Chapter 112

A few small stacks of flat paper ringed around the desk, dwarfed by triangular piles of scrolls.

It appeared as if some strange arcane ritual were underway as Tobias, with a fresh scroll, scribbled notes with his reed pen, all before a blue crystal lamp, set up like a chamberstick, pulsing with its clean light as he worked.

Riley watched with unreserved awe as he lost himself in his quest. On the wall, precariously tacked, was the map he had purchased for a silver.

His eyes would flip up to it in brief, furtive glances before dropping back down to the scrolls.

Having little else to do but watch and feel his contentment through the bond, Riley contented herself by listening to the magic; the way it hummed and sang, like a distant choir, was soothing after all that had happened in Bremerton, allowing her to drift in and out.

Her consciousness began to move like a barge down a sleepy river, putting into port here and there but otherwise was content to drift on the currents, ever bordering on sleep.

Peace and quiet had grown valuable in her time serving with the Rangers. After months of training, hard-fought battles, and mixed days and nights with little rest, the ability to rest and just be, which at one time would have left her bored, now rendered her grateful for a moment to catch her breath and process.

So much had happened since she had died... which, upon reflection, was the point of dying, it seemed. It was an epic change for mortal life, or nothing at all, depending on whom you asked.

Looking down at her forepaws as she felt the low-level power that moved through the world, manifesting to her senses as a unique and pure form of beauty, she concluded that the former was more true than the latter in her case.

"Probably every case, too," she muttered to herself.

"Huh?" Tobias looked up and, as if remembering he had a body, stretched, yawned, and then, finding nothing pressing, got back to his reading.

Riley wondered offhand what could be so interesting and why the daily lives of servants needed to be so fully and necessarily documented in the first place.

It seemed an awful lot of work for nothing. But maybe that was the point.

The society of the Ashenrealm wasn't as strange as it appeared. In many ways, it was much like the world she remembered. The powerful helped the powerful, and in some ways, it was more egalitarian. Still, in other ways, it was terrifyingly fascist.

Everyone that had power was made to serve the state, one way or another. Power was concentrated behind the throne, as power was wont to do, but for all the monsters, the politics, and the jobs to be fulfilled, the work necessary to keep the sorcerer corps going wasn't constant enough to justify anything of that size, or at least she didn't think so.

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They were busy, after all, but not that busy. Cid talked about how attacks were up, and they had just cleared a bunch of zombies out of Bremerton, but their caseload seemed manageable enough, and society did not seem frayed under the added weight.

The shops were stocked full, and the common folk did not seem discontent. Everything, at least by appearance, was working as it should.

True, not all were combat sorcerers, but the combat seemed under control, so it made sense there would be bureaucratic departments full of make-work assignments devoted to tracking and records to fill the gaps. If for no other reason than to keep an inventory of the valuable resource they had in surplus... magical people.

The coppers were the commoners in the magical hierarchy, both better and worse off than the peasant class they reflected. They were beyond blue-collar; they were more like magical serfs, and all of their value was reflected in what they did and how often they could do it.

She shuddered to think that Tobias had almost ended up there. Especially considering his current trajectory upward.

When he had found his magic, he had found himself, and, truly, that's where she had found herself, too.

"I'm hungry!" Tobias shot up from his chair, finger pointing down at an entry as if that revelation alone held some kind of mysterious merit.

Riley startled and juked back, only to fall off the bed in surprise. The stone floor clearing her feelings of both lethargy and relaxation in one brutal moment.

"I'm happy for you," she groaned as Tobias rushed over, kneeling down to check on her.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, the concern evident in his eyes.

"What made you do that?" Riley asked, inching forward to press up to him.

"Well, I'm hungry, and I think I'm making progress," he grinned with all the excitement of the chase.

"Do you want food first, or do you want to tell me what you've got?" Riley asked, sitting up on her hind paws.

"The amount they track is fascinating alone, including every work assignment and logs of when they go to sleep or wake up. They even track attendance for meals. It's eerie, but it also lets the reader build a picture of their life. Work assignments are done in much the same way. Not just when it begins and ends but where, assessments on progress, overall attitude, etc.," Tobias began.

Riley shuddered. "That sounds all very Orwellian..."

Tobias cocked his head. "You're going to have to explain that one to me."

She paused. "He was an author; he wrote about super-surveillance states."

"Well, he'd have a field day with all of this, but all that record-keeping has given me a suspect, I think, Hedwig." Tobias's eyes sparkled with joy.

"Ok, why?" Riley asked.

"Well, he was declared missing, and a bounty was placed for his arrest two days before the murders, but it's more than that." Rising, Tobias strolled over to the scroll he had been scribbling on.

"He worked all over Ashenvale, acting as a general magical laborer on any number of projects. He's gifted with water, so they had him working here, on the intercity canal, and here on the Ox street public privies, the central sewer processing here..." His hand danced across the map. At every location, an iron pin or pinhole was hanging from the sheet.

"Those are most of the murder locations," Riley boggled.

"Exactly, and he was billeted at Valenheim, of course, but guess which instructor wrote him up for discipline multiple times?" Tobias asked, leading her.

"The one that was killed presumably, Alecto, I think it was," she replied, searching her memory.

"Exactly right. This is a strong circumstantial case, enough to talk to Sabine and see about where we can go next with all this business. It's a good enough reason enough to get some lunch. As I said, I'm hungry," he grinned, the feelings of elation spilling over into Riley.

"Well, I'm hungry too. Upstairs to eat?" She prompted.

There was still plenty in their inventory, but that didn't beat fresh cooking from the Prancing Cockatrice.

"Oh absolutely, and I think this evening, we'll see Justinian and perhaps finally get to the cathedral after lunch if there's time," he rambled, ordering what remained of the day in his head.

"You are in a good mood," Riley observed.

"I like this work. I like the chase and the challenge. It's also better than getting my ass kicked by blue devils. Though that, too, has its merits, sword practice mainly," he mused.

"I think we're both finding our happiness," Riley replied as they made their way for the stairs.