A New Star Chapter 75 (Patreon)

The compartment itself was not all that large, but within was a small stack of documents, folded up under the item of real interest, a human finger bone. Not something that might be the most unusual of finds, but when we were already in the middle of dealing with some kind of weird necromantic cult that refused to die (refused to die, ha!), finding human bones in suspects’ possessions triggered more than one alarm bell. It also didn’t help the case that there was a strong necromantic energy surrounding the bone, twisting the aspect of death to something perverse and unholy.

I took everything, of course, as this was crucial evidence for what we were dealing with and who was orchestrating things. It was just a bit concerning that they were doing things so quietly this time, but their methods hadn’t really deviated that far; they had attempted to assassinate the prince last time, after all, and it was only my killing of that moderately strong lich that had cause the undead to go on a rampage in the capital. That was the thing I was the most concerned about; I didn’t mind fighting groups, fighting against entire armies, even fighting entire worlds myself, but these battles where maniacs hid and involved civilians were not at all to my taste. Warriors should meet in the field, not that I minded subterfuge or advanced tactics, including espionage, but one of the worst things about cults and underground societies was their lack of care for their fellow man.

I shook off the thoughts as I returned the drawer to how it had been before I intruded, even resetting the needle, though it was lacking in poison now. The owner of this desk, finding whom was my next priority, would likely be unable to tell right away that anything was modified. Only if they had some kind of poison affinity could they notice, and likely then only if they were rather advanced in grade and could detect the total lack of poison just from sitting down. I checked the listing on the desk, seeing that it was assigned to a clerk that handled dispatch records; this would be a person handling things like when Captain Emily brought her team north to track down the illicit activities of Pietr’s old rival, Robert. Such a position, despite the sort of power it had, would be considered something rather mundane, just a bit of boring secretarial work to be done by a functionary, largely rubber-stamped by the superiors or forgotten about in a set of filing cabinets somewhere.

An actor with nefarious intentions, with the motivation and understanding of what to do and how to do it, could cause an awful lot of damage. More than even that, a person in this position would have all kinds of access to both historical records as well as current scheduling. To work dispatches, a person needed to know where the members of the Royal Guard where and where they were supposed to be going. I also found that the entire idea of keeping information compartmented wasn’t really something they were practicing; paging through some of the other papers in the office before leaving, it looked like anybody could get access to anything if it was thought they needed to look. Sloppy.

I heard footsteps outside the door as I was leafing through the pages on another desk, quickly putting everything back the way I had found it before stepping into The Dark. Good thing I had, too, as this was an early bird worker in this very office, come in just at the crack of dawn to get started early. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t my mysterious cult member, but another of the clerks that worked in the room, and not the one whose desk I had just been disordering, either. I stayed for two or three minutes to observe them, looking for any telltale signs that things were out of order or that they were into anything unusual, but apparently they really had decided to come in at the crack of dawn just to better organize paperwork. I never really understood clerical types, but my wife had always said I had no head for the mundane. My right-hand man had also always taken much of the paperwork I was supposed to do and signed his name to it; looking back, I think maybe I should feel a little more insulted that nobody had trusted me to fill out forms, but I had been a little too busy waging intergalactic war to file Field Ration Sustainment forms.

I shook off the thoughts and left the room, walking right through the shut door using my affinity before turning down the hallway and walking further into the building. I had several more stops to make before heading over to check on my new armor, and it was going to become messy if everybody else was such a workaholic. I traced over the nameplates and signs as I walked, navigating to one room in particular, one holding an important set of files. The building had a massive historical records section in the basement, but here on the second floor was something much more like a modern HR department, within which was a file for every regular employee of the Guard. The actual members of the Royal Guard themselves had files in a separate location, but a clerk wasn’t an official Guard in the same that Emily would be.

The office was at the back corner of the building, if one viewed the main doors as the front, though there were other entrances into the compound. Nobody was there yet, thank the heavens for small blessings, and I walked through the door and into the room without issue. I examined the wards as I did so, finding them to be barely adequate even if I hadn’t had The Dark to work with, which made me frown quite a bit. I was going to have some strong words for several people after this little excursion, and the fact that hardly anyone ever got The Dark as an affinity was also no excuse for them to not have any defenses against me. Hells blood bells, they didn’t even have simple detections for a range of affinities that, while also extremely rare, could let one walk in another dimension or partially phased state or some kind of astral state, though I was sure there were even more esoteric abilities out there than I knew.

The HR room was rather neatly organized, a man or woman after my own heart running the place. Despite my aversion to paperwork, or its fear of me, I had made sure to always keep my spaces neatly organized and tidy, something that had passed down through my people. Whether it was the military or the government, everyone had largely followed my example, though it was by no means a rule, making sure their working spaces and offices were neat and tidy. This room was a perfect case in point, as I was easily able to find the exact thing I was looking for without any help or outside direction, taking the clerk’s file directly, reading it before tucking it under my arm and walking out.

My next stop was a room where the actual dispatches were processed. This was a little trickier as, while it was three rooms together, there were people there working, and likely would be constantly, one of the few sets of rooms in the building that had at least one person in twenty-four/seven, rain or shine, holiday or not. I had to be more careful here, but the people in the room were still mostly clerical types, not warriors or investigators, and I was able to grab two of the referenced papers in the personnel file without being detected. I slipped out of the room and found an unoccupied space to read over everything, glad that I had always been a very fast reader and able to comprehend quite well even at my advanced speed.

I had one more stop, which would likely take the longest, and I was already not looking forward to the upcoming argument before I could return to the Count and see about my armor. I had some hope that the Count had managed to deal with the assassin without making an enormous fuss, but the old coot could do the oddest things at the oddest times and I never really knew what went through his head. Then again, he had connections and favors-owed all over the place, so I would just let him do what he needed and hope it didn’t snowball into a strange catastrophe.

I stepped out of The Dark after making sure that no one else was nearby, finding that there was no reaction after a few moments of waiting. Shrugging, I stepped forward and knocked firmly on the door in front of my, waiting a moment before a voice from within called to enter. I stepped into a reception room or waiting room, a secretary off to the right behind a desk looking at me over his spectacles with a strange expression. He had started slightly annoyed but now was presenting as more confused than anything, likely wondering what a strange young woman he didn’t recognize, not wearing the armor or uniform of the Guard, was doing stepping into this office with papers in her arms.

“Can I help you, Young Miss…er, ma’am?” he asked, confusion still evident.

“Is the Lord Commander in at this time?” I asked calmly.

“He is, but I’m afraid you would need an appointment to see him,” the man replied, starting to recover himself. It was likely he was observer to a host of oddities being the commander’s secretary and a strange young lady walking in early in the morning with papers wasn’t all that odd.

“I should hope I wouldn’t need an appointment to explain to him how I found a death cult member working for the guard,” I replied.

“You what-“ the secretary started before a voice from the other side of the second set of doors in the room interrupted.

“Enter!” it called out, overriding the young man rather clearly.

“You should go in now,” the secretary said, wiping at his forehead while glancing between me and the door.

“Thank you,” I said to the secretary; it never hurt to be polite to the staff. I stepped forward and opened the right-hand door, entering a large but sparsely furnished office, one with a desk, the chair behind it, two chairs in front of said desk, and two bookshelves within. I would have said the room was abandoned, apart from the commander, had there not been a few papers and books on one of the shelves. It was clear the man didn’t care much for impressive displays or even making his office feel more homey.

“What was it you were saying,” the man said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter with no fumbling about. The Lord Commander was a large man with shaggy hair and a thick, well-combed beard, both of which were starting to gray heavily. He wore a uniform that contained an impressive amount of metal at his chest and strained over said chest as well as his shoulders; he looked like he could bench-press the whole headquarters and call it light work. He had tan skin, sun-beaten and weathered from years of work and drills done outdoors, and there was a small scar marring the left side of his forehead the dug into his eyebrow, causing the hair there to regrow as pure white. It looked, based on his size and frame, that he had some non-human blood in him, possibly even minotaur blood, but he didn’t have any obvious signs of anything other than his sheer size and mass.

“One of your clerks is corrupt,” I returned, walking forward to lay the file and several papers on his desk. “Earlier tonight, or I should say last night, at this point, an assassination attempt was made on my life. It was very sloppy, almost a joke, really, but the assassin was found to be working with the same death cult that attempted to assassinate the first prince. I traced elements found on them back to this building, wherein I found one of your clerks has been engaging in some rather suspect extra-curricular activities.”

I then laid out the other papers and the human bone, causing the commander to frown in a way that reminded me of a stormcloud breaking. “And you’ve been poking about in my affairs without so much as a ‘by your leave’? Who are you, exactly, that one of their assassins would target you?”

“You might know my parents, perhaps? The only grand duke and grand duchess in the kingdom?” I replied, quirking a brow at him.

“YOU?!” he exclaimed, slapping the palms of his hands on his desk forcefully. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ve had to deal with over the last few years because of your antics?”

“The better question is if I care?” I replied languidly. “You seem to run a loose ship here, commander, and it’s not my fault you can’t keep your people, or the city, in line. I found evidence of corruption and infiltration in a single hour of investigation, which appears far more than you’ve found in three years of work.”

“You!” he exclaimed, slapping his desk again. From outside the office, I could faintly hear the secretary sigh, which the commander was powerful enough to pick up on as well. “Stop sighing like an old nag, Harrison!”

“Sorry, sir,” came the muffled reply.

“Please tell me the assassin is still alive?” the commander asked, reading through the papers as I watched on.

“Well, she was a few hours ago,” I replied with a shrug.

“You don’t know?” he frowned at me as he set a page down and picked up a different one.

“I left her alive and in the care of the Count and the Silver Lady. So long as they haven’t murdered her in the intervening hour, she should still be fine,” I replied.

“Thank the heavens for the little mercies,” the commander muttered, switching pages again.

“Amen,” came a muffled seconding.

“Harrison!”

“Sorry, sir!”

“Do you also need me to do the rest of the investigation and cleanup?” I asked as the commander finished his examination of the files.

“Heavens no! The last time you ‘investigated’ something in the city, we spent the better part of two months cleaning up the aftermath,” he exclaimed. “Where’s this little assassin? At the Count’s estate in the Noble’s district?”

“That’s right,” I nodded.

“Harrison! Get squads one through three here! NOW!” he bellowed, sounds of scrambling and shouts started in the entrance immediately. “As for you, wait here a moment.”

“I have places to be,” I sighed, but I sat in one of the chairs and crossed my legs as we waited for the hornet’s nest to start swarming.

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