In the darkened hallway of the mouldering building, Yttrius moved on silent feet. Suspicious eyes watched him pass, but quickly flickered away when he swept his cloak aside to reveal a blade. The enlil moved with purpose, his black feathers given a sickly green sheen by the light. After pausing at a door and giving a patterned knock, it opened and he was admitted to the sparse, but surprisingly clean room.
Inside there were three figures, a laicar who was nearly as broad as he was tall, another enlil with variegated feathers and a scarred, battered velen with rough brownish scales. Yttrius glanced at them, meeting their hard gazes one at a time. “You are lucky that I slipped through the net of the Quaestorii. The others have been caught. We cannot allow the plans to fail!”
The laicar snorted. “Who are you to tell us what to do? You are hardly proclaimed as one who can lead within the organization.”
Yttrius turned his cold, red eyed gaze on the man. “I am the one who can make this device function, remember?”
The slab-like man snarled at him. “The Vis will punish your insolence. You are not sanctified. It is on the sufferance of the prophet Deimar that your people are permitted to be part of the Solaviskar church.”
Leaning forward, the gnarled velen made a chopping motion with his hand. “Enough! We aren’t here to bicker like old women! What do you have to tell us, Yttrius?”
The raven-feathered enlil cleared his throat. “I need one more thing before the plan can be acted upon. We must use our inside man to gain access to the Quaestorium’s evidence store. There is a tablet within it that is needed to activate the device as it contains the full directions for its operation.”
The velen nodded. “I agree. It is a risk but we can’t afford not to take it.”
Both men looked to the bull-necked laicar for confirmation and he sighed. “If we must take the risk, we must take the risk. There is little else that we can do. The next phase of the plan cannot happen until that point is reached.”
Yttrius’ razor-edged smile opened like a bloody gash again. “I am glad you can grasp the importance of this device.”
The hard-eyed velen turned to glower at him. “You arrogance is unbecoming of one of the lowest of the races.”
It seemed to take a great deal of effort for the enlil to gain control of himself, but he managed to keep his face neutral. “I humbly apologize for overstepping my bounds. I am just eager to carry out the mission and return the Vis to the place of importance that is so crucial.”
The massive laicar rumbled at him. “Have a care not to offend Them. They will not forgive you if you are mocking them.”
The trio stayed talking for several more minutes before they each broke off and left by separate entrances, staggered by ten minutes. There was much for them to do and time was growing short.
Laermont had thrown his dragnet for Yttrius wide over the expanse of Terminus, but progress could hardly have been called rapid. The city was a warren of potential boltholes and no matter how good the Quaestorii were, time was not on their side. If Yttrius was any good, he would have the easier path through the situation. The one thing that the detective force did have was dogged determination and no one was more dogged than Laermont.
Today, as in every other day, Laermont had called a briefing. The other detectives filed in and lined up, each ready to present their report. As the massive metallic-skinned man sat, seemingly in rapt attention, all of the data began to roll in.
When the reports were done, the lead Quaestor rose to his feet, looming over the assembled investigators. He glanced with flashing eye plates across the room and spoke in his stentorian tones. “As the days have passed, we are accumulating more leads as to the suspect’s whereabouts. It is a slow and painstaking process, but we all know that Terminus is a very large amount of territory to cover.”
He paused, glanced around at his assembled force and continued. “However, we are also building a very useful picture of the Solaviskar organization. It is far more extensive and insidious than I would have originally credited. I believe it represents a clear and present danger to the city of Terminus and perhaps far outside of it. While capturing the suspect remains a priority, we are also learning that a much larger plot is likely afoot.”
The detective glanced across to meet his partner’s gaze and the younger quaestor rose to speak. “As far as we can tell, the device that was obtained as a result of the murder is some sort of weapon to be used against demvir. The Solaviskar’s animosity…well, hatred really…of the demvir is famous and now they appear to have armed themselves to do something about it.”
She continued. “Yttrius is the key because not only do we believe that he may be the murderer, but evidence is mounting in favour of the idea that he also has an understanding of how to use this weapon.”
The younger detective sat down again after speaking quietly to a solemn, gaunt looking middle-aged enlil who stood and made her way forward to face the assembled crowd. She nervously toyed with the papers in her hands before finally looking out at the crowd of detectives. “Um…hello…yes…my name is Millius Foria and I…um…am a scholar of Cataclysm history at Sapientia Coetus. I’m here today to speak about the tablet and the device it accompanies.”
Once she had warmed to her topic, Millius visibly relaxed. “The device is a pre-cataclysm object that appears designed to disrupt some internal element in demvir. We are not entirely sure what it does, but the end result is a sort of paralysis that locks a demvir in. I have read the tablet that accompanies the device and I can assure you that the effect would be utterly devastating on a demvir. Unfortunately, the person who appears to possess this device is someone with whom I am acquainted. I fear that his expertise in the area is indeed deep and I also feel that he would have committed murder to get his hands on it.”
Millius went on to explain that Yttrius had been a respected researcher into the Cataclysm, but when his Solaviskar views were revealed he had been shunned by his fellow academics. He had left in disgrace after ranting about the demvir and vanished into the woodwork. Now he was clearly preparing to come out in full force.
After a more detailed explanation of the device, she sat down again as Laermont towered onto his feet once more. He swept his flashing eye plates around the assembled members of the Quaestorium. “We must capture Yttrius. Let me speak now as a person, not a detective. The very fact that someone out there so hates me as a being that he would wish me, a person he has never met or interacted with, dead is an affront to my sense of justice. I will seek this man out, run him to ground and stop him before he can do harm to me or any of my people.”
He raised a powerful hand to the sky. “No one’s beliefs give them the right to take innocent life. No god takes precedence over people. We must stop this man and the organization he represents. Think about what else they might do in the name of their insane beliefs!”
Laermont strode away from the front of the room and sat down, the lines of his frame taut and almost trembling. Calvinia glanced across at him and raised an eyebrow. “Are you alright, boss”
The heavy-set metallic man sighed. “I am. It is simply repugnant to me that any being can so hate another that they would go this far. I understand that it is the world as it is, but I still intend to oppose what is happening.”
His deputy placed a hand softly on his colossal arm. “I understand, Laermont. It’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment and I am certain that your team shares your rage and speaking for myself, I’m utterly driven to catch up to this bastard and haul his ass in.”
The demvir nodded. “Thank you Calvinia. Your words are greatly appreciated. Now let us go to work so we can, as you put it, haul this bastard’s ass in.”
The foul smelling hallway was dingy and full of dust as the small group of police officers made their way cautiously along. Curious eyes briefly peeked at them from cracked open doors, but those doors shut again just as quickly. Calvinia led her team along swiftly, driving toward their goal with purpose. One of their informants had tipped them off that this might be a location in which Yttrius had gone to ground.
The enlil’s bright feathers were ruffled up and tension thrummed in the lines of her body as she strode up and banged on the door with its flaking paint and unstable hinges. There was nothing but silence behind the door. She hammered on it again with her gloved fist but still nothing happened. Gesturing for her team to stand aside, she took a step back and sent her foot smashing into the door. Immediately the burly officers swarmed into the room, halberds at the ready. No one was there in the filthy space, but it was evident that habitation had been recent.
As Calvinia began sweeping through the rooms, her sharp eyes scanned around quickly. Most of what was there was dross of no importance at all, but she still methodically went to all three rooms. She stopped in the bedroom now and began heaving open drawers and rummaging though the wardrobe in the room. It appeared that their quarry had left nothing behind. It appeared so until the young officer looked a little more closely and saw the edge of a scrap of paper poking out from under the bed.
Leaning down, she carefully stuck her gloved hand under the rickety bed and slid the paper out. It was a sketch, hastily drawn but she saw at once what it was and she flung herself to her feet rapidly. Gathering the search team, who hadn’t turned up much else, she told them that a rapid return to the Quaestorium would be in order. Clutched in her hand was a hastily sketched schematic for The Spinning Cog - the major gathering point for the demvir community in Terminus.
Laermont held the crude sketch in his gigantic hand and trained his eye plates on it intently. He looked back up at Calvinia. “So now we know the Solaviskar target. Our boy has become careless or flustered. It still leaves us short of many details but we can increase our patrols around the Cog and ensure that we have secured it to the best of our abilities.”
The junior officer nodded in agreement but made a frustrated noise. “That slippery bastard is still ahead of us though!”
Her colossal demvir companion sighed and steepled his powerful fingers together in front of him. “Clearly he has help in high places and quite possibly right here too.”
Calvinia raised an eyebrow at him. “So we have a leak then?”
Laermont nodded. “It only stands to reason. We do not have time for this investigation, but we have to plug the hole. Our only recourse is to shrink the team to the most trusted members and create a seal around it.”
The quaestor turned his glowing eye plates on Calvinia again. “I will task you with taking the tablet and securing it as well. It is evidently vulnerable and extremely dangerous if it falls into the Solaviskar grasp.”
The police storage warehouse was located in the commercial district of Terminus. Calvinia took a quick steam dray to get there, a sense of urgency animating her. Now the stakes were revealed as being unacceptably high. A constantly apprehensive feeling dogged her and she found herself rushing into the building and down the steps that lead to the vault.
Once inside the building’s cool darkness, her memory guided her with ease through the twists and turns of the corridors until she found the area that contained the exhibits from crime scenes. Her long experience with the warehouse quickly pointed her in the correct direction and she strode toward it.
A soft sound made her slow in her headlong stride and cock her head to one side, listening out into the vast space around her. There was a district shuffling sound coming from the shelving toward which she was headed. Now her footfalls softened and became deliberate, her hand dropping to her waist to slide her short sword loose of its scabbard.
As Calvinia came to the turning in the shelving, she stopped and drew her sword free of the scabbard, resting in a ready grip in her hand and turned into the space. A shadowy figure whirled to face her and the hiss of a blade coming free filled the air. Calvinia snarled. “You do NOT want to do that, believe me. I am not in the mood for this shit right now and I will put you down if you don’t comply.”
The lean figure lunged and the quaestor parried, watching the…man’s stance. She knew this was a trained figghter from how he carried himself. His lightness of balance said he was enlil and Calvinia adjusted her own stance accordingly. The man came again and his longer blade clashed with the thick weight of Calvinia’s gladius. Her goal was to drive inside of his guard, neutralizing the longer blade’s reach advantage. The gladius was a fearsome weapon with its stout blade and all it would take was a well aimed stab and her opponent would be out of commission.
Her opponent had training, but lacked hard won combat skills earned in the line of duty as a Quaestor. He had finesse, but was obviously more accustomed to fencing contests than real world fighting. As he drove in, Calvinia dropped low and sidestepped his thrust, smacking him hard in the back of the head with the flat of her blade. He stumbled forward and tripped, falling on his face and the quaestor had the gladius pressed to the back of his neck hard within a heartbeat.
A laugh began to bubble up incongruously from the man laying on the ground underneath her blade and she growled. “I don’t see what there is to laugh about right now, asshole.”
His muffled voice drifted back to her. “Go take a look at your evidence store and you’ll see what there is to laugh about, stupid Quaestor scum.”
Calvinia rapidly withdrew her handcuffs from her waist and cuffed the man to the welded post of the shelving before rising and rapidly rushing over to the evidence box. Her eyes went wide when she peered in and saw that the tablet was gone. The man’s laughter intensified. “You all think you’re so damn smart, don’t you?”
Back at the Quaestorium, Laermont gave off an air of mingled anger and incredulity. “How did they manage to move so quickly? Clearly this leak is a great deal worse than we thought it was! I need you to gather the following officers and bring them here.”
The lead investigator rattled off a list of names and added, “I feel these are the people we can trust immediately. We need to find Yttrius now and we need to find out who took the tablet. Those two things together are a combination that deeply worries me.”
Across the city, Yttrius received the tablet with a dark smile flashing across his face like a bloody gash. He ran his hands across the raised lettering and turned his attention to his companions. “I believe that we have all the pieces in place to activate our plans now. You doubted me and belittled me, yet here we are.”
His laicar companion gave him an icy glare. “Your arrogance is still far too great, enlil but we cannot achieve what we wish without out, it is quite true. Let us just get on with it without any more unnecessary chatter.”
Yttrius removed the tablet and the device from a stout wooden chest that held them and set them both on the table in front of himself. He swiftly ran his hands over the device while scanning the tablet. His clever fingertips darted around, turning dials and twisting knobs. A moment later, a sickly green glow emanated from the device and began pulsing in a steady pattern.
All of the men around the table smiled cruelly at one another. The Vis had indeed been kind to them. The message was clear, this was destined by the gods to be so. They would strike the first blow against the evil mechanical creatures that were an affront to the will of the Vis.
Their planning was feverish as they laid out schematics of The Spinning Cog, decided when it would be most occupied by the enemy and plotted out their course of action. There would be a reckoning now. A true reckoning. Yttrius finished examining and adjusting the device as the planning went on around him.
When he was finished, he looked up from his work and nodded. “The device is now armed, all that will remain is to activate it at the time of need. It will be the first of many blows we shall strike. We will finally carry out the will of the Vis and cleanse the world.”
Ten pairs of eyes watched the square around the Spinning Cog, quaestors discreetly concealed in strategic positions to sweep over the area and observe the crowd. The usual rush was starting, people rushing about in their daily journeys, but the quaestors discounted them. They had other goals in mind. It was a costly distribution of resources, but the police had a duty to the citizenry, even the demvir.
Most of the early afternoon passed by with little activity, but as the evening move to the various restaurants and bars began to ramp up. One of the quaestors detected a scuttling, black clad figure rushing toward the Spinning Cog. His spell-linked vision immediately conveyed the image to the other team members, one of whom was stationed in the Spinning Cog.
The room that faced the window of the pub appeared to be full of demvir but that was the effect of a spell that merely created decoy clones. It was enough to draw the figure toward the place. As he moved toward the door, a lever was pulled from within a hidden room, a lever that primed a series of complex mechanisms. Crossing the threshold, there was a heavy metallic grinding filling the air and a series of metal baffles began closing, as the door was barred by a huge metal sheet. Yttrius spun and struggled, wildly running as the metal plates closed him in and drove him toward the central chamber in the building. His face was a mask of rage and confusion as the barriers slammed shut around him, penning him in.
By now, the arrest team had moved into the central chamber and there was nowhere for Yttrius to go. He cast about wildly for escape but none was available to him. He found his objects seized and his wrists chained before he had time to comprehend what was going on. No matter how he fought, his bindings held him too securely for him to escape.
The group of quaestors hauled him out of the building and dragged him towards a waiting steam dray, moving swiftly. They threw him in and the machine set off, chugging forward as huge pistons drove it. It was an open construction and the guards all clustered around Yttrius as the machine thundered down the cobbled streets.
As the dray charged up to a corner, there was a brief moment in which it kept moving forward, before a massive thud of explosive force struck it. The dray was thrown sideways and all of the quaestors were flung around like dolls. The machine tilted over and the boiler exploded in a massive rush of steam before fire broke out. Yttrius flew across the road and landed in a broken pile on the other side.
Bystanders screamed, crowds milled about and a few dazed and injured quaestors pulled themselves from the crash. In the melee, no one noticed the silent figure that stole forward to seize the still intact tablet from the battered corpse of the enlil.
Inside there were three figures, a laicar who was nearly as broad as he was tall, another enlil with variegated feathers and a scarred, battered velen with rough brownish scales. Yttrius glanced at them, meeting their hard gazes one at a time. “You are lucky that I slipped through the net of the Quaestorii. The others have been caught. We cannot allow the plans to fail!”
The laicar snorted. “Who are you to tell us what to do? You are hardly proclaimed as one who can lead within the organization.”
Yttrius turned his cold, red eyed gaze on the man. “I am the one who can make this device function, remember?”
The slab-like man snarled at him. “The Vis will punish your insolence. You are not sanctified. It is on the sufferance of the prophet Deimar that your people are permitted to be part of the Solaviskar church.”
Leaning forward, the gnarled velen made a chopping motion with his hand. “Enough! We aren’t here to bicker like old women! What do you have to tell us, Yttrius?”
The raven-feathered enlil cleared his throat. “I need one more thing before the plan can be acted upon. We must use our inside man to gain access to the Quaestorium’s evidence store. There is a tablet within it that is needed to activate the device as it contains the full directions for its operation.”
The velen nodded. “I agree. It is a risk but we can’t afford not to take it.”
Both men looked to the bull-necked laicar for confirmation and he sighed. “If we must take the risk, we must take the risk. There is little else that we can do. The next phase of the plan cannot happen until that point is reached.”
Yttrius’ razor-edged smile opened like a bloody gash again. “I am glad you can grasp the importance of this device.”
The hard-eyed velen turned to glower at him. “You arrogance is unbecoming of one of the lowest of the races.”
It seemed to take a great deal of effort for the enlil to gain control of himself, but he managed to keep his face neutral. “I humbly apologize for overstepping my bounds. I am just eager to carry out the mission and return the Vis to the place of importance that is so crucial.”
The massive laicar rumbled at him. “Have a care not to offend Them. They will not forgive you if you are mocking them.”
The trio stayed talking for several more minutes before they each broke off and left by separate entrances, staggered by ten minutes. There was much for them to do and time was growing short.
Laermont had thrown his dragnet for Yttrius wide over the expanse of Terminus, but progress could hardly have been called rapid. The city was a warren of potential boltholes and no matter how good the Quaestorii were, time was not on their side. If Yttrius was any good, he would have the easier path through the situation. The one thing that the detective force did have was dogged determination and no one was more dogged than Laermont.
Today, as in every other day, Laermont had called a briefing. The other detectives filed in and lined up, each ready to present their report. As the massive metallic-skinned man sat, seemingly in rapt attention, all of the data began to roll in.
When the reports were done, the lead Quaestor rose to his feet, looming over the assembled investigators. He glanced with flashing eye plates across the room and spoke in his stentorian tones. “As the days have passed, we are accumulating more leads as to the suspect’s whereabouts. It is a slow and painstaking process, but we all know that Terminus is a very large amount of territory to cover.”
He paused, glanced around at his assembled force and continued. “However, we are also building a very useful picture of the Solaviskar organization. It is far more extensive and insidious than I would have originally credited. I believe it represents a clear and present danger to the city of Terminus and perhaps far outside of it. While capturing the suspect remains a priority, we are also learning that a much larger plot is likely afoot.”
The detective glanced across to meet his partner’s gaze and the younger quaestor rose to speak. “As far as we can tell, the device that was obtained as a result of the murder is some sort of weapon to be used against demvir. The Solaviskar’s animosity…well, hatred really…of the demvir is famous and now they appear to have armed themselves to do something about it.”
She continued. “Yttrius is the key because not only do we believe that he may be the murderer, but evidence is mounting in favour of the idea that he also has an understanding of how to use this weapon.”
The younger detective sat down again after speaking quietly to a solemn, gaunt looking middle-aged enlil who stood and made her way forward to face the assembled crowd. She nervously toyed with the papers in her hands before finally looking out at the crowd of detectives. “Um…hello…yes…my name is Millius Foria and I…um…am a scholar of Cataclysm history at Sapientia Coetus. I’m here today to speak about the tablet and the device it accompanies.”
Once she had warmed to her topic, Millius visibly relaxed. “The device is a pre-cataclysm object that appears designed to disrupt some internal element in demvir. We are not entirely sure what it does, but the end result is a sort of paralysis that locks a demvir in. I have read the tablet that accompanies the device and I can assure you that the effect would be utterly devastating on a demvir. Unfortunately, the person who appears to possess this device is someone with whom I am acquainted. I fear that his expertise in the area is indeed deep and I also feel that he would have committed murder to get his hands on it.”
Millius went on to explain that Yttrius had been a respected researcher into the Cataclysm, but when his Solaviskar views were revealed he had been shunned by his fellow academics. He had left in disgrace after ranting about the demvir and vanished into the woodwork. Now he was clearly preparing to come out in full force.
After a more detailed explanation of the device, she sat down again as Laermont towered onto his feet once more. He swept his flashing eye plates around the assembled members of the Quaestorium. “We must capture Yttrius. Let me speak now as a person, not a detective. The very fact that someone out there so hates me as a being that he would wish me, a person he has never met or interacted with, dead is an affront to my sense of justice. I will seek this man out, run him to ground and stop him before he can do harm to me or any of my people.”
He raised a powerful hand to the sky. “No one’s beliefs give them the right to take innocent life. No god takes precedence over people. We must stop this man and the organization he represents. Think about what else they might do in the name of their insane beliefs!”
Laermont strode away from the front of the room and sat down, the lines of his frame taut and almost trembling. Calvinia glanced across at him and raised an eyebrow. “Are you alright, boss”
The heavy-set metallic man sighed. “I am. It is simply repugnant to me that any being can so hate another that they would go this far. I understand that it is the world as it is, but I still intend to oppose what is happening.”
His deputy placed a hand softly on his colossal arm. “I understand, Laermont. It’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment and I am certain that your team shares your rage and speaking for myself, I’m utterly driven to catch up to this bastard and haul his ass in.”
The demvir nodded. “Thank you Calvinia. Your words are greatly appreciated. Now let us go to work so we can, as you put it, haul this bastard’s ass in.”
The foul smelling hallway was dingy and full of dust as the small group of police officers made their way cautiously along. Curious eyes briefly peeked at them from cracked open doors, but those doors shut again just as quickly. Calvinia led her team along swiftly, driving toward their goal with purpose. One of their informants had tipped them off that this might be a location in which Yttrius had gone to ground.
The enlil’s bright feathers were ruffled up and tension thrummed in the lines of her body as she strode up and banged on the door with its flaking paint and unstable hinges. There was nothing but silence behind the door. She hammered on it again with her gloved fist but still nothing happened. Gesturing for her team to stand aside, she took a step back and sent her foot smashing into the door. Immediately the burly officers swarmed into the room, halberds at the ready. No one was there in the filthy space, but it was evident that habitation had been recent.
As Calvinia began sweeping through the rooms, her sharp eyes scanned around quickly. Most of what was there was dross of no importance at all, but she still methodically went to all three rooms. She stopped in the bedroom now and began heaving open drawers and rummaging though the wardrobe in the room. It appeared that their quarry had left nothing behind. It appeared so until the young officer looked a little more closely and saw the edge of a scrap of paper poking out from under the bed.
Leaning down, she carefully stuck her gloved hand under the rickety bed and slid the paper out. It was a sketch, hastily drawn but she saw at once what it was and she flung herself to her feet rapidly. Gathering the search team, who hadn’t turned up much else, she told them that a rapid return to the Quaestorium would be in order. Clutched in her hand was a hastily sketched schematic for The Spinning Cog - the major gathering point for the demvir community in Terminus.
Laermont held the crude sketch in his gigantic hand and trained his eye plates on it intently. He looked back up at Calvinia. “So now we know the Solaviskar target. Our boy has become careless or flustered. It still leaves us short of many details but we can increase our patrols around the Cog and ensure that we have secured it to the best of our abilities.”
The junior officer nodded in agreement but made a frustrated noise. “That slippery bastard is still ahead of us though!”
Her colossal demvir companion sighed and steepled his powerful fingers together in front of him. “Clearly he has help in high places and quite possibly right here too.”
Calvinia raised an eyebrow at him. “So we have a leak then?”
Laermont nodded. “It only stands to reason. We do not have time for this investigation, but we have to plug the hole. Our only recourse is to shrink the team to the most trusted members and create a seal around it.”
The quaestor turned his glowing eye plates on Calvinia again. “I will task you with taking the tablet and securing it as well. It is evidently vulnerable and extremely dangerous if it falls into the Solaviskar grasp.”
The police storage warehouse was located in the commercial district of Terminus. Calvinia took a quick steam dray to get there, a sense of urgency animating her. Now the stakes were revealed as being unacceptably high. A constantly apprehensive feeling dogged her and she found herself rushing into the building and down the steps that lead to the vault.
Once inside the building’s cool darkness, her memory guided her with ease through the twists and turns of the corridors until she found the area that contained the exhibits from crime scenes. Her long experience with the warehouse quickly pointed her in the correct direction and she strode toward it.
A soft sound made her slow in her headlong stride and cock her head to one side, listening out into the vast space around her. There was a district shuffling sound coming from the shelving toward which she was headed. Now her footfalls softened and became deliberate, her hand dropping to her waist to slide her short sword loose of its scabbard.
As Calvinia came to the turning in the shelving, she stopped and drew her sword free of the scabbard, resting in a ready grip in her hand and turned into the space. A shadowy figure whirled to face her and the hiss of a blade coming free filled the air. Calvinia snarled. “You do NOT want to do that, believe me. I am not in the mood for this shit right now and I will put you down if you don’t comply.”
The lean figure lunged and the quaestor parried, watching the…man’s stance. She knew this was a trained figghter from how he carried himself. His lightness of balance said he was enlil and Calvinia adjusted her own stance accordingly. The man came again and his longer blade clashed with the thick weight of Calvinia’s gladius. Her goal was to drive inside of his guard, neutralizing the longer blade’s reach advantage. The gladius was a fearsome weapon with its stout blade and all it would take was a well aimed stab and her opponent would be out of commission.
Her opponent had training, but lacked hard won combat skills earned in the line of duty as a Quaestor. He had finesse, but was obviously more accustomed to fencing contests than real world fighting. As he drove in, Calvinia dropped low and sidestepped his thrust, smacking him hard in the back of the head with the flat of her blade. He stumbled forward and tripped, falling on his face and the quaestor had the gladius pressed to the back of his neck hard within a heartbeat.
A laugh began to bubble up incongruously from the man laying on the ground underneath her blade and she growled. “I don’t see what there is to laugh about right now, asshole.”
His muffled voice drifted back to her. “Go take a look at your evidence store and you’ll see what there is to laugh about, stupid Quaestor scum.”
Calvinia rapidly withdrew her handcuffs from her waist and cuffed the man to the welded post of the shelving before rising and rapidly rushing over to the evidence box. Her eyes went wide when she peered in and saw that the tablet was gone. The man’s laughter intensified. “You all think you’re so damn smart, don’t you?”
Back at the Quaestorium, Laermont gave off an air of mingled anger and incredulity. “How did they manage to move so quickly? Clearly this leak is a great deal worse than we thought it was! I need you to gather the following officers and bring them here.”
The lead investigator rattled off a list of names and added, “I feel these are the people we can trust immediately. We need to find Yttrius now and we need to find out who took the tablet. Those two things together are a combination that deeply worries me.”
Across the city, Yttrius received the tablet with a dark smile flashing across his face like a bloody gash. He ran his hands across the raised lettering and turned his attention to his companions. “I believe that we have all the pieces in place to activate our plans now. You doubted me and belittled me, yet here we are.”
His laicar companion gave him an icy glare. “Your arrogance is still far too great, enlil but we cannot achieve what we wish without out, it is quite true. Let us just get on with it without any more unnecessary chatter.”
Yttrius removed the tablet and the device from a stout wooden chest that held them and set them both on the table in front of himself. He swiftly ran his hands over the device while scanning the tablet. His clever fingertips darted around, turning dials and twisting knobs. A moment later, a sickly green glow emanated from the device and began pulsing in a steady pattern.
All of the men around the table smiled cruelly at one another. The Vis had indeed been kind to them. The message was clear, this was destined by the gods to be so. They would strike the first blow against the evil mechanical creatures that were an affront to the will of the Vis.
Their planning was feverish as they laid out schematics of The Spinning Cog, decided when it would be most occupied by the enemy and plotted out their course of action. There would be a reckoning now. A true reckoning. Yttrius finished examining and adjusting the device as the planning went on around him.
When he was finished, he looked up from his work and nodded. “The device is now armed, all that will remain is to activate it at the time of need. It will be the first of many blows we shall strike. We will finally carry out the will of the Vis and cleanse the world.”
Ten pairs of eyes watched the square around the Spinning Cog, quaestors discreetly concealed in strategic positions to sweep over the area and observe the crowd. The usual rush was starting, people rushing about in their daily journeys, but the quaestors discounted them. They had other goals in mind. It was a costly distribution of resources, but the police had a duty to the citizenry, even the demvir.
Most of the early afternoon passed by with little activity, but as the evening move to the various restaurants and bars began to ramp up. One of the quaestors detected a scuttling, black clad figure rushing toward the Spinning Cog. His spell-linked vision immediately conveyed the image to the other team members, one of whom was stationed in the Spinning Cog.
The room that faced the window of the pub appeared to be full of demvir but that was the effect of a spell that merely created decoy clones. It was enough to draw the figure toward the place. As he moved toward the door, a lever was pulled from within a hidden room, a lever that primed a series of complex mechanisms. Crossing the threshold, there was a heavy metallic grinding filling the air and a series of metal baffles began closing, as the door was barred by a huge metal sheet. Yttrius spun and struggled, wildly running as the metal plates closed him in and drove him toward the central chamber in the building. His face was a mask of rage and confusion as the barriers slammed shut around him, penning him in.
By now, the arrest team had moved into the central chamber and there was nowhere for Yttrius to go. He cast about wildly for escape but none was available to him. He found his objects seized and his wrists chained before he had time to comprehend what was going on. No matter how he fought, his bindings held him too securely for him to escape.
The group of quaestors hauled him out of the building and dragged him towards a waiting steam dray, moving swiftly. They threw him in and the machine set off, chugging forward as huge pistons drove it. It was an open construction and the guards all clustered around Yttrius as the machine thundered down the cobbled streets.
As the dray charged up to a corner, there was a brief moment in which it kept moving forward, before a massive thud of explosive force struck it. The dray was thrown sideways and all of the quaestors were flung around like dolls. The machine tilted over and the boiler exploded in a massive rush of steam before fire broke out. Yttrius flew across the road and landed in a broken pile on the other side.
Bystanders screamed, crowds milled about and a few dazed and injured quaestors pulled themselves from the crash. In the melee, no one noticed the silent figure that stole forward to seize the still intact tablet from the battered corpse of the enlil.