Well into mid-day, Kir was awakened by the door to his room bursting open without preamble, causing him to rise up immediately as he prepared for battle.
"Good. You’re up. Now that you’ve got your glamour, you can do some work for me." Chancellor Lumin seemed especially grumpy.
"Wha’s that?" Stella groaned as she leaned up, still slightly on top of Kordia.
Lumin just shook her head and walked away, leaving Kir to scramble for his sandals as he rapidly converted Mimzy from collar to clothes. After a quick check in the mirror, he was out the door, jogging to catch up to Lumin as Terry walked beside her with a tray.
Two cups of coffee waited on the tray, one of them half-drunk, and Kir quietly reached for the other, downing it in one gulp. At the end of it, he noticed Lumin had been watching him as she walked. "Good. You at least look normal when drinking. There’s a matter down at the docks I need you to deal with. They requested I go, but I told them I’d arrange a magical expert. Congratulations, you’re now a magical expert."
"Wait, what’s happening at the docks?" Kir asked.
"Some idiot carved a ship in half during the siege. Managed to cut right through the ship’s wards and damage the city shield behind it. I don’t suppose you know who Ghostheart is?"
Kir tensed, and right then Kiryu decided to add his two cents.
"Rule number one: Don’t snitch on yourself," Kiryu chuckled.
"I don’t," Kir said, keeping his answer simple.
Lumin stared hard at him for a second before continuing. "Good answer. Hold onto that and don’t let everyone know that up until two months ago you had a bunch of obviously glowing organs. Remember, you’re a mage from Sannon. Oh, and your parents are from Thera. I trust you can remember that?"
Kir nodded, "How creative should I be with that story?"
"Creative enough to keep people off your back, but don’t tell a lie you can’t remember," Lumin said. "And for all our sakes, if there’s anything leading back to someone you know, get rid of it."
The message was clear: Clean up your own mess.
About an hour later at the docks, Kir was surprised to find the Syndicate ship raised out of its watery grave by pillars of stone. It was mostly dry, but at the bottom small drips of water still fell from the lowest parts.
As soon as Kir presented himself to the nearest guardswoman, an elf with orange hair, she shook his hand and said "You’re the one Lumin sent? We dredged her up a week ago. Got the bodies out and everything, so it’s all good if you need to climb up."
"Were there a lot of bodies?" Kir asked. Googlᴇ search novel-fire.net
"Nah, just guards, mostly. Syndicate mercs, not the city’s. Most of the crew was offboard when she went down. Only witness we have confirmed there was at least one demon, big and red with a glowing chest. We’re just trying to figure out how a heavily warded ship got cut in half like that."
Looking at the ship, Kir could see that most of the wards were still active. He got a sense for a few of them. Some were for keeping wood-borers away, others were proofing against fire, or added strength, or extra cohesion with the other boards.
"Not a drop of tar on the thing," Kiryu noted.
"I’ll just walk around," Kir said to the guard.
"Alright, I’ll get the Lieutenant for you then," she said, turning smartly and walking off.
With a little bit of enhancement, Kir hopped onto the back half of the ship.
Kiryu spoke as soon as he landed. "So what’s the play? I say you pull the ’Act of God’ card out for the insurance."
"I’m not sure they have insurance yet," Kir replied, looking around. He wandered around for a little bit, finding that most of the cargo had either fallen into the water or been removed.
Eventually, he walked into what was the captain’s cabin, eyes open for any magic that was different from the enchantments suffusing the hull. Something caught the corner of his vision and he turned to find a small safe, still locked, with no apparent means of opening.
"Nab that," Kiryu said, "Probably has a manifest or a Captain’s Log or something that’ll help your little righteous crusade."
"I’m not on a crusade," Kir muttered, but he pushed the safe into his dimensional storage all the same.
"Oh, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree with killing slavers. A compliance chip at the top of the spine does wonders for one’s opinion about the sort of people who crack the whips. But if you really want to solve this long-term, you’re going to have to get industrial."
On the last point, Kir agreed. But on the first, "Why don’t I remember anything about that sort of thing? Compliance chips."
"Who knows? They put me under when they put the damn thing in, so I guess I don’t have those memories either. But I do remember the day I neutered the little fucker. It took nine months of micro coding and praying Aiko knew what I was trying to put together."
"Want to tell me more about her?" Kir asked.
"No." He said immediately, and then,"I’ve figured out the safe by the way."
"How did you do that?"
"Put it back and I’ll give you directions."
"How about you tell me first."
"Fine. I have a weird sense of magic and everything you put in your little pocket dimension. In the same way you know everything in there, so do I. Only I guess I’m more cerebral about it than you. I can see the things, and analyze them a bit. Right now what I’m seeing is that the magic on the safe is a distraction. So put it back and open it from behind like it’s designed for.
Kir did so and was rewarded with discovering a false back that was actually a door, secured against water but with only a flat sliding bolt holding it closed. Inside was a ship’s rutter and two other books. One was a Captain’s log, which proved sparsely written in to the point of uselessness. The other was an account book, with detailed listings of cargo, destinations, and points of contact. Kir stored the last and returned the first two, before closing the false back and making his way out, hopping down onto the pier.
In total, his time on board had amounted to less than half an hour.
As he got up, the guard from earlier called out to him, and behind her was an unfortunately familiar face.
It was the fire maven from the night he raided the Syndicate, the one who had fled rather than fight with the odds against her. She was now a Lieutenant of the Guard.