When Professor Barnes entered the hospital, he found that Professor Randall Collins, headmaster of the Anderson House was there with Professor Dorothea Clarkson and Glenda Grimes. Also sitting at the corner of the room was the current head of Campus Security, Mr. Benjamin Flake, a kind, laid back and even slightly unmotivated looking man in a long white robe with light blue linings.
“What’s the intel? And why are we gathered here?” Professor Barnes asked.
“Because of the kind of information that I received, I can’t really use any other place to debrief to you without raising suspicions.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson said: “And almost all of us here have contributed to making this room secure. It’d make perfect sense.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I thought you guys already had it, so I decided to just sit back and let you do it.” Benjamin Flake yawned and raised his hand: “But let me know if you want to fortify it more.”
“Okay, Dorothea, let’s hear it.” Professor Kapur sighed and said: “The longer all of you stay here, the more people are going to get suspicious, which will totally defeat the purpose of meeting here.”
“Sorry, Professor. ” Professor Dorothea Clarkson took out a scroll from her robe, then with a wave of her hand, the scroll turned into multiple identical ones, just enough for everyone in the room: “This is a recording of someone who came to me this morning. This person, whose identity I will not disclose right now, came asking for shelter from harm and offered important intelligence in exchange. Now, don’t ask me why they came to me and not anyone else in this room, I would not answer that. And I tested the testimony to the best of my abilities, so I believe this person is being truthful.”
“This is quite a long testimony.” Benjamin Flake opened the scroll, took a quick look and asked with a lazy voice and tone: “You’ve recorded quite a lot of details. Can you give us a quick summary, please? I am not good at reading, which is why I am just a security guard.”
“That’s what I’m gonna do right now, Mr. Flake.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson squeezed out a smile and said, then she turned to everyone: “Okay, everyone, please keep this in this room. The scrolls will be locked once you open them and can only be opened by yourself.
“As you all know, there are quite a lot of spies in the academy, and the administration all knew about their presence, and for quite a while, there was this fragile but tacit agreement that they are allowed to operate in this campus as long as they abide by certain rules. But the circulation of contaminated materials which led to an academy wise lockdown had brought these arrangements into question. But, since Headmasters and Headmistress are typically barred from knowing too much detail about these arrangements, we were put into a very passive and difficult position. All of us had the same suspicion that this was the doing of some of the spies, but instead of launching an investigation ourselves, Principal Hawke decided to outsource and he ended up trusting the wrong parties.
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“Professor Barnes and Professor Collins launched their investigation, and I had launched mine. We were all able to find different things that were wrong, but what was still missing was something that connects our findings to the whole picture.
“And this informant that came to me actually had some of the information that we needed. This is because, they were once a spy, serving one of the newer groups that had infiltrated the academy. And the group they belonged to was once very active in the academy as well. But ever since what happened, they started getting hunted and systematically wiped out, since the balance amongst different groups had been broken, and there were no checks against the actions of the stronger and older groups.”
“What was this particular group of spies doing in our academy?” Professor Barnes asked.
“Cultivating Kekugora Mushrooms using our student hunting grounds, and coordinating the trafficking of Kandera Wyvern bones, in and out of the academy grounds.”
“What!?” “Shit!” multiple individuals in the current room cursed at almost the same time.
“Those are the exact materials that contaminated the materials for fireworks and even other things and even food sources right?” Professor Kapur said: “They gave me and my toxicology lab quite a lot of trouble.”
“Exactly. ” Professor Dorothea nodded: “But those are highly sought after materials, especially the Kekugora Mushrooms that are cultivated in our student hunting ground - apparently some of the rangers involved were skimming the materials sold to the academy and using them as some kind of special fertilizers. And apparently, if one were to treat the Kandera Wyvern bones with grounded Kekugora Mushrooms mixed with some other material, it will quadruple the value.”
“So it would not make sense to actually spread it, unless for a very very good reason.” Professor Randall Collins nodded and said: “I had the same question as well, these materials are toxic, but they are far from the best toxins for sabotage or assassinations, nor are they the easiest to conceal or use. Plus, we had multiple incidents of exposure and poisoning, and some of which were indeed very severe. But the incidents of exposure were mostly relatively minor at first, and then it got more and more severe. If the materials were indeed circulated due to mere contamination, the more severe ones should be popping up first.”
“Yes, you hit the nail on the head.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson snapped her fingers: “According to my informant - it’s because the incidents were indeed initially due to the circulation of contaminated material, but it was mostly small dosages due to them being spread thin. The more serious ones were intentional sabotages from rival groups of the spies, in order to muddy the water and frame them.”
“Which means, this informant’s group was responsible for the initial circulation?” Professor Barnes asked.
“Yes. And apparently, it was an accident.”