This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 170

Chapter 170 - If You Didn’t See This Joke Coming, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention

Riverwest was quiet.

No wagons carried cargo along the bumpy cobblestones, no laborers loaded crates into the warehouses that lined the street, no merchants hawked their wares to the few passersby that went about their business.

The warm glow of the afternoon sun fell comfortably on the side of Eve’s face as she and Lumy made their way down the empty street. Faded paint labeled each building they passed, assigning each no more than a number. Who owned any given warehouse would remain a mystery to anyone who didn’t put forth the effort to look a little deeper. Most people were smart enough not to.

Eve was not most people.

Number seven seven oh nine was a newer building, sitting to Eve’s left, on the side of the street where it wouldn’t have direct river access. The construction was cheap and poorly maintained—anyone who couldn’t afford a riverside lot didn’t bother paying for a high quality structure. Warehouse seven seven oh nine, at least to Eve’s eyes, served two purposes: to be inexpensive, and unassuming.

By the time she reached for the handle on the wooden front door, Eve was assuming quite a bit.

The door was locked, but that hadn’t stopped Eve before, and it surely wouldn’t stop her any time soon. She floated under it, a cloud of glowing Mana pouring through the gaps in the frame. Anyone with a curious mind might’ve stared in awe at the mysterious sight. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would’ve run.

As things were, Eve reformed her body to an empty room, an office space with a door leading out into the warehouse proper. Lumy stopped at the desk to search for anything useful.

“Find the ledger?” Eve spoke in hushed tones.

If you don’t want to be heard, don’t speak aloud, Lumy chided her. If you don’t care enough to use telepathy, why do you care enough to whisper?

“Alright then,” Eve replied at full volume. “Did you find the ledger?”

No, Lumy sent, floating up and out of the desk. At least, not the real one. Ledger in here says the last delivery was a cartful of potatoes last week.

“And we know from the gate guards flour arrived here today,” Eve reasoned.

Lumy flashed blue. Let’s check the warehouse. Maybe the flour’s still there.

“Or maybe the flour was never here,” Eve replied as she stepped towards the inner door. “It’s entirely possible they gave a fake address to the guards.” She reached for the handle.

I suppose it could be, Lumy replied. Next to the address for this place, there was that other place that doesn’t exi— Lumy trailed off as Eve pulled the warehouse door open only for a blade to reach through and press against her neck.

Eve swallowed, the movement scraping her skin against the sharp edge of the dagger to her throat. She smiled confidently at the man holding it. “Arnold Tuskalio, I presume?”

It’s Truskalian, Lumy corrected.

“Right,” Eve said. She turned her gaze back to the man with the knife at her throat. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.

——

Preston shielded his eyes from the harsh sunlight as he peered across the road into the stable on the other side. “This might be the most on-brand thing we’ve ever done.”

Alex didn’t turn away from her search. “Looking through stables for a particular cart?”

“Stopping to investigate illegal muffins when for all we know humanity is about to end.”

Alex paused, blinking several times. “Certainly qualifies as one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Is that what your brand is? Stupid things?”

“I think less stupid and more ridiculous,” Preston said. “That’s an important difference. This muffin crime is ridiculous, but it isn’t stupid. Controlling the entire city’s flour supply has gotta be worth a lot of money. Using it all for muffins is a bit of a weird choice, but I guess it takes a certain type.”

“No, I meant us solving this case when a foggy psychopath is on his way to end human civilization,” Alex said. “We could be evacuating the villages, building up the defenses, training, what have you. And instead we’re solving muffin crime.”

“You know as well as I do that none of that stuff is going to make as big a difference as getting Eve to level one hundred,” Preston argued. “And this is our best shot at doing that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” Alex sighed. “This isn’t exactly how I expected I’d spend my last days alive.”

“Well it’s a good thing these aren’t your last days alive then,” Preston said. “We’ve still got a week before misty boy comes, and even then I kind of like our odds.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Misty boy?” Preston blinked. “Eve started it. She starts… a lot of the weirder things we do. With this it’s mostly because The Man of the Mists is kind of a mouthful.”

“So you went with misty boy?”

Preston snorted. “Something like that. It makes him seem less intimidating when you call him something silly. You know how he tries so hard to be all spooky and mysterious. The Man of the Mists is spooky and mysterious. Misty boy is just some weirdo.”

Alex exhaled sharply through her nose. “I like that. Rob him of the gravitas he’s put so much effort into building.”

“Yeah, it’s like—wait.” Preston froze. “There’s someone in there.” They watched from across the street as a woman led a donkey and cart through the stable. “I think that might be our cart.”

They looked on as the woman unhitched the ass and stabled it, pulling the empty cart back into the depths of the structure. She didn’t return. Minutes passed. Nothing happened.

Preston scowled and turned to Alex. “Is there another exit?”

“Not unless she got on a boat,” Alex answered, nodding towards the river on the other side of the stable. “Why, you think she’s left?”

“If she were standing guard, she wouldn’t have left her post to unhitch that donkey,” Preston reasoned. “And if she were just the driver, she should’ve left by now.”

“That’s enough for me,” Alex said, not waiting for a reply before stepping out into the street towards the stable. Preston scurried after her.

Alex burst into the stable shield first, her body glimmering with defensive magic. Preston crept close behind her, hand on her right shoulder, ready to channel Ayla’s light into the Defender at the first sign of trouble. They found none.

The pale glow of the Mana lines on Alex’s hand cast long shadows up and down the stalls. A horse whinnied as they passed. Nobody spoke a word to calm it.

Alex peeked into each individual stall, peering around every bend and shining light through every nook and cranny, taking the time to be absolutely certain before she lowered her shield. “There’s no-one here.”

Preston lowered his hand. “I didn’t see a back exit.”

“Which means there’s something we’re missing.” Alex looked to the floor, kicking straw out of the way to see the planks below. “Check the stalls. She had to get out of here somehow.”

They found it in the second stall from the back, one of three unoccupied. Alex had little trouble pulling the trapdoor off its rusty hinges, bypassing the lock. A ladder revealed itself, leading down into a dark tunnel from which only a fetid stench escaped.

Alex crinkled her nose. “The sewers. Why is it always the sewers?”

Preston’s stomach churned. “They’re making muffins in the sewers? That can’t be sanitary.”

“At the very least they’re transporting them through the sewers. The fact the muffins don’t stink at least shows they took good care of them.”

“Still,” Preston argued, “I don’t think Eve will be happy to learn she’s been eating sewer muffins this whole time.”

“I think Eve will be distracted reading a pageful of notifications soon enough,” Alex countered. She mounted the ladder. “Now let’s go. The faster we solve this thing, the less time we have to spend in the sewers.”

“And the more likely it is you beat Eve in your little competition.”

“Please, I don’t care about her competition,” Alex insisted, pulling ahead of Preston as she took the rungs three at a time.

“Uh-huh,” Preston said, nodding his head as he watched her hasten into the dark passage. “Sure you don’t.”

——

Eve paced around the empty warehouse, circling the kneeling form of Arnold Truskalian. According to Appraise, the man was just a low-level Courier, but Fate-torn Gaze flagged him as being somehow important. Considering his entire job seemed somehow connected to her inability to buy bread, the angry red aura around him made some amount of sense. Only some.

“Here’s how this is going to work.” Eve let her voice echo around the big empty space, lending gravity to her words. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the flour coming into the city and muffins it’s turning into, and I’m going to let you live.”

Arnold tugged against the Ar-iron manacles around his wrists. The priceless chains were an absurd level of overkill for a level nineteen, but they had been burning a hole in Eve’s pack. She’d decided to get some use out of Lestrad’s precious shackles before selling them.

“I’m just a Courier,” Arnold said. “I don’t know anything, I swear.”

Eve kneeled down look him in the eye. “Well that’s not entirely true. You knew to take the flour here. You knew to write ‘Drury’ as your destination, even though there is no such place in Pyrindel, and I’d bet you knew you were the only one bringing flour into the city at all. The thing is…” Eve stepped back, standing upright and spreading her arms out in both directions. “I don’t see any flour here. So where’d it go, Arnold?”

The man looked up at her with defiance. He didn’t speak.

“Bad choice, Arnold,” Eve said, leaning in once more. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Cause now I’m going to let my friend have a taste of you.”

Lumy floated high above the two, glowing a menacing red.

“You see,” Eve explained, “my ghostly friend there is something called a phantasmal harvester. There’s this… energy, all living things have—called phantasm—that ties them to the mortal plane. Lumy, up there, feeds on it.”

Arnold flinched.

Eve reached out for man telepathically, sending ideas, concepts, and images all pertaining to inevitable death. A rotting corpse. A sense of doom. A black void. She knew she was nowhere near powerful enough read his idle thoughts or manipulate his emotions directly, but to someone unexperienced in telepathy, just receiving external thoughts could be frightening. Receiving unbidden images of death would be outright terrifying.

“Do you feel it?” Eve asked, implying her telepathic slideshow had something to do with Lumy. “Do you feel your connection to the world of the living slipping away?”

“Please,” Arnold begged. “If I tell you, he’ll kill me?”

“Who’ll kill you?” Eve pressed. “The man behind this? Is he the one who’s making the muffins?”

Arnold whimpered.

“Arnold, listen to me,” Eve growled. “This is important. I need you to tell me who’s behind this muffin conspiracy.”

“Please… I can’t…”

Eve pressed harder, devoting the full force of her considerable will towards intensifying the barrage of images. For added effect, she allowed the Ar-gold crown to appear on her head, lending the full weight of her Commanding Presence to her next words.

“Arnold, I’m going to ask you one last time, and I need you to think long and hard before you even imagine telling me no again.” She leaned in, her face mere inches from his. With gritted teeth and violence on her voice, she spoke her question. “Do you know the muffin man?”

“Yes!” Arnold practically shouted the word, tears streaming down his face. “Yes, I know the muffin man.”

Eve put an end to her telepathic assault. “Where can I find him?”

“There’s a passage,” Arnold squealed, pointing towards a large cart, “a trapdoor hidden under that wagon. It’ll take you to him.”

Eve grinned. “Well that wasn’t so bad.” She patted him on the back. “Thanks for your help.” With a thought, she commanded the enchantment on the Ar-iron shackles to open, collecting her valuable bindings and stowing them in her pack.

“You’re… you’re not going to kill me?” Arnold stuttered.

“Of course not,” Eve said. “You’re harmless. In fact—” She dug a gold coin from her pocket, flipping it through the air. It landed between his knees. “I think you’ve earned yourself a nice vacation. Go home. Have a beer. Wait for this muffin business to blow over.”

Eve paid the Courier no mind as she shoved the wagon out of the way and tore open the trap door to reveal a wooden ladder leading down into a rather foul-smelling tunnel. “Come on, Lumy,” she called into the air. “Let’s put an end to this muffin weirdness once and for all.”

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