I take a step back from the entrance of this place, as the searchers step towards it. I can see them stop in their tracks as they look at the corpses. The look of surprise which is on their face does seem pretty genuine. (They could just be really good actors.

  I guess that I should describe the scene. The first thing that I found odd about the room was the smell of blood. There is a faint smell of metallic blood in the room. The reason that this is weird is that I can't see a lot of blood in the place. (At least not enough blood to justify the smell.)

  There is a bit around his neck and a bit more on his wrists. To come back to the corpse. Firstly, the captive was on his bed when he was murdered. There is a wound on the man's neck and wrists. I don't know how to describe the wound. It looks like somebody has strangled the man with a really thin wire. It had begun to bite into his skin and draw blood long before he had been strangled with it.

  Other than that, there is nothing of note in the room. There is a bed in the room. There is a little table that the man has been using to eat his food on. There are plates on it, but they are empty. The man was killed well after he had been given food.

  In the last couple of weeks, the only time that the prison has been opened is to feed the man. The scholars do this every couple of days.

  That reminds me. I turn back to look at the two people behind me. The two of them have begun to get over their sense of shock as they begin to step towards the room. It is almost on instinct that I step in their way. Before they can say anything about it, though.

  "I will have to request you to close the door of this room right now.", I command the two men.

  I remember to take on a serious expression. My command must not seem like a request after all.

  "Why, we have to study what the hell has happened in there. The body must have already begun to decompose. We cannot waste any more time." Arnold looks at me. The confusion in his face transforms into rage as he realises why I have blocked his path. "You think that we have something to do with this. Why in the hells would we kill the only source of information that we have?"

  "Well, how would I know what the scholars tend to think. The only thing I know is that you are the only people who can open this door.", I reply. "This decision I am making on my authority as the owner of this ship. The only people allowed into the place are only going to be the sentinels."

  As I say this, I make sure to move towards the door in such a way that they will have to go through me to enter the place. Even as I do this, I see that Patrick has begun to move towards the room.

  "Don't make me warn you again, my friend.", I reply, as my hand goes to my sword. "This fight will be too costly for all of us."

  As I say this, I grasp my sword. I have about enough reserves in my sword to sustain myself for a bit. Then I need to feed on them to fight. I will be honest, at the moment, I actually kind of want a fight to happen. I haven't got to feed in a while. My reserves are really getting low.

  Why in the hells am I getting distracted now? I chide myself as I look at the two men. I will attack them the moment that they begin to weave any spells. There is no way that I can let them cast anything.

  "Why are you blocking us from doing our duty. We will need to study the body right now. We will be able to find some clues on how this was done as well", Arnold speaks. "The only way that a person would be able to enter the place if he didn't get through the door is through your formations."

  "My formation might be at fault. I will answer for it if that is the case. If it turns out you are somehow involved in this and I allowed you in there, I will have to answer for that as well." I speak. "Try to enter the place and I will count it as if you are trying to tamper with evidence. I will treat it as if you are the ones who commited the murder. Do you know the punishment for that?"

  The two men nod at this, as I sigh in relief. The punishment is banishment from the ship. (The ship is usually mid-air when the person is banished. Let's just say it is a long way down.) The only problem is that banishing these men would lead to a whole load of chaos that we cannot afford right now.

  "You don't need to worry. The sentinels are masters of autopsy. We had to do it so many times in our line of work. They won't be missing anything.", I reply. I had meant that statement to calm the searchers down a bit. Well, it has not had any affect though.

  I can see Arnold tremble in rage as he makes sense of the threat that I had given him. Finally, he unclenches his hand as he calms down.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  I can still see him tremble in rage, but there is a steely calm to his eyes now. Somehow, this calm of his terrifies me more than his rage.

  "Fine, we shall not enter the room then.", he replies. "Let us shut down the room, then. I am sure that your sentinels would love the place to be as undisturbed as possible."

  The man suggests this as if it were not my command in the first place. I sit down as the two men get to their work. I keep an eye on both of them. It would be pretty embarrassing if the two men managed to tamper with something under ,t watch.

  As they close that door, I think about the consequences for today. With this, my relationship with the searchers is about to become as bad as my relationship with the aegis. Well, I can't take back my words now. It is not like the scholars are particularly trustworthy. Lets just say they can lose themselves in the process of torture.

  As they continue with their task. Alfred and one of the Mayfires pop into our corridor. I must say they have a pretty tardy reaction time. If this were an enemy attack, me and the searchers would have been dead.

  They must have come here after feeling the mana flair up in the room. I wonder how the Mayfires will react to this development. After all, the man has as much incentive as me to keep all the factions together. The Mayfires would certainly not like to see a split happen among us.

  "Ah, you came at the right time, my friend." I speak as I look at the man. "I need to borrow one of your men. I need to send a message to the sentinels. "

  For a second Alfred is taken aback by my sudden command. He had come here expecting to break a fight, not to be given a command like this. He gathers himself in a few moments, though.

  "Well, you can tell whatever you need to Henry.", he replies, while pointing to the man he had entered the place with.

  Alfred himself sets himself at the back of the room. That position is the best place to interfere should a fight happened. I must say Alfred thinks very highly of me. I don't know if I would win against a single searcher. Against two, I will mostly end up dead. Gathering myself, I look at Henry.

  "Tell him this word for word. "Do you remember what happened at Brooktown. The same thing has happened here. Send Eric to help me clean this mess." I speak. "Repeat it to me if you have memorised it."

  Henry repeats what I just told the man. After that, I send him on his way.

  With that all of us settle in the corridor in an uneasy silence. I stare at the three men standing in the corridor with me.

  The searchers have already begun studying me. They are already treating me as an enemy. Well, I would do the same thing to anybody who accused me of murder. Meanwhile, Alfred is staring at the men and me in turns. The man is curious as to what has happened here.

  I keep looking around me for something to talk about. All that we have to talk about is the room we are standing out of. I can't speak about that without sounding like I am threatening them somehow, can I?

  Wait a second, there is something that I can speak about. As long as they don't take it like I am insulting them somehow.

  "I want to speak about the complaint that you had." I speak. "About the leaking death mana earlier. Can you describe it to me in detail."

  "Why, you already told us that it was bound to happen" patrick speaks. As he says this the man begins to scowl at me.

  "Well, I did not know then that the prison could have been breached. That changes things.", I reply. "So, can you describe the mana leak?"

  "Well, the leakage of death mana happened about eight hours ago. About two hours after we had opened the man's prison.", Arnold speaks.

  To the side, Patrick looks at his fellow with venom in his eyes.

  "Once we sensed that, the first thing we did was to open the prison to check if the prisoner was in there or not. So whatever entered the place could not have been related to the mana leak", he replies. "After that, we checked up on the preservation formation and confirmed that it was working. We might not know much about formations, but we can confirm that one is working."

  "Well, don't be so sure of that. That is something that the sentinels will be confirming for us. I have one specific question about the mana leak. How would you describe this flow of mana? Was it released in a single burst or was it more gradual?", I ask.

  "Well, it was a single burst. We remember this very clearly. You see, we were confused over whether we had actually felt the burst or not." Patrick replies.

  "Then it is likely that you are not the people who killed him. I can already guess what might have happened, but I will leave that explanation for the sentinels.", I reply. "What you have described can only happen if the formation was breached."

  As I describe this, I begin to cast a little spell. As a little bubble forms in my hand. (It's not the first time that I had to explain how formations work to folks that don't understand it.)

  "This bubble is like the preservation formation.", I speak. "What happened to it was something like this."

  As I speak, I form a wind needle at the tip of my finger. I use this needle to pierce the bubble quite violently. The needle enters the bubble, causing the entire thing to shake, but it holds. The needle is now inside the bubble.

  "The burst of mana that you felt is when something or somebody pierced the barrier similarly.", I speak.

  "That is not possible. We had entered the place immediately after the mana leaked. If there was somebody inside, we would have seen him.", Arnold replies, a rare bit of emotion in his voice. This particular revelation has caught the man off guard.

  "Well, if they have sent somebody then it would have likely been one of the vampires.", I speak. "If that is the case, then it is better that you let the sentinels do their work. They will be able to tell precisely what happend in that room right hours ago."

  The searchers don't reply to this as they sit down next to the crime scene. Now I am left wondering if I had been too hasty. After all, the searchers are going to take what happened today as an insult regardless of what I do now.

  Maybe if I was a bit calmer things would have gone smoother.