Supreme Magus

"What’s the matter, young lady? Don’t you know that you won’t grow as strong and tall as your dad if you skip your meals?" Orion’s soft voice and loving gaze made the baby girl cry harder.

Dripha would recognize those eyes amid thousands.

"Guys, give us a minute." Orion said.

"Take all the time you need." Kamila replied. "Val, Ely, and Ral will be happy to see their family."

"I swear, Mom, I did everything as you taught me." Friya said. "Dripha acted completely normal until the afternoon snack. When she didn’t see you coming back, she got upset and refused to calm down."

"Is it true, young lady?" Jirni asked, and Dripha nodded while sucking avidly from her baby bottle.

"You’re right, dear. She’s way smarter than a normal child her age." Jirni sighed. "Dripha can tell us from our holograms."

"How is this possible?" Orion asked.

"I don’t know." She replied. "It might be anything. Maybe it’s Manohar’s last gift to me. Something similar to whatever he did to Marth. He’s been my rejuvenator for over a year and modified my body to give me an edge on Deirus.

"Or maybe it’s just whatever is in Lustria’s water. No offense, Elina, but Surin isn’t normal either."

"None taken." Elina shook her head.

Orion and Jirni took turns feeding and reassuring the baby girl until she fell into a peaceful slumber.

"Please, keep us posted." Orion’s heart bled as he had to pry his finger out of his daughter’s hand. "We’ll come back as soon as we can if Dripha stops eating again."

Later, when the baby girl woke up and noticed the disappearance of her parents, she was both saddened and relieved. Saddened because she missed them, and relieved because she believed that as long as she learned how to use the Water Store, they would come back.

***

Lith’s group used the Mirror Warp to cover most of the distance separating them from Manar County and reach their destination with a small delay. Kamila asked Countess Manar for clarifications she didn’t need, while Jirni asked the nearest branch of the Association for a good hotel.

It was almost dinnertime at the Morrigan’s Lake when the Constables put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The picture they painted was unsettling, and the too many blanks left only made it worse.

"I can’t be certain of anything at this point, but if there is a conspiracy afoot, it’s a well-thought-out and timed one." Jirni compiled the data in simple graphs and paragraphs that even a layman could understand.

"As Lith became more famous and influential, crime became less profitable in Lustria. The smartest cartels started disbanding or moving away ever since Lith became the Supreme Magus.

"Trains, Tablets, and everything else dried up an already shallow pond, leaving the criminals no other choice but to leave or be arrested. The rise in crime rates in Lustria’s neighboring counties is just a natural consequence of that, and to be honest, it’s something the local lords should have predicted and prepared for."

"When you look at it this way, the bandit raids also appear like a reasonable phenomenon." Kamila said. "The new arrivals gave the local crime lords new blood and skilled manpower, and the incompetence of the local nobles paved the road for their success."

"Yet you said, appear." Lith pointed out.

"That’s because, if you take a closer look, only a few counties are ruled by incompetent lords, and the strangest part is that they are amongst the least affected by the bandit raids." She replied.

"Which looks absurd if you consider that Jadon reported the decrease in Lustria’s criminal population as soon as the phenomenon started, Keyla prepared more than adequate countermeasures, yet it did her no good.

"Also, I want you to consider that Lustria has always been relatively peaceful. It had its share of crimes, but just what human greed and opportunity are bound to breed. If you also consider that such a relatively small number of criminals didn’t flock into a single county, the current situation doesn’t look normal anymore.

"Lustria’s criminals were no genius masterminds. They achieved no more than their counterparts in the neighboring counties, yet after the change in scenery they seem to have stepped up their game by a significant margin.

"They succeed where everyone else failed, leave no trace, and somehow fence the stolen goods without using any of the established channels that the local lords monitor at all times.

"As Count Barla said, numbers don’t lie, and these stats make no sense. It would take ten times the number of criminals that lived in Lustria to achieve these results, and each cartel should have a competent boss and face no power struggle."

"Which is ridiculous." Orion snorted. "Even an honorable organization like the Knight Guard has its fair share of naysayers, let alone a bunch of scumbags who only look after themselves."

"And that’s not the only abnormality we discovered while sorting through the reports." Jirni said. "When the forces deployed by the army and the Association foiled the raids and captured the bandits, all they got was small fish.

"Your run-of-the-mill delinquents with little skill and even less brains. When they were interrogated, they didn’t hesitate to sell their comrades, yet the Constables always arrived too late.

"The hideouts were empty, and no stolen goods had been retrieved. Interrogating the prisoners about their leaders didn’t reveal anything useful either. According to their testimonies, it was business as usual.

"The boss would point them at a specific point of the road, and the henchmen would wait for the merchant caravan in ambush. You can imagine the rest."

"Standard tactics can’t be so effective against veteran soldiers." Lith pondered. "What about their sources? Keyla told us that she changed the routes many times, but the bandits always managed to find the caravans even after she issued an information blackout."

"That’s another oddity we can’t explain." Jirni shrugged. "Most of the local lords did a pretty good job, but the bandits were always one step ahead. Some counts didn’t even bother changing their security protocols, yet they stopped about half the raids."

"This makes no sense." Orion’s eyes narrowed as he sifted through the graphs. "The amount of money and resources each county lost is unremarkable by itself, but once you put them all together, they reach a staggering figure.

"In two months, the Griffon Kingdom lost thousands of gold coins. How could Brinja not notice it? This is big enough to warrant the deployment of a full squad of Constables, if not even an Archon!"

"The answer to your question is the reason Jirni said these attacks were well-timed." Kamila replied. "Nobody noticed because of winter and rivalries. The bad weather cut off most communications, and bandit raids are far from unusual.

"The reports started coming in only when the constant loss of resources became alarming. Moreover, as you noticed, the value of a single caravan is almost negligible.

"By the time the village heads contacted Keyla, Ghishal County was already dying by a thousand cuts.

"From that moment on, she has been so busy dealing with the bandit raids taking place in multiple areas of her fief at the same time that she lost sight of the big picture until it was too late."

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