Detective Mercury

Chapter 34: Detective Mercury

/I love spiders, but by the gods, they terrify me./

Some biologist, probably.

- - - - - -

Mercury understood some of what was going on in the city from his regular check-ins with Marcel, and admittedly, he was a bit curious about this investigation on some sort of criminal trial. Also, since the notices for some jobs, such as witnesses rather than quality checkers, were rank E, he thought about applying one.

He decided to fully commit to and accept a job to help out, just to stay in touch with current ongoings in the city, before their effects trickled down to him. And so, as he headed out to do the commission, who would he be partnered up with if not Avery Beckham himself?

"What's up, newbie? Ya deciding to help us out here?" he asked with a smile on his face.

Mercury could only shake his head a little.

"Of course. It's also good to have something like this on my record, and the pay is decent. So, here I am. What do I do?"

"Well, largely you're gonna follow me around and just make sure everything plays out nice and fair. Now, you do know enough about the laws around here to make that work, right?"

"Of course," Mercury lied.

"Glad to hear it. Today we'll be going along with this little troop of merchants," Avery said, nodding at a handful of people in fancy, gilded clothing. "All top officials, so I'm sure they won't try to fake anything. Isn't that right?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

As expected, all of the merchants simply nodded at Avery's question, and went off to check out the store's basement warehouse.

"Y'see, Mercury, while it might look like we're working with the merchants, we aren't really," Avery spoke on the way there, loud enough for the handful of people in front of the two of them to hear as well. "So if you see anyone trying to change some ledgers or forge some documents, you have my full permission to go as far as you see fit. See it as a sign of trust, your voice is gonna have my full authority behind it for today."

"I'm glad to hear it, guild master," Mercury said with a smile. This was fun, he felt like a detective. Maybe he was coming closer to being Sherlock Holmes through this, hehe.

The four shopkeeps and traders in front of them were whispering among themselves a little as they approached the "crime scene", but not nearly enough to unsettle Avery or his feline companion. There were three men and a single woman, and Mercury committed their appearances at least to his short term memory.

Towards the beginning, things went rather well. The group headed underground, the merchants started going through the storage unit and the ledgers. It was rather quiet, only footsteps and occasional chatter breaking out.

"Want a bite?" Avery asked, holding some bread to Mercury, before interrupting himself. "Oh wait, right. Sorry."

"Yeah, I appreciate the offer though," Mercury quickly waved it off with a smile, before suddenly starting to stare at one of the merchants who was currently going through the storage. "Hey, Avery? Something smells... fishy."

"What do you mean?"

"No, I mean, not quite fishy. Ugh, what is that smell? That guy up there, short, green jacket, brown hair, chin length. He's hiding it, but he just pulled something real smelly out."

"Give me a second, my guy," Avery said, pocketing his bread as he took a large step towards the merchant Mercury had pointed out. "Hey, Lang! The fuck do you think you're doing?"

"I beg your pardon, master Beckham?"

"Don't "beg your pardon" me, Lang," Avery said, immediately dashing in front of the merchant and grabbing his wrists as he pulled his arms to each side of his body. "Open palms, facing up."

Without hesitation, the merchant followed orders, only to reveal himself as empty handed. Avery took a long and hard look at this, staring the Merchant up and down. He couldn't smell anything, but his <Intuition> was tingling a little...

Mercury appeared by Avery's side as he sniffed the air once again, whatever he noticed before now gone. As he shook his head, the guild master released Lang's hands again.

"Must have made a mistake, sorry for the inconvenience."

Lang himself quickly waved it off with a customer service smile, but Avery knew something about this wasn't quite right.

"My guy, can you describe the smell?"

"Uh, yeah. It smelled burnt, and salty, and... like lemon? I guess?"

"Hm, interesting. Sure you pointed the right way?"

"Absolutely, no doubt about it. But something still doesn't seem to add up. It was extremely sudden and strong. It doesn't feel like something that could disappear so quickly."

"Alright, well, seems like I have the right man for the case. You go figure this one out, my guy."

"I will try my best, sir."

"No, no, you got- hm? I was expecting a little more resistance, ya know?" Avery cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms.

"Well, I mean, you told me what to do, so I'll give it my best shot, guild master." Mercury flashed a smile as he finished, and began slowly going around the room, searching for a hint of the smell as he turned his sensed up as much as he could.

Avery, on the other hand, simply shook his head at this, heading over to another one of the merchants as they were looking through the business ledgers, making sure they weren't planting any false evidence.

It was confusing for our cat friend. He had smelled that thing so clearly, so vividly, and yet, as he opened his nose to the sensory world of scents, he didn't notice a trace of it. What was it? Not that unit, not that one either... was that fish? Mmmm... No, focus!

Mercury kept prancing around uneasily, checking any nook and cranny for anything with a similar smell, but he simply came up empty handed. He checked the tops of shelves and their bottom, not even listening too closely when Avery reprimanded someone behind him. He had dove into his own world, honing in on whatever it was he had noticed before.

And yet... no trace. How could that be? Did it come from up above? No, he clearly traced it back to that Lang guy. So, then it must have come from a shelf near him, right? Well, again, no dice. It was unsettling, but Mercury's <Intuition> was still ringing in his mind. This was somehow important to the case, and if it was that, Mercury at least wanted to ensure things went fairly.

So, he needed to find the source. It was definitely near Lang. No, wait, maybe it was on him?

"Avery? Can you check Lang's pockets for me?"

"Hm? Sure, my pleasure. Lang, you heard the guy, come over here. Thank you, jacket off..."

Mercury went through all the pockets alongside Avery, but it seemed like none of them leaked whatever it was Mercury had noticed before. He also couldn't pick up anything on Lang himself. It was almost like any trace of the smell had entirely vanished...

Wait, vanished? Smells didn't vanish, they faded away over time as they diffused into the air around, or you got used to them. This was... strange.

"Avery, can you light a fire?"

"A fire? Why?"

"Well, it's a stretch, but it might help me figure this out." Mercury gave his best shrug, but when he looked back up at the guild master, he was met with a wide grin.

"Alright, you got it my guy."

Avery quickly pulled out a large, cylindrical chitin box, which he popped open and pulled out a hellstone match, striking it against the container before holding it down to Mercury, who sniffed it.

"What are you doing...?" Avery gave the mopaaw in front of him a confused look, but quickly got his answer.

"Smell the match."

"What do you mean? I don't smell any- Ohh. Ohoho. Kah! You got them, Mercury! Alright, all of you, clear out right now!"

Mercury gave a big smile at this. He couldn't smell anything from the match. Nothing at all. Meaning that whatever it was he had smelled before, it was in this entire room, and he had gotten used to the burnt, salty, lemon smell. Or it blocked those specific receptors in his nose.

Whatever the case, they placed something in here. Something that made itself decently undetectable. And it would have worked, since humans apparently couldn't smell it at all, and simply had their olfactory nerves blocked by it. But Mercury had caught a whiff, even only for a small moment.

It was a victory, to be sure.

"Well, I'm glad I had you here today. I would've missed it, and at the end of the day, this would have sabotaged someone. Usually they only give it small attempts, but it seems you caught their trump card. Must've gotten impatient, since this was the last day of the investigation and all, and they couldn't get any good dirt on the church yet."

"Hm? So the shop is actually guilty?"

"Yeah, probably. Of minor crimes at least, since they were selling faulty goods. Of course, that could have been an honest mistake, and these merchants here were probably trying to specifically make it so, that it seemed as though they were more innocent. I caught one of them trying to swipe a ledger before, in a poor attempt at hiding some inventory."

"Well, are they going to be sentenced to death now?" Mercury felt a little uneasy with this. He didn't exactly want people to die because of him.

"Hm? No, no, of course not. At least that's my guess. They'll probably be fined and have some debts to pay off towards the city council. Similarly, the church will be fined, for doing an investigation and trial without permission. And similarly, I'll get the merchants' guild fined because they tried to fuck around. The shop might not be allowed to sell charrs anymore and lose some profit because of that, but nothing too bad."

"That's a relief," Mercury sighed with a smile. "Really wouldn't have wanted someone to die just because I uncovered a small scam. So, what do you think they put into here?"

"Well my guy, it's a little complicated. Given your description, some sort of powder that spreads quickly and leaves no traces. Lang must have kept it somewhere on him, poured the reactant on his hand and grabbed the powder from another pouch. But what would he use?" Avery rubbed his chin a little as he looked around, making sure to keep a watch on the merchants in a corner.

He didn't want them to place anything else, but he also couldn't send them home, so he simply kept them around, just in case.

Avery started looking around the room again, having Mercury with him at all time. The cat could almost visibly see the gears turn in his head.

"Ah, I got it. They probably used vilegrass. It reacts strongly with water, releasing a smell that's very similar to what you described, but only for a moment. It blocks your nose. The water and grass are used up in the reaction, and he could have easily hidden both in his hand."

"Makes sense so far, but why?" Mercury asked, gazing up at Avery.

"Well, that's what we're gonna find out now," the man replied, running his fingers along the storage units. It was definitely interesting, but they did seem to be getting closer to the truth. So what was it? Why did they block their noses? What contraband could they be placing?

"Maybe it's for a bomb?" Mercury suggested, more as a throwaway joke.

"Can't say that's entirely impossible, but relatively unlikely. No, it would have to be to hide something that incriminates the Church of Order. Would they have tried to burn a business ledger?"

"No, that makes little sense, why not just sack it?"

"We could see them carry it out, so maybe, but we would also see them burn it, so I don't think that's quite it..." Avery pulled out a handful of bread and began eating to clear his mind and focus. What was it? What would they try to take away?

"Well, I mean, what do these charrs they were selling usually smell like?" Mercury asked. He knew they were similar to cigarettes, but since they weren't quite the same, he couldn't be sure.

"Well, burnt, by themselves. Most of them contain dried ashbloom, which has a slight smell of ash. Their smoke can vary, depending on what oils are included in the wrapping. You saying they were planning to burn some of the charrs?"

"Maybe?"

"Don't know. They were all already taken in the first day, since they were the product in question. No..." Avery paused a little while as he thought, until Mercury spoke up again.

"Well, then, could it be that they were trying to place non-faulty charrs?"

"What do you mean?"

"Okay, so, they create this reaction so we don't smell the charrs at all. They place some good ones on some of the shelves, yeah? They go through, take the good ones, say that only part of the charrs were bad, and the shop isn't at fault, throwing shade on the church," Mercury suggested. Avery raised his eyebrows and tapped his fingers for a moment, before nodding.

"Alright. That seems plausible. I think I'll take these guys to the guard station, have them checked for anything. You stay here, keep an eye out, make sure no one else comes in and tries to pull anything funny. Good?"

"Got it, wish you luck."

And with a wave, Avery was off with the merchants. He couldn't quite go through all of their pockets himself, as that would be severely rude of him, especially when one of them was a woman, so taking them to the guard was a much more sensible choice. Here was to hoping that there wouldn't be any corrupt guards at the station.

Mercury, on the other hand, remained in the storeroom, and simply continued looking around, trying to figure out if there was any other reason to block their smells. They didn't know who was coming to watch them with Avery today, so they couldn't have anticipated his superior senses. Sometimes being a cat was quite useful.

[<Enhanced Smell> has levelled up! <Enhanced Smell lv. 2 -> 3>]

Nice. Mercury actually could feel some more of his senses returning at this point as he smelled... lemon? Hm, interesting. His sense of smell was now apparently good enough to detect subtle differences between the overwhelming hue of lemon that was blocking his nose and whatever was below it.

Lemon, lemon, where are you hiding... Mercury followed the trail of smell to a small drawer underneath the ledger one of the merchants had open. It was locked, but that didn't stop him for long, as he simply tackled the table to crack it open. Of course, he set it back up afterwards, but nonetheless, it had granted him access to the drawer. He still had to use some force to actually pull it out, of course.

Inside, he found a broken latch, and a small stack of documents. But... those didn't exactly smell like lemons. No, no. There was something below that. A false bottom?

Mercury quickly pushed his claws between the bottom of the drawer and its side. It took some work, but there was, in fact, a space below there.

With a feline grin, Mercury latched onto the fake bottom, and lifted it up. There was the lemon smell. From... some tiny vials with yellow liquid inside?

- - - - - -

When Avery arrived at the guard's office, a few people who were on duty had to come in, of course. It just so happened that one of those was Leynn, the gate guard who had let Mercury in. This time though, he was awake, and his tiny hangover had already faded, so he was ready to do a good job.

Of course, as Avery brought the merchants in, Leynn's eyes turned into thin slits. That was Cole, wasn't it. Cole Jr. Coleson. His little cousin's ex. Oh yeah, that was a rough breakup, he remembered.

"Hey there. I need you all to please check these guys. If they're carrying any charrs, please confiscate them, and keep them ready. You probably heard about the trial?"

Leynn looked at Avery and gave him a solid nod and a salute. "Yessir! We will make sure to be thorough!"

With that, he took the merchants over to a private room. He would handle the three men, and a colleague of his would have to handle the woman. Privacy and such.

But as Leynn eyed the men in front of him, his eyes narrowed even further. Yeah, he'd be thorough. Veeeeeery thorough.