"Excellent. Primarily, there are events transpiring which have unfortunately required my party’s involvement, though we previously had no desire or willingness to have a hand in the situation. You have been a particularly interesting detail, and especially notable is your search to find the location of your missing girlfriend. Tell me, what do you think it is that caused her such distress? Why do you think that it is that she left you… vanished, as if into thin air?" The man smiled a half-smile at me in a look that I interpreted as being more sympathetic than patronizing, and he sipped from his teacup.

I shivered a little, but I did not answer him. The fire was starting to get warm enough to feel, and I welcomed its warmth after having to stand outside in the cold for so long. I looked around the room. Hundreds of books were on the shelves beside us, and most appeared to be hardbacks, and some looked like they could have been very old. There were a couple of different spherical ball-clocks placed at the ends of rows of books. I assumed that he used most of them as bookends. In the corner of the room, a large, black porcelain statue of an elephant sat, balancing a chessboard on its uplifted trunk. The pieces were scattered across the board, in the middle of someone’s unfinished game.