change.

  “I can’t imagine Uncle Edward would appreciate being brought up to the council, but if the two of you approach him in private…” He trailed off uncertainly.

  “I think he might help you track down and catch the fairy.”

  “I’ll write the address down for you…”