Chapter 33 — Hazardous Paperwork

As it happened, few of the citizenry had an intimate knowledge of where their city kept its various records. Upon asking a passerby, Yvette was directed towards the Purse Bureau which managed the taxation of both the city and the region as a whole. It seemed like a promising start however, one, the building housing it was kilometers across town; two, was barely staffed due to the holiday; and three, did not keep the relevant records as apparently the majority of the frontier would remain tax exempt for another generation or two.

The staff there instead pointed her towards the Extraction Bureau, which managed the exploitation of the region's natural resources. The information she found there was useful, but rather limited. The problem was that the focus there was on locations that had or would soon have dedicated mining or logging communities—while the far more numerous and relatively self-contained farming villages were entirely omitted.

So next came the Cartographer's Association that was only concerned with navigable rivers, followed by the Traveling Merchant's Guild whose members would sooner die than divulge their inconsistent trade routes. After that was the Caravanner’s Guild that coordinated civilian transport, but had yet to expand into the frontier. Then came the Guild of Yet Another Wasted Trek Across The City, followed by the Association of That Is Precisely Where I Just Came From, and finally the Bureau of You Are Doing This On Purpose, Aren’t You?

Now were she to receive this dearth of results as some random passerby, it would only be expected. Indeed, simply asking for the information was her usual first approach, and she had been rejected one way or another every time. However her less conventional follow-up attempts at extracting information from these institutions were far more productive.

And yet the simple question of which parts of the frontier were and were not being settled still went unanswered. It was to the point that Yvette began to suspect that it was being done intentionally—either due to some high up bureaucrat’s misguided notion of what should be kept need-to-know, or as part of some fraud to skew the numbers.

It was possible the information was simply missing due to gross negligence, but Yvette tended to assume fraud was the culprit in cases like these. Unfortunately that meant that the true records, assuming they existed at all, would be kept somewhere more central and secure.

Yvette grimaced as she flipped through the last of the files that she had held out hope would contain some kind of map or projections, but once again none were to be found. Returning the files to the office’s bookshelf, Yvette could not help but glare at the comatose official who was slumped over his desk.

He was the Secretary of Development, and impressive though the title was, he seemed to just be some middle-management type based on the now drool-covered documents littering his desk. However, given his apparently higher position in the bureaucracy—and the fact that he was working through the holiday—he had a better chance than most to actually know where she should look next.

Adopting the guise of an office worker she had seen, Yvette sent her soul threads into the man’s body, breaking down most but not all of the sedative she had dosed him with.

A minute later he uneasily lifted his head as his unfocused eyes flickered open.

“Sir,” Yvette began before he could get his bearings, “the… governor is asking for information on new settlements in the region.”

“Wha? Wh’d he be aszing me abo’ tha?” He asked deliriously.

“He said it was urgent, sir.”

The Secretary grumbled as he fought back a heavy yawn, “Bu’ tha’s Homes’ead Office business…”

“And where might one find that office?” Yvette pressed.

“Mmmmmh, ‘ity Hall, ‘ird floor, I ‘ink?” The Secretary slurred as his eyes finally managed to focus on the not-office-worker, “Bu’ why would you—”

Using the same flesh thread she had originally snuck under the door, across the office carpet, and up to the underside of his desk, Yvette released another small puff of aerosolized sedative. Before he could even finish his question, the Secretary was returned to his dreams of personnel synergies and filing optimizations or whatever else bureaucrats dreamt of. And in all likelihood he would categorize their little conversation as one such dream, assuming he remembered it all.

Regardless, Yvette quickly adopted the man’s appearance as she broke down all of the sedatives in his body. But before he could wake, Yvette left the office, avoiding eye contact with what few people she encountered in the halls. Then she simply made a brief stop in the nearest men’s washroom where she adopted a more generic guise, before finally making her exit.

Stepping back out onto the streets, Yvette once again asked the revelers crowding the thoroughfares for directions. The responses ranged from ignorant shrugs to lecherous entreatments, but when she finally received a proper answer, the directions sounded more like some drunken rambling than anything else.

However having spent her morning and now afternoon navigating through Westreach, Yvette knew that said drunken ramblings were likely the mathematically optimal path through the city. Quickly saying her thanks, Yvette set off at a leisurely sprint, dodging through the rambunctious crowds and weaving along the twisted tangle of streets.

Yvette had only seen city layouts such as Westreach’s a few other times, and in each case it was some highland city that had grown haphazardly from its humble days as a village or some such. And that was really the only way she could imagine such a city could ever come to be as no sane midland Founder would ever design the drunken spider’s web of a layout that she now found herself within.

For instance, the intersection she now found herself approaching: it was the confluence of seven different streets with not a single right angle to be seen among them. Now, were seven streets too many for a single intersection? Most certainly. Were their approaches properly signposted? Not at all. But at least the streets were straight and continued on for some distance? Well, Yvette could only grouse as she turned onto the third from the left street, which curved sharply and terminated just ten meters later at a T-junction.

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And of course the apparent lack of city planning extended beyond just the roads, evidenced by the fact that the various civic buildings were not more centrally located—or perhaps they once were but were forced to expand to keep up with the city’s own growth.

Regardless, Yvette diligently followed the directions she had been given, soon turning a corner to be abruptly met by an expanse of greenery. In the space of a single block the dark gray and at times claustrophobic stonework of the road and surrounding buildings were replaced. In their stead were languid footpaths that wove between manicured lawns, flower patches, and small gurgling brooks, all cast in a pleasant shade afforded by the tree canopies overhead.

Or perhaps that is what the Solon Gardens would have looked like on any other day, but amidst the festivities it appeared that they were hosting some manner of carnival. Well, hosting a carnival and the countless masses that were at times pressed shoulder to shoulder within. And it was to Yvette's great misfortune that her directions took her straight through. But instead of taking a detour around it, she simply slowed to a walk and descended into the chaos and cacophony—something that she immediately came to regret.

It had been growing in the back of her mind since they had arrived in the city, that gnawing, scratching feeling that always accompanied large groups of people. It was muted when she was only viewing the populace through the eyes of puppets, or when she was sprinting past the crowds. But now that she was forced to navigate the throngs at a sedate, halting pace, the feeling flared with a vengeance.

Though it wasn't so much a specific feeling as a creeping exhaustion. It was a loss of metaphysical stamina with each stranger's face her eyes fell on, each implication laden word that reached her ears, and especially each inadvertent jostling she received from the crowd.

And oh the gardens were abundant with all three at present. Here a group of rowdy youths nearly barreled into her, there a pair of lovers had some petty disagreement, and next to them two inebriated men were having a shouting match that was just one misplaced word away from turning into a brawl. But all around Yvette, all around it felt like the whole world was becoming smaller and more suffocating with each step she took into the carnival.

Her anonymous navigator had claimed that the city hall was just on the opposite side of the gardens, however they had failed to mention precisely how expansive said gardens were. Not five minutes had passed before Yvette’s skin began to itch, despite the fact that she should not have been physiologically capable of the sensation. But she carried on as surely she was nearing the end.

Fifteen minutes later the carnival had only increased in density and involuntary shudders had begun rippling through Yvette’s body. She could have turned back the way she came; she could have turned ninety degrees, betting that the gardens’ width was narrower than its length that she was walking; or she could have simply asked those around her for the most expedient exit. But all such thoughts were overshadowed by her insistent need to leave and reclaim some modicum of personal space.

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Half an hour after she had entered the Solon Gardens, Yvette finally escaped them, taking heavy breaths and barely noticing the towering, ornate edifice that stood before her. However her feet kept her moving ever onward and in a moment she found herself entering the blessedly deserted lobby of Westreach City Hall.

Sitting on one of the benches near the entrance, Yvette let her nerves gradually settle before properly taking in her surroundings. The lobby alone was a cavernous, pillared hall that reminded Yvette more of a temple than any civic building she had seen, though it still bore all the machinery of any good bureaucracy. The hall’s front half that Yvette found herself in seemed to be reserved as a waiting area for petitioners, while the back half was a series of connected counters that formed a wall separating the public from the clerks that staffed them.

Or at least the clerks that presumably were stationed there normally, as just with every other civic building she had visited that day, only the most unfortunate of personnel were staffing what few counters were currently open. Some of these very clerks had eyed her upon her entrance, though they were apparently content to simply ignore her and return to daydreaming about being anywhere else.

Content to engage in mutual apathy, Yvette’s eyes instead focused on the grand staircase at the back of the hall that was seemingly the only means of reaching the higher floors. It might have been a simple enough access point despite the pair of guards standing vigil at the base of the stairs. However they did not appear to be ordinary guards as they were remarkably well dressed and held themselves with a certain aloof bearing that would normally be at odds with their station.

Mages.

It was only conjecture, but Yvette would wager that that is what they were. And if she were correct, that would certainly complicate things as any responsible mage standing guard would wash their mage sight over anyone passing by. Furthermore, an official or lone guard dozing off at their post was almost to be expected, but two guards suddenly becoming catatonic in full view of all the clerks would undoubtedly raise the alarm.

Certainly not ideal, but after all that was what contingencies were for.

Reaching into her pocket, Yvette retrieved… nothing. Frowning, Yvette patted herself down to find that all of the easily accessible pockets of her office worker disguise had been thoroughly pilfered.

Cities were truly the bane of her existence, though she could at least amuse herself by imagining her thief's reaction to seeing their haul.

It was ultimately no matter; after all that was what contingency contingencies were for.

Beneath the layers of her clothing, a centimeter wide hole opened in the flesh of her calf, and from it emerged a small bead of chitin that unfolded itself into the facsimile of a mundane house spider.

Yvette took a moment to latch a lesser myriad of her soul threads onto the nervous system of the spider puppet before she sent it scuttling down her leg and onto the floor. The puppet’s sight—conveyed to Yvette through the soul threads she had attached its optic nerves—was far from the quality she would have preferred but there was only so much one could do when confined to such a small form. Perhaps she would work on improving the design later, but for now it sufficed, granting Yvette enough vision to navigate by.

Without incident, Yvette climbed the back wall and crossed the hall by way of its ceiling. Entering into the stairwell from above, she climbed even higher and began her search of the upper floors.

An hour later she found herself standing upon her prize. Or at least she assumed so as the report titled “New Villages in th… and Estimate Infrastru …” had most of its title and nearly all of its contents covered by the stack of papers it was buried beneath. And with her diminutive size, said stack may as well have been a mountain for all her inability to move it. But the individual pieces of paper were just within Yvette’s capacity. So there she toiled, chipping away at the mountain one boulder at a time.

The relatively tidy stack of papers was soon reduced to a scattering across the desk. And with her goal nearly within her spidery grasp, her focus tunneled onto those few papers that remained in her way. But such was her poor perception that she did not notice the telltale vibrations of approaching footsteps, nor the human voice distorted by her small form’s hearing, nor the rolled up sheaf of filings—not until its bureaucratic shadow of doom descended upon her.