Author's Note: I've decided to switch things around a bit. So we're going for Greed's POV with a sort of detective vibe. Enjoy!

So, there I was, in a library, no shit…

Meeting the Librarian had been one hell of a thing. A pretty girl with nice legs, she was right up my alley. Then the bitch vanished after dropping a bombshell on me. What in hell is with women sometimes? I'm two hundred years old and I still don't have a clue.

She wasn't actually the Librarian of course. But I didn't even catch her name, so Librarian would have to do. Slim little gal with nice legs, a pretty face and good tits. Not howl at the moon pretty but still the kind of gal who'd get second looks at the Devil's Nest. Nice and healthy with all the bits in the right places.

Of course, what really made it was the personality. Hah! She was so angry with Bido over those damn books. Then she went and showed them the dirty ones! They'd all stolen books out of there and thought I didn't know, the fools. Not that I was interested. I had my own, and it was a lot more useful than the alchemic crap I'd been looking at.

But the girl… a little firecracker, and then she laid the whammy on me. Immortality? What does she know about it? Little librarian better not be stringing me along. But no, she's not. The look on her face when I said that, it was like someone killed her dog. Why would thinking about immortality make her so sad? Who could not want to live forever? Maybe it was a human thing. Or maybe it was the woman thing again. I just don't understand them sometimes.

So here I was, drinking a beer in the Devil's Nest. It's a slimy little place in the slimy part of town and that suits me just fine. You know how the cream rises to the top? Well, the slime sinks to its own level. Makes me happy in the pants just thinking about it. To me, this is one of the finer things in life. You don't think so? Maybe it's an acquired taste, like pickled eggs.

So I was enjoying the suds when suddenly I get a tinkle on my head. Not that kind of tinkle, goofball. No, something made out of wire and paper hit me in the head and damn near ended up in my drink. I caught it before that happened or the rest of this story wouldn't have happened. Ink runs, ya know.

"What in hell?" I gave the paper my best glare. It didn't care. "Who's being a smartass?" I turned around to look over the gang but most of them were just confused except Dolcetto. He was looking like he'd seen a ghost.

"It came out of thin air Greed! Right over you!" I glanced up as he pointed. Thin air, check. Nothing freaky, check. Then I turned my attention back to the paper.

"Ya don't say." I murmured as my thoughts went back to the Librarian. 'Find me' she'd said. I'd gotten my boys on that as soon as I was done at the library, and we'd found out where she'd been staying… past tense. Nothing left but a floor so clean you could eat off it. No one had seen her go and no one knew where she'd gone. Of course, in the slums no one sees nothin' but still, it was like she'd turned invisible. Was this that mythical thing, a clue? Shrugging to myself, I unfolded the paper and took a look.

I do have the secret of Immortality. I do not know if it is a secret that will help you, but it is real. I grinned as I read that, and then laughed. Immortality! Yes, it would be mine. I was Greed and I was going to have it all. Show me what you have. Find me. There will be tests. Your first test lies on the underwater stairs. My grin went goodbye as I tried to figure that out. Underwater stairs? Cleanliness is next to godliness. Religious crap. Or did that mean something? Oh fuck, it had to mean something. Well, fortunately I had plenty of brains to give me a hand. Not that they were any better than mine, but there were a lot of them.

"Gather 'round boys and girls." I turned around to look at the gang and held up the wire thing. It glittered in the lamplight like a captive star. See, I can do a metaphor. Or is that a simile? Whatever. "It seems we have a puzzle."

And I was not going to rest until I solved it.

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Elsewhere

Magpie knew a great deal about the city. She knew the locations of the cheapest places with wholesome food, the baths, and every library within the city limits. She knew the cheap, clean hotels and the neighborhoods to stay away from at night. She also knew the neighborhoods of the rich and knew exactly how to invade them to reach a customer.

She did not know about schools of alchemy or butcher shops. Until now, she hadn't tried to master alchemy and she never had a kitchen to cook meat in. So Magpie had made something of a mistake.

"WHY won't it COME OFF?" Izumi Curtis growled as she rubbed furiously at the stubborn stain on her wall. As she watched, the orange lines began to reform. "Hmph." She planted her chin in her palm, eyes narrowed with consideration. "This can't be natural. But it looks like no alchemy I've ever seen." She mused to herself. "It doesn't look like akhalestry either." She did not know a great deal about that art but she did know enough to recognize the basic patterns. This wasn't it. Yet there was a similarity… "Hmm. Hehe." She looked up and shouted. "Edward!" He stuck his head out of an upper window immediately.

"Yes ma'am!" Edward was still a bit nervous after the earlier explosion where she had expelled them. But Izumi was grinning?

"I have a puzzle for you! Get on down here." She ordered. If anyone could figure out these strange marks on her wall, it would be Ed.

And maybe he'd be able to figure out how to get them off.

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Greed's POV

"Well, even if my idea is wrong we'll get a bath out of it." Roa said philosophically and I sighed as I got out of my clothes.

"Yeah, yeah." Public baths just aren't my thing. I mean, it's good being clean and all but Lust told me about what goes on in here once. Totally killed the joy for me. That's why I got a tub put in at the Devil's Nest. Private baths all the way. "And this is a pretty good bathhouse." I had to admit that. The tiling was nice, the towels were heated and there were even kids willing to give you a backscratching for a tip. It's just that if Lust wasn't lying, people are filthy fuckers. And I had a bad feeling she was dead right.

We had brainstormed about underwater stairs for a while and this had been Roa's idea. Bido and Martel had favored the sewers. After all, there had to be underwater stairs in the sewers, right? But Roa thought the Librarian wouldn't be caught dead in a sewer. I didn't think he was right about that, exactly. She seemed like the kind of girl who could get her hands dirty if she had to. But if she didn't have to? Oh hell no, Librarian wouldn't be in a sewer. A bathhouse though, that seemed right up her alley. So here we were, going to look at underwater stairs. The rest of the boys were checking out the other bathhouses in the city and getting clean in the process. Might as well make the best of it.

The water was nice and hot when we got in. Someone must have stoked the boiler recently. It was pretty empty too which was nice. Maybe I was worrying about nothing. There were three sets of stairs leading into the water, clearly designed for the old coots who couldn't manage a ladder. I relaxed a bit and let myself float. Roa could check the steps, that's what minions are for. And the water was really a lot hotter than we could get it at the Devil's Nest…

"Greed!" I went under the water like woah! Then came up with a splash. Roa had startled me. "I found it, it's on the middle stair."

"It is?" I was dumbfounded. I'd figured Roa's idea was a bit better than Bido and Martel's but I hadn't really thought it would be right. Sure enough, though, there was an orange diagram on one of the stairs. It had the same look as the wire. "Yeah, this looks like it." I ran a finger over it and the pattern didn't change a bit. "Librarian doesn't expect me to draw this, does she?" Nah, that would be crazy. And if that was what she wanted why give me the wire thing? There had to be a trick to this. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Roa had figured that could mean a bathhouse. But then I noticed something. "Roa, look. What's that doing here?" There was a Saints' medallion stuck in the wall of the stair. And the face on it was pretty damn familiar. Roa saw what I was pointing at and sniggered.

"It doesn't suit you Greed." Grimacing, I grabbed the little thing with my own face on it and yanked. It came off right away. Librarian girl must have a twisted sense of humor, putting my mug on one of these things. I ran a hand over the pattern again, holding the medallion in my other and what do you know. The drawing just turned into another wire thing.

"Looks like you're a genius today Roa." I grinned as I looked at the twisted bit of wire. I hated to admit it since the woman was running me around like a trained hamster, but I was enjoying this.

Me and Roa took our time getting clean. Might as well make the money count, right? I did wonder though. How would we be getting the next piece of the puzzle? Well, I should have known the Librarian would come through. When I opened my locker back at the change room, something small and white fluttered out. I bent down and picked it up, not surprised to see pretty feminine handwriting.

"Looks like we have our next clue." I put it away without looking at it and started getting dressed. We were all meeting up at the Devil's Nest after our baths, and I wanted some other minds to knock mine against as we tried to figure out the next clue.

This was better than a crossword any day.

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Greed and Roa were had left the bathhouse by only ten minutes when the Elric brothers arrived at the door.

Ed was carrying a pendulum that he was seemingly idly swinging. In reality, the motion was anything but random. They had decided to use a variant of dowsing; using the similarity of that one piece of the pattern with any other pieces to find what they were looking for. The pendulum kept swinging in the direction of another piece. At first it had been a bit confused and Edward had an idea that was because another piece had been about the same distance to Izumi's butcher shop. But once they started moving a bit it had resolved in this direction. The two brothers paused in front of the bathhouse as the pendulum stretched out longingly towards the entrance.

"You stay here Al, I'll go check it out." Edward said firmly. Trying to explain why his brother, the walking suit of armor, wanted to go into a bathhouse would be too much. Al sighed but nodded.

"Be careful brother!" Al watched as Ed went into the bathhouse, at the ready for any danger.

Unfortunately, danger was not present. Or at least not in an obvious guise.

"Where do you think you're going, boy?" A massive woman blocked his way, looking Ed over severely. Her steel grey hair was caught in a bun so tight it looked like it might be cutting off circulation. "You don't get in there without paying! And you go in through the boys changing room, unless you're a great pervert!" She pointed with one beefy hand as Edward turned an interesting shade of red. But after a brief moment the young alchemist got ahold of himself.

"I am not a pervert! I'm a state alchemist doing an investigation." He held out his autorail hand as proof but she was not the least bit appeased.

"I don't care if you are the Fuhrer himself. If you need a bath you will pay for it!" She snarled as she gave him a gimlet glare. Sensing that argument was futile, Edward grumbled a bit but parted with his coin and made a detour through the men's change room. He didn't take off his clothes though. He wasn't here to bathe.

That quickly proved to be a bit of a mistake. Ed stood at the side of the pool and peered helplessly at the marking on the stair. Magpie hadn't removed it since that would require her actually going to the site of the crime, and she was busy at the moment drinking tea and reading a book on alchemy. She wouldn't remove it for several days. Finally Ed did what he had to, and took off his boots and shoes before wading into the water. Standing over the pattern he was able to copy it down into a notebook, ignoring the bathers staring at him. He finally left the pool and beat a hasty retreat from the bathhouse.

"Ed! How did it go?" Alphonse had been both bored and worried and was very glad to see his brother again. Although Edward was looking rather red around the ears.

"Terrible. A bunch of girls were snickering at me! And my pants are all wet." His boots were dry but the wet clothe was still a nuisance. Al made a puzzled sound and Ed shook his head. "And I had to pay for the privilege of getting my legs wet. That old dragon wouldn't let me in unless I gave her money."

"Well, it is a bathhouse." Al pointed out reasonably as Edward got the pendulum ready again. At first it tried to go back to the bathhouse but Edward managed to nullify that attraction and it began pointing in another direction. "We should probably go back to Izumi's now. It's getting late." Al said and Edward nodded, putting away his pendant.

"And we have other things to do." This puzzle was fun but they still had plenty of research to do on how to get Al back his body. This odd little pattern couldn't be allowed to completely dominate their time. Which was just as well, or they might have beat Greed to Magpie. But the Elric brothers didn't know that.

And so things went on.

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I took a deep drink of brew and looked at the card again.

"So what is a wandering willie? I mean, aside from my cock." There was laughter all around and I grinned as I tossed the card to Martel. She caught it easily and read it aloud. I can read, but reading out loud trips me up.

"Well done! You have the second piece. Seek the next at the store that women love and men love for the sake of women. Ask for the wandering wille." Martel scratched an eyebrow and I leaned back, thinking about it.

"The store that women love and men love for women… " I mused. That part had lots of possibilities. "Gifts for women. Chocolate shops, clothes, jewelry, flowers…" Yeah, lots of possibilities. Way too many, we needed to narrow this shit down. "We need to figure out what a wandering willie is."

"Your cock!" Some wit hooted and I rolled my eyes.

"We did that joke already. Martel? You have any ideas?" She's probably gotten more than a few flowers and chocolates in her time. Snake girl shrugged before reaching for her beer.

"It's not clothing." She sounded really sure, which was good enough for me. "It's not chocolate and I'd be surprised if it's jewelry. I'd bet on flowers Greed. Flowers can have some really weird names." I thought about that and nodded. I didn't have much experience with flowers of course – most of the girls I'd dated wanted a drink – but I knew a bit about herbs. Poisons, ya know. And herbs sure as hell had the weirdest names.

"Okay. Do we have enough time to get to flower shops tonight?" I peered out the window. It was starting to get dark. But Martel laughed as she set down her beer.

"Of course we do! Flower shops always stay open late so they can catch all the men going home after they've pissed off the missus with another long day at work. Or the young men buying flowers for the dinner date." She stood up energetically. "There's only one good flower shop in the city."

"Is there?" That made things simple. I glanced over the others. "You all enjoy the beer. We're going for some flowers."

"Bring us back some roses boss!" I grinned at that and shook my head as I followed Martel out. "Roa's getting hungry!"

"I don't eat flowers!" The big man was protesting as I shut the door. I wondered if he could. Eat flowers, that is. I mean, cows could eat grass. But then, Roa wasn't really a cow. And do cows eat flowers? How the hell would I know?

The flower shop was actually pretty darn close. But then, the shitty part of town was pretty close to the chic part of town. You know, the spot with lots of bars and lots of restaurants and women. Not exactly a safe place to be but certainly cool, if you didn't mind a case of the crotch itch. The flower shop was right on the edge of that, where it started turning into more middle-class houses. Nice location and I could see why it was the only one in town when I walked in. What a selection! For a moment I wanted some but then I reconsidered. I mean, they're pretty and all but flowers just die in a few days. What was the point?

"Hey, do you have some wandering willie?" I said easily to a girl working there and ignored Martel's stifled giggle. It did sound pretty crude, heh. She stared at me with her mouth half-open. "It's a flower? That you sell?" Still staring. And she looks more like a cow than Roa. "Okaaaay then."

"What do you want young sir?" An old, breathy voice said and I looked down to see a woman so old she'd shrivelled up like an apple. She slapped the girl on the leg with a cane. "Go water the flowers." She ordered and the girl blinked before slowly ambling away like, well, a cow. "Sorry about that. She caught a fever when she was a girl and she's never been right since."

"Sorry to hear that." I said even though I didn't give a shit. That is being socially gray-cious, see? I do know how to do it. "Do you sell wandering willie?" This had to be the place. If it wasn't I was going to be pissed. The old woman rubbed her chin for a moment.

"That's a funny name. One second." She went into the back of the store and came out with one huge-ass book. Damn, I was seeing too many books lately. She dropped it on a table with a thump. "Wandering willie, wandering willie." She muttered as she thumbed through the pages. "Ah yes." We both came in closer as she stopped and put her finger on the page. "The Inch Plant. We sell it to the little girls for the pennies. How many would you like?" Well, that was nice of the Librarian, to keep this in budget.

"Oh, how about a dozen." If I didn't use the extra here I could always put them around the Devil's Nest. Make the place pretty. Or feed them to Roa, whichever. The old biddy nodded and after a few minutes of rustling, handed me a bouquet of white things. Three pointed and pretty cute, not bad. I paid and we went outside. It didn't take long to find the markings on the shop. "She loves me, she loves me not." I grinned as I touched the graffiti and came away with a piece of wire. "Looks like she loves me. Here Martel, have a flower." I passed them over to her just as another card fluttered down like a lost little dove. "And here's our ticket. Let's get home." Depending on the clue, maybe we could fit in another one tonight. If not, there was always beer.

You couldn't go wrong with a mug of beer.