Truthseeker

by RB_

Larceny on the Graveyard Shift 3

“Private Peytral,” Pear Pommel said. The guard she was addressing stood up a little straighter and saluted.

“Ma’am.”

“Anything to report, Private?”

He fidgeted slightly. “The sign, ma’am,” he said. “It moved again.”

Lyra and Bon Bon had made their way back to the Aisle’s entryway, only to find the scene before them unfolding.

Pear Pommel raised an eyebrow. “Oh, the sign moved again, did it?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well,” Pear Pommel said, slapping a hoof onto the shoulder of his armour, “you keep a good eye on that sign, Private; be sure to report any and all of its movements. The fate of Equestria depends on you! Meanwhile the rest of us will do the far less glamourous job of actually guarding the door.”

The Private swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

Pear Pommel turned around and began walking away, spotting Lyra and Bon Bon in the process.

“Rookies,” she said as she passed. “This job is getting to them.”

Lyra, though, was frowning.

She was looking at the sign in question, a cardboard arrow on a stand meant to be directing visitors into the Aisle.

And she wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn it had actually been pointing into the Aisle earlier. But now, it pointed to the left, towards one of the crystal masses. Somepony must have bumped into it when the guard wasn’t looking, she supposed.

Lyra spotted the mage she’d spoken to earlier, and, with some reluctance, waved him over.

“H-hello,” he said. “Can I help you with something?”

“That depends,” Bon Bon said. “How much do you know about the artifacts on display in the Aisle?”

“Oh, tons,” he said. “They’re all very important relics from throughout magic’s history; I could probably give you the history of all of them in my sleep.”

“Good,” Bon Bon said. “We only need information about—”

“The ones that were stolen?”

“What?” he said, seeing their glares. “I keep my ears open.”

“Right,” Bon Bon said. “Would any of them would prevent somepony from teleporting?”

“Mage Meadowbrook’s Emerald of Equine Enchantment,” he said, with such immediacy that Lyra wasn’t sure she’d even finished the question before he’d answered it. “Not if you wanted to come out the other end intact, anyway.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Well, the Emerald is perfectly shaped in such a way that it has the unique property that it can redirect spells such that they entangle with a pony’s own leylines, essentially incorporating the spell into the pony’s own thaumic being,” he said, with far more enthusiasm than Lyra ever could have.

“Trying to teleport it, however, would charge it with the teleport spell; anypony who tried to teleport with it, or tried to interact with it afterward, would have the teleport spell mixed with their own magic, and that… eheheh, well, it wouldn’t be pretty. Especially if you were the caster.”

He pushed his glasses back up his muzzle. “And Celestia only knows what would happen to the emerald in all this; there’s no way to predict the results of a failed teleport on carried objects. At best, it could end up anywhere between here and Luna Bay. At worst…”

“So teleporting with the Emerald is a really bad idea,” Lyra summarized.

“Put simply, yes.”

“What if it was stored inside Purse Snatcher’s Pouch of Pilfering?” Lyra asked.

The stallion shook his head. “No, it’s the same issue. The teleport would need to contain the inside of the purse in order to preserve its contents, and thus the Emerald itself.”

His ears perked up. “Why? Is that how they smuggled them out?”

“You won’t get that information out of us,” Bon Bon said. “The investigation team has loose enough lips as it is…”

They let him get back to work.

“So,” Lyra whispered, “that rules that out.”

“And makes everything way more complicated.” Bon Bon whispered back. “If Hollyleaf can’t teleport the emerald, then how did she expect to get out of Canterlot in the body of a criminal?”

“She could have switched bodies,” Lyra said. “Smuggled them out as the janitor, then switched into somepony else and taken them…”

Bon Bon frowned. “It’s possible… but we don’t know how her body-swapping works. And if she did that, then Clean Sweep, or his body, should have turned up by now.”

“Unless she hid the body,” Lyra said, and the fact that the thought had occurred to her at all made her feel slightly ill.

“Unless she hid the body. But if that’s what happened, then there’s nothing we can do until it’s found. Until that happens, we should continue to look for other possibilities.”

Lyra nodded. “Right.”

She pulled out her notebook and made a note of what they’d learned, and then the two of them went to take a closer look at the guards’ prisons. When a thorough inspection of Searchlight’s grave revealed nothing new, they moved over to Rabbitfoot’s.

Lyra peered into the facet that contained Rabbitfoot’s badge. She could just make out his photograph, red-tinted through the crystal. Most of the words below it were almost too blurry to read, but “Rabbitfoot” was plainly visible.

She turned her attention to the body held within the crystal’s walls, visible only in silhouette.

Lyra lifted up her notebook again, intending to make a note. However, as she did…

“There!” the guard from earlier cried. “It moved again! Didn’t any of you see that?”

Lyra glanced over at him, then looked over at the sign.

It had moved. It now sat a couple of inches closer to Rabbitfoot.

A rustling of paper. Lyra glanced back down at her notepad.

The pages were flipping rapidly, as if the notebook had been caught by a strong gust of wind, but there was none.

Lyra glanced over at Bon Bon. She’d seen it too, as had everypony else, and they were all watching with their mouths agape.

Abruptly, the movement stopped. The notebook was open to the first page of notes Lyra had made while talking to Trace, the one with “Rabbitfoot” written at the top. The page tore itself from the book, flew through the air, and stuck itself to the sign.

“I told you!” the guard yelled behind them. “I told all of you!”

Lyra wasn’t paying any attention to him, though. Nopony else was, either.

“What… was that?” Bon Bon murmered. “Lyra? Did you see…?”

“Nothing,” she said.

They stared at it for a moment longer.

“Bonnie,” Lyra said, “I think this museum might be haunted.”

“That’s… impossible,” Bon Bon said. “Ghost’s don’t… don’t…”

“I think they might,” Lyra said. “And I think I might know someone who can help.”

─────

“…the Owl stands, ever-vigilant. Lyra Heartstrings, Truthseeker.”

“Photo Finish,” the mare said through her thick accent. “Spirit Shutter.”

It had taken them a startlingly short amount of time to arrange this meeting; the hardest part had been finding the mare, and all that had required was a visit to Dusty Grimoire’s bookshop.

Clearing out everyone in the east wing so that Photo Finish wouldn’t be recognized doing Owl work, however, had been a challenge, particularly when it came to the mages.

“Thank you for coming out to help us with this,” Lyra said. “I know you’re a busy mare…”

“It is no problem,” Photo said. She’d come without her signature dress and glasses, instead bringing with her an aging camera bag. “I am always okay with taking time off for this.”

“So,” she said, “This is the area you saw the poltergeisting, ja?”

Yes,” Lyra said. “Right in the entranceway.”

Photo Finish nodded and set down her bag. From it, she withdrew a camera. There didn’t appear to be anything odd about it, other than that it looked remarkably well-maintained.

“I found this camera many years ago,” she said, removing the camera’s lens cap. “To say it changed my life would be too little, I think.”

She held it up to her face and peered through its viewfinder, adjusting the focus knob as she did so. Slowly, she turned in place, until…

“Ah.”

“Is that a good ‘ah’, or a bad ‘ah’?” Lyra asked.

“Good ah,” Photo Finish said. “Do not move.” She replaced the camera’s cap and gingerly slipped it back into the bag, then withdrew a camera flash.

“What’s that for?”

“You will see,” she said. Gripping the thing in her mouth, she aimed it in the direction she’d been looking and hit the button on its side. The hallway lit up with a flash, and Lyra had to close her eyes.

When she opened them again, there was a new pony standing in front of them.

“Gah, what on Equis?” the stallion muttered. “Tingles, everywhere…”

He stopped, and noted the fact that everypony present was watching him.

He took a step to the left. Lyra followed his movement with her eyes.

He took a step to the right. She kept staring.

“By jove,” he said, “I think they can see me!”

“We can,” Photo Finish said. “For now. The flash lasts for one hour. You will be fully observable until it wears off.”

“Ah,” the stallion said. “Well, fancy that.”

He looked around at them. “I must say, I’d grown quite used to not being seen. This is rather peculiar.”

“Who… are you?” Lyra asked.

“Ah, my apologies.” The stallion bowed. “My name is Cottonish Coppercog. I think. It has been so long, I fear I may have made that up. It is a rather silly name, isn’t it? Cottonish Coppercog, Cottonish Coppercog, Cottonish—”

“Right, okay,” Lyra said. “Were you here on the night of the robbery?”

Coppercog scoffed. “Was I—madame, I am always here. I can’t leave!”

“He is a bound soul,” Photo Finish explained. “A spirit chained to an object from their past.”

The ghost nodded. “My soul is bound to that great piece of machinery in the foyer—my finest work while I was alive, I can assure you! If only I could still remember what it did…”

“You do know,” Photo Finish said, “that you can pass over whenever you wish, yes?”

Coppercog’s eyes darted to the side—almost as if he was looking at something the rest of them couldn’t see.

“I am… aware, yes,” he said. “I have taken… peeks… at the other side, here and there… but I can’t go yet! There’s so much left to learn, here and now!”

“Peeks?” Lyra asked. “What did you see?”

The ghost grimaced. “While I admire your spirit, miss… best to let the secrets of the dead remain the secrets of the dead, I think.”

“Alright, then what did you see here?” Lyra asked.

“When?”

“On the night of the robbery. Did you see what happened?”

“Ah, right, right. Oh! Yes, there was—there was something I was trying to tell you, wasn’t there… what was it…”

The stallion turned his head upward, looking at the ceiling as his hoof drifted to his chin. He half-floated, half-paced across the floor. “What was it…”

Lyra glanced over at Bon Bon, who had been remarkably quiet this entire time. “Are you okay, Bon Bon? You look as pale as a ghost!”

“Ja,” Photo Finish said. “A Bon-shee!”

They both had a good chuckle at that. Bon Bon just glared at them.

“A-ha!” Coppercog exclaimed. “I’ve remembered!”

“Remembered what?”

“Remembered what I was trying to tell you, earlier!” he said, gesturing to the sign. The scrap of paper from Lyra’s notebook was still stuck to it from earlier, Rabbitfoot’s crossed-out name at the top.

“Really,” he said, “I was quite obvious about it, though I do suppose the sudden revelation of my existence may have proved a tad distracting, but honestly—”

“Just spit it out,” Bon Bon said.

“Right, sorry,” he said. “Several centuries without anyone to talk to, I seem to have developed a tendency to ramble—a-hem.”

He pointed to the crystal containing Rabbitfoot.

“That crystal,” he said, “does not contain Rabbitfoot.”

Comments

[Ze1a7in]

Called it. I may not have commented it, but the last chapter heavily implicated that Rabbitfoot was not in the second crystal.

[Nyperold]

So is this Fatal Frame: Crimson Fluttershy, or Mask of the Luna Eclipsed?

[RainEStar]

8602621
Im with you on that. Odd timing of guards and a nametag instead of the body for identification? No way it was as it seemed.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Oh ho. Just because Lyra sees everything as it is doesn't mean she can't be deceived. It's just trickier.

Also, nice touch with Photo Finish as a spirit photographer. And she has one of the better codenames in the organization.

[iraneth0]

damn, i made it to the end in one day.

[iraneth0]

keep going mate! you got this story on the front page for some time there.

[fanreader999999]

Good character story, awful mystery story.

[RB_]

8625722
I'm inclined to agree, but care to elaborate?

[fanreader999999]

8625737

The interactions between the character are fun to read. Fleur and Octavia bantering is great since a little rivalry keeps things heated. Vinyl being a "reformed vampire, but still a vampire" is nice to have since she bears the scars of her past more than others. And Bon Bon being an ex/out of retirement-monster hunter leaves many fun doors open.

But the mystery in the story is awful. With all the powers you've introduced, theres no point in trying to play detective. There are so many myths introduced that its literally impossible for readers to deduce anything other than what's heavily telegraphed to Lyra/the reader. When the writer is referencing Lovecraft, the only way to win is to not play. Unfortunately, you obviously have no intention of allowing that since "Hollyleaf" has been strung along the story for so long.

[RB_]

8626706
Hm... that's interesting. I hadn't considered that.
Thank you for the feedback! It is appreciated.

[Timuri]

Hey, ghost witness. Well, he went ahead and confirmed what I'd suspected.