— CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR —

  Conspiracy, Right Beneath Our Eyes!

  |Ace>

  There was only one place to go for personnel records: the Protectorate's headquarters at the repurposed magic academy in the southwestern corner of the Sunfire District. There, we entered the deep libraries of the Wiki - a labyrinth of bookshelves extending upward for several stories. It was the collective wisdom of every player who'd ever bothered to document their experiences in the game. Every quest, every monster weakness, every crafting recipe, every hidden treasure and obscure game mechanic - all obsessively categorized and preserved.

  We approached the central desk where a young man sat hunched over what looked like a filing cabinet. And it was a face I recognized - Leonard. He was one of the Oxtongue slayers, but he seemed to drop off the face of the planet after that. Good to see he was doing something good, but I wanted to stay focused on our task.

  I said, "Excuse me, we're doing some identity verification for an article - do you think we could look at the letters archive?"

  Leo looked up at the guild tag on our nameplates. "Sure, I can help with that." He pulled open a drawer and retrieved a ring of keys. "Follow me."

  He led us out of the library altogether and down the hall. In addition to the public information repository, the Protectorate kept several archives, including a record of who sent them the information that they displayed.

  We stopped at a nondescript wooden door - player-made - fitted into what was once just an open archway, and Leo selected a key from his ring. The lock clicked, and Leo pushed the door open to reveal a long, narrow hallway almost completely filled with filing cabinets. The letters archive - every single message ever sent to the Protectorate organized by player name.

  "Who are you looking for?" Leo asked.

  I pulled out the photos Jorral had given us and checked the names. "We need information on... Beartilde, Big Iron, Monodon, and ZeMaster."

  Leo nodded. "Alright, I'll grab the 'B's. They're near the front here."

  "Cherry, could you go down to the 'Z's?" I asked.

  "On it!" Cherry took off down the cramped corridor, squeezing past cabinets to reach the far end.

  I headed for the middle section to look for 'M'. The filing system was chaotic at best - new player information had been crammed in wherever it would fit, with additional notes and cross-references added haphazardly. The Protectorate's lack of funding and technical debt at work. I scanned through the entire section twice but found nothing filed under 'Monodon'. Most players didn't send in reports - hell, I didn't, so I wasn't holding my breath.

  "Got 'em!" Cherry's voice echoed from the far end of the hall.

  And on the other side, "I found one of your names - Big Iron." Leo called from his position. "But it looks like the other isn't in here."

  We carried the two folders back to the main library and found an empty table to spread out our findings.

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  "So what kind of article are you working on?" Leo asked, hovering nearby.

  "Uh... sorry, we don't want to reveal that just yet." I said.

  "Alright. Well, you know where to find me if you need anything else." He headed back to his desk, leaving Cherry and me to examine the documents.

  "What are we looking for in here?" Cherry asked, flipping open ZeMaster's folder.

  "Any personal details - profession, co-workers, maybe they talk about a regular haunt. Anything we can use to pry a little further into who they are."

  I opened Big Iron's folder. Based on the letters, he was some kind of wild west roleplayer. Looked like he spent most of his time exploring the desert and badlands, sending back long, handwritten letters in a journal style. It made the details of what he'd found a little hard to decipher, but a speech pattern like that was going to make him stick out - acquaintances would remember him, if we could find them. The most recent letter described rumors of a city of gold deep in Desert and his plans to search for it.

  "I respect the commitment." Cherry said. "Who hasn't pretended to be a cowboy once or twice?"

  "What about ZeMaster?" I asked.

  Cherry grimaced and handed me the folder. "He reminds me too much of you."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Oh, you know..." She gestured vaguely.

  The contents of ZeMaster's folder were... yeah, I'm too second-hand embarrassed to talk about him. He reminded me of myself when I was an early teen. ... Only, based on the pictures, the guy was at least 20. Sporadic letters written in an overly dramatic style, claiming to have discovered 'hidden secrets' throughout the Capital. He fancied himself an urban explorer, focusing on easter eggs and hidden locations that he worked up in his head to be something special. The actual content of the letters, however, was common or vague.

  "There's got to be a way to follow up on this." I said, setting the folder down. "Do we know any urban explorers? Who knows a lot about the city?"

  "Don't you dare say 'Courtney'." Cherry warned, narrowing her eyes.

  "That's not a bad idea, actually. She's probably featured an urban explorer or two in her column."

  Cherry's glare could have melted steel.

  "Ok, fine. What about... Cali? These kinds of people probably hang out in the red light district - maybe she knows something?"

  I pulled out my UI and started writing a message to Excalibur while Cherry continued looking through the letters.

  "Is there anything else you notice about these?" I asked.

  Cherry held up two letters. "They both sent their last letter on the same day."

  I glanced at the dates. "But ZeMaster is sporadic - we can't correlate that date to anything in particular, and Big Iron would have been traveling for a while on his expedition after that. I don't think that means anything." I finished my message to Cali and sent it. "Looks like we're going to have to go another layer deeper."

  Cherry groaned and slumped back in her chair. "We should've just done the artist article."

  We took the files back to the front desk.

  "Thanks." I said, sliding the folders across the desk. "We're going to go through the newspaper archives now. Do you think we could check the private letters, too?"

  Leo hesitated. "Oh... yeah, I think that'd be okay for you two." He opened a drawer and handed me a small brass key. "You know where it is?"

  "Yep! Thanks again!"

  In a stroke of bureaucratic luck, Reggie had offloaded the archival of old Celestial Daily copies to the Protectorate, along with the repository of reader-submitted letters that people sent to the paper's 'Reader's Letters' section. He paid for the service, of course - the Daily was one of the Protectorate's larger donors - but the important part was that everything we needed was right there in the library.

  The newspaper archives occupied a section of the second-floor balcony that overlooked a central study area. Rows of bound newspaper volumes lined the shelves, organized by date and subject matter. A few reading tables sat near the railing, providing a clear view of the library below.

  "Let's focus on any headlines about urban exploration or cities of gold." I suggested, pulling out several volumes.

  Cherry nodded, but after thirty minutes of flipping through pages, her enthusiasm had visibly waned. She slumped forward, chin resting on her hand, eyes glazed over. "This is hopeless." she muttered. "This is the kind of stuff that would be buried in Courtney's columns, and I'd rather eat glass than read through those."

  I handed her the key to the letters room. "Why don't you check the reader submissions instead? See if any of our four suspects ever wrote to the paper."

  She perked up immediately. "Oh, hell yeah. People love to complain in those things!" She snatched the key and headed off, leaving me surrounded by stacks of newspapers.