“You’re not. I am. Adventure Society, at your service.”

“I’ve had the Adventure Society out here before,” Kyle said. “How are you going to prove any of what you’re talking about? We don’t even know who’s behind it.”

“Sure we do,” Jason said. “This investigation is taking a two-pronged approach. Best of both worlds, you might say. What we’re doing here is using some local ingenuity to follow the magic. That’s one prong. The other is a method we use where I come from called following the money.”

White smoke started rising from where Jason had just sprinkled water.

“That’s our first hit,” Jason said.

Jason took out a metal stake with a bright red ribbon tied to it and shoved it into the ground. Then he went back to moving through his grid pattern, sprinkling more water.

“There isn't a lot of business regulation, locally,” Jason said. “That's what happens when the people who make the rules are the ones who own the businesses. When I took this contract, however, I discovered the lumber industry is a notable exception. The industry and its attendant land rights are very regulated.”

“That’s why I’m in danger of losing my land,” Kyle said. “There are production requirements for landholders, and we haven’t been producing since this monster started showing up.”

“Well, good news,” Jason said. “Since investigation here seems to consist of finding the first guy that can throw fireballs and asking him to take a look, no one seems to have invented shell companies. I found where all the records were kept, spent a few hours to poke around and found everything I needed. With a little help from a bribed official.”

“You bribed a city official?”

“Not to do anything illegal,” Jason said. “Just to help me navigate a less-than-helpful records system. That’s how I know who’s behind all this and why.”

“You already know?”

“Yep,” Jason said. “Now I just need some corroborating evidence, by which I mean whoever they’re actually paying to come out here and summon the monster. I get that person to talk and we can get you back up and running.”

“You think they will?”

“Maybe,” Jason said. “Even if they don’t, we’ll get something we can use.”

Jason searched out his whole grid, putting down a stake each time Jory’s water-potion mix found high salt content. When he was done, Jason took stock. His stakes with the eye-catching ribbons were clustered in a small area.

“About what I thought,” he said. “I checked the whole area to make sure, but it looks like our summoner comes out here and summons his monster in more or less the same spot, every time. Then he has it wander about until you see it. I take it you never chased the creature.”

“A huge aggressive monster?” Kyle asked. “No, I didn’t.”