Novel Full Chapter 1956 Steel Yourself Part 1
Chapter 1956: Chapter 1956 Steel Yourself Part 1
— Kat —
With Malory ’in agreement’ the group split up, and Steel gestured for them to follow. They went through a few corridors, doors, and two flights of stairs before Steel lead them into an office. It was a sort of small room and it was packed to the brim with various bits and pieces of old weapons and armour. Lining the walls was set after set, plus there were more sets on stands, and at the back there were a bunch of weapons. There were also quite a few bits of paper strewn around. The guards that had been following Steel were dismissed as they made their way inside.
There was four chairs, three spare and one behind the desk… but they had paperwork on them. Steel awkward grabbed them off two of the chairs and gestured for the girls to sit down while he shoved it off to the side. “Sorry about that. I don’t use this office all that often. I still think of this as ’my father’s office’. He adopted me when I was young and was the old guard captain. He’s retired now and technically this is my office… but I still have my old one from before that I use.”
Steel gestured to the stuff all over the room. “This is all leftovers from his time. I haven’t had the heart to remove them… and honestly his house is already pretty full so I’m not certain you could make room for it… BUT anyway, I do have a job I’d like you to work on. It’s a running case of orb thefts.”
“Orb thefts?” asked Kat. “Can’t you recharge them and aren’t they free?”
“Exactly,” agreed Steel. “It makes it somewhat hard to justify throwing more guards at the problem… and there are other issues. You see, while technically they’re free there is a limit on the number someone can take in a day without special dispensation. It’s never a problem under normal circumstances…
“Yet someone has been stealing them en-mass. Likely a team of someones. The first time it happened, we basically just ignored it. Swiping all the orbs from the charging station at once can cause problems, but it was just once and they need regular maintenance anyway so nothing broke… but then the thefts kept going. They happen about once a week, and always at the same one. We didn’t know that originally, but it became clear once the pattern emerged.
“Now, the reason we’re fairly sure it’s multiple people is that the charging stations are quite heavily warded. Those wards are turned right up overnight as well, with just a few guards watching. To stop them triggering you need someone hooked right up into the wards essentially the hole time. Especially if you don’t want to trigger any of the secondary alarms or leave evidence showing us how they managed it.
“We did try leaving some extra guards there… but they ended up heavily injured and after three attempts at this, someone nearly died. It was a close thing and their life was only saved because I personally went to check just after it happened. I didn’t inform anyone of the check and I hadn’t done so before. I’d say it was probably an accident.
“The injuries have been severe before yes, but never potentially lethal. In this case though, it was more bad luck because the guard fell badly and damaged his neck. Fractured it, but didn’t quite break it. We don’t have many healers in the city and if I hadn’t gotten him to one of them ASAP he’d likely have been crippled for life or dead.
“So that made the issue more serious… but also harder to police. They could fight off the entire guard contingent without alerting anyone. I even made sure to assign two of my strongest fighters to that rotation, one of them was the guy that nearly died. The only person stronger than them is me and even then, it’s not by a particularly meaningful amount. Especially not since I’ve been put in charge and have less and less time for training these days. I may be stronger technically, but I’m definitely not at their skill level anymore…” Steel trailed off with a bit of a sigh.
“Regardless, the point is that this is a series issue that I’m not capable of risking more men on. It’s also one that’s of arguable seriousness. Now that we dropped the guards back down to normal levels, nobody is getting hurt they’re just sneaking in and taking ’free’ things. Of course, that doesn’t excuse the damage they’ve already done.”
“And they’re likely to attack tonight?” asked Kat.
Steel made a ’so-so’ gesture. “It’s roughly every week. Sometimes its just six days, other times its eight. It’s been five so far, and tonight would make it the sixth day. The longest break we’ve ever had was ten days, and that only happened once.”
“Do you have any idea of who we’re looking for?” asked Hedera while Kat was nodding along. “Or perhaps who the accomplices might be?”
Steel once again sighed. “Not entirely. The issue is that we just have no idea why anyone could possibly need so many orbs. This has been going on for over six months. Anything that they might have originally been doing should’ve been completed long ago. As for suspects… the biggest hint is the fact they can get through the wards. It narrows down the suspects for that quite a lot…” Steel winced. “But as far as we can tell, the only people that are skilled enough and fit the criteria? We just kind find the motive. Though…”
Steel trailed off and opened up a drawer before frowning and closing it. This repeated a few times before finally, he found the right one. Pulling out a bundle of photographs Steel showed off the first picture, it was an old looking elf. “We do have some pictures. This is Baker. He’s ancient and honestly pretty lazy.
“He’s actually responsible for the creation and maintenance of the charging stations. He also keeps up a number of other royal contracts. He… doesn’t really do much else. More or less, he just does what he was contracted to do decades or centuries ago and just… does whatever he wants for the rest of the time. He could certainly break in if he wanted too… but he also made the damned things so if he wanted his own personal charging station he could probably just make one.
“Sure the materials are rare and not really available anymore with things closed off from the outside… but if anyone could figure out a way around either the material restrictions or the fact we’re not allowed to leave it would be Baker here. Of the three enchanters that can definitely break the wards he seems like the least likely.”
“But?” offered Kat when Steel obviously paused in anticipation of the question.
“But the station that is getting hit happens to be two blocks away from Baker’s house. It is in fact, probably close enough that he could halt the wards from his house. Not something you could normally do reliably… but he made them so it’s possible. Plus this would let him be lazy and get whatever it is he wants done…” Steel shook his head. “I just can’t see the point though. If he really needed orbs he could almost certainly ask for more, and likely make his own charger to avoid all of this. In fact, he might HAVE a charger already. Not something we’ve wanted to really force looking for… but it’s possible.”
Steel then flipped over another picture, this one showing a sort of grimy looking female dwarf. “This is a woman who shares my name actually. She’s also called Steel, though there’s no relation. Luckily, her last name is Bunker, so we can just call her that. Bunker here is the main source of enchantments and inventions in the city. She’s constantly working… which is both a good and a bad thing for this investigation. She’s certainly got the smarts and the skills to break the enchantment but when I say she’s constantly working I mean it.
“We get regular noise complaints around her workshop, and we’re not entirely sure she gets enough sleep. As far as we can tell, she works something close to twenty hour days for a month or two before crashing and sleeping for a few days and then doing it all again. Normally, we wouldn’t suspect her… but she goes through orbs quite quickly and it’s entirely possible she designed a remote device to pause the wards around the rechargers more as a challenge to herself, that someone else then stole from her.
“We’d ask… but she’s hopeless at keeping track of things and we’re not entirely sure that sort of thing. Further implicating her, is her brother Carbon. He’s a known agitator that doesn’t like the current ’lock-in’ and has been caught breaking several minor laws over the years. While we don’t think Steel Bunker herself would do this… getting baited into it by Carbon who could then go and use the device is a very distinct possibility…”