After they checked the inn and consulted Jennifer on the location of Fire and the others, the three wizards went into an unusual shop and found Fire and Kay negotiating with the shopkeeper on the price of an enchanted crossbow which looked particularly valuable. It was entirely made of metal and had intricate engravings along its surface. The shopkeeper had a rough appearance, with an old face which seemed almost permanently locked into a scowl, a heavy iron chestplate, and pants that appeared to be a patchwork of furs from about a dozen different animals.

"I am truly insulted by that number. I have many good bowmen customers who would pay good diamonds for the master metalworking in this alone," the shopkeeper proclaimed as he pointed at the crossbow. "But the enchantment in this beauty is truly something you won't find anywhere else, I assure you. It makes bolts fly three times as fast and pierce enchanted diamond armor with ease, augments the strength of the bow to last a lifetime, and even enhances the accuracy of the bolt as you aim!"

Fire inhaled somewhat demonstratively. "The crossbow itself is mastercrafted without a doubt but I may have some bad news about the proficiency of the enchanter. Enchanting a pure steel crossbow is no easy task, it has no gold elements to better absorb the enchantment and whoever did this one was clearly quite out of their depth. While the simpler components as the enhanced durability and increased stability are as advertised I'm afraid that the rest isn't. At most it will make the bolts fly one and a half times faster instead of three and the part that enchants the bolts as they are fired won't even work properly. On top of that the entire thing is leaky, which means that the lost energy will be taken from the user instead, combined with the energy expense of the complex components this will quickly lead to exhaustion in the average user. Most of those mistakes are salvageable but naturally result in severely reduced value due to the additional required effort."

"Ah, yes," replied the shopkeeper. "But the steel is masterfully worked nonetheless, and this crossbow is enchanted, which by necessity must mean it is even higher in value."

Fire said: "Yes, it normally would. But normally we are talking about things that have an arrangement of basic enchantments of them, which are strictly positive save for a few. This one is different though. As I mentioned, a leaky enchantment absorbs energy from its user to fuel itself, namely in the form of life force. A human with averagely high life force would deplete half of theirs with as little as ten bolts, which is the point where fatigue begins to set in and going even lower gradually increases the risk of death. This crossbow requires the locking of some of the runes, namely those that would enchant the bolts but in reality just vent the energy into the environment. As it is it is not usable and you would even be better off with a plain wooden crossbow since using this one is actively harmful."

Kay nodded sadly. "You should listen to Fire; he knows his enchantments." Then, putting on his most innocuous face: "Besides, it would be a shame if someone were to buy the crossbow in its current state and start spreading rumours about the shoddy nature of your goods."

"Well…" the shopkeeper relented. "I suppose you seem like the sort of people who would make the most of a bow like this. I will accept your offer."

Fire reached out and handed the shopkeeper a small lumpy bag, which he reluctantly accepted and stepped away. Shadow and the others stepped forward as Fire picked up the crossbow and glanced across the various runes, deep in thought.

Fire muttered: "Huh… leak seems to be caused largely by the faulty bolt enchantment part. The rest is just improperly assembled runes. Might be able to fix this on the spot, maybe not this spot but one that's a little quieter."

"Excellent," responded Kay.

"Acquiring another addition for your armory, Fire?" noted Astro.

"Nah, not this time," Kay replied, allowing his accent to slip on seeing his old friend. "This one's mine. I've been looking to find a good ranged weapon for a while. So, naturally, I went for the next best thing available. What have you been at?" Seeing the other two magical folks he added: "Warnado, Shadow." The first had some warmth behind it. The second had some suspicion.

"Shadow, and Warnado, and I are trying to solve a mystery," said Astro. "Amanda seems to have experienced an unusual nightmare, and Warnado is convinced that the nightmare was magically induced."

Kay furrowed his brows: "It wasn't a pale lady, was it?" He shot a glance towards Fire but seemed reluctant to commit to it.

Shadow said: "Maybe don't throw her out next time. She really does want to help."

"We've ruled out that possibility, unfortunately," Astro said. "We were wondering if you've encountered some local rumors or some townsfolk behaving oddly, which might point us in the right direction. Anything involving magic usage or dreams could help."

Fire said: "This village doesn't have much in the way of magic, they were easily impressed by simple pyromancy when I wandered through here last. Still, we are close enough to the Tower that the Entity's minions might be involved."

"If there are any of the Tower's agents in this little town at the moment, they've been doing a rather excellent job of concealing their existence," noted Kay. "That, or, an absolutely terrible job of finding and re-capturing their prisoners. But they definitely have a great deal of influence here. Several of the farmers and a whole variety of professionals have lucrative supply deals with the Tower, and I've encountered a few locals who've made some deals they've regretted with scars to show for it."

"So… that leaves me, Shadow, and Astro as the only known magic users," Warnado concluded with disappointment.

"That isn't quite true," Astro said. "Tyron and Destiny also have some magical ability. I didn't bother to bring it up earlier because their forms of magic didn't strike me as versatile enough to be used to alter dreams, but in light of our lack of other possibilities, we may have to reconsider that. There is also Tyron's sentient sword, Kir. Psychological torture doesn't exactly strike me as fitting Kir's personality profile, but it's also strangely convenient that Kir is able to project his voice into other people's minds at will."

"That's right. I forgot about that," said Warnado, becoming angry with himself for not remembering that sooner. "But that makes five possible people who could have induced Amanda's nightmare. Six, I guess, if you're including the possibility that I am using this to cover up my own crime. But still… how are we supposed to narrow that down?"

Fire said: "For completeness' sake I should add that while I can use magic, it is limited to pyromancy and I can only cast if I have an external power source."

"Okay, technically there are seven magic users, then," Warnado amended. "Each with varying skill, but in light of our lack of information we can't assume we have the abilities we say we do. Basically, we're all playing a less deadly but more magical version of the award-winning board game Clue. Not sure what Clue is but we have that to consider. So, how should we proceed?"

Kay raised a hand with an uncharacteristic sheepishness. "I can commune with Herobrine, allowing him to semi-physically manifest in a location for brief periods of time, but I think that's more a religious thing than a magic thing and I haven't tried that in months." When people just kind of stared blankly at him: "I just wanted to put that out there." He looked at his feet awkwardly.

Warnado sighed. "Great, so anybody here could potentially be responsible. What's next? Steve shooting lasers out of his eyes?"

Astro said: "Given what we currently know about the abilities of each person, it would seem Kir is the most likely cause."

Kay looked up at this, emboldened again: "Now, hang on a second. That wee thing is incredibly friendly. And it hasn't betrayed Tyron in years of hero-work."

"True, but even I don't know much about Kir's abilities, and if we instead base our guess on personality and motivation, then our suspicion falls squarely on you and me. Well, Destiny might have her reasons, if we consider what she's been through recently. But her expertise is limited to hot and cold spells and she has not shown much in the way of creativity."

Kay was not yet deterred: "Yeah but what is exactly the significance of a nightmare? Even if magically induced, disturbed sleep has scarcely killed a man. I should know." He laughed and looked pleadingly to Astro.

This seemed to make Warnado angry. "If you saw how Amanda was affected by the nightmare, you would feel differently. This was not some low-tier magical prank. Whoever pulled it off is definitely capable of more dangerous stuff and is definitely not going to stop at just a nightmare."

Astro sighed. "To be fair, we still have not ruled out the possibility that the nightmare was simply ordinary, but have you ever seen Warnado this serious?"

Kay lowered his eyes and nodded empathetically. "Sorry."

"I must admit the idea of you being responsible is a just silly," said Astro. "Me, on the other hand… I could tell all of you that I'm innocent but that doesn't change much. What we really need is a process of elimination. A way to remove ourselves from the equation, ideally without the others knowing. And ideally handled by some neutral party to keep it all straight. But since Steve's group is gone and there's no telling when the true aggressor will strike, we'll have to improvise. Kay and Warnado, you should work together on this."

"Me and Warnado working as a team? Hmmm…" Pondered Kay, scratching his chin. "On the one hand I am biased in favour of finding both Astro and Warnado innocent and feel profound pity for Destiny but on the other hand I do love a good mystery-solving caper." He picked up a magnifying glass from a table and began to ponder it like a certain Danish prince pondering a skull upon the stage. He seemed to relish being near the centre of attention again. "To detect, or not do that. Thus is my dilemma…" A pensive pause. "For the record, I'm waiting for someone else to say yay or nay on this one. I'm more than willing to do it, I just want to make sure no one has objections to me being involved."

"I realize it's not ideal, but neither is having Warnado do it on his own, and you're the only one here who can't use magic. Not any proper magic at least."

Warnado scratched his chin contemplatively. "I may also have some biases of my own, even though I don't talk about them. And besides, Kay being skeptical about the whole thing would balance out my strong motivation."

Shadow shrugged. "I don't know enough about you to say much but I agree with what you just said. Besides, I probably should be one of the main suspects anyways."

Fire added: "I would fall under accomplice by association then. I'd also like to remark that as it stands we have no concrete motive pinned down."

Astro nodded. "It's settled, then. Kay and Warnado, it's up to you."

"In that case…" Kay raised the magnifying glass as if it were a sword and struck a dramatic pose. "Inspector Kay Mandy and Deputy Warnado, at your service."

Warnado dramatically waved his hand, summoned a ghostly blue magnifying glass, and struck a similarly combat-ready pose. "We will uncover the truth to the best extent of our abilities!"