Questionable Origins 7 (1/2)

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know?!’” Cecilia yelled in exasperation. “It’s your gods-damned job to know!”

“I, uh, well,” the junior Scribe stammered, “there’s been a lot, erm, a lot of overhead, and-”

“Overhead?! Is that what you call losing several tons of enchanted stone bricks without anyone noticing?!”

“I don’t know, okay?! I’ve only worked here for, like, a month!” the boy pleaded with her. “The only stuff I’m allowed to touch is the broom, tea kettles and envelopes! The one you should be asking about this stuff is Supervisor Shari! It’s his responsibility to keep track of our inventory!

“Then where is he?!”

“Would I be here pissing my pants if I knew that?! Nobody’s seen him since the Collapse!”

“… Well that’s just fooken brilliant, innit?” the female officer finally relented. “Fine, that’ll be all for now. You two - get this poor sod out of here and put him in protective custody.”

The pair of soldiers next to the door saluted and grabbed the upset intern by the shoulders. Being interrogated like this was clearly too much for the fifteen-year-old, as he shook and whimpered while being escorted out of the room. Cecilia was left behind in her seat, clutching her head with her elbows on the table as her mind struggled to piece together how an oversight of this magnitude was even possible. Well no, that wasn’t quite right. This was quite obviously sabotage rather than ineptitude. She just failed to comprehend what sort of administrative negligence would allow this sort of thing to happen in the first place.

Following Keira’s hunch, the two of them had gone to investigate the repository where the Republic government housed their spare Forest Gates. The massive circular portals were kept in a disassembled state, ready to be shipped out and put together the instant a node in the elves’ intercity teleportation network needed to be replaced. Hence why it was strange that the government had yet to replace the three Forest Gates that were broken by the Collapse.

As Cecilia and Keira found out, this delay was due to the fact that all of the city’s spare long-distance transit portals were nowhere to be found. The reports, documents and paperwork all stated they were accounted for, yet the warehouses where the actual goods were being kept were completely empty. According to what the city’s Architects had told her, there were enough stolen parts to build at least nine standard-sized Forest Gates. Or, and this was the truly worrisome part, six extra-large ones.

Yet she was only finding out about this now. One could argue she was not made aware of it sooner because nobody realized how this monumental screw-up would have anything to do with hylt branches falling off, but Cecilia knew better. Rather than a case of the Republic’s right hand not knowing what the left was doing, it was an intentional cover-up. A downside of having people in power be determined by popular vote was that the elected officials did everything in their power to hide their mistakes. Nobody in their right mind would vote to reelect the governor who would become known as ‘the guy that lost nine Forest Gates,’ after all.

“Gods-damned politics,” Cecilia grumbled. “Even in the aftermath of a disaster they pull stuff like this.”

“Can’t really blame them, can you?” Keira chimed in. “The more things change the more they stay the same. You know how it is.”

“Oh, hey. Didn’t see you there.”

The beastkin was currently leaning against the interrogation room’s open door frame with her arms crossed. She should’ve been remotely observing what went on in here, so there was no need for the Underwood woman to explain what had just transpired.

“Also, ‘fooken brilliant?’ Really?”

“I know, I know,” the elf sighed. “I got so worked up I accidentally let my bumpkin accent slip.”

Cecilia stood from her seat and straightened out her uniform and ruffled hair as best she could.

“In any event, I think this more or less confirms your ‘Gate Cutter’ theory,” she forcibly changed the subject. “However, there is one more issue we need to figure out before we’re absolutely certain it’s true.”

“Yeah. Power management.”

Stealing and then assembling those massive gateways without anyone realizing it was one thing, but turning them on was another. Forest Gates required monumental amounts of mana to operate, so much so that one would need a small army of high-Level magic users to do it manually. Thankfully for the elves, Tol-Saroth had designed them with the ability to draw ambient magical energy from the ground. Even then, not all locations had enough fuel to sustain regular Forest Gate usage in the long term. Though mana was a renewable resource, it took time for it to come back once spent.

That was why Forest Gates were always built on top of ley lines or, as some cultures called them, ‘dragon veins.’ These invisible pathways formed almost literal rivers of magic that allowed copious amounts of mana to course through the planet’s crust. This energy would eventually spread out and rise to the surface on its own, but tapping into it directly allowed for an effectively infinite source of power. And Azurvale was built on a spot where three of these ley lines intersected, meaning there was plenty of loose mana to go around.

The real question was how did the mastermind behind the Collapse get it all the way from deep beneath the ground to a hundred meters up in the air.

“I know it sounds ludicrous,” Cecilia said while cupping her chin, “but could the tree’s dryad have taken part in the Collapse somehow?”

Hylt trees were known for their ability to circulate vast amounts of raw mana. In fact, feeding off of the ley line intersection underneath Azurvale was what had allowed the trees here to grow so incomprehensibly large. Not to mention the mana extraction device the Forest Gates used was built using their roots. Add to that the fact that, according to the reports Cecilia had read on the siege of Fort Yimin, dryads could freely manipulate the flow of magic within their bodies. It was therefore only natural she would suspect the hylt’s tree spirit was directly involved.

“I sincerely doubt it.”

Keira, however, seemed to be of a different opinion.

“I’m no expert on dryads, but I do know they value their trees above anything else,” the beastkin explained. “Certainly far more than the lives of a few thousand people. There is no way one of them would take part in getting her branches cut off.”

“Perhaps not intentionally, but she could have been deceived or coerced. You yourself stated how naive and ignorant of the outside world the ones at Fort Yimin were. Admittedly those five were practically children, but Forest Gates are an extremely recent invention from the perspective of Azurvale’s ancient trees. It’s likely that they would not have known what they were feeding mana into until it was too late.”

“You… make a good point, actually,” Keira conceded.

Boxxy had to admit, that was a rather impressive assessment for someone who had presumably never met one of those tree spirits face to face. It had obviously considered what Cecilia was suggesting, but there was one other alternative. Though Forest Gates had the ability to tap into subterranean ley lines, that same mechanism could theoretically be hooked up to the mana stream inside a hylt tree. The dryad would likely notice her ‘food’ was being stolen, but it was doubtful whether she had the ability to react fast enough to prevent the Gates from turning on.

Unfortunately this was not a suggestion Boxxy could make for fear of revealing more than its Facade should have known about the subject, so it had to feign ignorance for the time being.

“Good point or not, it’s still just a theory based on circumstance,” Cecilia frowned. “Not the most solid of leads, but beggars can’t be choosers. Then again, we’d still be chasing our tails if not for your invaluable assistance, Miss Morgana. You’ve made more headway on this case in a single afternoon than I have in nearly ten days.”

“Well, you know. I have a lot of experience dealing with this weird stuff.”

“I suppose being thrown into bizarre and incomprehensible situations every other week has its perks, doesn’t it?”

“I’m… not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment,” Keira said with a tired expression. “More importantly, do you have any idea where we go from here?”

“Not especially, no,” the elf answered honestly. “Looking into the missing Supervisor Shari is an obvious start, but I have a feeling it’ll be a dead end. I’d much rather work the dryad angle, but to do that I’ll need your help.”

“And, uh, how do you expect me to be of any use with that?”

“By helping me get in touch with the Sandman, of course.”

“Uh… What?”

“The Sandman. You know - tall, dark, brooding, wears a heavy cloak, has a voice like melted butter…” her words trailed off.

“No, I know who he is. I just don’t get what he has to do with- Wait, are you saying he might be responsible for this catastrophy?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the elf rolled her eyes. “I already ruled him out as a suspect on day one.”

“Care to enlighten me on how you reached that conclusion?” Keira asked dubiously.

“I’m a bit surprised. You’ve worked with him on multiple occasions, surely you must realize this doesn’t fit his style at all.”

“Humor me.”

“Well, for starters,” Cecilia raised her index finger, “he’s got an impeccable sense of professional integrity. The Republic and FIB have been regular clients of his ever since the war. He values our business too much to jeopardize our partnership. Even if a rival power tried to hire him to attack us, he would just use it as an opportunity to make even more money by bringing it to our attention.”

The elf has had something of an obsession with the Sandman persona ever since she heard rumors of the ruthless vigilante. She saw him as an enigma, a mystery she couldn’t help but want to unravel. It was only natural she would’ve kept tabs on his activities even if she wasn’t involved with them in any way.

“The other thing,” she extended a second finger, “is he always makes his involvement abundantly clear. I initially thought this was just his way of building his ‘brand,’ and I would argue it was definitely like that at first. However, after years of playing the part, it may have become something of an obsession or a compulsion. It’s not too dissimilar from how serial killers always leave a mark or a clue. It may sound crass of me to say, but if the Sandman was responsible for the biggest attack on Republic soil since the nation’s inception, he would not be able to keep quiet about it.”

The woman was sorely mistaken about this point, but she could be forgiven for that. After all, she was operating under the assumption that the man in question was, indeed, a man. In truth, the Sandman was a shapeshifter, a monster whose thought processes differed greatly from those of enlightened beings. Rather than trying to spread its name, Boxxy had actually tried to conceal its involvement in certain matters as much as possible. Witnesses were silenced, rumors quelled and evidence erased, but some things were too big for a single monster to keep a secret.