Man to Man

Karl's hut looked like every other one in the village. A wooden building standing on brick foundation. Windows opened to the outside which gave the now somewhat weakened spy squad an interesting attack vector. Princess pulled a spy glass from her magical tool bag and inspected the inside.

-Target identified, looks like he's getting told off by his mom. Oh no.

-What?

-He's sent to the corner.

-How will he ever recover...

Princess bonked Kaiser with her spy glass.

-Would a bit of empathy kill you?

-I thought he's the main suspect?

-You need to change your informer. Look, Punisher has exited the den. It's your chance.

-Come again?

-Foxy, give Kaiser a lift.

Poor Kaiser didn't have time to react. Foxy already grabbed him by his shirt's collar with her teeth. She tiptoed with him all the way to hut's window. Entrances were very powerful in dreams. Unless you had a very clear idea of where you want to go, they could lead virtually anywhere. Instead of risking she'd get moved somewhere else, or even worse, potentially waking up, Princess took the safe route and made Kaiser do the dirty work. She herself just picked up the bush, placed it under the window and started eavesdropping.

From Karl's perspective this scene must've been straight out of a nightmare. Something bad is happening around his village, his friend has gone missing, he's getting punished, head of a giant fox drops a young man wearing sunglasses through his window as he's left home alone. Nothing went Karl's way that day. Out of all the options he chose to freeze and hoped the young man wouldn't notice him.

-I'll have to take a bath... Oh, hey, please don't scream. I'm, uh, well, on a secret mission, I heard you have secrets too.

Karl immediately looked to his door. He was clearly about to take off and scream for help. Whatever Kaiser did next would decide on this mission's success. He hastily approached the child and kneeled on one leg to get closer to Karl's eye level. He took off his sunglasses, put an arm on boy's shoulder and spoke to him in a warm and understanding way. As if he was a father teaching his child a lesson.

-Hey, I know you're scared. It's okay to be scared, even expected in this situation. But running away is really not the thing you should do right now. I need you to look past your fear for your friend's sake. Can you do that for him?

Still scared, Karl stared at Kaiser. After a few moments, he calmed down enough to answer.

-Who are you?

-You can call me Kaiser. I need you to tell me everything you know about Franz' disappearance before Punisher comes back.

-Who?

-Your mom. Do you know where he is?

-I don't know...

-Listen, whatever happened to him, I have someone with me that can solve anything. I'm not going to scream at you, no matter what you say. Do you know anything that can help us?

-We played in the forest yesterday. Old man Dieter said we're not allowed in there, but adults were busy with something and didn't notice.

-Did Franz return with you?

-He did, but...

-This sounds like the most important part. What happened?

-Well, he wanted to check out the forbidden cave. I told him we shouldn't, my mom said there's a dragon in there and it will eat everyone who goes in.

-Sounds like the funnest place to hang out.

-I don't believe in dragons, she just says that so we won't go near it.

-You think he went there by himself?

-I don't know...

-Okay, okay, calm down. Thank you for not screaming.

It seemed Karl was getting more comfortable with this burglar. He remained somewhat uneasy though.

-Here, have my glasses.

Karl took the gift and shyly asked:

-Will you help Franz?

-Don't worry, Arithmia's greatest minds are on it.

Karl clearly didn't like what he heard. Disgust mixed with anger appeared on his face when he heard "Arithmia". He spat on the floor and threw the glasses. His mom is not gonna like that.

-You guys bring bad luck! I should've never trusted you! HELP!

That much for winning him over, good thing he didn't open with that.

You would think Princess would have looked out for anyone approaching the building, but you would be wrong. She was way too invested watching Kaiser handling his part of the mission. Door opened and two very mad ladies, Helga and Punisher, saw a stranger jump out of the window.

-Quick, to the forest! Foxy give him a lift.

-Please don't!

Princess jumped on her trusted companion's back as she again grabbed Kaiser's collar with her teeth and ran off into the forest.

***

-I think we should drop the codenames now.

-You don't wanna be Kaiser anymore?

-I don't think anyone's gonna eavesdrop on us here.

Kleine ran through the forest taking a lot of turns, scaring local fauna. It was truly dense with trees, it looked as if a natural wall was built to not let anyone in or out. 

-So we're looking for a cave, huh? Shame you didn't ask where the cave was.

-I was about to, but he really doesn't like you.

-What? He rejected your present. I bet he'd love me had he met me!

-Fun theory, go ahead and check it.

-We've got more important things to do now! We gotta look through the forest.

-So what's the plan? If we walk without direction we'll get lost.

-We don't know where we are... Well, that's not true, we know that we came from there!

-Does that help us?

-It's helpful enough! Ever tried getting out of a labyrinth? Imagine this forest is a box, on the top side of the box is a hole. This is our cave. If we keep walking parallel to the village, it would be the same as following the "left-hand rule".

-Wasn't it the "right-hand rule"? Where you take the right turn whenever possible over and over again until you find the exit?

-It doesn't actually matter if it's left or right as long as you're consistent.

-But wait. This assumes the cave isn't in the middle of the forest.

Planck was right. If it was a simple labyrinth where all inner walls are connected to any of the four outside walls this would've worked. However it was better to think of the forest as a very big space, with lots of points, and one of the points just happens to be much bigger.

-Your birthday powers allow you to correct me?! Could it be... You wished to be smarter than me? No, clearly that wasn't it...

-Yeah? Watch this, I'll find the cave without your help.

-Huh? So you're challenging me?

-I can't shut you up any other way.

-Perfect. So tell me professor, how do we find what we're looking for?

-Kleine, come here, track his scent.

Planck put his hand next to Kleine's nose and after some sniffs she caught the scent.

-What?! This is cheating! Trapezoidal decomposition, depth-first search, there were so many cool ways to solve this and you choose to exploit my little Kleine? You're breaking my heart...

-Real world requires real solutions Lucy. Human lives are on the line.

-I guess you're right. Still, it's his smell, not Franz's.

-We'll find where they played and then have Kleine follow the other scents until we find the cave.