"It must be my strong jaw line and air of serene charm." The young mage strikes a playful pose, his beer in hand and a gaze to the horizon.

Zelpuz laughs. "Must be."
He takes a sip of his beer.
"So how have things been here in the city? All things back to normal?"

"Normal? Hardly. If things were normal I'd be off in military exercises or patrolling the border or something, rather than playing harbor police. Things aren't as... tense as they were, but everything is a bit off kilter you could say." Saya relates after taking a long drink from her beer after toasting Zelpuz's arrival to the table.

Yuu nods, "Zelpuz and Vanyra, she should be here in a sec, helped Que and I escape the night that my family was attacked. That seemed to be when off-kilter reared its mangled face. Maybe we should relate the story of the chlornetherium?"

Zelpuz takes a long sip of his beer. "Which one?"

"The one in the warehouse. A stockpile of the stuff isn't normal, and especially outside military hands."

Waiting a while longer to ensure that no trap was being sprung when Zelpuz approached the table, Vanyra finally heads towards the others.  She casually walks across the room in her casual Ossylian clothes and quietly sits down at the table.

"Netherium warehouse?" Saya asks and then cuts herself short as Vanyra approaches the table and sits down quietly. Her eyes shift back and forth between Vanyra and Yuu, before settling on Yuu with a raised eyebrow, "Another of your friends?"

"I assume you trust her, but maybe leave out Lasrane and the involvement of the Order for now." Yuu hears in his head.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:08, Tue 16 Jan 2018.

"Ahh," Yuu puts down his beer, and semi half stands. "Saya, Vanyra... Vanyra, Saya. And yeah, while sniffing around some side jobs, we found a huge stockpile of chlornetherium in a warehouse near the docks. Well, they did. It got blown up, bad. You must have heard about it, but wasn't sure if you'd heard what it was. Someone serious was involved in obtaining it though, and I doubt the intent was friendly."

Saya smiles at Vanyra, "Nice to meet you, Vanyra." and then flags down the server and orders another round of drinks. "Apparently we're going to need some more drinks," and then turns her attention back to Yuu in slightly hushed tones, "Holy shit, Yuu, are you mixed up in that? This is some serious shit; I don't know much about it myself, but the powers that be are definitely on the hunt and rumor has it heads are going to roll. That much untraced chlornetherium is enough to outfit an entire company of mages with weapons, enough to cause some major damage, possibly even take out a city... wait, is your family involved?"

Yuu nods excitedly, while Saya spouts off the seriousness of the chlornetherium find. "I know!! Fucking crazy, isn't it?" He squeezes in. "No, Vanyra and Zelpuz were doing some Freelancer work, and happened upon it. They came and spoke with me about it later, they weren't sure what it was. I couldn't believe it either when they told me. I went and looked at the disaster zone afterwards just to see for myself. I mean, the amount they were talking... a bloody army's worth."

"Well it certainly can't be a coincidence that after that explosion the city was locked down. Given the mobilization of the local garrisons I suspect that certain military leaders had some suspects in mind and thus moved to cut off escape. Those suspects must be some well connected people too, that would explain the lockdown on many government officials... ah man, this whole thing is grim. Do you have any idea of whose chlornetherium it was? Secondly, any idea why it exploded?" Saya continues as she tries to wrap her mind around the heavy news presented.

Zelpuz leans back, takes another sip of his beer which has an interesting aftertaste that he just can't put his finger on and waits for Yuu to continue his story. While leaning back, he looks around the room to checking if they have attracted any attention.

Just like every other bar and tavern all the patrons seem absorbed in their own tales and beverages far too much to pay attention to Zelpuz's table.

"I wasn't there, but it would certainly have been a sight to see! But who locked the city down? Was it the element looking into why so much chlornetherium was gathered secretly in one place? Or was it the element pissed off that their secret stash was blown up, and they wanted answers?" Yuu pauses to catch his breath. "Know that could help a lot in figuring out what is going on, and who is currently driving events in the city."

"Well it's the Reforgers that seem to be calling the shots right now, along with their supporters in High Command. That's why the garrison has been mobilized and called in to "reinforce" the city guard. There are plenty of people in that group who would and possibly could use that much chlornetherium, but they typically would not need to hide a shipment... could have been their's, but they could have had it stolen and were looking to get it back. Cooler heads may have called for a more subtle investigations, but doesn't look like any such folks are speaking up in the Senate." Saya elaborates.

The young mage scratches an itch behind his ear. "I'd like to know which group is resourced enough, or daring enough, to steal that much chlornetherium from under the Reforgers, if that was what happened. Could it be someone knew of the Regorgers plan and tried to undermine it? Or just a happenstance of events when someone realised they were onto a big score?"

"Well it likely wouldn't be the Reforger's chlornetherium, they're just politicians, given most of them are ex-military. They have wealth and influence, but not enough to procure that much a restricted substance. It could have been a military shipment that was stolen, then there would certainly be records of that with the quartermaster and the MPs. I haven't heard anything, but that's not my area of responsibility." Saya offers. She ponders for a short while until inspiration spreads across her face, "The military sources almost all of our chlornetherium internally, from within Ossylia, for national security reasons. There are records of each supplier and shipment naturally... LOTS of records I imagine and they may not be the most detailed. But there are only a handful of outside suppliers permitted and each of those shipments receives extreme scrutiny and the records are meticulously kept. I bet a look at those records would yield some decent evidence one way or the other on where this shipment was going, IF it was an official shipment that was stolen, and if not we learn something anyways."

"We think the warehouse where we saw the stuff was owned by a group called the blood runners, in case that helps." Zelpuz chimes in.

"Bloody runners? Never heard of them. Sound like some sort of gangsters or something." Saya shrugs.

"Yes, that sounds right, they might run under a different name, that was just one we heard in some pub."

"So if it was their warehouse, are they the ones that stole the chlornetherium? If so this all seems a bit odd; I mean why the Reforgers institute martial law if someone just busted up a massive chlornetherium smuggling operation? Are these blood-guys connected to anyone?" Saya presses as she's introduced to the tangled maze of information the group has uncovered.

"Good questions, sadly we don't know the answers. And this may only be a side story to what's going on, but it would be interesting to know, but basically we are just bystanders that happened to come across this information." Zelpuz ponders. "On the other hand, as outsiders it may be easier for us to find some of the information, if you have ideas where we can look, at least I am intrigued and willing to help."

"I'm afraid not. I'm a solider not a guard, and not familiar with the criminal underbelly of the city. The only thing I can think of is to check the military records to see if any chlornetherium shipments have gone missing, as I said. Not sure how you would get access to that though, as they are kept in a secure location with authorized access only." Saya explains.