Case 1:An Hawkward series of events

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Nora Valentine had a smile as she stood over her patient, like a summer’s sunset against a cup of hot tea. “Welcome back” she said “To the land of the living.” Araseph screamed, rolled over out of the bed and threw a kick at Nora, one that was lazily blocked by the doctor with a wave of her hand. Scrambling away she tried pulling herself up, but on shaky legs quickly collapsed in a heap of panic and sweat.

Nora sighed and turned her attention over to a clipboard, going over the notes while in the background Araseph cursed and grunted, clawing at the walls, trying earnestly to drag herself up onto her feet. Humming to herself for a little longer, Nora smiled on the inside, for hearing the frustrations of a former member of Fabula Nova was pure pleasure. Well…maybe that was enough for now. “In case you were wondering, the people who did that to you are long gone.”

“It’s not them I’m scared of.”

Nora rolled her eyes and waved dismissively, still looking at the clipboard “Oh that’s all just spilt milk…the war ended what, 3, 4 years ago? It’s alright, I don’t hold anything against you anymore.”

Araseph stopped trying to get up “Is that really true?”

“Of course, partially.” When Araseph started struggling once again Nora warned “Don’t exert yourself too much dear you’re still quite weak. I actually wanted to restrain you but figured that might make you panic even harder.”

“Where am I” The former dark mage snapped “I know about you-I’ve heard all about you and the sick experiments you did during the war. Don’t you dare think I’ll just sit by and let you cut my soul up!”

“Which I can confirm first hand is something that I most definitely do not do.” Nora tossed the clipboard onto the bed and tucked her fringe behind her ear “So I’ll guess if you’re bringing up false propaganda, apart from the fact we happened to be on the opposite sides during the war, you have no issues with me? Anything personal you may have picked up from when we fought each other, I would hope I’ve made up for just now yes? You were brought in with a foot and a bit already in the grave, and yet I healed you back up free of charge. I cut you up, took out some bacteria, replaced a couple organs, stitched you all back up and now here you are” She gestured to Araseph still on the floor “Living, breathing and learning to walk like a late blooming, idiot giraffe. Forgive and Forget.”

“You came to my cell when I was going through the trial and called me the daughter of the devil.” “Well we’ve all said some things we may regret in the past.” Araseph finally got to her feet “You even said what Pandora released from her box wasn’t all evil, it was actually just me.” Nora nodded sympathetically “Ah yes. All very regretful things.”

“You also tried to dissect me while I was in prison.”

“Well it’s not every day I come across somebody with a giant crystal stuck in their bodies.” Nora thought for a second “Actually, I think I did dissect you.” Araseph paled “Although if you’re still walking evidently I didn’t dissect you enough.”

“How about you just let me go home.”

“To be honest I’m more concerned for your safety than your feelings. So not quite yet.” Before Araseph could say anything; Nora pointed to the right “Shower’s over there. Clothes are in the wardrobe. Your Arch-Sage is off doing whatever it is he does these days. But your friend is outside. Interesting one she is, been a while since I’ve one of her kind. In Seven at least.”

Araseph frowned. What? Through the glass window she saw Nora’s silhouette turn to chat to somebody seated outside. The figure jumped up, hugged Nora, bowed, ran in, and with a massive smile Liza Thomas hugged Araseph “Welcome back to the land of the living cuddles! Do you want to get some breakfast?”

Oh.

Araseph let out a sigh.

Of course, that’s what Nora meant: Teleporters.

She hugged Liza back and with her first genuine smile in weeks, whispered “I’d love to.”

The meal itself wasn’t particularly interesting, a relatively cheap dish of bread, meat and a bowl of noodles finished off with Liza sipping iced coffee. What did catch Araseph’s interest however, was the actual conversation. “You know who Bull-Dragon is?”

“Of course I do. I was under the impression everyone in the Council knew him, I’m more surprised you don’t know who he is...you are a part of the Council aren’t you?”

Araseph felt the heat rise to her face “I’ve, I’ve been busy with missions. He said I took his promotion and killed his family before he beat the snot out of me.”

Liza thought for a moment while sipping the straw “Well I don’t know about the promotion thing, he was actually discharged from the Council a while ago…maybe 3 months ago? Someone from the Alpha Brigade found out he was actually going around attacking civilians instead of filling out jobs for them. Odd guy. He was on parole for a while then I think he tried attacking a captain so he basically got kicked out.”

“What about the Lawson guy?”

“Lawson’s a…I don’t know what he is actually. Religious mercenary might be the best way to explain it? He and his gang kind of just go around Seven taking odd jobs from a bunch of guilds in exchange for letting them preach about their religion. Apparently the Council wanted to arrest them for disturbing the public or something but they have the Guild’s mark they’re working for branded on them while they’re doing the mission so…technically it’s legal. I will admit, it is surprising Bull-Dragon is part of Lawson’s crew now. Last I heard of him he was trying to rob some poor old man.”

“That’s…weird. They didn’t seem like a religious bunch of people. I’m more used to people that pray and read books and tell you when you’re tired how much you’ve sinned, not going around hunting people as a hobby.”

“Ah. They’re a group of hedonists and I’ve heard Lawson’s a bit of a sadist-lovely combination right? I guess in your case it might’ve been they were getting pleasure from beating you…hmm so don’t take it too personally, you were just in the wrong place.”

“Gee thanks” Araseph replied dryly. “What a weird group. Why would they even be in that village though? There’s literally nothing over there for anyone to do.”

Liza shrugged “Maybe they’re on vacation. You said Bull-Dragon was with them, maybe they wanted a quiet place to convert him. Or maybe they were on a job. Who knows?” Next to her elbow Liza’s calling card flashed a bright red. She sighed “Well, duty calls. I’m really sorry about this Araseph, I wanted to hang out with you just a bit longer.”

“No no it’s fine. We’re all busy people, I should be the one saying sorry for dragging you to the other side of Seven.” She shoo’d Liza away “Go do your mission thing, I’m fine. I’ll see you again when we’re both free?”

Liza leaned over to hug her friend “I’d love that. Make sure you listen to the doctor and recover properly alright? Last thing I need is my workload doubling because ‘someone’ was too sick to do their missions.”

Araseph couldn’t help but giggle and with one more hug Liza teleported away to her mission. Sitting all alone in the café, alone at the table weak and dressed in a white robe, Araseph took Liza’s drink that she had left behind and lazily sipped it, watching as the sun rose, the soft light dancing in her eyes and feeling a sense of loneliness slowly washing over her. As she stared in muted awe at how beautiful the morning was, she melancholically noted to herself how, even Liza hadn’t denied the possibility that Araseph had indeed, killed all of Bull-Dragon’s family and turned him into the monster he was today.

A rapping on the door woke her up.

Araseph let out a huff as she lazily rolled over with only one eye open. Still blurry from sleep she took a while to figure out who it was, the light framing his thin figure and perfectly scattering onto Soren’s perfect blue and white coat that she envied so much. She had slept so much today she didn’t even know the time, but from what Nora had told her she would still be in bed for several days longer. Yawning she pushed herself to a sitting position, keeping the sheets wrapped around her and after taking her time to stretch her arms, she looked blankly at Soren who was still leaning against the door, scepter against his shoulder. “What?”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Seriously? That’s what you came to ask me? I’m fine, ready to go”

“Uh-huh”

“Full engine, locked and loaded”

“Right.” Soren said skeptically

“All geared up, hot to trot, good to go”

“So how about getting out of bed on your own?”

“Well I’m feeling like having a lie-in today”

“I see.”

“I guess I could do with a bit of a shower actually.” When Soren continued looking with a blank expression, Araseph said “Can you turn around? I’m getting out of bed now.”

“Ah.” He said and stood outside the room, closing the door behind him.

She swung her feet and pressed it to the cold floor, taking time to get feeling back in her feet. Standing up and holding onto the wall for balance, she walked into the shower and turning the water on, had to yell for Soren to hear her “So did you end up finding anything from Nora?”

“I didn’t really get that much time with her to be honest. You kind of came in just as I finished asking the standard stuff. Of course, I got the preliminaries done. We can cross Requip Magic off the list, and we’ve got no idea how but it’s pretty much confirmed Lucian did die roughly a week ago”

Araseph tried to roughly scrub her hair but was far too tired for that “Well that’s just unsettling. So, a week-old corpse went around and killed several hundred people? What’s to stop someone from summoning a zombie army and just killing everyone.”

“Well…not much to be honest with you. Although I don’t think they’re interested in taking over the world. If they were, they would’ve used multiple people. Plus, there’s no reason for Lucian…or his corpse to just shoot himself instead of continuing his slaughter if he was interested in world domination.”

“That’s true” Araseph said “Alright so we don’t know much of anything apart from the fact that Lucian went around killing people when he was already dead?”

“Actually, I thought about that.” Araseph turned her face up to the showerhead and spat out a mouthful of water “I was thinking, what if it wasn’t that Lucian came back from the dead to go on a rampage, it was somebody controlling him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well turns out just before he shot himself, Lucian actually said something to the guards that were still alive. ‘See me dance again at the other corner’”

“You could’ve told me that first” she grumbled.

“Port Tara is on the Western side of Seven. In fact, it’s actually the most western point of Seven” she heard him say “If we look at it that way, Lucian or whoever’s behind the attacks is probably going to hit the farthest points on the map.”

She washed off her sweat and turned off the water. She got, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself. “So, what are the likely points? We’re probably looking at populated areas as opposed to just the farthest points, right? If he left a message, he probably wants people to know he’s attacking…dunno why though.” Araseph walked over and opened the door and Soren tilted his head at her as she told him to get in. “Yeah, I know I’m changing, but I don’t really want to shout this stuff so everyone can hear.”

“Believe it or not, rather conveniently, we’re actually at one of the locations right now.” Soren said as he walked in “QuadDracoras is literally on the border of Seven, the most eastern point of the country. There’s also a town, Solar Lagoon, maybe 20 minutes away from here that they could be after.”

Araseph frowned and walked back into the bathroom, taking her clothes in with her. “That is convenient. What about North and South?”

“North is…most likely it’s Fabula Nova’s former headquarters” Araseph grimaced as he continued “or the town of Anthem’s Cradle, depending on whether we’re looking for towns or points of interest. South wise…I don’t think anything exists. It’s all just mountains and roads leading to Fiore and Bosco. There might be a tiny village or two but I’d be surprised if it’s a place of interest.”

Araseph began drying herself “So what’s the plan then? We just stake out the town and hope a crazy mass murderer pops up out of nowhere?”

“Not quite ‘we’ so much as me. You’ll be here recovering” Araseph towelled herself half dry, then a better idea popped into her mind.

“Hold that thought” she said. She straightened up, went to the door and stuck her head out

“Close your eyes. I want one hand over it in fact, just put your coat over your eyes-absolutely no peeking.”

Soren did as he was told and at Araseph’s instruction raised his free hand, pushing at the air to summon a gust of wind. She held the towel away from her and turned as the wind blew the water from her body. “I’m going to admit, this is a bit of an insulting way for me to use my magic. I’m the Arch-Sage for god’s sake.”

“Yeah but it’s fun. Thanks for that.” She stepped back inside the bathroom and closed the door, pulling on her clothes. Her voice muffled when she tried to pull her shirt on “I can fight. I can totally go out and do the usual stuff.”

“Or you could just stay in here, recover completely like the doctor says and when we know where or what the big bad guy is, we’ll go out together and I’ll even let you kick their face.”

“Ooh, I’d definitely like that. I haven’t had the chance to kick people in the face as much as I’d like to.”

“I figured. In the meantime, you can go read up on the plant we found on Lucian. How’d that go by the way? Was it the Blue Whistle?”

“I thought about that. Actually, did I tell you? I was thinking about the plant while I was getting beaten up last night. Don’t you think that’s messed up?”

“We all have our own ways of distracting ourselves from pain.”

“Fair enough. Well I thought about it, and I don’t think it’s the Blue Whistle. Or it might be. I don’t know.” Soren sighed. “Hey come on, I just came out of a surgery. What I mean is, it looked like it was the plant, but I remembered something. At its core; Blue Whistle is a hallucinogen and a muscle stimulant, its mostly used to push people to fight just a little longer. Pretty sure at one point it was abused in the war whenever the situation looked grim.”

“Ah. The battle of Wolx Bridge.” Soren reminisced “The Council thought they had fully secured the supply route for themselves, then out of nowhere, in broad daylight, The Engineer and several leaders of Fabula Nova walked into the camp. People everywhere took the plant before they fought since they knew they were going to die. Can’t imagine the dread they felt that day.”

She nodded “That and many more other situations. So initially, I thought maybe Lucian had used the plant. It would explain why his clothes were so worn out and all; what if he took so much of the plant he had walked all the way to Tara from QuadDracoras?” She sat down as she pulled her boots on “But you mentioned that he was basically confirmed to be dead for a week. I don’t care how strong a drug is, it’s not going to work if they’re dead. But then there’s the second part of the problem. Blue Whistle in its raw form is illegal in Seven. The Council banned it themselves after the war. The only way any kind of Blue Whistle can be in Seven is if the plant is industrially grown. But that doesn’t make much sense either. Blue Whistle is a parasitic plant so it’s incredibly difficult to mass produce, and the products aren’t really in high demand anyway so not like they can charge a lot for Blue Whistle extract.”

"So the problem is…”

“In addition to having a business class license, you have to be crazy rich or incredibly stupid to grow Blue Whistle in Seven. It’s just not a viable business. So, our problem, is there’s not really any reason for the plant to be on Lucian. Basically; another dead end.”

“Not really. If the Blue Whistle was on him, all we’d have to do is find the areas where the plant grows and we’d probably be able to find something right?”

“Yeah that’s what I’m saying though” Araseph walked out of the bathroom now fully dressed, slightly annoyed “There shouldn’t be anywhere in Seven that grows Blue Whistle. Even the Blue Whistle extract is a product from Bosco, if there was a place that grew Blue Whistle the Council would know about it.”

Soren tilted his head and silently stared at her. When she stared back, it slowly turned into a glare before she huffed “Ok. Fine. What?”

“If a member of the Council doesn’t know about it, and it were to; hypothetically exist, what does that mean then?”

“I don’t bloody know Soren ok?” “It would be an illegal business. What do we know about illegal businesses?” “They…work in the underground market?” “And what do we know about the underground?” “I don’t know…it’s hard to access?” “Unless you have connections. Connections such as people who we know are dangerous and want to terrorise the country. Connections such as certain people who want to attack Solar Lagoon.”

“…You’re not going to kill the person behind this. You’re just going to just catch them?”

“Chances are, whatever attacks the town is just going to be another puppet. I’m suggesting, since I already know that someone’s coming, I may as well just get ready, catch them, and figure out how to get to the underground. Suddenly Blue Whistle isn’t such a dead end, is it?”

“That…is actually quite brilliant.” She couldn’t help but grin. “Alright, so we know there’s a big bad guy coming to Solar Lagoon. How do we know which one it is?”

“I guess I could try using my magic to search everyone in town for some kind of gun or weapon.”

“Oh, and then I come in and take them, down right?”

“Not quite. I thought I already told you, I’d rather you stay in here and recover instead of being out in the field not even half ready.”

“I see…” Araseph pretended to pout “So you’d rather work on your own while I sit here just sleeping? Ok don’t worry” she said “I completely understand.”

Soren nodded. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement so quickly.” He turned around to walk out the door.

She frowned. “So?” He stopped. “So what?” “So…when am I going to take them down?” “…You…said you understood.” “Yeah but I was being sarcastic, don’t you know anything? If I’m being sarcastic and you play along with it, it means I get to go along with you. That’s the rule. That’s how we work.” “That seems like an incredibly flawed system…” “It has its moments.”

“And the small flaws of that system will be what you can work on while you stay in here. You’re resting up and working on the case, just not on the frontlines. That’s final and that’s an order. Alright?”

She glared at her superior and after a moment, kicked off her boots and crawled back into the bed. Turning her back to him and pretending to fall asleep, she heard Soren turn around, walk out the room and just before he closed the door, whisper to seemingly nobody “That’s my girl.”

People were dancing and singing, talking business, family and politics, drinking wine and overall celebrating the end of the month. The end of the month was always a period of celebration for Solar Lagoon, a town built around an enormous body of water that, via a complex irrigation system supplied water to all parts of the town, turning the previously dry, poor area into a bustling jolly town full of canals. Every 30 days or so the lagoon would erupt several times like a blowhole, pouring water down onto the village and splashing it into the air, where it would form several rainbows that would last for the whole day. A national treasure.

The water surged and with a roar the lagoon exploded, the magnificent, warm shower accompanied with screams of delight-loud enough to drown out all other sounds. Conway stood in the shower, enjoying the feeling of his hair and clothes getting nice and wet. If he wanted to, he could’ve just used his magic to instantly dry himself, but this wasn’t so bad.

He walked up to a magnificently decorated door, covered in orange streamers with smiling pumpkins that wore crowns at the steps. And knocked. Sounds came from behind the door, a soft curse as keys were jangled and several locks were opened and finally, behind it all was a portly old man in his 60s.

“Hi” Conway heard himself say “Sorry to disturb you. My name’s Conway Blackwood, I’m from Seven’s Civilian Protection Services or otherwise SCPS, I was wondering if I could come in and chat with you? It’s about the recent events you see, we’re preparing in case there are several terrorist attacks.”

“Of course” The man said “I recognize you, you were one of those people from Moon Drop right? It’s an honour to meet such a hero like you. Come in, come in, make yourself at home.” Conway gave him a grateful smile and followed the man into his home. Looking around, he said “I was hoping we could talk somewhere a little private? Preferably deep in the house, no windows or anything like that.” At the man’s confused expression Conway gave a reassuring grin “Confidential security stuff. You know.”

“I have a study I use to go over files that let me manage the town. Would that be alright? It’s just down the hall to the right. I’ll get you a drink, bit hot outside am I right?” Conway pretended to laugh along and walked to the study as the man left him. Clicking the door open he casually stepped into the room, circling around to the desk and looking through the files. Reports on the town’s economy, proposed changes, letters from other mayors. At the bottom drawer, hidden by a lock Conway easily broke off, were letters marked with a brand- an infinity symbol and a vertical fish symbol crossing through it. The brand of the underground market.

So this was the new dealer he had heard so much about. Searching the rest of the drawers Conway made sure to grab all the letters with the brand and when all together, burnt them to ashes. Grabbing a letter opener he slid it into his pocket and pretended to stand near the door, waiting for the man to come back. Almost on que the old man walked in, carefully balancing two cups of coffee on a plastic tray and carefully set down on the table. Picking one up, he turned around and offered it to Conway, commenting on the smell of smoke in the air, before getting stabbed in the eye by the mage.

Screaming the man doubled over and blindly clutched at his eye, trying to pull out the letter opener but fearing the extra pain that would come with it. Conway stepped forward and kicked him in the face, sending him spinning backwards and crashing into the grand desk. Checking to see if he was still breathing, Conway yanked out the letter opener, wrapped a jacket around the wound and left him on the ground. The important figures in Seven all had their lives linked up to a communications centre in the Magic Council. If they died the Council would be notified. Of course, the Council only cared about whether or not they were alive, not if they were healthy or not. And if they did end up unexpectedly dying, the Council would send out their troops to assess the situation. A location like Tara would take maybe 3 days for the Council to arrive by land, so a spot like Solar Lagoon would similarly take roughly 2 days.

Conway gagged the mayor, tied him up and walked out to the living room. He grabbed the map of the town hanging on the wall and with a pen began circling certain locations of interest, planning the fastest way he could kill everybody in town. There was no rush though, apart from the measly dark guild 20 minutes away, there was literally no other threat close to Conway’s location right now.


 * Chapter 8: Case 1:A Dovely meeting