A Priest and a Pig Farmer Walk Into a Bar...

It was a hot morning in Era. It was the kind of dry, heavy heat the made patience run short and tempers run high. It was a bad morning to be stuck in a crowded municipal court building with a broken air conditioning unit. Unfortunately for a certain young bounty hunter, that's exactly where he was that day. Like a lot of other men on that day the scruffy looking young gun sat impatiently in one of the many rows of uncomfortable plastic chairs that lined waiting room as he waited for his number to be called.

“Number 43...” came the voice of a bored sounding woman over the intercom to which the he would only react with one word.

“Finally.”

The young man got up from his seat, adjusted his hat and made sauntered over to the booth where the poorly paid government workers conducted their business from behind magic proof glass. The person who'd be helping him taking care of business that day was a portly old lady, with gray curly hair and almost comically large glasses.

“Howdy ma'am,” greeted the bounty hunter.

The older lady merely looked at him with one possibly the most apathetic gaze he'd ever witnessed in his life and without missing a beat responded in the same bored, monotone sounding voice earlier.

“Name and ID sir.”

The gunslinger slipped his wizard identification card through the glass to the older woman. The decrepit looking old dame looked it looked at the card, pulled information up on the computer screen in front of her and then looked back up at him.

“Jeremy Filth. D class wizard specializing in gun magic. Is that correct?” she asked.

“Yes ma'am,” nodded Jeremy.

“What can I do for you Mr. Filth?”

Jeremy handed the woman a wanted posted. On it, printed in big bold letters were the word Wanted Alive: Bubba Ray. Reward: $500.

“I need an arrest warrant.”

“I see...” the woman's voice trailed off as she examined the poster and looked back at her computer screen. After a moment of this she pulled some fancy looking papers out of a drawer stamped them and handed them back to Jeremy along with his identification card and the poster.

“Here you go Mr. Filth.” she said “You're all set. When you catch him bring him to the nearest court house or police station to receive your payment. Good luck on your job.”

“Thank you ma'am.”

Jeremy tipped his hat and walked out of the municipal court building with a smile in his face. There were very few things in life that gave that man more joy than getting paid to go hunting.

Era was a big place. Big enough that even a country bumpkin like Jeremy Filth knew that he couldn't simply ask around and expect to get any useful information and so far all he knew about Bubba Ray so far was that he was apparently wanted for skipping town before he'd had a chance to go to trial. It was a good for Jeremy then that this wasn't his first rodeo. The bounty hunter knew he needed information and he was going to go get it in one of the the last places you ever expected to find a man like him.

The public library.

Jeremy quietly walked along the side walk of the grand city, through the throngs of people and between the great building that had been made of magic and stone. Despite a slight rumbling in his stomach he ignored the wonderful aromas that he noticed coming from some of the restaurants and vendor carts along the way. As tempting as it was to indulge, he was nearly broke and what little he did have was going to have to last him until he could bring in Bubba Ray.

It took him about half an hour of walking to arrive at his destination. The Era Grand Library. A massive multi story building that would have been architecturally impossible were it not for the discovery of magic. Inside countless numbers of books ranging from the latest popular fiction to news papers to technical manuals. It was that second category that Jeremy as interested in, that and the phone books, which contained basic name, address and phone number information of just about anybody you could ever want to reach. If he wanted to know where Bubba Ray might be hiding he needed to know who the hell Bubba Ray was and what exactly he'd done to get arrested and put on trial the first time.

Jeremy walked quietly through the silent halls of the library to the magically powered elevator where he would go up to the third floor. There he would spend the day looking up old news paper articles and police records. Through this research he learned the Bubba Ray was a pig farmer who lived on the outskirts of the city and that Mr. Ray had been arrested and held for trial after a fight with a Reverend named Devon led to Devon's death. Finally the bounty learned at some point before the trial could begin Bubba escaped and had been missing ever since.

By the time Jeremy left the library it was late in the after noon when the sun and the heat were at their highest. The bounty hunter would stop briefly to spend what little money he had on a burger and a bottle of water. He had a feeling that he knew where Bubba might be and he wanted to be there waiting when the escaped convict arrived.