The Power of Ten

Chapter 4-97: Looting and Scooting

Sama tossed the house with a feather touch from upstairs to down, specifically making off with any and all relevant paperwork, cell phones, wallets, and anything worth goldweight... a lot of which was in machinery that wasnt exactly movable, and sort of specialized for a purpose she wanted nothing to do with.

Minor jewelry, a magic knife designed to be eversharp, and some alchemical supplies. Then it was taking a custom squirt gun filled with alchemical fire out of her backpack, and spraying stuff down.

Some of the chemicals down here were pretty volatile, and when the cinders and ash started to fall on them from a burning ceiling, theyd go off rather excitedly. It would probably look like an accident... until they saw the guy whose head had been sliced cleanly off. She thus vivisized the corpses, letting them burn away tracelessly... theyd find no bodies, which would create some intense interest in where exactly the trio were, along with the tens of thousands of dollars of cash shed found hidden behind a wall.

There were plenty of ways to wash normal money. Buying stuff for the werewolves, who used small Elementals to dredge up gold and silver to trade for themselves, was an easy way of disposing of it. It was remarkable how many people didnt mind dealing in cash for certain things...

Sama cut flaming swathes through the bottom floors, discreetly popping holes in multiple windows and the ceilings to help the flames spread faster. The fires still werent visible as she exited the back door, although the chimney was pumping out some darker stuff, and this late at night, only nocturnals would be likely to notice anything before the house was basically a total loss.

Said loss should rapidly generate a call to a specific cell phone, which would be confirmed to still exist and be in operation. Klitza was already setting up the tracking program in a drop room to VERY quickly find the location of where the incoming call was from... and then it would be up to Sama to get there as fast as possible, hoping it wasnt in a moving vehicle, and identify the caller.

Since she had seen the symbol, however, that made the choice of area she needed to be in pretty clear...

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The brown-haired werewolf took the phones from Sama, pulling up in her old van as Sama slid down a telephone pole to drop them off, and was off again, heading to the posh uptown area of St. Paul, where The Shining Throne and its thinly veiled elitism preached to the wealthy and established powers of the city. Their human-centered racism, and outright pandering to the Powered as the only ones who should have influence and power on Earth, totally ignored the fact that a major chunk of the non-humans alive had been humans at some point.

Nope, Imprusar just considered them hidden deceivers, and, eager for someone to blame their own failings on, the followers of the Church were quick to persecute non-humans, refuse to work with them, and discriminate against them.

They werent openly violent about it, but they considered all non-humans basically inferior races, as, after all, hadnt they been disguised as humans to hide themselves? They particularly hated elves, since elves could get higher Level, were ALL magical, and seemingly didnt age, inspiring all sorts of jealousy. Half-bloods varied somewhere between abominations for polluting the blood of humans and half-better versions of their non-human parents, depending on the Imprusar doing the preaching, and likely the shifting of the political winds.

A Hagchild? There were more than a few Imprusar who would like to see her shot on general principle, although theyd never dirty their own hands doing such a thing, of course.

But an Imprusar Priest had laid that Geas down... and those alchemical additives were the kind of things designed to get around, say, a dwarfs resistance to poison, or an urukhars general toughness, or explode the senses of an elf.

So, it hadnt been a hired Imprusar doing this. Either the cook was one of the faithful, which was highly unlikely given his appearance and condition, or he was the minion of someone using a disposable tool to advance his agenda.

Sama was poised on top of the roof of the Shining Throne, ignoring the Wards here as they ignored her. Specifically, she was sitting atop the attached manorial house that housed the serving Priests attached to the structure. She had no idea if any of them were actually involved with this effort, as Powered werent required to divulge the source of their power. An Imprusar using his Clerical magic to build a following, a virtual kingdom of his own, was totally in line with the Churchs ideals of everyone being subservient to their theocracy.

That said, it was a thing that when industries and companies were acquired by people with Imprusar beliefs, that knowledge started to get circulated rather quickly, and skilled and unskilled people tended to desert them in droves. The phenomenon was so established that it was called Abandoning the Thrones, and it really pissed off a lot of Imprusar as they watched the kingdoms they were trying to build evaporate underneath them once their people knew who they served.

The Church of Tiirith, who was a Halvyr god, and the cheerful Chaotic Good Patron of all the half-bloods, particularly despised Imprus, and his followers outed the rich racists snobs whenever they could. It meant that many Imprusar liked to conceal their faith, and even attended services masked... which only made the Tiirithi mock them even more.

These kinds of frustrations from their inferiors might well make an Imprusar angry. If the Cleric who cast the spells was not here, hed probably be close, as this was the wealthy part of town. Making money while corrupting the weak and poor was an easy thing to do, and Imprus was popular among criminals as well as honest wealthy, because kingdoms were kingdoms, and if you put humanity first, a lot was excusable.

If you were in charge, you made the rules, after all.

Klitz let me know when the fire alarm went out. That meant law enforcement would learn about it, and it was in a decent neighborhood. Someone might know about the importance of the location, send up word, and a phone call would be made as the dawn rolled around, the city started to come to life...

Its ringing, Klitz informed me. There was a recorded click, which was not the phone going to an answering machine, but actually being picked up. Shed already broken into the cell to get the recorded message, and was playing it back for whoever was calling to keep them on the phone while she hungrily tracked the signal back.

Morleft, weve heard about the house. The boss wants to know what happened. Call immediately. There was a click as it hung up, but Klitz laughed in Samas ear.

2143 Compton! And it wasnt moving!

Sama had already memorized the map of the city... Compton was about a half-mile west, towards the river, the 2000s edged down close... might be a riverfront property there. Got a name? she asked, as she shot into motion across the rooftops, opting to drink a Potion for a few minutes of blurring camouflage in the increasing sunlight.

The owner of that property is listed as Raphael Sequerto... hes a wealthy sweatshop owner, with shops in various parts of the country and Mexico. Hes not usually at home, however.

Ill see who is. Drugs and a guy with interests in Mexico... how not a surprise. Imprusar was favored over Huul by the organized Mafia families, with Shoul being favored by those without as much public presence. The three faiths got along surprisingly well, although Shoul didnt have the bias against non-humans. They all considered themselves smarter than everyone else, and more entitled...

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It only took her five minutes to cover the distance, taking a lot of shortcuts over houses and walls meant to keep out people like her, little more than a shimmer in the air as she moved. Soon enough she was outside the place, eying the Wards about the place that would require a lot of money to keep active... or being a Powered yourself.

There were also live guards up and around, keeping the place free of undesirables, with security cameras and the whole nine yards.

It was not the kind of place to enter in the daytime, but it was the kind of place to survey then.

Sama put down one of Klitzas cameras. The werewolf hacker turned it on remotely, had her reposition it to include the primary exit doors from the house, and then move to another pole to set up another fake electrical box to disguise the camera. Since a box wasnt supposed to be there, anyways, nobody was going to check them to see what was in them.

It was only two cameras, but all they wanted was pics of people that they could search for, and license numbers of cars to see who they were registered to. Sama already had two of them, and Klitza was undertaking some careful searches...

This part of her job done, it was time to actually go to work.

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She skated up to the solidly built storefront that held Master Vrunes workplace and sales desk, along with a few choice showy items on display. The dwarven smith actually lived next door, underneath the specialty brewery he also happened to own. His wife was a talented brewer, and dwarves tended to like their booze more potent than other races did.

Sama wasnt late, but she often beat him there; he grunted when he heard the lock cycle and she stepped inside, relocking it behind her. He was going through his stock and fuel, preparing himself for the work day.

Dwarves tended to live under things, as opposed to over things, so there were living quarters downstairs he rented out to her at a reasonable rate, especially given the small amount of time she spent there. It was little more than a place to sometimes meditate and store her stuff; Master Vrune was as aware as any of the locals that she spent most of the night wandering around, and sometimes/often/rather frequently/every chance she could getting into trouble.

Trouble for the other person, that is. Sama tended to come out of said trouble with torn clothes, and otherwise just fine.

Late night or early morning? he asked, seeing her walk in. Most of the time, she was here before him and already at work.

Late night, she replied agreeably. Tracking that new meth supplier down.

The dwarf nodded slowly. Although they didnt have the glorious martial history that generally accompanied the race in magical worlds, dwarves were innately stubborn, and naturally tough, which led to being very unafraid of getting into fights. Just about every dwarven family had someone with Clerical talent, too, so they werent afraid of getting injured, either.

Anything I should know?

Well, the Imprusar are involved.

Master Vrune spat unerringly into a spittoon ten feet away, hard enough to make it ring. Any dwarf worth the name followed the Crystal Dragon if they could, even if they couldnt get very far... and Master Vrune had made it to Seven, so he was definitely an extremely dangerous individual if riled. Tack on being a Master Smith, and he was a pretty renowned individual.

He had dwarves vying to apprentice with him all the time, but he naturally tended to hold those positions for his kinfolk, or the children of his good friends. Dwarven clans were slowly coming together via marriage, but again, they hadnt had the centuries to establish themselves, so he was basically the head of an organization of friends and family, and an elder of the dwarves of St. Paul.

That he allowed a human female, especially a Hagchild, to work in his forge, had astonished many people. Then he showed them the first Sword shed made, already magical, and theyd shut up and left him to his own judgement.

Give me details, he said, dark eyes narrowing under bushy eyebrows, and she filled him in on some of what had gone on last night. Quiet feelers would be going out through the dwarven community at the merest hint Imprusar were involved, and when she brought out the orgut, a primary ingredient in making dwarfbane poison, his huge hands trembled in rage for a moment.

Needless to say, Sama rarely had any problems getting quiet help behind the scenes with some of her escapades, and the dwarves naturally never said anything when they did.

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