Chương 18: Chapter 17: No Higher Authority

Drelk studied the dead body with a frown. Yes, he was indeed the Hawk captain who harangued him just hours before. He even had that same angry expression now, though it looked a little different with that giant gash for an eye. What was his name? Drelk looked over his shoulder at the empty cage where that Gnat had once been. A few bodies lay around. The rest were still being scraped from the rocks below, neither the prisoner nor her escape artist anywhere to be seen. Oh well, served the mongrels right.

The State might compel Drelk to solve their murders, but he didn't need to respect them in death. Not when he had this vexing puzzle to unwind.

"What are you doing here, Drelk?" Faustus asked. Uh oh. His superior descended the path with that certain posh swagger that came from highborns, as if the world moved beneath their feet instead of the other way around. His half-cape swirled in the wind, and the light reflected off his golden medallion. One extra star since the last time we met, Drelk noted. Faustus would have only grown bolder.

"I am investigating a case," Drelk admitted with a shrug.

"You're supposed to be following the murders in Residential. This is State territory." More accurately, this mountain pass bridged the two, and Herons could spend weeks fellating themselves trying to determine which held jurisdiction here.

"I am," Drelk said.

"I believe they are connected."

"Are you saying the Gnats are on a killing spree?"

"Not quite. I suspect that it was a marriage of coincidence. Two murderers on the run can accomplish more than one." Faustus looked bored.

"And what else is that suspicion based on?" Drelk smiled quietly. To explain more would require a longer conversation. Yesterday, four Hawks were murdered while assaulting a laborer woman, beaten to death on the spot. Since then, Drelk had a single suspect named Torin Maximus. It had been a long night to reach that determination. Torin had recovered the boots that he gave to the cobbler before Drelk arrived, so tracing them back to their original owner proved non-trivial.

Once he found that Osprey, he had Torin's name and a location to track. The Hawks kicked the doors down to the Maximus manse early in the morning. But it was far too late. Another incident had occurred elsewhere in the District, the statue of Markus Augorus Septyn collapsing late at night. No one could be found, save for Cornelius Maximus. His mangled corpse had been recovered from the rubble in full battle armor, and Torin was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps an honor killing gone wrong.

The case itself was not all that complicated. A boy sees injustice, gets it into his head to fight back, and finds the consequences more dire than he could handle. Now, he was on the run while Drelk retraced the steps. What intrigued him was how this all came about. But Drelk dared not share anything more. For all their perks, State Intelligence—rather ironically—did not like when their members shared intelligence outside monitored channels. Faustus sighed, catching the cue.

"Well, if you're here, perhaps you have some theories about where this pair went next."

"It could be anywhere," Drelk admitted.

"These mountain passes have all sorts of entrances and exits. Perhaps they even went up." He studied the waterfall and wondered how easily it could be traversed.

"No, they went down," Faustus decided.

"If they're going to escape the city, their only chance is through the farms."

"One would think they'd have been seen already. There is very little coverage down there."

"Better than nothing. High Perch already stopped all skyship traffic. They want blood."

"I'm sure they do." But he couldn't take his eyes off the waterfall.

"How far do you think that runs?"

"Multiple kilometers, easily. You wouldn't be able to swim through it without a water-based Trait or resistance potion."

"No, you wouldn't… Wasn't this Gnat identified as having that kind of Trait?" He grinned.

"Don't worry, it's already common knowledge in the basin." Faustus narrowed his gaze.

"And? Those Traits are very rare. What are the chances both she and her rescuer have one?" Quite low, of course. Yet, Drelk had that itch again. One peculiar detail picked at the back of his mind: Torin Maximus had a Hidden Trait. His master registered this with the State when he first adopted him as a ward, and there was no evidence that it surfaced since. Until now. The first crime scene showed scorch marks on the ground where the Raven had defended himself with a fire spell.

The spell had not succeeded, however, so earlier investigators assumed Torin had a fire-resistant Trait. But did he? Cornelius Maximus had [Battle-Sighted], yet somehow had not foreseen his own death. These men were all Late Bronze or higher, and a Low Silver captain should have had no problem dispatching an unleveled foe. Could there be something more?

"Where are you going now?" Faustus asked.

"Consider this another hunch. Have fun with your chase in the farms, Faustus." Drelk marched uphill, heading for the State District. This just got more interesting. *"You clean yourself up nicely," Casmia said. Torin shrugged.

"I could say the same about you." The two had returned to the auditor's basement home and made final preparations. There was little clean water, and the soap was coarse against the skin, but after enough time scrubbing and a clean change of clothes, both looked like any other State official, with dark and drab overcoats hiding tunics and trousers that weren't much different. Without the muck and grime, Casmia's face became much smoother.

Torin had originally thought that she was well into her twenties, but divorced from battle armor and donned in a cloak that pressed tight against her curves, it was clear that she was not much older than him. Just two teenagers forced to fight an impossible army. But Casmia had seen enough life experience, same as him. He caught a glance at her backside before she slipped back under the cloak. Wrinkled skin snaked around her shoulders from some old burns, but she quickly buried them before they could be seen.

"What are you looking at?" Casmia asked, her azure eyes sharper than the dagger at her waist.

"Nothing, just thinking," Torin said.

"How will you avoid being [Identified]?" Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! She unfastened her tunic to reveal a locket on a chain.

"It's a Necklace of False Identity," she explained.

"Whenever anyone within two tiers of my Rank casts [Identify], they'll get a false reading. It was the only magic item I managed to smuggle in." Casmia let the necklace fall, sitting snuggly between her breasts before she closed the tunic again. Where did she hide this? Torin wondered. He'd watched her get searched himself, having been with the escort since the beginning. But as he noticed the sickly look in her eyes and flushed tint in her cheeks, he decided it was better if he didn't know.

"Are you ready?" she asked. Torin nodded.

"Yes, let's do this." They left the safety of the District underground, back into the unknown. * Torin wasn't sure what to expect. Perhaps tight, uniform blocks, with the houses all built the same, and the people marching in straight lines. Or, maybe they would have lavish dwellings, with gilded window frames and magical street lanterns. This was the body of the State. Why wouldn't they be living in luxury? And yet, neither could've been further from the truth.

The State District stood as much in shambles as every other district. The identical three-story dwelling-homes showed water damage and cracks at every level, rising into rooftops where half the tiles were missing. Torin almost had to reorient himself, but the sheer volume of State officials wandering about could not occur in any other location. A few buildings stood out from the others. Each department in the State was broken down by a different bird species, always providing a hint of their true role.

Even from his distance and having never entered this place before, he could make out the medallion designs on the front of each State office. The Roost of Hens managed the economic development of Vrisgard from inside a structure shaped like an oversized silo for grain. But its interior would contain nothing of value. Only offices where overworked bureaucrats forged data to keep their rotting civilization from collapsing. The Roost of Cardinals sat as its neighbor inside an opulent cathedral.

Their members enjoyed a more comfortable life, reinterpreting other religious texts to claim that loyalty to the Great Swan would uplift humanity into the Eternal Flight. All other doctrines were false, according to them. The Roost of Herons stood further down. Built into a mansion with marble pillars framed against the entrance, the Herons spent their days deliberating over how best to control the people they represented.

The State's messages were crafted and reframed by the hour, their society's rules created or destroyed to serve only the current day's needs. The Roost of Ravens had been constructed from a castle with many spiraling towers where magical spells and experimentation occurred to keep the State always ahead of its opponents in the mana arms race. Technically, the Crows would also be in there, but Ravens studied the arcane arts to a much more numerous degree, while the Crows focused solely on occultism.

The Roost of Cranes, by comparison, sat in a drab, rectangular box. They were the State's scientific wing, doing everything it could to progress its understanding of their world. But Torin found it unsurprising that these people sat sheltered in a box, cut off from the very world they were supposed to explore. Smallest amongst this retinue, the Roost of Storks was no more than an office complex with a dome at the top.

Most Storks were scattered throughout the country in camps where they worked prisoners until they either died or accepted State orthodoxy again. What few who remained in the city either trained spirit beasts or acted as bureaucrats managing the camps. And at the opposite end of the district, the Roost of Owls towered above all else in a smooth obelisk, a reminder that State Intelligence was always watching.

Though Owls were usually lower level than their counterparts, they were by far the most dangerous of them all. One word from an Owl, and their target simply disappeared. But all of this splendor could not wash away what sat below. Every house, every person, every street… All had the same degradation as the basin below. If anything, it was worse here. Instead of Parrots screaming nonsense, magical trumpets blared a woman's voice as she repeated State messaging to a cold and methodical degree.

Instead of a single poster of the Regent-Eagle at every corner, there were more than a dozen, its eyes watching with unshaking determination." Vigilance Ensures Peace" reigned supreme, only sitting below the swirling flags of the Great Swan above. The State is not the repressive bureaucracy you think it is, Cornelius had warned. It's a living organism, feeding off the collective fear and hatred of everyone inside it. Only now, after entering their enclave, did Torin finally understand what he meant.

Nothing was more powerful than the State. The very officials who put in the work to make this society possible couldn't escape this truth.

The State wouldn't let them. Not for a second. The color rose to Torin's cheeks. It was supposedly like this in every city, across every continent, throughout the entirety of Yertha. A hateful regime that hated nothing more than itself, forever dominating the people who sat below it. All while bombarding them with the same never-ending string of contradictory thought. There were no prisoners or slaves in the State, only "unreformed workers" under the care of the Storks.

There was no crime in the State, only non-corrected behavior. There was no failure in the State, only unexpected success. Peace existed eternally within the State, even as they launched endless Crusades. The State was never wrong. Those who said otherwise must not be part of the State. Every day, every person, at every level, all perpetuating the same false reality. An entire world under the thumb of this immortal regime, built upon the sum total of the suffering inside.

The Great Swan was just dye on cloth, yet She could still mock anyone who would dare stand in Her way. Yet Torin had no sympathy. Especially not here. It would be easy—so, so easy—to stop this cycle of injustice. All it required was a little courage. But instead of even trying, these officials spent their lives only making this world worse. To what end? For the tiniest sliver of power and protection? The State would abandon these people like any other. The entire system was rotten to the core.

Torin clenched his fists, and it took everything out of him to avoid tearing the nearest poster down.

"How much further?" he asked instead. Casmia pointed at the Roost of Owls.

"My gear will be right outside." He grimaced.

"There will be a lot of guards between."

"Yes, there will." They navigated the streets, weaving through unfamiliar roads as they aimed for the Roost of Owls. Swarms of Hawks marched to and fro. Torin grimaced when he caught their medallions. Every single one was Silver Rank, and most had two stars or more. He'd know the State increased security at higher levels, but he hadn't expected the power to spike so sharply. Braxus had been a significant foe, and he was only one phase higher than Torin. What would he do if they had to face two or more at once?

Casmia sensed his trepidation and closed her hood tighter. Wanted posters had not been produced for either of them yet, so they still had time. A checkpoint blocked the next street. Torin almost retreated down a different path, but the topography told him it would be pointless. The roads were shaped specifically here to make alternate routes impossible.

"I got this," Torin whispered as they slipped into line. A trio of guards sat at the blockade, filling out notes with each passing guest.

"Name and level," the Hawk said.

"Clemian Sabellun, level 90," Torin said before gesturing to Casmia.

"And this is my assistant, Eliza Lockhart, level 1." He held up his Spirit Tag to confirm, his fingers unharmed. The Hawk squinted.

"Aren't you a little young to be a Gold-Rank [Alchemist]?" He looked at Casmia, aghast.

"I told you this would happen. You take one experimental potion and suddenly every lowborn thinks they're the next Eagle." He exhaled.

"I'll have you know that I spent twenty years perfecting this decoction at the Capital before coming here." But the Hawk only scoffed and raised his hand. With the familiar motions, he cast [Identify]. His eyes went wide as the Skill failed. Torin tilted his head.

"What? Have you never seen side effects before?" Gritting his teeth, the Hawk redirected to Casmia for another [Identify]. But her magical necklace worked as promised, giving the same false identity.

"How come you have an unleveled assistant?" the Hawk asked.

"And where is your medallion?" Now, Torin was the one to scoff.

"I don't have time for this. Do you know who the Sabelluns are? Or, do I need to contact your commander and make you know?" That did it. The Hawk paled with the implication. The State understood nothing outside its own hierarchy and power structure. With no way to prove differently, the guard couldn't know for certain that Torin was lying through his teeth. He sat back down without another word and gestured for them to pass. Torin smirked. No authority was higher than the State.

They went for their destination without delay. The Roost of Owls towered above, but Casmia explained that she needed to go to a vacant lot a few houses away. She had her escape plan memorized and knew the exact stone to flip. When they reached the spot, she pulled a sack from the ground. She opened it and breathed easily.

"Good, everything I need is here." Torin nudged over her shoulder. Woah. The sack appeared no bigger than his head, but the inside expanded well beyond natural means. Everything from leather armor to bows and arrows were stacked neatly in a space that should've been impossible. This must have been a Spatial Sack, its extradimensional space created by mana.

"Where do we go now?" Torin asked. But before he could answer, an old man grumbled from above. Torin looked up to see a well-dressed Heron staring straight at them with an apprehensive gaze.

"What are you people doing down there?"