100X Returns: Starting with 1,000,000 System Points

Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Jones Draws a Line

I brought Thorncroft’s name to Jones the following morning, and watched something shift behind his weathered composure the moment I finished explaining Alphina’s findings.

"Vasilen Thorncroft," he repeated slowly, rising from his desk to retrieve a thick, dust-covered file from a locked cabinet along the office wall. "I know that name. Guild flagged him years ago, before I took this post — suspected involvement in illegal experimentation, nothing ever proven conclusively."

He laid the old file open between us, considerably thinner than the ledger’s weight but no less troubling for its brevity — brief notations of suspicion, a handful of witness accounts too vague to act on, and finally, a note indicating the investigation had been quietly closed for lack of evidence.

"Closed how?" I asked, studying the final entry’s oddly clinical brevity.

"Officially, insufficient evidence," Jones said, something hard entering his voice. "Unofficially, I’ve always suspected someone paid to have it closed. The timing’s suspicious — case dropped within a month of a considerable, unexplained donation to the Guild’s regional fund from an anonymous benefactor."

"You think Thorncroft bought his way out of scrutiny."

"I think it’s possible, and I’ve never had proof enough to pursue it further," Jones admitted. "Which means whatever resources back this operation, they’ve apparently had the reach to influence Guild decisions for years, not just Watch corruption in poor districts."

I felt the scope of the mystery widen uncomfortably, the trafficking ring no longer looking like an isolated criminal enterprise but something with considerably deeper, older roots than either Jones or Alphina had initially suspected.

"I want to move on this properly now," Jones said, closing the old file with deliberate finality. "But I need to be careful how. If whoever’s protecting this operation has reach into Guild finances, moving too visibly risks tipping them off before we’ve actually located wherever the operation currently runs."

"So we keep investigating quietly."

"Quietly, and carefully," he agreed. "I’ll authorize a discreet Guild inquiry into the anonymous donation’s source, see if that thread leads anywhere useful. You keep pulling whatever you can from Alphina’s research and your own instincts, and report anything concrete directly to me, not through official channels that might already be compromised."

"And if we find the actual location before you’re ready to move officially?"

Jones studied me a long, weighing moment. "Then you tell me first, and we decide together how to proceed. I won’t have you walking into an organized trafficking operation alone, whatever your unusual capabilities have already proven. This is bigger than a Tuskboar pack, son. If Thorncroft’s genuinely behind it, and genuinely has the resources this suggests, I’d rather move with proper backing than lose you to overconfidence."

I nodded, accepting the caution even as some restless part of me chafed against the slow, careful pace institutional caution always seemed to demand.

"One more thing," Jones added, as I rose to leave. "The masks Alphina mentioned. I want you watching for that detail specifically, going forward. Distinctive affectations like that tend to become identity, eventually, for men who’ve spent years operating in shadows. If Thorncroft’s still running this show, that mask might be the clearest signal we get before we finally corner him."

I left the Chapter house with Jones’s warning settling alongside everything else I now carried — a trafficking network with reach into Guild finances, a disgraced Arcanum instructor with a fondness for theatrical anonymity, and a growing certainty that whatever waited at the end of this thread was going to demand considerably more than careful, quiet investigation before it was finally, properly finished.

I spent that evening in my domain, walking the rows of maturing plants beneath the sourceless, gentle light, using the quiet solitude to think through everything Jones had laid out. Ninety million points sat waiting, patient, in my Status — resources enough to buy nearly anything the Shop’s catalog might offer, and yet none of it felt like the right tool for a problem built on corruption, patience, and institutional caution rather than raw physical threat.

I thought of Absolute Appraisal, and wondered whether its reach might extend usefully toward documents, records, perhaps even people in ways that could shortcut the slow, grinding pace of legitimate investigation. I tested the thought against a stack of ordinary correspondence I’d kept from my earliest days in Tula, focusing the skill’s attention deliberately rather than letting it drift passively the way I usually applied it to monsters or unfamiliar items.

[Appraising: Personal Correspondence — Rental Agreement]Standard tenancy contract. No hidden clauses or magical bindings detected.

Useful confirmation that the skill could extend to mundane documents with genuine precision, though it told me nothing new about the ledger I’d already pored over by lamplight. I made a mental note regardless — if Jones’s inquiry into the anonymous Guild donation ever turned up physical records, Absolute Appraisal might prove considerably more useful than ordinary financial auditing in spotting whatever careful obscuring technique Thorncroft or his associates had applied.

I returned to the ledger itself one more time that night, applying the skill more deliberately than I had during my first excited pass through the warehouse office, searching specifically for anything I might have missed in my initial urgency.

[Appraising: Ledger — Coded Shipping Manifest]Secondary obscuring layer detected beneath primary code. Consistent with deliberate multi-tier concealment, suggesting the author anticipated eventual discovery and structured entries to withstand surface-level scrutiny.

I sat with that a long moment, the implication settling heavier than I’d expected. Whoever compiled this ledger hadn’t merely hidden it carelessly beneath a loose floorboard — they’d built its contents to survive discovery, layering concealment atop concealment in a way that suggested genuine expertise rather than simple criminal caution.

This isn’t the work of one disgraced instructor acting alone, I thought, closing the ledger carefully. This is someone who’s had considerable time, and considerable help, to build something meant to last.

I brought the observation to Jones the following morning, watching his expression settle into the same grim resolve I’d come to associate with genuine, well-founded concern.

"Multi-tier concealment," he repeated slowly. "That confirms what I’ve suspected since the donation’s timing first caught my attention. This isn’t a lone criminal’s scheme, Zayne. This is an organization, built carefully, over years, by people who understood exactly how to stay ahead of anyone looking for them."

"Which means dismantling it properly is going to take more than finding Thorncroft himself."

"Considerably more," Jones agreed. "But knowing the shape of what we’re actually facing is worth more than any amount of premature action. We move carefully from here, and we move together."

I nodded, accepting the caution, though the restless, curious part of me that had never quite settled since Shadowfang already began turning over how much further I might reasonably push the investigation on my own before that caution became simple, costly delay.

That restlessness followed me back to my rented room, and rather than let it curdle into the same reckless impatience that had nearly gotten me killed against the orc weeks earlier, I channeled it instead into something productive — a careful review of everything the Shop’s catalog might offer for exactly the kind of patient, information-gathering work this investigation increasingly demanded.

I searched through categories I’d barely glanced at before, weighing skills built for stealth, for discretion, for the quiet business of moving unseen through a city rather than the loud, decisive business of combat.

[Silent Step — 4,000 pts]Grants substantially reduced noise from movement, particularly effective on hard or uneven surfaces. Passive.

[Minor Illusion Veil — 6,000 pts]A basic concealment technique, subtly altering the caster’s visual presence to blend more effectively with surroundings. Not true invisibility; effectiveness diminishes under direct, sustained scrutiny.

I purchased both, the familiar warmth of the rebate settling through my chest with considerably less drama than the domain’s overwhelming creation weeks earlier, but satisfying regardless in its quiet, practical utility.

[10,000 Points spent. 100x Rebate applied.][Silent Step → upgraded: Whisper Step — near-total noise suppression across all surface types, including water.][Minor Illusion Veil → upgraded: Adaptive Concealment — significantly improved effectiveness, capable of briefly deceiving even magically-enhanced perception under most circumstances.]

I tested Whisper Step immediately, pacing the length of my small rented room across creaking floorboards that had announced every prior footstep since I’d taken residence, and felt something close to delight at the total, uncanny silence my movement now produced. Adaptive Concealment proved harder to properly test alone, requiring a genuine observer to judge its effectiveness, but the description alone suggested a considerably more useful tool for future reconnaissance than my previous reliance on ordinary careful distance and Sharp Soul Perception’s early warning.

I thought, briefly, of using these new tools to push the wealthier district’s location investigation further myself, immediately, rather than waiting on Jones’s careful, politically cautious inquiry into the building’s ownership records. The temptation lingered a long moment before I set it firmly aside, remembering his warning about burned bridges and premature accusations, remembering Seraphine’s own patient political calculus, remembering that impulsive action, however capable I’d become, had a way of costing more than the immediate satisfaction it offered.

Patience, I reminded myself, settling in for what I suspected would be another quiet, frustrating stretch of careful waiting. Jones has navigated worse than this before. Trust the process, even when every instinct wants to charge ahead alone.

I fell asleep that night with the new skills settled quietly alongside everything else I’d accumulated, resources building steadily even during the investigation’s slower, more frustrating stretches, waiting patiently for the moment they’d finally prove genuinely necessary.

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