A New Star Chapter 119 (Patreon)

Francesca Dimitri

Working for Alexandra had been…interesting, so far. That was probably the best way to put it without coming across as at least a little bit offensive, but it had not been all that long and it had already been a whirlwind of activity. Training in the capital, which had somehow morphed into more training at the Grand Duke’s estate, which immediately led into exploration of the Wilds. As if all that wasn’t enough of a crazy whirlwind, then we were suddenly back in the capital before winding up in Cambria, all in the space of a couple days. Things around my new liege lady really moved quite quickly, and it was gratifying in a way that she simply expected the others to perform their jobs and stay focused.

I was learning a lot just on my own at this point in Cambria, though discussions with the others at the end of every day and in the mornings helped clarify some things. The hardest thing was trying to track the movement of goods without any kind of official position; guards or investigators could look into some record officially, nobles of that city or county could examine certain things without a magistrates order, and a known crime would have let us get that magistrate’s order. Without any of that, it was all just talking and trying to wiggle my way around the situation, to get merchants to tell me what they were buying and selling and how much. Luckily, Alex had given me a small budget to be able to toss a couple coins around to grease some of the merchants’ palms, but it was still an endeavor in frustration, though I was certainly learning quite a bit.

Reporting to Alex was also a learning in many ways, including just the experience of meeting with her. I still had no idea what kind of affinity she had that let her just appear places, though it was obviously related to shadow or darkness in some manner. It was quite unnerving when she would just appear out of nowhere, though experiencing it tens of times was starting to make it a little less startling and frightening. Our meeting the night before had been the same, with Alex simply walking out of a solid wall, opposite the only door into the room on the second floor where we discussed the current issues.

And speaking of the current issue, I wasn’t really finding anything much new. We knew there was smuggling, and that the smugglers were only a small portion of goods moving, which made them a little easier to track down than one might expect. Still, I was having a lot of trouble because the smugglers we were looking for were part of some crazy cult and weren’t using exactly standard methods to sneak things into the city, nor to store those goods they snuck in. I had, amusingly enough, found two merchants working with what I thought of as ‘regular’ smugglers so far, but nobody had anything that linked them to necromancy or the darker arts.

I was definitely going to have to change up my tactics, and Alex had given us permission to be a little more…direct. I knew that she had made me an offer based on our aligned interests, but she had also had a great interest in my spectral affinity, much like everyone else that had reached out in any manner. With that affinity, I was far less limited than many others in both what I could do and what I could see, though it was just unfortunate that my particular affinity didn’t have any overlap with death or other such magics. Alex was the only one of us that could get a real good sense of what we were hunting unless we were right next to a very strong source, and that hadn’t happened to anyone else so far.

I was in a much more rundown shop than the others I had visited, which might seem strange, but a fancy establishment was often more likely to employ some less-than-legal methods for getting their goods shipped in than small, poor shop. Even with the goods we were dealing with at the moment, I expected anyone that might be trading or selling them would be in a much nicer part of town than somewhere remote, simply due to the nature of personal influence that was at play.

I was mostly right in that assumption, but there was something rather interesting in this store. Not directly in the store itself, but the place didn’t have any kind of cellar access or hatch or door on the first floor that was unaccounted for. After asking the shop owner a couple questions and giving him a large copper coin to look into something for me, I moved around the building, checking the back with my regular sight as well as my affinities. It was still like I had seen at first, no access below the building, but my sense for space that came mostly from my spectral affinity being able to manipulate objects remotely was painting a different, rather odd picture. There was a void in the ground, a decent few feet down, and not one connected to any sewers or anything. It felt like the merchant had a basement under his shop, but one rather far down and…not accessible from the shop? That didn’t make sense.

I was careful to not look too suspicious as I moved around, but I took time to check the entire neighborhood just to double-check. The first thing I did was walk the nearby streets and scan to see if I could feel anything other than the handful of sewer tunnels in this part of town, but I wasn’t finding anything. There were no strange rooms or large voids around here, so I returned to the shop, or the area around the shop, as I wasn’t going to go back in. True, the merchant could have a hidden trapdoor inside, but I knew a few ways to scan for such things, and I also couldn’t see or feel a tunnel or shaft leading down to the empty space, which either meant the climb down was shielded from detection but not the room, or the merchant didn’t know about his strange basement. I was betting on the latter, but I checked again to make sure.

With no obvious tunnels leading down, I had to walk around for a bit and try to map out any tunnels leading in. The only way to get to that room would be from underground, from the sewers or old smuggler tunnels, but I was becoming more confused as I couldn’t feel or find anything like that. I let loose a heavy sigh, because if my affinities were failing me, the only way to figure out what was going on was going to be getting a little more…hands on in my approach.

I found an entrance to the sewers through a small municipal building down the street, something that was locked, but I was quite good with simple locks. It turns out I didn’t need to be, which spiked my suspicions quite a bit; the lock had already been picked or twisted and set to open but placed to look like it was still sealed. I made sure there weren’t any eyes on me, which was easier said than done in this section of town, then slipped into the already open building. It was only two rooms, a small entrance and a slightly larger workroom that had a hatch and a ladder down into the sewers, and I scanned to make sure there were no people, or sensors, present before opening the also-unlocked hatch and making my way down the ladder.

Fortunately, I had good equipment, some of which I had from graduating the academy, and some of which Alex had provided. Her help mainly was alchemical instruments, though she had examined both my weapons and armor and made a few noises that I thought were disapproving, though she didn’t actually command me to change them. I wore a thin chain armor under my dress with a leather backing coupled together with a set of pants that had armoring for the thighs. I had always preferred tall boots and mine went up to the knee and had armoring made from the shells of certain insects built into the leather. Finally, I had gloves with similar small, armored carapace that was sandwiched into the leather and covered part of my forearms. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to rely on it down here, but I was always ready to fight when I was out.

Climbing down the ladder, I pulled out a slim stone that shone with a warm light, something much better than a lantern for exploring dark tunnels and caves. Carefully making my way forward, I stepped around some debris on the ground, seeing it was just a small stack of stone from some repair work that the city workers hadn’t bothered cleaning up. Moving into the sewer tunnels themselves, I walked down the street, back towards where the merchant’s shop was located. One would think this would be a pretty simple thing, just walking down and checking the room and then slipping back out of the sewers, but I didn’t have that kind of luck.

The tunnel I was in ran under the whole street, and there were clearly homes that linked to it, based on not just the current smell, but the movement of some water down into the main trough in the center. I was trying very hard not to think about what those fluids were or where they came from, and in that manner I reached the merchant’s quite quickly. The unfortunate thing was his shop had a piped linking into the tunnel and nothing else. Checking the area, I could feel the hidden room, but I couldn’t see any indication of a tunnel, door, or even hidden door or secret wall that would open up. Such a thing could be done by magic, of course, but having such hidden walls be of a magic nature was rather wasteful of mana and magic inscriptions; a mundane hidden door almost always was more practical and economical.

I couldn’t find anything, but I could still feel the empty area, still assuming there was a room there, and so I started to explore. I did not want to think about the things I was stepping over at various points while walking around down here, but I did keep my eyes open and make sure there were no beasts or animals that would attack me. The biggest danger was rats, as with any city, but I didn’t encounter any of them, nor any mice or other similar creatures one might expect underground. The tunnels were, in fact, quite empty and quiet, which was not comforting, but caused rather a disquiet within me.

I finally found a clue after twenty minutes of walking back and forth and searching the surrounding tunnels. Within a tunnel further down was an access, a ladder leading down, which was a bit strange, as I had not thought the sewers here were multi-leveled, but I took the ladder down again. There was a much older tunnel down here, one that didn’t run the exact same configuration as the tunnel or street above, but I soon realized that it was an older tunnel that was part of the storm drains. Likely it was useful still to have these for the rains in the fall and for if there were problems or blockages in the current sewers.

This tunnel got me much farther; not farther afield, mind, but farther towards my goal, as it went at a different angle, passing by the void in a different manner. I was careful to monitor for footsteps and scuff marks and such things; it wouldn’t do to stumble around carelessly and stumble right into a group of smugglers or the like down here. Though I was confident in my combat capabilities, I thought discretion was the key to what we were doing in the city so far.

The void was still there to my senses as I stopped right by where it should be, though the tunnel didn’t directly intersect it. Here, though, there was a more obvious clue, as the tunnel passed a section of wall that was colored just a bit different. I might have noticed, had I not been searching for it already, and had I not taken time to stop and careful check the bricks and mortar. It was pretty clear what it was, but the question was how to activate it, and if I even should. Finding something like this was dangerous, and having one of the others with me would be a big help. We were still getting to know Angela, but she was solid in a fight and rather strong, and Cain was simply a mountain of mana and flesh. That said nothing of our lady herself, who I was pretty sure was on the same kind of level as the instructors at the academy, and those men and women were lauded as some of the strongest and fiercest in the whole country.

The decision was taken out of my hands when I accidentally found the entrance, or the piece that opened the entrance, pushing a brick just so and hearing a click. I hadn’t even been trying such a thing but had only been trying to figure out what was part of the door and what wasn’t. I waited a moment, the door having only opened a few inches and stopped, waiting to see if there was any kind of movement or noise from within or further down the tunnels. When I heard and felt nothing, I carefully pulled the door open and shown my light in first, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

What I saw within the room was disgusting, but confirmed that I was now firmly on the right track. Laid out on slabs in the room were nearly a dozen corpses, some of them looking to be rather fresh, while others had been here a while. Strangely, the smell was not so bad, but I realized I was smelling some type of embalming fluid or the like rather quickly. The corpses were being preserved, at least temporarily, and stored down here for something, though what that something was, I only had guesses. I was very careful in entering, not wanting to disturb anything in the room, especially the bodies themselves.

Looking around quickly, I found very little else in the room. There were a few tools, though they were strange themselves, seemingly carved of ivory or some type of bone. Besides that, there were some jars and bottles with heavens only knew what kind of fluids or things in, and a few small bags, though the bags had a suspicious smell. The question was, what to do with it? I could go report to Alex, but I didn’t want someone to realize I had been here and move things without my having grabbed any evidence. In light of that, I quickly swiped a selection of small bottles, though only three, and grabbed a few pieces of paper that were on the small table in the corner that all the bottles and jars had been set on. I made sure there weren’t any other obvious signs of my passage before carefully slipping out of the room, checking the tunnel before stepping out and letting the secret door swing shut behind me.

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