"A giant bomb! A thermal torch! It could be something to fry every circuit in Asqualia with that equipment!" Kyle locks the door to the lab while he and Joey discuss it, all while still going through a routine that she feels is utterly pointless by now. "Six cases of mana primer is massive! Reeves should be fired for that much material going missing!"

"Kyle, focus on the pertinent details," Joey redirects while she finishes her concoction. "I'm Sherlock, you're Watson right now." He looks at her and is busily running his fingers through his hair. "If I have to dose you with something that'll take that anxiety down a notch, I'd be happy to oblige."

"Self-medicating sounds like a bad idea," he counters lightly. "I know you well enough to know you have the same issues as me sometimes."

"I manage it by refocusing my efforts, and using physical routines. You're forgetting Kyle, a lot of medications don't work for me," she says while gesturing to herself. "Kitsune. Remember?"

"Ugh. That has to be such a drag, not being able to take a lot of meds for managing a wide variety of stuff, including ADHD," he says with a resigned sigh. "It does nothing for you?"

"Only caffeine. Methylphenidate does absolutely nothing for me, the same with a lot of the other ones. Anyways, the hyperfocus does help. Managing it is the tricky part," she admits. She's just finished stirring the mixture, and notes the pure blue fluid sloshing lazily inside the container. "Now, I've got a few ideas. This equipment was stolen recently, and there are only so many places to hide it. We can narrow down our suspect list by figuring out how it was stolen. I've got a little trick here that'll help me."

"What is that? Smells like…bad tofu," he gags. If it’s bad for him, it's even worse for her, given her developed sense of smell. Some things do bleed over to her human form, including her above-average eyesight, acute hearing, and unparalleled sense of smell. And incredible athletics, though she attributes that to dedicated training.

She still wonders why she has a slight preference for eggs and fish. She swears that despite not being directly related to vulpines, the Kimisua–the small, empathic creatures that were merged with humans to form the first Kitsune– have a similar diet to a fox, and are comparable in appearance. Kimisua do have some differences, their ears are longer, they can have up to three tails, and they are leaner than a fox. They also have a thumb and fingers, rather than traditional front paws. The faceted eyes are also a dead giveaway. That feature, fortunately, didn't carry over to Kitsune. She shoves the errant thoughts away for now.

No Kitsune has three tails. And none of them have nine like in Japanese mythology. She focuses back on the task.

"This is something we can use to figure out when those items were stolen. If the mana was unpacked from the original casings, there's a decay rate in its energy density. You can plot this against a scaling curve of time to magical potency, given an average primer's initial effectiveness, fully sealed. It won't be perfect, but I can pinpoint the theft within a fifteen-minute window." Kyle beams at this idea.

"Awesome! But, how's this help?"

"It's a stepping stone. If we can reconstruct when, then we can figure out how it was stolen. The storage area requires an ID badge. We can look to see who walked in. I doubt, however, that it would be that simple. You could even one-time teleportal it out, but large chunks of Asqualia are shielded to prevent one-time-pad usage. And if that is the case," she adds, "I can pick up the residual mana. It'll only tell me if that is what was used, but it's either that, someone walked out with it, or they smuggled it through other means."

"I thought ahead. Schematics." He rolls out a map of Asqualia –the portion of it that could be mapped, because there is a complete lack of data below the first two ground floors on the multi-tier structure. No one is sure how far down it goes. "There's a hatchway into the room, just above storage. But there's no other way to get to the other access point without using an ID card. One way or another, we'll narrow it down."

Kyle hesitates before reaching for his bag. "Hang on. I want to scan these." He pulls out what looks to be a metallic and fabric bracer colored a dull gray, with black fabric wrap securing the device to his forearm and wrist, with a few holes for his fingers to slide through effortlessly, and without inhibiting his movement.

He pulls open a display on the bracer, and lowers his arm to the unfurled schematics. "Document scan. Blueprints. ARC facility, various tiers." There is a sweep of intense ray lights, like a laser scanner, that project onto the paper a number of times from a small emitter on the bracer. Joey winces a little at the briefly intense light, and Kyle nods satisfactorily. "Okay, digitized now. I found these old prints in the archives a while back, never thought they'd be useful until today. I dunno how the hell you move a whole facility like this brick-by-brick. Construct facilities are weird."

"Oh, am I having a positive influence on you?" she teases. "Thinking ahead, and planning?"

"Hey, I was fourth in class. I must know something. Those ID badges are lower-tier security, less encoded. Those you might be able to spoof. But let's check storage first, after work. Let's just tell them you're on a mission, and you're pissed off that someone misplaced about 50K worth of mana primer."

"Eh, close enough to the truth without being a lie," she admits. She pulls out her phone, and is tempted to dial Nick. "We're absolutely sure that Nick's phone is compromised, right?"

"I wouldn't even try it, King's a sneaky creep who wiped some of their evidence already, from what we heard. We told them they have to find a way in on their own, and while I might have a couple of ideas of which way they can get in, it's risky. There's one way I know of, some locked security door down by the waterfall that looks like a slab of the surrounding rock. It's buttoned up tight, my golems found it while exploring, and it's not on the facility map.”

“So is it the only way in?”

“Not sure. I don't know where the entryway by the waterfall goes, and the caverns aren't mapped out. They could pop up anywhere, and we can't risk someone seeing us poking around. So we have to rely on the golems, they’re using miniature active camo systems to scout around. They can also get into nooks and crannies we can’t." Kyle has a decent assessment, even if it leaves many unknowns. "We need to assume whoever is the inside man, isn't working alone."

"Do you even know who King is?" she asks.

"He's like the baba-yaga of the mage criminal underworld. Honestly, I thought it was some kind of urban legend, the guy is a ghost. He doesn't do the trigger-pulling on anything himself, but he facilitates a lot of other criminal wrongdoing. He doesn't have a name. Just 'King' for some reason. It sounds kinda vain, actually," he grouses. “It's mighty scary, knowing a guy that high level only wants just a couple of academic journals. Why don't we just go down archives, just take them, and hide them?"

"That is a super bad idea," she replies sternly. "We’re not sure which ones they’re after, exactly. They know they're in the lower archives, and that's even more dangerous. No one goes down there. The bottom levels are so dangerous that no one's been down there, ever. It's like the whole facility rebuilt itself from the old location, like it's one massive, magical construct. Don't you pay any attention to history? Or you know, the on-boarding orientation when we hired in?” He can see her annoyance level building.

"Joey, not all of us have a near-eidetic memory. I’d also like to point out that King is playing at another level. I figure Nick will have a plan for when they get here, but they've got to make sure they aren't followed." He leans back in his chair before fiddling with a remote, and an idea crops up. "What if we didn't have to go in there? What if we scouted it out remotely?"

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"You know that with the stone and mage constructed stone and metal, a signal won't carry in there," she counters.

"My golems are semiautonomous. We could try," he proposes. It's not a bad idea, in theory.

"Tempting, but let's try the cerebral route first." She packs up the alchemical equipment and puts them in her satchel. "Let's go find a thief."

Five minutes later, Reeves badges them into the storage area, and he eyeballs Joey's kit. "What's with the chemicals?"

"Just a few cursory things to help us check a few common causes of error. For all we know, someone might have just…dropped the casings and ruined about fifty grand of primer on the floor. And then didn't want to report the loss.”

"Oof. Man, that would suck. Just clean up when you're done, I'm headed back to my lab," he says before she and Kyle get to work. She attaches the canister to a small spray nozzle and looks around.

"See the storage rack? Look for a green or bluish powder. If it's sat out for more than a few days, it'll be a dull gray color by now. Assuming someone was careless.” She didn't have to look far, though. She sees a distinct bluish powder. She snaps her fingers to get Kyle's attention. She turns off the overhead lights, and sees the telltale faint glow of the mana primer. It’s still fresh, maybe within the past two days of being cracked open from the casing. Normally, mana primer just releases its energy into the air, unless it is encased in protective vessels.

Kyle comes over with his tools and shines a black light on the powder. It fluoresces brilliantly. "Okay, someone took it out of the original casing and spilled some. Now what?"

"Now we find out how much it's decayed." She sprays a small portion of the powder, and it quickly turns magenta, then indigo. She takes her small multimeter kit and uses the voltage setting, and takes a quick reading. She pulls out her notebook and looks at her calculations.

"It worked?"

"Yep. According to the reading here, the material was stolen last night, based on the voltage, around… eleven-fifteen in the evening. Definitely past working hours." She surveys the inventory levels, noting nothing else of worth is missing. "That mana primer will decay at a slower rate, but they're going to lose a lot of effectiveness. Half the cost is the containment vessel. Once you make alchemical potions, it's a lot more stable, and the shelf life goes up exponentially.”

“So why would they bother taking it out of the casing?” Kyle whispers. She shakes her head.

“Maybe for traceability. If they got caught with it, it would raise red flags. Better to store it in something discreet, something more portable that looks like someone’s coffee container or a thermos mug. Those casings are heavy, remember?” She examines around the room, looking for other clues. “Go talk to Reeves, see if anyone logged in from about nine and onwards. Emptying the casings into a separate vessel would have taken a little while.”

While Kyle goes to bother the tech, Joey looks at the vent by the wall, noting the paneling looks a little bent. Almost as if someone had torn it out, and then bent it back into shape, in an attempt to hide the damage. A single bolt looks like it isn’t tightened in all the way. She spots a small cart for moving items around the facility, brings it just under the vent, and hits the friction brake to lock it into place.

She’s glad she never gave up her gymnastics from the age of four and onwards, because it helps her keep her balance on the wobbly cart. She looks back, and hears Kyle talking to Reeves in the other room, asking about security footage. She looks over at the vent, and unscrews the bolt before pulling it back and peering inside.

It’s dark, dusty, and smells like cigarettes–it’s like the smell never comes out, even though smoke-free facilities have been the norm for decades now. Waving the stale air away from her nose does nothing, and she peers down both directions and measures the size. It’s barely enough to fit her, but she could crawl or crouch and walk down the vent if needed.

What’s more telling is that there are disturbances in the dust. Like someone has been on their hands and knees, scuffing along. There hasn’t been time for dust to re-accumulate, either. It’s distinct enough that someone might have done the same thing more than once. She looks at the vent cover, and smiles. There’s a jagged edge that caught a piece of fabric.

It’s part of a uniform! She quickly places it in a spare alchemical canister on her belt. She’d been tempted to belt on her new hopper and distribution system, but it’s still sitting on her bench at the lab–her prototype, and the labor of about four solid months of intermittent work. She closes the vent, and deliberately leaves the bolt in the same position she found it, and hops off the cart with a graceful landing.

If there’s one thing I miss about being a kitsune all the time, it’s the incredible acrobatics. All I have to do to make that happen is change the hearts and minds of half the Conclave, and I can do that in public without being heckled away or accused of being a mind thief, she thinks sardonically. Kyle and Reeves walk back into the room, and she decides to keep the information tight-lipped for now. “So, what do you two have?”

“No one badged in. Not forwards, not backward, for four hours either way, and I don’t see anyone on surveillance,” Reeves admits, and Kyle rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, with you on security, I can see why. Someone walked off with almost fifty thousand Euros of mana primer, and we’d better figure out who, or Zameren will never let anyone get a requisition request ever again without going through it with a fine-toothed comb. Joey, what are your findings?”

“Well, nothing much. But I noticed that along with the fuse cores, we’re missing some silvering equipment, very minor stuff.” Reeves scratches his head. “C’mon, Reeves, silvering equipment. You can use it for tracing runes and writing arcane programming. The stuff that most magitech uses to function?”

“Oh. Uh, I knew that,” he replies. Judging by his delayed response, he doesn't, but she doesn't feel like pushing it. “I’ll have to check to see what the other logs are printing. It’s so weird that this stuff vanished.”

“Yes, go do that for us. Can you give me and Kyle a minute?” Joey asks. Reeves sucks in his breath through his teeth, then walks back to his station without another word. “So, Kyle. Know what I think?” she asks in a low tone.

“No, I don’t.”

“Someone is using the vents for egress. Very recently. And they’re missing a piece of uniform." She quietly shows him the sample in her canister, and he looks at it intensely for a minute.

“Looks like the color matches a maintenance uniform. It’s possibly from the roving crews we get from time to time. It’s someone who’s worked here before, but not necessarily someone we see regularly. But who?”

“Well, it looks like a torn sleeve or legging, based on the fabric and seams. So, if we find a chunked uniform, we’ll have our suspect. Lavernius?”

“Don't focus on it. Remember, Drenar thinks King was deliberately feeding information. It could be a misdirect, which means we keep an open field of suspects. We can still possibly trace the uniform.”

“Assuming they didn’t toss it or burn it the second they did their nefarious deeds,” he counters forcefully. “We’ll have to check the schematics. These ducts connect to almost everywhere in the facility. You could almost crawl from one end of Asqualia to the other without being seen, in theory. Kinda scary, when you think about it.”

“No one’s invading our home, Kyle. Not Crosomer, not the crazy dragon bitch that Drenar and Nick mentioned, and not that sneaky espionage master, King,” she counters firmly. They’d need to think this through, they have a narrower list of suspects, and a rough timing of the theft. But was that all they needed? "Kyle, that trail of disturbed dust could lead us to their ingress point. I'm…going to need you to run interference for a bit. You need to turn off the surveillance for about ten minutes."

"Um, please tell me you're not crawling through the ducts. That sounds like a bad idea.” She shrugs lightly.

"It's a fantastic idea. Plus, when I find their egress point, I might be able to chemically test for a few other things. Like for instance, what species they are, and other general characteristics."

"Or, instead of crawling through ducts, let's send something a little more capable and discreet." He pulls out an observer golem, which is hopping excitedly in his palm.

"Sure Kyle, ruin my moment of sleuthing," she sighs before motioning at the duct. "Then again, I wasn't looking forward to that, either. I'd have to go to my uh…other form for that. It's a little tight for me as-is."

"Huh. Didn't honestly think about that." He leaves an awkward pause. "Are you claustrophobic?"

"Uh, strangely, only when I'm in my human form. But only a little," she adds. "I'm weird, I know. I could be a living case study of the quirks of meta-magical beings with shapeshifting capabilities."

"It's not weird at all in the grand scheme of things. That said, let's see where it goes." He glances at the door, pops open the vent, and deposits the golem which hops up and down before he seals it shut again. "Alright. Let's head back to my room, and figure out where the tracks go. Wait here, little buddy."

The golem gives a primitive 'thumbs up' in response.