Daisey in the Sunset District, Part 3

Daisey woke up, as she usually did, at dawn. The limb of the sun peeked up above the jungle and shot straight through her bedroom window, past the lace curtains that were only mostly closed, and onto her face. She blinked, rubbed the gunk out of her eyes, and rose, walking over to the washbasin. She poured water out of the pitcher into it, washed her face, dried it on the towel embroidered with colorful flowers, dressed, and was ready to face the day.
Well, after breakfast, anyway.
She lived alone, in a four apartment complex, two upstairs, two down. Her flat wasn’t large, but it was on the second floor, and it had a balcony that she accessed from her living room. She enjoyed having breakfasts out there. With that thought in mind, she lit the wood-fired oven, set her skillet on top, and proceeded to make hash out of potatoes, onions, and eggs. She put the kettle on as well for tea.
When her breakfast was ready, she took her plate and mug and went out to the balcony, seating herself on the wrought iron furniture. The sun was rising into he sky, but it wasn’t too hot yet. Cirrus clouds sketched broad streaks in the sky, tinted orangish-pink. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed. Then she dug in, enjoying every bite. Second breakfast would be taken on the road, as she had a lot to do today. Gathering her things, she put a loaf of bread, baked two days before and thus starting to go stale, into her pack, along with a chunk of cheese that she pulled out of her icebox.
On a whim, she opened the top of the icebox, checking to see the status of the block of ice in there. It was getting rather small, and she would need to put a new one in. She also realized that she should probably dump out the water in the drip tray that sat at the bottom of the icebox.
While she cast a the Spell of Preservation on most of her foodstuffs, there are some that did better when simply kept cool. So she walked over to the washbasin and poured the rest of the water into it. Now, where did I put that handle? she thought, looking around the room. It was supposed to be hanging on the side of the icebox, but she must have somehow forgot to put it back the last time she made ice. She bent down and peered behind the wooden box that served as her cooler. Ah, she thought, there it is. It must have fallen. I am not yet getting senile!
Grabbing the handle, a simple wood grip with a metal strap hanging from the center of it, forming a sort of “T”, she held it over the water in the basin, the strap in the water. Then she cast the Spell of Ice Creation, and the water solidified into a hemispherical chunk of ice. She pulled it out of the washbasin and carried it over to the icebox, where she plopped it into the top. It lay a bit crooked on the chunks of the remaining piece of ice, but that didn’t stop the lid from closing. That chunk of ice would last for a day, maybe a day and a half before needing to be replaced.
She had a bottle of greenberry juice chilled, and she poured herself a small glass of it. It was tart, but she liked it. It was refreshing, and added to the effects of the tea she had earlier, did much to fully wake her up. Smiling and licking her lips of the remaining tart liquid, she gathered her things and left her apartment to do good deeds for the day.
First things first, she thought. Might as well relight some street lamps. She progressed down her block, checking the lights to see if they had gone out. Each light was simply a pole with a pottery globe set atop it. Most were still shining, although it was hard for her to see in the daylight. The ones in shade were easy, but some were hit by the slanting light of morning, and she had to check the shadowed side to see if there was actually a shadow there or not. If there was, she touched the end of her spear to the globe and softly muttered an incantation. It was the Spell of Continual Light, an incantation that made an object glow with light for about an eightday or so. It varied, between a few days and a dozen, so she had to continually patrol the lamps to make sure they still did their jobs. On her street, a straight road by the name of Crescent Way, she needed to relight only three of the lamps; the rest still had charge. Of course, by tonight some might be out, but she would deal with them then.
Still, relighting three of the lamps to torchlight level made her tired, so she found a bench under a tree to sit on at the corner of Crescent Way and Stumble Lane. She sat quietly for a moment, looking at the rush of people walking up and down the street, occasionally interrupted by the clop-clop of a horse and the squeal of iron-shod carriage tires.
She cast the Spell of Energy Recovery, and immediately felt the surrounding mana flow into her twice as fast as normal. Slipping into mage sight, she could sort of see the mana energy that permeated the space around her increase in density as it flowed into her, allowing her to regain her spell power faster. She would need to rest quite often this morning, she figured, if this street is anything like the rest of the ones in the neighborhood. She could only relight three of the lights before needing to rest.
But this was one of the jobs she did that the City Watch paid her for. Providing street lamps helped curtail crime, and made the City Watch’s job easier. So she made about 150 royals a week doing this.
She rested, waiting patiently, for about forty five minutes, then got up, turning down Stumble Lane, continuing to check on the lights. Only one light had gone out before she turned down the next street, and another two on that one. There were no benches for her to sit on, but there was a nearby cafe, and it was time for second breakfast. She entered and sat at a small table and ordered a cup of tea from the server. She again cast the Spell of Energy Recovery, and sipped her tea while munching on her bread and cheese. Almost an hour later, she continued around the corner, finding no lights out yet.
Her own block complete, she moved southwest and did two more small blocks, resting when she necessary. That would have to do for the day. It was midafternoon. It was hot, and she wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve. Note to self, she thought, learn that Spell of Cooling!
She got up from the bench she had been sitting on. It was time to go see if she could get any better answers out of that warehouse manager. She headed the two blocks to Vyrden and Sons.
It looked much the same as the day before, the workers appearing to be quite busy. Except for one person, whose small, olive green form leaned against the wall on the shaded side of the building. She watched as Daisey entered the yard. She was a Goblin of about four feet in stature, with long wavy black hair, wearing dark blue shirt and pants, and a wide brimmed hat with a pair of blue feathers. Daisey waved to her on impulse, then promptly ignored her and went into the warehouse’s main loading doors. She didn’t notice that the Goblin moved to follow her at a discreet distance.
Daisey looked around for Hydlen Scrowl. She didn’t see him, but he soon came in through the back door and into the main warehouse space.
He didn’t see her at first, then started as her presence impacted his senses. His eyes widened in surprise. “What do you want?” he asked, exasperatedly.
Daisey smiled charmingly. “Oh, I just want to ask you some questions. Remember? You threw me out before I could finish asking them of you.”
“I have work to do. Come back later.”
“It has to be now, Mr. Scrowl.” Her eyes were hard and unwavering.
“Fine,” he sighed. He waved his hand in “on with it” motion.
“I have heard reports of some of your workers ending up in the healer’s center. From wounds not acquired on the job. What do you have to say about that?”
“Nothing. If they get hurt while off duty, what business is it of mine?”
“None at all, unless you care about productivity. Which, according to our last conversation, you seem to care for quite a bit. But that isn’t what the rumors—“
Scrowl interrupted “Rumors!? Bah! Whoever started them should be drawn and quartered!”
Daisey gave Scrowl a hard look. “The rumors indicated that the workers were not off duty. The wounds they were being treated for were just not from loading or unloading materials. They were welts. From a whip or belt.”
Hydlen Scrowl had had enough. “I don’t appreciate you coming in here and accusing me! I have better things to do than take this kind of abuse! Get out!” He turned to go over to a group of three workers that looked like they had paused in their duties to eavesdrop on Daisey and Scrowl’s conversation.
“Get back to work, you lazy layabouts!”
Daisey piped up, “The fact that you won’t answer my questions seems to indicate that you are hiding something, Mr. Scrowl.”
“I’m not hiding anything, Squat!”
The racial slur took Daisey aback, but only for a moment. Her voice became very level. “I would like to see your personnel records, Mister Scrowl. Where is the office?”
Scrowl took a deep breath, trying to calm himself by force of will, and having little success. He pointed towards the corner of the building where the small office was located.
“Thank you, Mister Scrowl,” Daisey said sweetly, as she turned and ambled off towards the office. She didn’t see Scrowl’s narrowed eyes boring into her back.
The office was a simple room in the front corner of the building, with a small window on the two outside walls and a door that separated it from the warehouse floor. In it was a desk and chair, which faced the door, and a row of cabinets along the wall behind it. It was empty; apparently the office was Hydlen Scrowl’s, and he was busy on the warehouse floor.
She checked each of the five drawers in the desk. They held the usual items: pencils, pens, ink bottles, a pair of pen knives, blank paper. A small, hinged box held a collection of metal clips for holding loose pages together. A tray held a collection of push pins. In one drawer was a leather lunch box with a rounded lid. She didn’t care what he ate; so she didn’t bother opening it. In another were two bottles of what appeared to be whiskey. Another held a couple of flat metal tins with ink pads in them, along with a series of wooden stamps that said “Paid”, “Pending”, and several with numbers and letters, including a set that linked together to form dates.
She turned to the cabinets, above which were cork boards with various pieces of paper tacked to them, mainly schedules of shipments both to and from the warehouse. There was also a calendar, and a series of papers torn from a larger sheet with little notes on them. Apparently, Scrowl used it as a kind of external memory system to keep things organized.
The cabinets had shelves behind the doors, filled with chests that had labels on them. There were chests filled with invoices, estimates, payroll records, and employee documents. Daisey was most interested in the employee documents. She pulled the first of three such boxes off the shelf and set it on the desk, opening the lid and rifling through the pages within.
It was pretty standard stuff; notes and reports on employees, employee reviews, special payment dispensations, and even a few medical histories. Surprisingly, it was all very normal. Hydlen Scrowl seemed to be fairly organized, and while several of the employee records had some rather choice words in them, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Nothing in the box drew her attention. She put the box back on the shelf, and grabbed the next one.
The second box was much like the first, with the same kinds of information in it. The records seemed to be in alphabetical order by employee name. Mostly, anyway. There was a bit of filing sloppiness that Daisey, by reflex, resorted properly before she consciously thought about it. While she was doing that, though, she found a record that seemed misfiled.
The employee records were in unbleached, heavy paper folders. This set of records was in a darker brown folder, unlike all the others. She frowned, opening it. Scrowl’s style, based on the rest of his office, seemed to indicate that he was at least reasonably organized, with perhaps even some pride in his administration skills. The minor, out of proper order files were excusable, likely due to being in a hurry. Not so this file.
The papers in this folder had nothing to do with employees. It wasn’t in the correct chest at all. It was a transport order for a load of copper and silver ingots. From what she could tell, the shipment was supposed to come to this warehouse, but they had actually been sent to a different trader’s warehouse. She frowned, noticing that something was…off. Something about the stamps on some of the pages.
She checked the stamps in the drawer, looking at them. The font was simple, clean, and without any serifs or decorations. However, the stamps on the pages opened in front of her had a more florid look to them. They didn’t match. Frowning, her suspicions raised, she scanned the pages again, noticing that Scrowl’s name appeared on them. She noted the location of the warehouse the material had been diverted to, along with monetary amounts and dates. Those dates were from last eightday. Those materials were likely still in the warehouse!
She put the odd folder back in the employee record box where she had found it, and put the box back on the shelf in the cabinet. Scrowl was definitely up to something, and she wondered if his bosses knew about it. But one set of documents wasn’t going to be enough; she was going to have to investigate that other warehouse. She was not going to get much sleep tonight….
The short, blue-clad figure peeping into the window smiled to herself as the Hobbit strode out the office door. She watched the mage leave the warehouse yard and turn onto the street in the afternoon light. She followed, noting that Daisey headed off towards her home. The mage Lariiki, member of the Sentinel Group, shadowed Daisey for a couple of blocks, then turned down a side street. It was time to alert a specific pair of guardsmen. She smiled.

Part 4