egion City was waking up to a snowy winter morning. The year was coming to a close, and the weather made sure everyone was aware of it. Even with the falling temperatures, however, Legion City was cheerier than ever, as all the different cultures of the city had something to celebrate around this time of year. 

Cryomancers were finally able to practice freely, thanks to the icy climate. Witches and warlocks, meanwhile, generally took the season off, choosing to mix lovely stews and soups in their cauldrons instead of potions and alchemickal recipes (the soups often tasted a bit like eye of newt, but no one really minded). Orcs, elves, and humans held massive feasts in honor of the founding of Legion City, which took place when the different races first put their differences aside. Even Giants and Golems loved the winter, as they could have colossal snowball fights, which were only slightly incredibly lethal to smaller races.

Among all the seasonal celebrations which never seemed to stop, a man was making his way to the only office open today—his own. The man was clearly dressed to mitigate the chill of the season. He wore a long and heavy black coat to ward off threatening snowflakes. Underneath was his normal, shorter coat, which itself was over a lopsided shirt, with its buttons looped one place up. The man hadn’t yet noticed his self-inflicted wardrobe malfunction. The man's name was Badger, and he was having trouble convincing himself it was worth going to work in this cold. 

Badger walked through the doors of his detective agency’s office.

The reception desk was unattended. The receptionist, an elderly Orc woman named Gretchen, was off for the holidays. In fact, everyone in this building was off for the holidays except for Badger and his partner. Badger was about to flip on the neon ‘open for business’ sign, but first he had to deal with the skeleton in the closet. Badger opened the door and saw a pile of bones lying in the corner. He turned on the light.

“Wake up, Bones, we got work to do.”

The bone pile started shifting, and a slow response echoed out.

“No, we don’t. Nothing bad happens this time of year.”

Badger left the closet and started opening the blinds to let the sun in. 

“Bones, you know what I say about this: since everyone’s off work, bad things are easier to get away with.” 

The bone pile had now formed itself into the top half of a human skeleton that was now putting its legs together. 

“Are you actually basing that off anything, or are you just assuming?” asked Bones.

Before Badger could respond, the door to the office opened, and there stood a tall woman in a long brown coat. The woman was dressed neatly, her long hair was tied back, and she wore a black necktie over a shirt which had actually been buttoned properly. Badger recognized the woman as Detective Murray, an acquaintance of his from his time at the Legion City police department.

“I figured you guys would be here” Murray said, as she closed the door behind her. “If you’re not too busy, I could use some help.” 

Badger sat down behind his desk, as he liked to be sitting whenever he got news from visitors. 

“What and when?” asked Badger, skipping straight to the point.

“Well, I’m actually on my way right now and figured you guys could help out.” 

A yell came through the open closet door. “Murray, I swear to the gods—I haven’t even put myself together yet—if there’s a dwarf out there, I’m going to lose it!”

“Calm down, Bones,” said Murray. “It’s not a job. Just a favor.”

Badger’s eyebrow raised instinctively. “What kind of favor? Cops always have a catch.”

Bones shambled out of the closet, now a fully formed skeleton (his hands had been put on the wrong arms, but he hadn’t noticed).

“Badger, you say that about everyone who ever asks you for help you don’t get paid for. What do you need, Murray?” 

The detective pointed at Bones’ hands, prompting the skeleton to fix the problem. 

“I need a Christmas tree, and the stores don’t carry them any more, so I’ve got to go get one myself. You guys able to help?” asked Murray.

Badger looked over to Bones, who gave him a thumbs up with his now properly aligned hands. 

“I figure it’s the only work offer we’ll get today,” said Bones. 

Badger let out a little sigh. 

“Guess we’re finding a tree, then”, said Badger, walking to the door.

urray's car sped along an empty road out past the Legion City limits. The tall buildings and street corners had been replaced with boreal woods and snowy plains that seemed alien to Badger. Badger came to realize he couldn’t actually remember the last time he had been outside the city. Bones was bundled up in enough clothes to hide his skeletal features. Save for his face, he almost looked normal, but only if you assumed he was a man-sized troll. 

“What’s with the getup, Bones?” asked Murray. She had been looking into the rearview mirror trying to figure out without asking. “I thought you didn’t feel the cold?”

“I don’t,” said Bones. “I wear all this so little animals don’t run off with one of my pieces, like the squirrel who tried to run away with one of my fingers.” 

Murray nodded mutely, finding a simple satisfaction in the answer. The car turned off the road and came to a stop at the edge of a clearing. Murray stepped out and took an axe from the trunk.

“If our tree is anywhere, it’s going to be here.”

The three walked off into the treeline, with Bones keeping his eye sockets on the sky for any particularly brave birds. None of the trees really stood out to Badger: some tall, some short, some covered in leaves, and some as bare as Bones. There were wide ones, narrow ones, ones with little bridges built between them, ones with nests dotting up their trunks.

Badger stopped in his tracks—did he really just see little bridges between trees? Badger took a few steps back and confirmed his suspicions.

“Hey guys, come check this out.”

Murray and Bones came over to find Badger inspecting a tree closely. 

“Guys, look, there’s a whole system of little buildings on some of these trees,” said Badger.

“This must be a Tree Fairy village,” said Murray. “I haven’t actually seen any before.”

Badger looked back at Bones for confirmation, but Bones also hadn’t heard of Tree Fairies before. 

“What is a Tree fairy?” Bones asked. “I hope they’re not as bad as Tooth Fairies.”

“Nah,” responded Murray. “Tree Fairies are peaceful, usually. They build their towns and cities in the trees to keep away from animals since they don’t have wings.”

Bones was relieved. He had had a serious disagreement with a tooth fairy before and didn’t want to risk another scene.

he Tree Fairies were nowhere to be found, though, and Murray was curious as to where they might be. Murray started following the tiny bridges, looking for the inhabitants as if she were on a case. Bones and Badger followed behind, having also forgotten about their Christmas objective. Murray came to a large platform in a tree which seemed to be the center of the structures.

Standing on the center structure was a collection of tiny people, about a few inches tall at most—tree fairies. One of the tiny figures was standing behind a podium addressing the others. He wore a tiny little fedora and a long coat, which is universally accepted to be the garb of an official detective. The address fell short as the little fairies noticed the three giants.

Murray walked to the edge of the platform and talked to the group. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but is there something wrong?”

The tiny detective left his podium and walked to the platform's edge. “Hello up there, I’m Detective Roy. Nasty business today—we found the body of a poor girl murdered last night.”

Roy noticed Murray’s badge.

“You a cop, too? Don’t suppose you could help us out with this? We’ve got no leads, and we’re just a small town. I’m sure a big city detective like yourself might be able to pull up something.”

Murray nodded and turned to her partners—her non-partners in crime. 

“Alright, boys, we got a murder case on our hands. I’m going to stay here and talk with the detective. Bones, go to the crime scene and see what you can find. Badger, head downtown to find and question witnesses. Get moving.”

Bones and Badger set off in opposite directions, a few feet from where they started on account of the village being so small. In fact, the entire village only spanned about five trees, which didn’t seem like a lot, but Tree Fairy culture was new to Bones and Badger and they had no idea if this was big by Fairy standards.

“So tell me everything we know,” said Murray to the tiny detective.

“Last she was seen was about eight-thirty or so last night,” said Roy. “Nothing unusual, just heading home from her job at the diner. We checked with all her family members, and no one can think of any reason why someone would do this.”

Murray nodded. “Have you checked if anyone from the diner knew anything?” 

The fairy shrugged. “To be completely honest with you, miss, we’ve never seen anything like this. We had one reported crime last month—a noise complaint. We have no clue what we’re doing.”

“Don’t worry,” Murray said. “We’ll help you out on this one.”

ne tree over, Bones had arrived at the crime scene—a small alleyway which cut through the edge of the tree. Little cops were walking around, performing an assortment of random tasks. Some stroked their chins, some walked up and down the alley, and others were hanging around a tiny pink box filled with even tinier donuts. A perimeter blocked out, made with what appeared to be a shoelace painted yellow, and there was a tiny chalk outline in the center of the alleyway. One of the fairy cops suddenly noticed the skeletal titan, as if Bones didn’t already stand out.

The cop walked over to the edge of the platform and shouted as politely as one could, “Anything I can do for you, Mr. Big Skeleton, sir?”

“I’m here with a detective from Legion City. Trying to see if there’s anything we can do to help,” said Bones.

The little cop let out a sigh of relief.

“Good, ‘cause I don’t really think I could turn you away in any case.” The little cop pointed to the alley. “Happened in there. It’s morbidly ironic, everyone calls the place ‘Murder Alley,’ ‘cause if we ever had a murder case, we assumed it was gonna be in there. Guess we were on the ball. We set up the perimeter and drew a silhouette on the ground ‘cause Steve saw it in a movie once.”

Bones was impressed—not only had most of them never seen a movie with a crime scene in it, but the one who did had managed to set up a perimeter having only seen a film once.

“Has the area been locked down?” asked Bones.

The fairy nodded.

“And you’re certain no one has been here except the authorities?”

The fairy nodded again.

“Have you found the murder weapon?”

The cop thought for a second, then shook his head.

“Alright, we’ll start there then. What did the autopsy say?”

The tiny cop pulled out a letter from his coat, along with a microscopic pair of reading glasses, and cleared his throat.

“Time of death: approximately nine o’clock. Cause of death: strike to the head with a blunt object. Victim likely died instantly, or a few seconds after.” 

The cop put away his reading material and apparatus.

Bones looked up the alleyway and saw a dumpster close to the white outline. It seemed to Bones that, even in fairy civilization, an alley isn’t a proper alley if there isn’t at least one dumpster and random pillars of steam, which were accounted for in this case.

Bones noticed a line of discoloration streaming down from the dumpster lid. 

“Have you checked that dumpster?”

The cop shook his head again. 

“Well, go check it then. For all we know the murder weapon could be in there.” 

The cop walked over and reached into the dumpster. He pulled out what looked like a small golf trophy with a dark red color across the base. It seemed the murderer was as new to this as the cops were. The little cop brought the trophy back to Bones, or Bones’ lower torso, to be exact.

“You think we should clean this off?” said the fairy cop. “It’s pretty nasty looking.”

“Are you kidding?” said Bones “That’s evidence. You can’t tamper with it. Here, I’ll take it.”

wo trees over, Badger was looking over the downtown area trying to find the diner he’d overheard from Murray’s conversation. Badger knew he had found the place when he saw the glow of a little neon sign. The lights in the building went out. A female fairy locked the front door. The fairy saw Badger and nearly tripped.

“Closing up shop?” Badger asked.

The little fairy nodded. “Yeah, no one wants to work today. I hardly blame them.”

“I assume you all knew the poor girl?” Badger asked. 

“Yeah, she was quite popular, especially with the boys,” the fairy said. 

Badger now knew where this case was going—he had read too many crime novels to not see it.

“Did she have a boyfriend or partner, by chance?”

The fairy looked uncomfortable. “Well,” she said nervously. “It’s not the nicest thing to say, but she had a few.”

Badger nodded. “I see, do you think this could have been done by one of them?”

“Oh no, they were all rich-boy types. It was definitely a competition between them over who could keep her attention, but that was just them fretting over who could buy her the best gifts.”

Badger found his mind wandering off trying to figure out exactly what the fairy economy looked like, but he managed to re-focus on the task at hand. 

“So, they were all rich kids then?”

The fairy looked hesitant to answer. “Well, not all of them. There was one boy who wasn’t too well off. He worked over at the golf club as a ball collector where they all spent their time. I don’t exactly know what she saw in him, he’s a bit of a social outcast. A rumor was going around she was thinking of dumping him. She won’t have to now.”

Badger ignored the slightly dark remark. This golf ball collector might know something about all this. He thanked the fairy for her help and walked back to the main tree with Murray. Badger could see Bones returning from his tree as well.

“Alright, boys, what have we got?” asked Murray. 

Bones stepped up and displayed a bag with an incredibly small golf trophy in it. “The victim was bludgeoned to death with this golf trophy, which the killer abandoned in a nearby dumpster. Whoever did this definitely didn’t plan it out.”

“Good,” said Murray. “Means this likely wasn’t premeditated.”

Badger pointed back at his assigned tree. “Going along with that, one of the guys this girl was seeing was a weirdo who worked at the golf club.”

Murray was surprised to hear the evidence lined up so perfectly on one suspect. It seemed too easy.

“Alright, so I guess this guy’s our best lead. You get his name?”

Badger shook his head. “No, but the fairy detective might know.” 

Murray returned to the tree and found the Fairy detective again. “We’ve got a suspect. A guy who works at the golf club was seeing the victim at the time. Know who he is?”

Roy took his hat off. “Kinda, everyone recognizes him. He's hard to forget, but I don’t know the guy's name. You could check out the club up north. Someone up there will know.”

“Seems easy enough.” Said Murray “Alright guys, let’s head up to the golf club.”

Calling it a golf club was a little excessive. The club was simply a driving range on the northernmost platform where one could lob astronomically minute golf balls off into the wilderness. The club was mostly empty, save for one maintenance worker cleaning windows and who didn’t look all that excited to be there. The worker looked up at the giants as if giants were a regular occurrence at the club. 

“What do you want?” He blurted out rudely.

“My name is Detective Murray. We’re looking for the ball collector. Awkward guy, not very popular. Have you seen him?”

The worker shrugged. “I ain’t no rat. Buzz off.” 

The trio took a step back out of earshot of the worker. 

“Alright guys, we’ll need to find someone else who knows the suspect,” said Murray.

Badger shook his head. “Come on, we can get the info out of this guy—we’re massive compared to him.”

“Are you kidding?” Murray said. “We don’t have permission for random interrogations.”

Badger shrugged. “What does it matter? The cops here won’t complain.” 

Bones didn’t like when Badger and Murray argued. It felt like someone would end up arrested, but only one of the two had that authority. 

“Badger, you can’t just interrogate people. It’s unethical,” Murray snapped.

Badger threw his hands up. “It’s those restrictive ethics which made me leave the force! You can’t catch criminals being ethical.”

Murray was stunned for a second. “Leave the force? Badger, you were the precinct janitor! You didn’t do anything to catch criminals.”

Bones especially hated when they argued about the legitimacy of Badger's police career. This argument needed someone to step in.

“Come on guys, focus. Murray, let’s see if the fairy detective has any other leads.”

Murray walked off without a word and came to a stop three trees down. 

Bones turned to Badger. “Now let’s get the info before she comes back.” 

Badger picked up the fairy worker by his shirt collar and lifted him to a height he had never reached before. Bones spoke in a polite tone. 

“We want to know where he is. That’s all you need to tell us.” 

The worker responded with no insignificant amount of panic in his voice. “Oh yeah? Or else what?”

Badger replied with all the intimidation he could muster. “I reckon you’re smart enough to know what happens next. Look down if you need a hint.” 

The worker looked down and yelped. “Alright, alright! His name is Tom Shill, but he ain’t here.”

Bones leaned close to the worker. “That’s not enough information to stop my partner from breaking your legs and leaving you for the squirrels. Where is he?” 

The worker clearly didn’t like the thought of squirrels. “Alright calm down, jeez. The guy got on a plane for the big city this morning. That’s all I know, I swear!” 

Badger placed the worker back on the club grounds. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

Bones and Badger returned to the main platform where Murray was talking with Roy.

“Good news,” said Bones. “We found someone else at the club who told us about the suspect. Bad news is, he left on a plane for a nearby city.”

Murray knew this was shaping up to be too easy. “Where’s this city? Maybe we could catch up before he gets away.”

The detective pointed out across the woods. “It’s way over those mountains. Would take us the rest of the day to get there.” 

Murray didn’t remember seeing a mountain range on the drive out. She turned around, wondering if she could see them from here. All she saw was a group of boulders on the other side of a clearing. 

“Alright,” said Murray “Let’s go visit the big city.”

he trio walked away from the village, wondering how big the city was actually going to be. About two minutes later, the investigators arrived at the big city, definitely bigger than the village by about three or four times, but still incredibly small by human standards.

Murray let out a sigh of whatever the opposite of relief is. Searching the city wasn’t going to be easy, but still nowhere near as hard as a normal town. Murray figured the best place to look would be the airport, then widen the search from there.

“Let’s head for the airport and see if we can catch him before he leaves. Badger, you get the description?”

Badger smacked his face with the palm of his hand. “Be right back.”

As Badger traversed the snowy peaks in record time, Murray saw the chance to ask Bones something she had wondered for a while.

“Not to sound rude, but what exactly are you?” asked Murray. Small talk was not her strong suit.

“A skeleton,” Bones responded without a flinch.

Murray sighed. “Yeah, I know. Were you raised by a necromancer or something?”

Bones shrugged. “I have no idea. If I was, they did a great job. Then again, most necromancy doesn’t apply to cleaned skeletons. I figure it must have been some other kind of magic. I’m not affected by divine magic, so I don’t think it was any form of dark magic.”

Murray didn’t know too much about magic, but she knew if it wasn’t dark magic it wasn’t illegal. Badger came back over the mountains, beating his previous record.

“Alright—the guy’s tall, for a fairy, with straight black hair and usually wearing khakis and a polo shirt.”

The team went to work scouring the outside of the airport, with hundreds of fairies feeling very anxious about the inquisitive giants. Before long, Bones found a fairy matching the description to a tee (on account of the golf attire).

“Excuse me, sir,” said Bones. “Are you Tom Shill?”

The fairy looked up at Bones and immediately ran in the other direction.

“Suspect on the run!” Bones yelled out to the other investigators. Murray and Badger came running around the side of the tree.

“Where is he, Bones?” Murray yelled.

“He’s currently running onto what looks like Main Street,” said Bones, who hadn’t moved from his original position. “You guys wanna head round and cut him off at the other tree?”

Murray nodded. “Sounds good.”

Badger and Murray took a few steps forward and found themselves at the bridge leading from main street to the next tree. Shill was crossing the street. He came to a stop when he saw one of the titanic detectives standing near the bridge. Shill turned again, but saw another giant detective. Panicked, he was surrounded with no way out.

Shill then saw his last option—if he couldn’t make it out, then he wouldn’t get taken alive. He threw himself from the platform and waited for the end. He closed his eyes. All he could hear and feel was the wind rushing past him. He landed on something. He knew he wasn’t dead because the landing hurt and being dead doesn’t hurt. 

Shill opened his eyes and realized he was lying on top of a massive skeletal hand.

“Got him!” Bones put the suspect in his pocket, and then the three went on their way. 

Murray was perplexed. Was the case really this easy—or was this what it felt like to not worry about logistics and resources? Either way, it was a job well done. They dropped Shill off at the fairy police department where he would await trial.

“Great job, guys. Now all we have to do is find a Christmas tree,” said Murray. 

Badger scoffed. “I told you, Bones, there’s always a catch.”

“Anyway, you guys want to come to the party? Would feel wrong to have you go through this and not get invited. Besides, the guys want to hear about how you managed to survive an encounter with the gnomish mafia.”

Badger was excited. This was the one party he could think of he actually wanted to go to. “I’m in!” he exclaimed.

“Sounds good,” said Bones. “We could do with some time off.”