The building in front of Jack was dark with no light coming out. This one like most of the others that he would be dealing with tonight was a small business that only ran their own missions. One of the many that trying their hands at what the Adventurer's Guildhouse accomplished at so long ago. Those that did this were like anyone else starting up a business with a million possible reasons why. That wasn't what was important to Jack right now. He needed to get into their records and make copies of everything that he could as quickly and quietly as possible. He had a lot of places to be tonight after all.
Before he did anything else Jack reached into the inner pockets of his coat. And pulled out three items, a pair of glasses frames, a small bell and a metal rod. These were half of the toolkit that he had used for his old business when he was younger. Putting on the frames Jack blinked as his vision swam and adjusted to the new input.
The frames had an enchantment on them to allow a person to see mana flows. Not many people knew it if you could watch mana flows it also let you look at the inner workings of a ward. While it did not show you the sigils used in it you could judge where it the mana was concentrated as well as some of the characteristics of what the ward would do. This would let you figure out weak points as well as just how dangerous getting through a ward would likely be.
Now in the case of most buildings, he had found that they would ward the doors and forgot more general wardings or other potential access routes such as windows. The true trick was to work out how to avoid them rather than break them outright. The more that could be avoided and bypassed the less likely that someone would realize that a break in had occurred. In the past this allowed him to revisit the same location many times taking small amounts for a dependable payout.
A small business like this one likely didn't have a complex warding scheme unless the owner themselves specialized in or did wards as a hobby. Hiring ward specialists cost a pretty penny so most just ended up with either the default wards on a building or the cheaper ward sets. Judging by what he saw this was indeed the case. Just to be certain however Jack held the bell out in front of him and struck it with the rod. A clear chime rang out and sigils flashed across the surface of the building.
This was a resonator bell. They were supposed to only be owned and used by licensed adventurers for exploring abandoned ruins or mana sinks, in order to help them expose hidden or natural ward schemes. If it was discovered that Jack had one in his possession without the correct licensing it would be an extremely hefty fine on top of a five-year prison sentence.
Jack smiled a bit as he saw the poor protections. He would still be careful but he should be in and out of here in fifteen to twenty minutes max if the rest of the building was at the same level. Doing a quick check that no one was watching Jack grunted as he cast a spell of adherence onto his body. Channeling mana into his legs he leapt up onto the side of the building right next to one of the windows. Looking through he could see that there was no mana flow for warding inside the room. Pulling out a small shim of metal he slid it under the crack of the window and pulled it along flipping the latch on the inside. Quickly pulling the window open Jack hopped into the room and closed the window behind him. Smiling a bit as it seemed the years hadn't completely removed his touch he crouched down and moved away from where he could possibly be seen through the window.
In all the years that he had done this kind of work as a teen he had found that the most important thing was to limit magic usage as much as possible. The most common failing that he had discovered was that warders had a bad tendency to ignore non-magical means. With that thought in mind Jack pulled out a glowing orb. While not overly bright the orb cast out enough light for Jack to see and move around without issue. Stepping into the hall he went door to door checking the contents of each room. After a while he had located the three rooms that would hold the most interest, the bosses office, the accounting, and the file room. While most likely anything of use for what he would be looking for would be in the file room, it always paid to check where money was going or coming from and if the boss was dumb enough to have a journal detailing illict activities. It still surprised him how many people were foolish enough to not only do that but keep them in easy to find places.
As he didn't really have time Jack would be doing one bit of active magic that did increase his chances of being caught slightly and using a crystal to get images of all the documents that may be relevant. So any and all mission and personnel records, all accounting books, and any journal or the like hidden in the bosses office. He would be saving any and all reading till after the night was over and done with.
After hitting up both the offices and moving into the records, Jack discovered how much he had underestimated how long this would take. He had been assuming it would be like the old days where he was just looking for valuables. Locating the things he wanted to record had gone pretty much like he had thought time wise, but he had not really thought of just how many mission records would be generated even by a smaller business like this one. Luckily the amount of time here would give him a decent estimate for most of the other places he would be visiting. He shuddered a bit at how long the Adventurers Guildhouse would end up taking him. It seemed likely that he may have to space this out over a few days rather then the single night he had been hoping for. Luckily for him he was pretty sure his mind would be able to hold up for the strain as long as it didn't take more then four days to do all of the businesses.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
An hour later and Jack was finally done with collecting all the potentially useful information. After making his way back outside and shutting the window behind him Jack checked the time as he moved down the street. All told the one business had taken him about an hour and a half. Far longer than he had originally assumed. Considering the length of time he would hold off on the larger companies until he had all the smaller ones completed, and he would begin sorting out all the images tomorrow back at the office.
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"Sir, I'm afraid I just don't understand why you are having me do this." In the middle of a brightly lit room stood Drafus Montgomery. He was speaking into a small version of a communication crystal while occasionally pacing back and forth.
"No, sir I do understand that."
"…"
"Of course sir, you know that I will do whatever you ask. I just don't see how what I am doing has any real purpose here. What reason could my specific presence have that one or two of the eyes could not manage in this case?"
"…"
"Yes sir, I am aware. Just as I am also aware that I have earned your trust enough that you allow me to speak my concerns and questions. I fully gathered all the data that I could within the last day here and I simply don't see much reason for my continued presence."
"…"
"Of course, I am aware of that, which begs the question of why we are being so hands on in this specific case."
"…"
"They are young enough that there wouldn't be any problems from what I can see and everyone involved hasn't advanced at all past the most basic stage from what it seems like so far."
"…"
"I can understand using this as a test for them but then why am I here?"
"…"
"You are sure that you want to proceed with this plan then?"
"…"
"I see. Very well then sir I will make sure that it's all taken care of to your satisfaction."
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As the morning sun rose over the city Jack was making his way along the street to his office. He had managed to get five of the buildings done last night. If he kept up that speed, he should only need to hit up one or two of them on the final nights, giving him almost a whole night for both the Northward Hunters Association and the Guildhouse.
But for today he needed to get a start on organizing the hundreds and hundreds of documents that he had made copies of. Luckily they were already organized for the most part due to the diligence of the companies but one of the places he had hit last night was about as organized as a mad boars pen. He was fairly certain he got all the records they had but it was impossible to tell.
As he got to the office he was surprised by the box sitting outside of the door. Picking it up and taking a look at it, it was labeled with his name. Grunting a bit Jack cast several diagnostic spells, testing for curses or other potential dangers that he could think of. As they came back negative Jack went into his office and opened the box. Inside was a comb with black hair on it, some bundled cloth, and a sealed envelope.
Opening the envelope Jack found a short handwritten letter along with a mana crystal. He checked the crystal over and found it held a large amount of money, more then what he was owed by the Fawlers. Looking at the letter it was a fairly short note from Vinistey stating that this was the money owed so far along with a small bonus as thanks for what he had done so far for her and Gregory, along with Dilacy's hairbrush and her most personal belongings. Jack worried a moment as he looked again at the crystal. If they were willing to give him this much with the little that he had done so far he hoped that they wouldn't do something foolish based on his eventual findings.
Well he couldn't do anything about that, the best thing that he could do right now would be to do what work he could in order to solve the case and bring what information there was to them, good or bad. Taking a look at the other items Jack set the brush to the side, it still had a good bit of the soft fur like hair of a beastfolk in the tines. That should be useful, well as long as it was Dilacys fur. Next Jack pulled out the bundle of cloth and unwrapped it. Upon seeing the contents Jack let out a low groan and put his face in his hands.
He tried to recall his conversation with Mrs. Fawler from last night in terms of what he said about personal items. He had meant that it should be an item or items that had a great deal of emotional significance to Dilacy, and while it was certainly possible that what he had gotten did, Jack thought it was far more likely that Vinistey had interpreted a different meaning of personal. For sitting in front of Jack as a set of extremely provocative lingerie. He would still take it and use it in case it did have emotional significance but this promised to be the most unusual scrying that Jack had ever done. With that thought in mind Jack tossed the hairbrush and garments back onto the cloth and bundled them all together.
Before he left to do the scrying, Jack needed to transfer the images he had taken the previous night out of the recording crystal. Heading into the small bedroom he pulled out several blank journals. It would be a painful half hour to hour of constant channeling for the transfer, but not having evidence of illicit activities on his body was more then worth the pain. It was a pity that he did not posses an eidetic memory as between last night and the glimpse of each image that he would see during the transfer if he had such an ability, it would save him the hours of having to go through all of them again later.
Bit by bit the words and images flowed through out of the crystal through his mind and then into the paper. Over and over again, the mana sweeping through his body causing agonizing pain every time. But still, he did it, still he endured, not a single sound escaping him. Jack lost all sense of time, the only thing he could concentrate on was the constant flow of mana and changing images in his mind to distract him from the pain. Finally the last image transferred and there was nothing left within the crystal. Jack stood and checked the time, the whole process had taken just under an hour. Popping his joints and shaking his body to work out the kinks and shake off some of the pain, he put the now filled journals, along with his tools from last night, into a small compartment hidden under the floorboards beneath the bed. After he finished with that task Jack put the crystal back into his pocket, walked to the main room that was his office where he picked up and pocketed the bundle of cloth containing the scrying materials and headed out the door. Not bothering to take even a moments rest.