Truthseeker

by RB_


Larceny on the Graveyard Shift 2

It’s never real until you actually see the body, Lyra mused as she looked at what little of the dead pony she could and tried to keep her breakfast down. I’m going to be seeing that in my nightmares tonight.

The crystal itself was an opaque reddish-brown. She could make out the shadow of the rest of the pony’s body, but nothing else. The other victim hadn’t fared as well; his entire body had been encased within the planar walls of his crystalline coffin.

Lyra shuddered. ‘Suffocation within crystal’ found a new place of prominence on the list of ways she didn’t want to die.

“You there,” Bon Bon said from beside her. One of the unicorns working by the crystals looked up.

“Me?”

“Yes. You. Tell me about… this,” she said, gesturing towards the crystals.

“Oh!” The stallion actually smiled. “Well, this is a class three magical construction, nearly flawless, really quite impressive, especially given the antiquated methods which were used to—"

“Right, right,” Lyra said, not liking the enthusiasm in his voice. “What about the ponies inside?”

“Oh. Well, this is Searchlight,” he said, pointing at the one with the visible head. “And over there is Rabbitfoot. They were originally found inside the illusion. In fact, that’s how the illusion was discovered in the first place, when one of the museum staff walked right into one of them. We moved them out here when we arrived.”

“How do you know who’s in that one?” Bon Bon asked, pointing at the farther crystal, the one without a pony’s head sticking out of it.

“Look, here,” the stallion said, pointing to a specific facet on the crystalline prison. Something white and rectangular sat just below the surface. “You can see his ID badge. Besides, he’s the only other pony who it could be. Everypony else is accounted for—or so one of the investigators told me, eheheh. Everypony except the janitor.”

“Right, the janitor, I nearly forgot,” Lyra said. “He’s missing too, right?”

“Right. Anyway, we’ll be able to confirm it once we get the bodies out, but that may not be for a while. This is some of the most intricate spellwork any of us have ever seen—I swear, some of it even looks pre-Starswirl in construction!”

“Right,” Lyra said. “Thank you for… for the information.” They stepped away, leaving the unicorn to his work and turning their attention to the task at hand: the Aisle itself.

The Aisle itself was a single, high-ceilinged room, much longer than it was wide. Glass cases stretched from the front of the room to the back, arranged in three rows, with more set into the walls. Their insides were filled with plaques, drawings, illustrations and, of course, the artifacts themselves. As they walked through, Lyra noted everything from a pair of shears to a set of seven-sided dice.

She turned to Bon Bon. “Tell me what you see.”

“Typical museum fare,” she said. “Display cases, Artifacts. Nothing looks out of place. What do you see?”

“Mostly the same,” Lyra said, “Except for that.”

She pointed at one of the displays. A wide hole, ringed by the distortion of warped glass, had been opened in the display pane, and the item it was supposed to be protecting was gone. Stepping forward, Lyra stuck her hoof through the hole. Bon Bon’s eyes widened in surprise.

“It looks like you’re sticking your hoof through a solid pane of glass,” she said.

“There’s a hole.”

Lyra turned her attention to the display itself. “’Purse Snatcher’s Pouch of Pilfering,’” she read.

“And it’s missing?” Bon Bon asked.

“Yep. C’mon, let’s see if there’s anything else.”

There were other things, in fact. Bagatelle the Bard’s Flask of Song Storage, Mage Meadowbrook’s Emerald of Equine Enchantment, and…

“’The last remaining journal of Clover the Clever,’” Bon Bon read. “’Written by the famous wizard and apprentice to Starswirl the Bearded. The later chapters are written in code, however, and no scholar has yet succeeded in deciphering them. They remain one of the greatest mysteries in all of magical history.”

“Bonnie, look,” Lyra said. She lit her horn and fished something out of the display case, drawing it through the hole in the glass.

“Bloodleaf,” Bon Bon murmured as she observed the scrap of crimson foliage. “Where…?”

“Sitting under the display stand,” Lyra said.

“Then that settles it. This was Hollyleaf.”

“But why? What could she possibly want with a sound jar, a gem, a coin purse of holding, and a half-indecipherable journal?”

“No idea. But whatever she’s planning, it can’t be good.”

─────

“What do you mean you didn’t find anything!?”

Lyra and Bon Bon had left the Aisle, only to find Trace yelling at another unicorn sporting a matching badge.

“I mean we didn’t find anything!” the other pony said. “There was nothing at his apartment, nothing at his agency… his landlord said she didn’t think he’d even come home since the robbery!”

“Did you check the train stations?” Trace asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Of course we did! We even had the stationmasters check through the records of their ticket sales! Nothing!”

“Something wrong?” Bon Bon asked. Both ponies turned to look at her, Trace’s face morphing to a look of annoyance. “Did you lose something?”

“Only our prime suspect,” Trace muttered. “What about you? Have your investigations turned up anything useful?”

“We know what was stolen,” Lyra said. She listed off the artifacts that were missing and how they had been taken, neglecting to mention the leaf that now resided in her saddlebags.

“How… did you learn all that?” Trace asked, after she was done.

“The janitor,” Bon Bon said, blowing past the question. “He’s your prime suspect, right? The only pony unaccounted for?”

“Yes,” Trace said, although it seemed like it pained her to say so. “Who has, apparently, disappeared without a trace!”

Lyra stepped forward. “Maybe we can help?”

“You?”

“Yeah,” Lyra said. “We did a good enough job back there, didn’t we? Besides, there’s no point in working against each other like this. We both want the same thing, here.”

“Well…” Trace took a few seconds to mull it over.

“You’re out your only suspect,” Bon Bon added. “If I were in your horseshoes, I’d take all the help I could get.”

 Trace sighed. “Fine. Alright. Let’s find somewhere quieter.”

─────

“So,” Bon Bon said, sitting down. “Tell us what you know. Start from the beginning.”

They’d found themselves an empty conference room, with which they could conduct their exchange in private. From her bag, Lyra retrieved a notepad and a pen; fodder for the war board, if nothing else.

“The robbery took place two nights ago,” Trace began. “Most likely around midnight, based on what the mages have told us about the spells cast on the Aisle and on the two guards.

“The janitor, Clean Sweep, would have started his shift two hours earlier. By the accounts of the other guards, he started work in the  lobby, moved to the west wing, and worked his way around to the east wing from there. As you know, that’s where the Aisle is. He left the museum some time around one o’clock.”

“Did you have a witness for that?” Bon Bon asked.

“Yes. The lobby guard was there when he left.”

“Was he museum staff, or a contractor?”

“The latter. He worked for a sanitation agency, they rotate assignments. We’ve checked in with them; he hasn’t been seen since the night of the robbery.”

“And the lobby guard didn’t see him carrying any of the stolen artifacts?”

“Well, no,” Trace said, fidgeting slightly. “But he’s the only lead we had, so…”

“That’s not actually an issue,” Lyra said. The two of them looked up at her.

“One of the stolen artifacts was Purse Snatcher’s Pouch of Pilfering,” she explained. “Purse Snatcher was a famous thief who stole from the noble houses in early Equestria. His coin purse was enchanted so that it could hold and hide objects of any size. You could probably store most of the royal treasury in that thing and still have room for a picnic basket.”

She spotted Bon Bon’s amused look. “What? I do remember some things that annoying history professor taught me.”

“So what you’re saying,” Trace said, “is that Clean Sweep could have stored everything he stole in this coin purse, and walked out with it in his pocket?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that’s one mystery solved,” she said. “Now if only we could figure out where he’s taken it.”

There was a lull for a few moments, and then Bon Bon spoke up. “What about the two guards,” she asked, “what do you know about them?”

“Searchlight and Rabbitfoot,” Trace said. “Both were employed directly by the museum, and both had been working there for several years. They were both assigned to patrol the east wing at night.”

“What about how they were killed?” Lyra asked.

“You’d have to talk to the mages about that. All I know is that it’s uniquely strong magic, and that Searchlight was taken first.”

Bon Bon leaned forward a bit. “Oh? Searchlight?”

“Yes,” Trace said. “They told me his crystal was formed at least half an hour before Rabbitfoot’s, judging by the residual traces of something or other. Magical forensics aren’t my specialty.”

“Oh,” she said, “and they also told me that they thought Searchlight’s had formed slightly faster than Rabbitfoot’s.”

“Interesting,” Bon Bon muttered. “Actually… do you have anything about their patrol routes?”

“No, but I know who does. Wait here for a minute.”

“Could you also get us pictures of Clean Sweep and the two guards?” Lyra asked. “If you have any, that is.”

“Sure.”

Trace got up and left, closing the door behind her.

Lyra looked over at Bon Bon. She had an odd look on her face, one Lyra hadn’t seen since Manehattan.

“What are you thinking, Bonnie?” she asked.

“I'm thinking this might be a lost cause,” she said. “But I’ve got a feeling in my gut. Something’s off here.”

“I’d bet on your gut feeling,” Lyra said. “And I think you’re right. It’s the guards, isn’t it?”

Bon Bon nodded. “You’d know better than I would, but… encasing them in crystal? Casting an illusion over the Aisle?”

“It’s too complicated.”

“Right. We know she’s powerful. Why not just teleport out? Why all this?”

Lyra didn’t have an answer, so she left Bon Bon to her thoughts. With nothing else to do, she looked down at her notebook, intending to read over the notes she’d taken.

Rabbitfoot’s name, which she’d written at the top of the page, had been crossed out in heavy ink. Lyra frowned. She hadn’t done that, had she? Not on purpose, anyway.

She shrugged. Just a simple accident from not looking at the page while she wrote.

Trace returned a few minutes later, carrying with her a manila folder. She passed it to Bon Bon and sat back down.

“Teleportation,” Bon Bon said, not looking up from the contents of the folder. “Is there a reason you aren’t considering that whoever did this teleported out of Canterlot?”

“It’s highly unlikely,” Trace said. “The amount of power it would take to teleport from Canterlot to even just the base of the Canterhorn is astronomical.”

“We’re clearly dealing with a powerful spellcaster here,” Bon Bon said, but Trace shook her head.

“Not that powerful.”

“What about a bunch of short trips, then?” Bon Bon asked. “Teleport a quarter of the way down the mountain, then another, then another, until eventually you reach the bottom?”

But again Trace shook her head. “Not down a sheer rock face. It’d be suicide.”

Bon Bon frowned.

When it comes to Hollyleaf, Lyra thought, that might not mean much…

All was silent for a few minutes.

“Well,” Trace said, “If we’re done here, I need to get back to my team.”

“Good luck,” Lyra told her as she left. The door closed behind her.

“Fifteen minutes, Bon Bon said.

“What?”

“The guards’ patrols,” she said. “They were supposed to be fifteen minutes apart. I thought it was weird, that the second guard was taken half an hour after the first, because that’s not a good patrol time, but their patrols were supposed to be fifteen minutes apart.”

Bon Bon looked up. She was making that face again, that predatory half-grin that only came out at times like this.

Lyra frowned. “What does that mean?”

“That’s what we need to figure out,” Bon Bon said, standing. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”