Arthur looked at the statue placed just beyond the altar, it wasn’t anything special compared to the statues and other symbols in the other temples and shrines. The statue was presumably of Justicar as a mortal, he was shirtless and wearing bear skin like a cloak while wielding an axe in his hands and his face telling of his anger. According to the priest this was the statue that was covered with paint, it happened two weeks prior and it was quickly cleaned off .
‘To be far whoever cleaned this did an excellent job of it, I don’t see a single speck of paint anywhere. I wouldn’t even have known if I wasn’t directly told.’ Arthur thought as he was walking around the statue. Arthur also looked around other parts of the temple and came up just as empty handed as before. Not even the few people that soon arrived to quickly pray to their chosen god knew of anything.
“I see you have taken a good look around the temple detective, I assume you haven't found anything else of importance.” The priest wearily approached Arthur as he looked into the temple from the doorway.
“Unfortunately that is correct. For the time being I have no further inquiries, though I must recommend that you do not leave the city for the time being as that would likely make you a suspect.”
“Of course detective, I don’t often leave the temple let alone the district so that is of little issue to me.”
*********
Arthur investigated the last temple on the map he was given and found nothing of note. He then quickly returned to Captain Tasius and informed him of his findings. With that out of the way he was ordered to continue with the other districts and Arthur chose to start with the eastern distinct to speak with Captain Pelagius who he had worked with regarding the vampires before moving in with Georgius and eventually his own home in the southern district.
“Good morning sir mage Arthur, it has been quite some time since we last spoke to each other.” Captain Pelagius gave a soft smile at the sight of Arthur entering his office.
“And good morning to you as well, Captain. I am here because Captain Tasius said you might need help looking for possible locations where the werebeast from last night might have been turned.” Arthur quickly got to the point, he noticed the stack of papers on the desk and assumed it was very important.
“Yes, I already spoke with Captain Tasius and he filled me in on all the details. I have a map here with another ten locations for you to investigate. Three are proper temples and the other seven are simple shrines.” Captain Pelagius said as he quickly pulled a map from his desk and placed it atop of it and pointed out each location. “In truth I don’t expect all that much to come from this, but it wouldn’t hurt to have you do this on our behalf.”
“Of course Captain, I will do my best to be as swift as possible and return with my findings.”
“That is good to hear, oh and before you leave take this. It will prove yourself as having the legal authority to investigate. You never know who might try and stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.” Captain Pelagius handed Arthur a few documents not unlike the ones he received from Captain Tasius.
*********
Quickly Arthur left and began checking each lead on the map he had but found none that had any type of disturbance or even anything remotely interesting happening within their vicinity for quite some time. If the wereboar was created within the city it most certainly did not happen in the eastern district.
Arthur quickly reported his findings to Captain Pelagius who didn’t exactly seem all that surprised by them. “I am not exactly surprised by this, most of this district of the city is used for production and other related services. Most of the shrines here are old relics from when the city was first founded, that was long before the kingdom had even been an idea. The only temple here that has large amounts of visitors is the one dedicated to the circle of fire.”
“I was wondering why there were so few temples and shrines here compared to the southern district. I suppose that the industrial requirements of the city would take priority over new shrines and temples.”
“The fact that the gods interact with us less and less often doesn’t help that fact at all. Arcane magic has been slowly but surely replacing divine magic for the past 1000 years now, people now have been putting more stock in mages for help than priests leading to a spiraling effect that is slowly killing the gods. Things would likely be different if the old gods were still with us.” Captain Pelagius said with an almost sad look on his face, clearly this meant a lot to him, but he didn’t say anything more regarding it and instead returned to Arthur’s job.
“You have two options from here, you can go to the northern district and speak with Captain Gracilis in the northern district but I suspect that it would be a waste of time for you.” Arthur was a little confused by this, why would investigating a whole district be a waste of time. Noticing this Captain Pelagius continued. “The northern district is home to the wealthiest citizens of the city and by extension has the best funded guard in the city. That is why someone like Captain Gracilis who is close to retirement is always assigned there, and knowing her she had every temple, shrine, and even private prayer room investigated by now.”
“So it would be best to go directly to the western district and speak with the captain there before searching the temples? If you think Captain Gracilis is as good as you say then I will follow your advice and go to the western district.” Arthur wasn’t quite as convinced as he let on, but Captain Gracilis sounded like a very capable person so for the time being he would just follow orders and look into the western district. And besides he already found the most likely place for the wereboar to be turned.
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Captain Pelagius smiled at Arthur’s answer and contacted the western district Captain to inform him of Arthur’s impending arrival. Arthur took the quickest route he knew of to the western district but the walk still took him nearly half an hour to do so. This did however give him some time to think about everything that had happened, but the thing that he was really focusing on was Captain Pelagius’s statements about the northern district and its captain.
‘I wonder just how much extra funding the northern district receives over the others. If it is as much as I think it is then it is absolutely bullshit, the southern district could definitely use far more funding for both equipment and manpower. I know for a fact that the northern district has minimal crime rates compared to the other three, why not put a small amount of that funding towards the district with the most crime?’
Arthur angrily thought about the differences between the two districts and how much the southern district would benefit from just a bit more funding, it would be far more than the northern district currently benefits.
Arthur soon found himself at the barracks of the western district and quickly entered to speak with the captain. He stopped at the secretary desk and was forced to wait for a minute while he asked the Captain if he was expected. Soon he was allowed into the captain’s office and found a middle aged woman behind a very tidy desk. “Good afternoon sir mage, I am Captain Dio of the western district. From what I have been told by Captain Pelagius you are here to investigate each and every temple and shrine within my authority.” As she stood up Arthur was able to see the armor she wore was exactly the same as both Captain Tasius and Captain Pelagius, but her weapon was different from all the other he had seen, it was a sword with a long and thin blade clearly meant for precision stabs and the hilt was far more fancy, it was made up of several thin pieces of metal that were expertly placed to keep her hand from being hurt while using a minimal amount of metal.
“That is correct Captain, do you have a map of all the locations for me to investigate? It would greatly speed up the process and allow me to report to you quicker.” Arthur hoped she did as it would be a hassle to find them all without one, he had already found the directions from the citizens to be quite bad when just looking for one building at a time, let alone many.
“Of course, speak with my secretary, he should have a map or two with all the temples and shrines within the district. Is there anything else you require of me at the moment?” Arthur could tell that Captain Dio took her job very seriously, but he could tell she wanted something else from him. It was in her body language, she was a bit too nice for a captain.
“Not for now, and thank you for your help captain.” Arthur quickly turned to leave the room while giving a quick thank you to avoid appearing rude.
“It was no problem sir mage, and good luck to you.”
*********
Arthur was more than happy to be out of the office of Captain Dio, he could see in her eyes and in her expressions that she wanted something from him. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was but it likely had something to do with the fact that he was a mage. ‘Whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it. When I return I will need to be in and out as quickly as possible.’
Arthur quickly returned to the secretary and inquired about the map with the temples and shrines. She was a bit suspicious of why he needed them until he explained that it was by the orders of Captain Dio, she was quickly to find them and give Arthur a copy of the most recent one. “Now this map is from a few years ago, so I can’t guarantee that everything will be completely up to date. But these things typically take quite a bit of time to be built so hopefully it is accurate.”
“Thank you, this will be an excellent help to the investigation.” Arthur thanked the secretary before rolling up the map and leaving the barracks to begin his investigation of the western district.
********
‘Just like the eastern district, I’ve already gone through fifteen temples and twenty different shrines here and found nothing. The worst part is that everyone was likely telling the truth in that regard as none of them looked worried or distressed in the slightest. 'Thank whatever god this temple belongs to, it is the last one on the list.’ Arthur’s eye wandered across the expertly carved stones that made up the walls of the temple he walked towards. It was made up of a grey stone and was not unlike that of the old church that Henry owned in its design.
Given the time it was unlikely that it would be performing any gatherings at the moment, so Arthur approached the front double doors and gave a few hard knocks expecting someone to open them like they had before. But after a minute of waiting nothing happened and he was forced to knock again, but again nothing happened. Arthur was a little confused at this point and tried to look between the middle of the doors but was unlucky and couldn't see anything. ‘What is this? Given the size and scale of this temple there should be more than one priest working here even if one was out at the moment.’
Arthur waited for another ten minutes just in case someone would return and open up the front doors that way, but unfortunately that did not happen. ‘This is a waste of my time. I will do a walk around the building to see if someone is actually around before I go through the first open window I find. I am working on behalf of the city guard so I should have the authority to do that’
Arthur proceeded to walk around the entire temple and found that the only entrance to the building was the one he started at, thankfully there were several windows scattered across the walls to allow light in, unfortunately they were closed preventing Arthur from entering, except for one small window at the top of a small tower built into the temple at the back of the structure. Apparently someone forgot to close it and left Arthur with a way to access the inside without breaking anything.
Though the question remained of how he would actually get up there, it was three stories up off the ground after all. Levitation wasn’t viable on its own and conjuring up a pillar of earth to reach it would get difficult to keep steady and maintain very quickly. ‘Though I don’t necessarily need to create a pillar to lift myself up there, I could just conjure up a tool that even the common folk use when in a similar situation.’ Arthur smiled as he conjured up a ladder from earth and leaned it against the back wall of the temple, solving both the problem of climbing up and remaining steady.
Arthur did not waste any more time and quickly climbed up his ladder and entered through the window. The tower wasn’t even all that large with only just enough room for one or two people to squeeze past each other if they were walking past. Arthur didn’t pay all that much attention to what was above as it was simply a trap door leading to the roof. He instead followed the stairs down intent on having some very harsh words with whoever was running this temple.
But as he exited from the tower he found his nose assaulted by the smell of blood and decay as he came across a corpse dressed in a plain grey robe, the corpse was of a dwarven man and he was missing his hands as his arms were directed above his head. His face was directed away, perhaps for the best as Arthur worried about what might have been done to it.