Jolene had been very right. She'd thought that the other two repositories of knowledge she'd visited were bad; one had been a straight up decommissioned library and the other nothing more than a spare closet. While that spare closet had been the most informative, since it contained many studies the Nash had conducted on the wildlife of the region as well as their cattle, it was a poor representation of the city itself as a whole.
The opposite was the case for the Zebelos' archive. Everything she found, at least in the five cabinets she looked through, spoke of the city in some fashion. Overwhelmingly so. On top of that, the only thing that even resembled a system for the archive was time. Reports of the number of Cloth Muscle cloaks distributed, heads of cattle wrangled for the Nash and mercenary contracts with the Clansmen were all intermingled together. The time factor hadn't even become apparent until Jolene found two similarly formatted orders for potatoes grown with dates of harvest around the same time but on two opposite years. She then had to cross reference all the other harvest documents she could find, verifying that roughly each year filled two filing cabinets with the single sheet reports.
She was sure she looked like a madwoman. Single, double and triple dog-eared tabs marked the general 'section' where she'd pulled information to corroborate her system even as she dove deeper into forming a timeline of the last ten years of Zebelos operations. While not exactly a one to one comparison, she was able to draw from her experience managing her family's fishing efforts with the smaller scale harvests that the Zebelos were in charge of. It was while scribbling out labels for the cabinets on her side of the room that Billy plopped down at her desk. Drifted would have been a more apt description considering the silent slide his ethereal legs allowed, but the motion itself was unmistakable.
"Lunch?"
"Oh, didn't realize you had lunch with you," Jolene coughed, cheeks coloring at the fact that if it was lunch time she'd been sorting things for almost four hours.
"Danny hooked me up with some sandwiches. Said if I kept them in a vacuum of cloud they would stay warm longer." The cloak of clouds, which Jolene had been thinking Billy kept active for training or 'because it made him look dope' unfurled to reveal four diagonally cut sandwiches with perfect grill marks on them. Thin wisps of warmth still curled from the digestive offerings of their heaven sent chef friend.
"Oh, bless that woman. I could kiss her!" Jolene said, not hesitating to shove a sandwich wedge in her mouth. It only took a second for her stomach to make its displeasure at being ignored known, and with the food right before her it was all she could do not to choke as she chewed.
"I think that would land you in trouble with both Devon and Ron," Billy said, smiling at the mermaid's enthusiasm. He'd been snacking on other stuff while conducting his own less structured search, but he knew how focused Jolene could get. Funny, how much she complements Master Terrigan, the elf thought with an internal laugh.
"They'd get over it. Ron is used to her cooking and Devon is getting spoiled," Jolene mumbled through her food, using a quick burst of
"Not a problem. Already found some interesting stuff. Nothing like what we are looking for, but definitely a nice change of pace. I could have gone back to the library, but reading non-fiction when our lives are filled with so much magic is actually kind of engaging. I get why Dai talked about his book collection so much."
"I'll be honest. I just thought that if we didn't get out of there we would have had to break up a fight between Danny and Sam. Samuel was ready to strangle her for her trip to that hidden bar and I don't think having a night to cool off helped."
Billy nodded very seriously, grabbing another of the sandwiches. "He's getting scary good with that vine cloak of his. Feels like it's always watching me or something."
"Enough about that. Go on, tell me what you found. I mostly got stuck in the rabbit hole of when and where things happened so I have been looking for specific documents."
"Oh, yes! Let me tell you. Radolfo used to have a mullet!" Billy said, leaving his sandwich hovering on a little cloud as he rushed back to where he'd been reading. In a flash that didn't send a single atom of dust stirring he was back with an aged picture of a Pre-Fall Zebelos. Sure enough, the old patriarch was all business in the front and party in the back while talking to some reporter on the front page of the Ocala Gazette.
"'Son of self-made millionaire Luca Zebelos set to inherit eight different distribution warehouses following his father's untimely passing.' Wow, I didn't realize the Zebelos were already a big deal before the Fall," Jolene said.
"Makes sense. If people recognize you, it makes it easier to come together," Billy added. "I've got a few other silly ones from before the Fall if you want to see?"
The mermaid smiled, taking another bite of sandwich. "I would love to, Billy."
-- + --
"There's definitely some tension between the Factions," Jolene said, tapping her immaculate nail against the latest folders that had been added. One was so recent it had actually been filed the day of the Hog Parade, noting the winners of the competitions and many of the stand out competitors. Since the Bunker Busters and the Zebelos peacekeepers had been embroiled in the mysterious warnings of the Air Tendril, the flier celebrating their victory had gone completely unnoticed. That wasn't, of course, without mentioning the hurricane breathing down the city's collective back.
"I'll second that," Billy said, extracting himself from a shelf that seemed to be filled with dry rotted cardboard and random folders. "The Clansmen can't seem capable of not fighting the first thing that looks their way."
"Says here that they still tried to get a petition signed to dismiss the results of our Parade since it had a team made up of foreigners. Foreigners! We actually live like fifteen miles away. Just because one of those miles is taken up by a rapid flowing river full of aquatic beasts doesn't mean we are from separate countries."
"The school house in Wildwood would disagree," Billy said, making a tsk tsk sound while wagging his finger at the older Fallen. "The old world used to be divided by arbitrary lines in the sand. Some of those followed natural features, like rivers, but nothing stopped them from just drawing a line in the sand and calling us foreigners."
Jolene grumbled, rubbing at her temples. "I suppose if Wildwood ever encroached on the other towns something similar might have happened. That doesn't mean it makes any more actual sense."
"Yeah. Now that you mention it, that matches some of what Mr. Zebelos told us happened with Ocala. Because of the attacks like what our towns suffer from monster Territories, they probably had land disputes." A frown crossed Billy's face. "There seems to be plenty of space in the city, so maybe it isn't that."
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"I'm sure there's more. Just think of the edges of the city being buffers. You'd want to push those out and out as much as you could so you'd be safe in the middle. It's a gradient of value."
"Hmmm, yeah. I'll see if I can find out anything about how the city grew."
"Good plan. I don't think I'll get anything more recent unfortunately. I think the city's opinion is in our favor but... One folder of things from this month is hardly enough for me to form a picture of the political climate. " Jolene sighed.
"Careful. You probably made Master Terrigan shiver just by uttering those two words," Billy said, chuckling. Jolene let out a soft laugh, replacing the folders she'd been leafing through and moving on to the next.
-- + --
"Found an entry on the Crystal Wards," Billy said, almost two hours after the pair had taken their lunch break.
The youth had mostly been looking for interesting things while Jolene focused on piecing together her timeline. It was actually a surprisingly effective system, as it provided some context for the things they'd experienced in Wildwood over the years. The fact that Eurus had come some ten years prior lined up with one of the worst winters Jolene could remember. Her parents had had to practically whack people away from Lake Sumter's shores lest the lake get overfished because people were hungry due to destroyed crops. It was not a nice time.
"Which cabinet is it in?" Jolene said, seeing Billy was already more than halfway towards the back of the room.
"Looks like... about twenty years ago? There was one of these conferences that Ron is trying to get put together. One of the early ones if I'm understanding this right. Matches what the old man told us, and some of the locations I already connected Hec with," Billy said, slapping document after document onto his clouds as if they were glued on. It was an interesting application she hadn't seen him use before, but considering he was using a Freeform adaptation of his
"So when they first splintered the Metier Crystal?" Jolene asked, trying to find the closest reference for time based on the drawer Billy had pulled the newsletter from. Instead, she found something that brought a frown to her face. "A pamphlet to join the Breakers?"
It was a crude rendition, clearly not using the stamp press that most fliers and documents the Zebelos stored had. A fiery teen was depicted front and center, fist in hand. 'Break the norms, find your future with us!' it read.
"I'd eat my clouds that's Sargon, or whatever he was called before," Billy said, tapping the teen.
"This could be something, but I doubt Ocala was working with the Tendrils at this point. From what I've heard of Kirby's involvement in Wildwood, they couldn't track any disappearances until maybe fifteen or ten years ago. Of course, Ocala was bigger and some stuff probably slipped through the cracks but..."
"You think the Tendrils weren't strong enough to start changing stuff?"
"That would be my guess. I know our progress through the levels has sky rocketed, but that's because of the Entity's help and the large number of Attuned creatures we've fought. Even ten years ago they weren't as prolific as today, it was just that the ones that got any levels were running rampant through our defenses."
"Makes sense. I remember Sam talking about Attuned plants. They started popping up left and right as soon as we dealt with the Death Crow and that Aberrant. The Mana Shards too. Do you think... do you think Hec's splintering was the catalyst for Ocala?"
"I don't know, but this is at least a good point to have. What are the chances that they weaken their Entity and then the Breakers grow up to become as strong a Faction as they are?"
"I'll keep digging," Billy said, some of the whimsy he'd been holding while looking for facts withering under the first fragment of a clue.
She wasn't much older than the elf, but his generation had managed to stay kids longer than hers due to the Wild Guard. That she watched him grow up before her eyes was a bittersweet feeling; one that unfortunately she didn't feel she could curtail much. The warning from the Tendril delivered right into his hands and then their subsequent death had hit the youth more than he let on. She'd hoped to excavate out some of those feelings, but instead had found a wall of determination parallel to Ronan's. That part wasn't surprising, but the extent it had grown was.
Jolene sighed, accepting the moment had passed, and resumed her search.
-- + --
"Hey, I found another entry on those acidic cows!" Jolene said, tapping the filing cabinet she was elbow deep in.
"Saw two more earlier on. Seems like they were able to figure out how to keep that from happening more often as the years went by," Billy said, his voice echoing strangely since it was inside one of the cabinets.
"They mentioned the Shaman getting involved. Wonder how that helped considering she's not got a Life Attunement," Jolene said, scanning the rest of the leaflet before tucking it back.
"Probably something to do with Shards," Billy dismissed with a grunt. The two fell back into a terse silence, Jolene's attempt to improve the atmosphere falling flat.
-- + --
"Oh, this is interesting. It's a flier advertising a home brewed mead to be sold in McMoney," Billy said, squinting as he tried to read some of the more faded lines of ink. "'Frosty Mulberry Surprise'. That doesn't sound suspicious at all."
"What year?" Jolene asked, temporarily abandoning her position at the desk to join the elf. She didn't wait for a response and instead dove to double check the records, finding a dated entry for 'watermelons harvested from North Field H'. "Looks like fifteen years ago."
"Hmmm, could be something, could be nothing. I'll stick to these next two cabinets and see if I see anything else interesting.”
-- + --
"Okay, nothing specifically suspicious but this is now the fifth alcohol-related or adjacent flier I've found," Billy said. He eyed the labels Jolene had left after finishing her rough timeline of cabinets. "Over the course of a year. It could be a change relative to the level of safety in the city but..."
"I wish there were tax records here," the mermaid said in frustration, not moving from the desk. "I know there have to be some, but I think they are running ledgers for each of the Factions individually. The Zebelos only recorded what they taxed their craftsmen and farmers. They don't deal with any alcohol distribution even if April told us they don't inhibit it."
"I'll keep looking. Let me put some charcoal marks on these," Billy retrieved one of the pencils Jolene had been using, notching the relevant cabinet and the one where he'd found Hec's splintering. He didn't return the pencil, instead placing it in the slowly growing, drifting wall of cloud stuff he'd set up to hover around him while he worked. The only sounds in the room were the leafing of paper and the soft breathing of two very determined Warriors.
-- + --
Thunder shook the windows of the bottling plant office, prompting the two Bunker Busters to pause and glare at the ceiling. They were already spending much more time at the archive than they'd originally intended, but the results had been much more comprehensive than their previous two stops. Already there was a growing line of marks on the cabinets leading to the present day. Nothing was concrete, just calls for further policing of certain areas and transportation deals for things moving through Zebelos warehouses. A reported brawl stopped by newly established Cloth Muscles. A second Faction Conference where a second round of fragmentation of Hec's main body was discussed, which subsequently showed an increase in the 'night life' of the city.
It was too many small things for it to be coincidence, even if none of it was a smoking gun. But they did find a shell casing.
"This... It's the first anti-Partial propaganda," Billy whispered. Had Jolene's Perception not grown as much thanks to her Traits and Level, she would have missed his words over the roar of the storm. "They talk about the first kid that was afflicted in the city. A seven year old with ice fingers. They called him 'a sign of what's to come'."
"Billy?" Her timeline was abandoned the moment she spotted his quivering hands, and the quiet zaps of the brewing storm his legs had become.
"I'd seen a few of these in the later years, but this one has to be the earliest. It came out only a year after the second splintering."
Jolene zeroed in on the cabinet in question. A chill crawled up her back as her eyes spotted something most peculiar. The drawer the youth had been pulling from was mostly empty, its relative position only kept in place due to the chronological order the Zebelos kept. However, the reason for the emptiness was plain as day. Scorch marks. The thin metal of the cabinets was warped slightly, the usually rusted and flaky paint marked by thermochromism. She'd seen her fair share from the craw traps the Wildwood smiths made with recycled metals.
"Recheck through this, Billy. I'll take the next one," Jolene said, not highlighting her suspicion to the elf. Something in her tone, however, spoke volumes and he set his hands to the task.