Ignite the Sun
Chapter 51: Evidence

Chapter 51: Evidence

The building was very similar to every other in the city - simple shapes, dull colors and clay roof tiles - the only notable difference was its size, it was at least three times bigger than any other structure they’ve seen so far.

Two guards dressed in half plate armour, not unlike the one Alison wore, were standing near the entrance, trying their best to not look bored by their job.

"Capitan!" Both of the guards straightened and saluted.

"At ease. Is Maya on duty?" Alison addressed the older guard.

"Afraid not cap’n, she took a leave to deal with something in the Pit."

Alison sighed.

"She should have waited for me instead of going there on her own... no matter, she’ll be back soon. Did she leave the keys to the evidence room?"

"Aye, she did. Are you going to finally...?"

"Yes, by direct order of Lady Sylara, but don’t announce it to everyone if you could, it would make the investigation more difficult."

The other guard huffed.

"Why go through all of this, we all know that Old Oggy did it - just detain him and be done with it."

Alison threw him a cold look.

"We can’t throw accusations at people just because we dislike them, Officer Connor."

"But he’s hated by everyone, and the feeling is mutual - he’s obviously the culprit!"

"I don’t want to hear any more of this, unless we find evidence linking him to the case Ogdan is innocent." Alison snapped at the guard, and entered the building without giving him a chance to answer.

The party quickly followed her as she approached a wooden reception desk, and asked for a key.

"What’s the Pit?" Isara asked when the receptionist walked away to retrieve the required item.

"It’s a place where social outcasts and people who don’t want to work go to live." The Capitan replied.

"Why is it called that?"

"Because the teleportation array malfunctioned at some point in the past, a made a small area of the city sink somehow leaving the buildings intact. From that point the hole became a gathering place for strange characters, and it gradually became what it is today - an area without much contact with the rest of the city, that’s supposed to be outside the law."

"And it’s not?"

"Obviously, we’re still monitoring the region, just not officially. In fact the little ’black market’ they have going on there is mostly supplied by Lady Sylara."

"So you’re supplying criminals with illegal materials? That sounds stupid." Cassian looked rather unimpressed.

"Illegal is a relative term - everything they have access to was perfectly normal stuff before the invasion, it’s just difficult to procure now. It’s easier to give them things we know won’t cause trouble than to deal with some idiot who tried to make a drug from blight."

"...did that happen?" Calen asked.

"Once."

"And? What happened?"

Alison shrugged.

"People died, what else - corruption isn’t easy to stop, so we only managed to save one person."

Calen was under the impression that corruption was a one way road, but Alison was insinuating that it was a reversible process, at least in some cases. When he asked her, she confirmed:

"It can be done only when the person was infected by blight very recently, and if no physical changes have taken place yet. Also I’m not sure if anyone besides Lady Sylara can do it."

Well it was still good to know that it was possible to purify a corrupted person - even if the process had severe restrictions. He wondered if his flame could be used to do it, after all one of the attributes of the Sun domain was ’purity’.

Calen didn’t have much time for deliberation, as the receptionist just came back with a key to the evidence room.

***

The room in question was rather small, but still very impressive - it was filled with shelves and desks full of various items, which were carefully catalogued and sorted.

"So, how do we know which items are related to Konrad’s case?" Elira questioned.

"All of them."

"Excuse me?"

"All of the items in this room are related to this case." She looked around the packed space. "We have everything ranging from his personal belongings and the notebooks he used during his time as Geodor’s apprentice, to accounts from people who saw him in the week before the tragedy."

"And you haven’t touched any of it so far?"

Alison shook her head.

"We only wrote down the testimonies and checked all the items for dangerous materials and magic."

"At least nothing will explode in our face." Isara joked.

The Capitan ignored her and continued:

"Start with his notebooks, he didn’t have any journals or diaries, so it’s the next best thing."

***

While Calen didn’t find anything important in ’introduction to runes’ or ’principles of spellcasting’, he found the books fascinating - they were just like his first notes, but also very different.

The materials Geodor was using to teach weren’t the ones sanctioned by the High Council, but a bastardisation of them based on the grand mage’s recollection of his own training period and his experiences since the invasion.

On one hand, the things Konrad was thought were much more practical and useful than what he knew after his first year of learning - of course he started his training when he was eight, while the late mage-to-be entered the program when he was nearing twenty.

Conversely, Konrad seemed to lack any deeper understanding of the laws behind magic, something he had plenty of time to master.

Calen sighed and grabbed a next notebook titled ’main array schematics’.

Despite how relevant to the case that sounded, he didn’t have much hope about the contents - it was most likely a topic every future mage studied, since part of their duties was maintaining the enchantment.

Just like he predicted, the book was filled with examples of various parts of the main array, some had specific parts highlighted and discussed, while others were only broadly described.

But there was something else noteworthy on the yellowed pages - barely coherent sentences were scribbled over few of the drawings in red ink, the words clearly much newer than the rest of the book.

The problem was that he couldn’t actually read them, most were crooked and smuged, and the legible parts didn’t give him enough context to decipher their meaning.

He did find something to go off of though - a name repeated a few times in the red ink: Cole.

***

"Now we’ll share our findings for today." Alison announced without much enthusiasm.

"I can go first." Isara offered. "I didn’t find anything pertaining to the case, only a few details about Konrad - he was rather introverted and didn’t have much friends, but he didn’t seem weird or unhinged in his notes."

"Same here, the only interesting detail I’ve found about him is that he knew someone in the Pit, and that person supplied him with ’illegal stuff’." Cassian nodded.

"I learned that Konrad was trying to get the apprenticeship long before his family died, and was denied many times, they only accepted him a year after they all died - not particularly important in the grand scheme of things, but it could be a contributing factor to his descent into madness." Elira said.

"I found some scribllew that looked like they belonged to a madman - I couldn’t read most of them, but them mentioned someone named Cole multiple times, maybe a potential suspect?" Calen suggested.

Alison shook her head.

"Cole was sent to the Fallen Tower for additional training four months ago, and only got back a few days back. He was Konrad’s best friend though, so it still might be a good idea to interrogate him."

There was a short pause.

"...and did you find out anything?" Isara promoted.

Alison blinked.

"Um, yes, I found who’s his contact in the Pit - a black market merchant named Piff. We’ll need to interrogate him as well, and I think we should split."

"Why should we split to interrogate a criminal?" Cassian frowned.

"Because you guys are new to the city, and people in the Pit won’t trust you."

"Yes, because outlaws are known to trust the guards." He scoffed.

"People in the black market know me, and they understand that my work is important, so they tell me the truth." She argued.

"Or just what you want to hear."

Alison looked like she was about to explode.

"Listen you-"

"Guys enough!" Calen yelled. "Cass go with Alison to interrogate the merchant if you’re so concerned, Ellie, Isa and I will go question Cole."

His friend and the captain held a heated staring contest for a while, before they both said:

"Fine."

Then without a word they marched out of the room, assumedly to interrogate the merchant.

"Are you sure this was a good idea Cal?" Isara questioned.

"No, in fact I’m fairly sure it will be a mess - but maybe they’ll work through their issues before they have a chance to cause any real trouble."

"I hope you’re right..."