Maybe it’s best to come at this from another angle.
“If they’re worried about Badger, we should think a little more about why. Maybe they think he can identify the time wizard.”
“More likely that his folklore might have turned up a way to counter the spells,” Spade mutters. “If this wizard can make a spy forget an entire conversation, it’s probably not hard to avoid leaving any trace of their presence.”
“Not quite,” Badger says. “The thing is that the spies realize they’ve forgotten. If the only spell they know for wiping memory is that unsubtle, they might resort to more mundane means if it’s not worth the risk. And I’ve read a couple of reports that suggest something, now that I’m thinking about it.”
He rummages through his pockets.
“First one is of strange memory loss that wasn’t an eavesdrop operation. I kept track of this one because I wanted to look into it more. Asked around in the area and a few of the locals mentioned a short fellow they didn’t recognize poking around, but they weren’t sure what he was doing. A few others seemed confused when I asked about him.”
“So he might have made them forget? Or been tagging along with the wizard who was?” Long asks. He definitely seems interested. So the wizard he’s looking for might be short, too.
That could be Shume, but you don’t know for sure. Badger’s talking again, though. Maybe he’s got another clue that will make it clearer.
“That’s what I’m thinking. I wrote down a list of the people who seemed confused, but I couldn’t see a clear pattern to them. Except, another report reminded me of one of them in particular.”
A woman who looked the same as another woman?
For the record, I got this suggestion from Credit, who had no context on the current state of the adventure:
“K, my suggestion is for a bee blacksmith to ingest metals then spit out a mace covered in bee stingers”