When Robin and Myst made their way back to Te'ijal's charming-but-dilapidated home, they found it empty.

This posed an issue.

"Oh no, Myst! They're not home. How are we going to figure out where Galahad went?"

They'd been running around Halaina for the past month, trying to help out in the wake of the squirrel invasion and doing what they could for people. And then Robin had remembered he'd never given Galahad's sword back.

If Myst knew how much trouble this little journey was about to spiral into, she may have shrugged and told Robin she didn't know, encouraged him to keep the sword, and let their quest end there. At the time, though, the answer seemed deceptively easy. Robin was distracted by how empty the house was, but Myst had caught sight of something on the table.

"I think I know," she said, picking it up.

"How are you so confident?" Robin asked, and then turned around to see the map Myst was holding up for him.

It was a typical map of the Halainan Mainland, except for the notes scrawled on it. A big X was crossed over Halaina with neat, all-caps handwriting stating CAN'T. SQUIRRELS. Significantly messier handwriting, drawn with a flourish, was over Ravwyn itself, saying In shambles recovery.

Tor was circled. To make matters even clearer, a heart was doodled beside it.

"I think that's a pretty good lead, don't you?"

Myst wasn't sure when Two-Card Flip became Robin's go-to problem solving strategy, but she couldn't deny it was fun to sit back and watch him and a stranger yell nonsense back and forth.

"Elder Oak!" A strand of green hair was stuck to the woman's forehead with sweat.

Robin didn't flinch. He smiled, as warm and earnest as ever. "Bridge Spider."

The woman gasped and reeled back. "Fine! You win!"

"Yay!" Robin clapped his hands together and shined like the sun. "Okay, now you have to tell us everything you know about Galahad."

Myst punctuated his point by lifting up her notebook.

The woman's expression faltered. "Who?"

Oh, no. Myst resisted the urge to dissipate back into the air, or to hide her head in the notebook. Did Robin pick someone who didn't even know who Galahad was?

"Tall guy," Robin explained, standing on his tippy toes. "Probably wearing armor. Probably looking annoyed. Or sleepy? Maybe not. You know, he has to have other emotions, I don't know him that well. Blonde hair."

The woman narrowed her eyes at Robin, giving him a once-over that seemed to settle on the fact he was describing a taller, more irritated version of himself. Her expression softened.

"I think I saw him a few days ago," she said. "He was hanging outside the clerk's office. I thought it was strange; that type usually heads straight for the tournament hall. Try not to get your hopes up, okay, kid?"

One of Robin's eyes narrowed, even as the other widened in surprise, the way his face stretched in all directions when he was thinking very, very hard.

Myst, for her sake, could tell there was an implication behind the words without having any clue what it was. "I'm sorry," she said, "but what are you insinuating?"

The woman shuffled her cards nervously. "You know," she said, even though they clearly did not, "just to be aware that parents don't always live up to what you expect."

Myst could have howled in laughter, but for the fact that she didn't want to drown out Robin's protests. "Woah, woah, hold on there! Galahad is not my dad! He's just some guy we met once."

"…Then why are you going through all this trouble to find him?"

"Oh," Robin said, unsheathing the reason and carelessly thrusting it forward, making the woman startle backwards. "Myst stole his sword for me, so I'm giving it back!"

They stopped at the clerk's next, and then the tavern, where they took a break and Robin intently buttered a hunk of bread. Myst was too invested in ripping into her portion directly with her teeth to add anything to it.

Robin finished chewing. "So, what have we got?"

Myst checked her notebook. "Stayed in town for three nights. Seen a few days ago, so left anywhere from a week ago to earlier today. Bought sunscreen at the General Store. Went to the clerk's, not the tournament-"

"That makes sense. We do have his sword. Oh, no, do you think he's in danger?"

"I'm sure he's fine." She wasn't really - two-legs were so bad at protecting themselves without a weapon - but he'd made his way to Tor, so he couldn't be in too bad a shape. "The clerk didn't want to tell us much, but she said something about necromancy. Do you mind if I have the last of the bread?"

"Nope. Go for it!"

Myst considered the list of facts so far as she munched on her snack. It was certainly less helpful than a note that all but said go to Tor next, but she was sure they could figure out something from it. "Do you have any idea what to make of this?"

"Not at all! I think I know how to change that, though."

Before Myst could ask for elaboration, Robin was taking her notebook and ripping the paper into shreds. She wanted to protest, but Robin was always destructive for a purpose, so she bit it back and watched as he took the remnants of their notes and stood up.

He hurried to the far side of the tavern, where a noticeboard was embedded in the wall. By the time Myst made her way over to him, he'd unpinned the quest offers and job openings and newspaper articles and replaced them with her notes.

"Robin? What are you doing?"

"Figuring out our mystery! Do you have string? Red is ideal, but I can work with other colors, too."

"I'm a fox, Robin, not a cat."

"That's fine. I have a sewing kit in my pack, would you grab it?"

Robin's resulting diagram was not exactly illuminating, but it was fun to help him connect string from one pin to another. Sunscreen attached to legal clerk, because, as Robin explained, 'you don't go to the beach to get help from a lawyer'. Left in the past week connected to his own scribbled notes, one for each of Tor's port destinations in that time frame.

Red thread connected Harburg to necromancy but not to sunscreen, and Tyobi to sunscreen but not to necromancy, until there was a ruby spiderweb crisscrossing the entire board. By now, they'd amassed a small crowd of patrons, who were shouting input about locations and connections.

Even then, there were no locations that connected to every point. Robin was chewing on his lower lip, staring intently at the board, like he'd magically make a solution materialize.

Instead, a man from their onlookers offered, "you know, there's a weekly dragon service to Arishta, too. The Eastern Isle is the historic seat of the Necromancer's Guild, and the Southern Isle has a long history with demons."

Robin and Myst looked at each other. Myst spoke first, a grin spreading from ear to pointed ear. "And would you, pehaps, describe either of these places as sunny?"

Veldt was a bust. Robin got a marriage proposal from a young woman eager to find "her first husband", which was as flattering as it was awkward, and Myst got to play with a tiger, but Galahad was nowhere to be found.

"I told you we should have prioritized necromancy over sunny weather," Myst said, dramatically sighing and rolling her head back over her shoulders. "You can wear sunscreen anywhere!"

"There's necromancy in Veldt, too," Robin protested.

"There's demons in Veldt, it's different."

"Is it? Huh."

Myst couldn't quite resist the urge to laugh, but Robin didn't deserve to be snickered at, so she just hid her smile behind her hand. "Shouldn't a paladin know the difference?"

As soon as she said it, Myst regretted it. Robin wore his hurt as clearly as any other emotion, and this was one Myst didn't want to cause. "Well, probably. But I never finished my training, so…"

"That's okay. You've learned way more by traveling, I think."

"…You really think so?"

"Absolutely! Practical experience is the most important skill an adventurer can have. The Halaina paladins stand around training for crusades, but you helped Banana Boy and the Night Watch. You've fought demons and lived to tell the tale." This time, she didn't censor her laughter. "That's more than can be said for most of the paladins."

It was nice to see his smile return, warm and honest. She rose up on her toes to reach her hand to his head and scruff jokingly at his hair.

"You're right. Thank you, Myst. And thank you for coming with me for all of that."

"My pleasure." The words spilled out before she could think them through. "There's no one else I'd rather run around the world on adventures with."

Veldarah was a success. They went straight to the clerk's office this time. The woman grimaced as soon as they said Galahad's name and told them that, if he took her advice, he'd gone to Thais.

So now they were buying a second set of dragon ride tickets, this time to the Thail Mainland. "Is it just me," Myst said, "or was that wildly easy? Are people supposed to tattle that much on other people's whereabouts?"

"I don't think they're supposed to, no," Robin said. "But it's nice that everybody's been so helpful."

"Why would I know where he went off to next?" The man behind the desk rubbed at his temples. "Ignoring that. Say I did. Why would I tell you?"

"Well," Robin said, caught off guard by finally encountering someone who had some semblance of privacy or confidentiality, "we're trying to find him. So we were hoping you could help us."

Myst thought this explanation was sensible, but it was met with a heavy, exaggerated sigh. "You understand that I'm a divorce clerk, correct? I can't go around telling people where their ex-spouses went, it's-"

"Galahad isn't my ex-spouse!" Robin said. "Why does everyone think we're related somehow?"

Myst bit her lip to keep from laughing and tried her best to give Robin a comforting pat on the back. "I think he was just giving an example of why he has to keep quiet, Robin." She sighed. "It'd be nice if we had Ingrid's truth potion with us, but barring that, I think we'll have to go somewhere else to find him."

"That's fair." Robin sounded a little sheepish now. "Thank you for your help anyways, Mr…" he glanced, somewhat awkwardly, at plaque on the man's desk, to tack on, "Mr. Ravi."

Having no idea where to go next, Myst and Robin found themselves in the spot that wandering adventurers tended to stumble into when they had no where else to go.

The Thais tavern was busy, even in the middle of the day. An arm-wrestling tournament had formed in one corner, a crowd radiating out from around it. An adventuring party had commandeered the largest table in the center of the room, marking places on a map with different colors of quill. A pianist played noisily on the other side.

They went to the piano first. It was too tall for Myst to see behind it, so she tried to yell. "Excuse me! Have you seen a tall, irritated blond man lately? Probably wearing armor?"

The music stopped. The figure behind the piano rose.

The figure was not Galahad, but he did fit the description. Despite his position behind the piano, he was wearing a basic leather suit of armor. His long blonde hair was pulled back into braids, and the intensity behind his brown eyes and scowling eyebrows suggested he was, in fact, quite annoyed.

"Could you be a bit more specific?" he asked. "Perhaps a name?"

Oh. Myst realized, with a jolt of foolishness. They had been quite lucky that up to this point, that had been a unique descriptor. Particularly in Thais, home to the School of War and Magic, it was actually quite mundane.

"Right," Robin stammered, stepping in for her even as he was incredibly uncertain as to how. "Sorry. Um. We're looking for our friend… our acquaintance… this guy we know… named Galahad. He…"

The pianist suddenly smiled. Myst wasn't sure why until she heard a voice behind her.

"Is there something about me that makes people want to track me down?"

"Galahad!" Robin said it before he'd even turned around to see him, but surely enough, the man they'd gone through all this trouble looking for was standing just a few feet away from them now. "No, not really. Not that I can think of, anyways. I just wanted to give this back to you."

Robin withdrew Galahad's sword from its sheath and handed it towards him. In the dim lighting of the tavern, it gave off an almost golden glow.

Galahad looked at it intently, an expression Myst could only assume was shock dawning on his face. He must not have expected to ever get it back, she figured.

And then he spoke. "Why… does it look like that?"

"Look like… oh! I upgraded it!"

Sure enough, the sword was different than when Myst had first taken it from the paladin. Robin had enhanced it with Phye's help. Its blade was a little longer and wider now, and the metal was shaped in a far more visually appealing way, branching out from the hilt in sharp golden angles.

"…Why?" Galahad asked.

"It's more powerful now," Robin explained. "I can give a demonstration, if you'd like."

"No, no, that's not necessary. I just… I was partial to the way it was before."

This was ridiculous, Myst thought, stepping forward to grab the sword from Robin. "Fine, then we'll take it back!"

"No, that's quite alright. It's still my sword and I would still like it back."

Myst sighed. She didn't retract her hand from Robin's arm, in case he didn't cave, but surely enough he handed the sword back to its original owner.

"Thank you." Galahad sheathed the sword and went to turn on his heels. "I'll be on my way, then?"

"Before you go," Myst cut in, "why have you been running all over the place?"

"Now that's a long story. I can tell it, but only if you have the time."

The pianist piped back up. "Go somewhere else for it!" he said, then sat back down with a flourish.

Myst looked at Robin. She tried to race an eyebrow, but the gesture didn't quite land with how light and whispy hers were. He looked at her, frowning for a moment, before he caught the unspoken question and turned back to Galahad. "Yeah, we'd love to!"

It turns out it really was a long story. Or maybe Galahad was just bad at telling stories and didn't know which details needed to be left out. Myst thought it certainly could have been simplified, but she waited to say as much until Galahad had walked off to who-knows-where next.

"I think the adventure we had was far more interesting," she said. Robin smiled and knocked his shoulder against hers.

"Well, yeah," he agreed, "but only because we're the best adventuring duo in Aia."

His expression was infectious, and the compliment helped. She beamed back at him. "We are. So what adventure are we off to next?"

Robin pantomimed zipping his mouth shut, and then raised a finger. Myst strained to hear whatever he was indicating, but the tavern was crowded and noisy, and her hearing was exceptionally poor for a mist wraith. "Robin, can you just tell me?"

"The group a couple tables ahead of us are talking about how the Thais royal family has been missing for a couple generations, since the crown prince ran off with some witch."

Oh, that felt devious. So devious that it might actually make up for how mad Boyle would certainly be at them. "You want to find their missing heir?"

"Since we're so good at tracking people down, why not?"