NOVGO.NET Chapter 1990 City Planning
Chapter 1990: Chapter 1990 City Planning
— Kat —
Kat glanced around the room and felt compelled to ask. “So… what actually happened?”
Gravel sighed and glanced to the two men in the room. “I suppose at this point, forcing me to share my misery is part of the punishment. Look, as you’ve likely gathered I’m allergic to a specific fruit and I learned that when I was younger. In this case, while I was moving around the city incognito, I managed to pick up a lovely smelling pastry I planned to have for breakfast the next day…
“Except the jam inside of it included a mix of fruits. One of which I was of course allergic to. They did warn me… but I assumed that mixed together it would be a small enough percentage to not cause me any issue. So I had some this morning… and obviously that was a terrible idea.”
“I don’t know how you thought it could go any other way,” sighed Charles. “The first bit of it you had was a miniscule amount sliced up for you so you wouldn’t choke. The fact you thought you could eat an entire pastry filled with jam was ridiculous.”
“Hey, the jam was fairly diluted…” countered Gravel.
“Yes, and it was ALSO the size of your fool head. You didn’t even NEED to eat that much food but apparently you decided to give yourself two kinds of trouble in one meal. The fact you have a stomach ache alongside your other symptoms is probably from stuffing your face…” grumbled Charles.
Gravel shrugged. “Eh, I don’t regret my choices.”
Charles just sighed again but didn’t actually say anything in response. So instead, Steel took this time to step in. “Your liege… it seems that we have a delicate situation brewing that has the chance to escalate quite severely. Are you well enough to hear it?”
“I suppose I must be,” responded Gravel with a glance at Charles.
“Alright so it’s like this…” Steel waisted no time covering the major things that had happened today while touching on a few other details like what happened with Jen, some of the things Lin had said, and the worry Kat had brought up. One that seemed quite valid.
Gravel frowned at the news. “That’s… well that’s a lot. I have quite a few questions that we need to go over. Though… can I ask if there’s a reason Kat is remaining here? I get you were trying to embarrass me a bit and that my condition isn’t one that needs to be kept completely silent but this here is a lot of information about the plans for the city.
“If you think her presence is necessary Steel, then I have no plans to gainsay your judgement… but I still can’t help but find it odd you’d bring someone along when you haven’t even known them a week. Same with you Charles, though at least in this case I’m sure it’s Steel’s faith in her that convinced you to make the allowances.”
“Frankly? She’s simply been directly involved in all but one of the noteworthy incidents of the last few days,” explained Steel.
“Wait all but one?” asked Kat, unsure.
“Indeed. During the night there was an attempt to determine Jen’s condition. It wasn’t truly a break in, just a somewhat discreet long distance scrying spell. It didn’t manage to get any real information before we detected it, and certainly no confirmation of Jen’s condition but it was noteworthy,” explained Steel.
“And you don’t think it was related to the watcher I found?” asked Kat.
“Not at all. This one travelled through the ground, using something akin to vibrations to determine things. Surely one who uses such a technique would not rely on a telescope from a high building. You’d be quite far from the ground your using to sense would you not?” Steel offered.
Still… it was odd to just now be hearing about it. Then again, Steel was also right in that she didn’t need to know everything. At least, not before now and he was sharing. “Regardless, Kat’s continued involvement meant she might need to be around for clarifying comments. She also has solid alibis for the incidents and is basically impossible to be the culprit or related outside of the obvious.
“I am, at this point, somewhat worried about an attacking happening now with so many of us all together and I’m hoping that if it’s a siege on the palace Kat can be here to immediately respond, or if it is elsewhere she can fly to the scene faster than anyone else to check it all out. Plus, I hadn’t realised you were quite so… indisposed when I initially asked her to accompany me,” Steel admitted.
Kat felt her eye twitch and wondered exactly how much of Steel’s decision actually came down to that last point. “Regardless,” Steel cut in not allowing Kat’s thoughts to rest on that point. “We need a course of action and I was hoping for your input my King. Especially in regards to the tunnel…”
Gravel nodded slowly. “Alright, while I think about that… why wasn’t this detected? Enchantment bombs are not complicated and we have our own counter enchantments in place that SHOULD be capable of finding such things, especially if they were made in large numbers.”
“My best guess at this time is that they have invented an enchantment that creates the bombs rather than simply making them all by hand. If they really have such a skilled enchanter, and are connecting to the orb heists, it would be… perhaps not simple but quite within reasonable expectations for them to pull of something of such magnitude,” explained Steel.
“And the reason they were not detected after being made?” asked Gravel.
“The detection enchantments are not infallible. They missed the one at the guard station for years. They are useful tool, but mainly ones to prevent entire districts being bombed at the same time. The greatest weakness is the time it takes to detect the enchantments, and in that time you can either disguise them, or simply set them off.
“It is possible they have learnt the correct time for such a thing, or that in this case they got lucky. It’s impossible to say at this point and the worry is that they can hide from it on a wider scale. If the orb thefts were used to charge the bombs we could be looking at a large percentage of the city that’s at risk. The palace is almost certainly safe but that’s a small comfort.”
Gravel groaned. “What would happen if such a bomb went off near or IN a tunnel?”
Kat shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know. I do know that they were sealed off many years ago… but not all of them and not completely. I suspect a basic explosion wouldn’t be enough but that’s more of a guess on my part. I could ask?”
Gravel winced. “No… I don’t think that’s necessary.” Gravel shook his head and turned to Steel. “If I authorised the tunnel to be setup within the day… could we stop this?”
“Likely… not…” admitted Steel. “If the circumstantial evidence is to be believed we’re already too far down the line to contain it completely, especially if Lin Halebloom is to be believed.”
“Is she?” asked Gravel.
Steel shrugged and looked to Kat. *Alright… so do I admit to the fact I can tell when people are lying?* “I can tell when people are lying and she wasn’t… but she’s also fairly old and might have practice wording such things so that they’re ’technically true’ and I have a much harder time. Like, I can say ’I think the sky is purple at the moment’ because even if I don’t BELIEVE it, I can still think it for a few seconds and make it true.”
“Ah, a useful ability but not one that is without its faults…” sighed Gravel as he looked back to Steel.
“I simply don’t have much experience dealing with her. While it is… interesting to know she is in charge of their intelligence division, a HUGE thing to admit… it doesn’t change the fact that she just wasn’t all that involved in what seems to be the main bulk of the Haleblooms political council. There is also the fact that… if they’re divided the family could stand for both outcomes or something like that.
“Then there’s simply the fact she TOLD us. Women like her don’t give away information without getting anything out of it, likely at least three or more things. One of them is likely to avoid major backlash on the Halebloom family as a whole… but I just don’t know what the other reasons could be…”
Gravel nodded slowly. “So it could be a play to save her family, force us to setup the tunnel early, and amuse her? Just as an example?”
Steel shrugged, “Indeed, or perhaps the opposite. Maybe she wants us to look closely at the family and get them in trouble, stop the tunnel setup out of fear and… well amusing her is probably still one of the three in this case.”
“I see the issue…” sighed Gravel.