You could say one thing about Haytham Karoukian. When push came to shove, he produced results.

The leader of the Pazuzus had put the word out and ran his men ragged during the waning hours of daylight for every speck of information related to foreign slavers operating in Mashkan-shapir and snatching people off the streets.

Every crumb of knowledge the Pazuzus gathered flowed back into the Old Workshop, where Karoukian and his lieutenants compared it to other leads, slowly piecing the puzzle together. Luckily, there were more than enough crumbs lying around, waiting for someone to show interest. There had been other kidnappings. Rumours of people disappearing, never to be seen again.

The slavers had gotten greedy more than once and snatched locals with strong ties to the city. Distraught families had searched for their kin, and their fruitless toil became Yakubu's salvation. Karoukian's men brought him stories, names and places. Karoukian listened to them all, and crossed locations off the list, one after the other. By sundown, Oak and his companions had what they wanted all along.

Four probable locations.

All were near the docks, ideal from the perspective of logistics. All had people coming and going around the clock, and many of those people were not locals. All were guarded day and night by armed men.

Their first stop for the night was a large warehouse belonging to the Isra shipping clan. The massive brick behemoth loomed in the darkness like an oversized and unnatural slug, surrounded by a wooden fence in dire need of a carpenter's loving attention. Some gaps between the planks were wide enough you could have ridden through on a donkey.

So sloppy. Don't these people have any standards? Oak leaned against a weathered wooden post and peered through one such gap in the fence, his enhanced eyes piercing the moonless gloom with ease.

Another patrolman walked across the garbage-strewn yard, yawning loud enough to wake the dead. Oak could sympathize. Patrolling was a dreadfully boring activity. Unlike the first man he had seen, this one wore a mailshirt over his robes and had a sword on his belt. Just like the first man Oak had seen, his skin was black as night. Neither of the guards was local. Promising, but nothing more.

"Remember our deal, Oak. When you've saved those kids and killed the slavers, me and mine get to loot the place from top to bottom," Haytham Karoukian whispered. The one-eyed leader of the Pazuzus crouched right behind Oak, nursing a fresh bottle of liquor. He had insisted on coming along for the ride, if only out of simple curiosity.

Apparently, following one's whims no matter where they might lead you was a perk of leadership Karoukian had grown to cherish above all others. As a result, all of Oak's protests fell on deaf ears.

Oak double-checked Yakubu wasn't within earshot. "If we find those kids." The Koromite didn't need the doubts of others circling inside his head.

"Don't be like that, big guy. Think positive, act positive. Manifest success." Karoukian poked Oak playfully on the shoulder. His voice had a hypnotic quality to it. Affective. Warm and deeply authentic. Despite his instant dislike of the man, Oak found it hard to keep him at arm's length. He made you want to listen to him by pure force of personality. "Things have a way of working themselves out. For example, a few hours ago you threatened to kill me, and now we are best buds."

"We are not best buds."

"What did I just tell you?" Karoukian chuckled. "I'm manifesting right now. Think positive, act positive."

Oak sighed and stood up. Arguing with Karoukian without resorting to imminent threats of violence felt like trading punches with the ocean. A useless endeavour, certain to end in defeat. He made his way across the deserted street, towards the mouth of a narrow alleyway, where the rest of his companions waited to hear the results of his little scouting mission.

Karoukian followed in his shadow like a particularly stubborn poodle, yapping away without a care in the world. It took all of Oak's self-restraint not to feed the man his teeth.

If I got the last word on him, Karoukian might legitimately kill himself. Food for thought.

"So, what did you find?" Yakubu asked. The Koromite paced restlessly back and forth, his body language screaming his impatience out for the world to see. Ur-Namma, Sadia, Geezer, and the Sakyi siblings sat with their backs against the alley wall, waiting for Oak's verdict.

Further down the dingy alley, a small gathering of Pazuzus guarded a set of empty carts. Karoukian clapped Oak on the shoulder and walked past to have a word with his men. They, Karoukian himself included, would not take part in any fighting, but a deal was a deal. Information for a chance to loot a slaver's den.

"The guards are not locals. It looks promising, but I can't tell much more from out here," Oak replied. "We need to get inside."

"Nothing concrete?" Yakubu asked. "No sign of my son or the other captives?"

Oak just shook his head.

"Fuck." Yakubu continued his pacing. "I don't fancy the idea of murdering folk who might have done nothing to earn my wrath."

"Let us not mince words, Koromite." Ur-Namma pulled down his hood and showed his needle-like teeth. "How do you want to do this?"

Oak shrugged. "To be honest, I'm kind of pro-murder."

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"That is why I like you, northerner, but I wasn't asking for your opinion."

Yakubu stopped his pacing and frowned at the ground, deep in thought. "Could a few of us sneak past the guards? That way, we could confirm whether or not these people are slavers before we kill everything that moves?"

"We could go together, Yakubu, if you are up for it?" Oak proposed. "Have the rest wait close by in reserve, so they can charge to our aid if they hear fighting."

Ur-Namma stood up and stretched his spine, the tips of his long fingers reaching towards the Heavens. "I'd better come with you. Nothing good will come from you two idiots barging in by yourselves."

"Fine by me, knife-ear." Oak cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. "Sadia, could you do your thing?"

"My thing?" The little spellsinger yawned so wide Oak feared she might dislocate her jaw. Nighttime operations really did not suit her.

"Yes, your thing. That nifty camouflage spell you showed me when we went hunting together."

"Oh, that. Sure, gather close to each other, and don't move around." Sadia wiped her hands on her robes and stood up, stretching her fingers. "It will only take a moment."

Oak, Yakubu, and Ur-Namma stood together in the center of the alley, while Sadia chanted under her breath in the Muttalib tongue. Her fingers twitched as if strumming invisible strings. Ever so slowly, she bent Creation to her will, wrapping shadow and gloom around the three of them until they all but vanished from sight.

The spell settled on Oak's clothes and skin like a cloud of cold threads. He shook himself and pushed away any lingering discomfort. Suffering a tiny amount of annoyance was well worth the upside of being almost invisible to the naked eye.

"Thank you, Sadia," Oak said and ruffled the girl's hair, much to the little spellsinger's chagrin. Knowing what to expect, he dodged the ensuing kick aimed at his nuts and hopped away, giggling to himself.

"Good hunting, Gallows Tree." Baako and Onyeka spoke as one, their voices merging into a single reverberating sound laden with meaning. Oak blinked and stared at the Sakyi siblings, wondering what in the Hells had gotten into the pair.

Is everyone I meet trying to be creepy on purpose, or do I just run into weirdos everywhere I go? Oak nodded at the two Koromites, realized they probably could not see it mid-nod, and thanked them instead. As he turned away from the pair, a frightening thought popped into his head. It can't be. Is–is Creation full of grown men and women with even worse people skills than my own?

Without further ado, Oak, Ur-Namma, and Yakubu stalked out of the alley and across the still deserted street. Getting past the guards was laughably easy. They just waited until a patrol made its rounds and vanished behind a corner before they slipped through a gap in the fence.

Oak ran across the filthy yard towards a door in the warehouse wall, two living shadows right at his heels. He tried the handle and swallowed a curse. It would not budge. "The bloody thing is locked," Oak whispered. "What now?"

"Shit," Yakubu said, glancing around nervously. "Can you break it open quietly or something? Burglary is not my strong suit."

"And this is why I didn't let you two morons handle this by yourselves," Ur-Namma hissed and stepped to the door. "Make room, northerner. I need space."

"In my defense, my preferred approach would have been to charge in screaming bloody murder, kill everyone, and sort through the ashes with a fine sieve," Oak whispered. "What are you going to do, elf? Do you have a lockpick?"

"Something better. I'm not good at any large-scale works of thaumaturgy, but this?" Ur-Namma pressed his palm against the lock and muttered something in elvish. The lock opened with a soft click, and he pulled the door ajar. "This I can manage."

Oak bent down to make sure he didn't hit his head on the doorframe and made his way inside the warehouse. Another curse tried to flee from his lips. "We have our work cut out for us," he whispered and took a few steps away from the door to let his friends through. The inside was a maze of shipping crates, piles of them filling every nook and cranny of the vast indoor space.

A veritable fucking labyrinth. Figures.

"No kidding," Yakubu whispered back. Ur-Namma just unsheathed his longsword and cocked his head.

Eyes peeled and ears open for any signs of trouble, Oak ventured further into the warehouse in search of an errant slaver or two. Yakubu followed right on his heels, and Ur-Namma brought up the rear. They advanced slowly down a path surrounded by walls of shipping crates on both sides and turned a corner, heading down towards the center of the warehouse floor.

Oak stepped as lightly as a seven foot tall giant could, afraid of making noise lest he warn any guards of their coming. As he passed the intersection of paths, Oak's shoulder snagged on the corner of a protruding crate, yanking on it with all of his considerable weight. The entire pile wobbled and the coffin-sized crate came free, tumbling towards the ground.

There was no time to think. Oak just dove under the crate, arms extended to catch the bloody thing before it smashed into the ground. It landed hard on his chest with a muffled thump and pushed out all the air in his lungs.

Fucking Hell. If this thing were any heavier, I might have broken a rib.

Yakubu and Ur-Namma pushed against the pile with all of their strength, desperately trying to keep it from falling over. "Get a move on, savage," Ur-Namma snapped. Droplets of sweat ran down the elf's bald head. "This thing is going to come down on our heads."

Oak scrambled back to his feet as fast as he could and lifted the crate back into its place in the pile. After a few terrifying moments of uncertainty, the wobbling ceased. "Thank the Corpse-God," he muttered.

Yakubu took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking his head. "Too close."

"Try not to do that again, northerner." Ur-Namma scoffed. "At this rate, you'll wake half the city."

"Right." Heart beating like a drum, Oak sneaked onwards on his tiptoes, trying not to feel like a cumbersome ogre, and utterly failing at it. It wasn't his fault he was a giant living in a small man's world. No one else he knew had to worry about their shoulders rubbing against the walls, or fitting through doorways.

A downright unfair set of circumstances, if you asked him.

Not too long after his brush with disaster, Oak heard a sound somewhere on his left. He couldn't tell precisely what it was, but it was clearly there. He pointed at his ear and then left, before leading Yakubu and Ur-Namma towards the strange sound. As they got closer, a foreboding sense of unease took hold of Oak.

It sounded like a man grunting. Flesh slapping against flesh. It didn't take a genius to realize when Yakubu heard it, too. The Koromite's eyes widened. He pulled out his sword and ran past Oak, abandoning even the pretense of stealth.

Oak couldn't fault him for it, no matter how stupid it was to do so. Yakubu's desperate words rang in his mind like a bell.

"My son, Oak. They took my son."

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