Curse of the Crystals

Chapter 6: The Lion's Den - part 2

Maiara swallowed before speaking up. "No, but if you answer my questions, I might put in a good word for you."

The guy gave her a sly grin. "Ask away, whatever you want to know, I'll tell you, I promise!" There was a hint of panic in Livius' voice, but it sounded somewhat faked.

"Is it true that the New Haven guards are involved?" She already knew the answer to it. Either the New Haven guards were thoroughly framed, or they were the perpetrators themselves, but they were heavily involved either way.

"Yes, they were the ones testing out the disease on the rats, to see if they could use rats to spread it. They used an old basement of a building above the sewer in the commoner's district." Livius was eager to answer. So much so that it sounded like he was lying.

His answer didn't help Maiara all that much. All of these things could've been learned by him while he was working as a guard. In other words, he'd know that they knew this much already. One thing had been kept of a secret, namely the identities of the Forest Elves that had been a victim of this crime. Only a select few people knew that these were also people from New Haven.

"Are you aware that there were people they used to test it on, and if so, can you tell us anything about them?"

Livius gave her another creepy smile. "Ah, those Forest Elves. They brought them in while dressed up as guards, so that people wouldn't look much into it. Then they started to let the rats bite them to see if they'd get the disease. Those Forest Elves were all homeless people from New Haven, or maybe even some potential rebels. They were kidnapped and brought here just for being tested upon, so that nobody in the capital would go missing before the plan was ready."

Maiara was perplexed. Livius was willing to tell them new information to a degree that made her highly suspicious of what he answered. Was that what this guy was playing at?

Before Maiara could ask another question, Livius continued. "I've told the guards the same thing just a moment ago, I've even given them a list of all the names I could remember. The people that hired me used false names, but I've also given those. Please, I made a big mistake by getting involved with this, I just want a way out, that's all."

Maiara couldn't figure out if he was honest or not, but she decided to go along with it for now. "Alright, then what is the goal of all this?"

"I don't know, they never told me. All I was told was that they wanted to spread some panic through-out the empire, and that they needed me to help them get settled in the capital. I had no idea they'd do something as bad as this, I thought they were just planning to rob some people or to assassinate a minor noble or something." This time around, Livius sounded fairly genuine.

Maiara sighed. It made sense for this guy to be a mere middleman that would be kept out of the loop for as much as possible. Even so, there were still things to learn from him. "Did you order the New Haven guards to be killed?"

"What, by the gods, no! They were killed by one of their own, who released the rats on them! Well, that's what I think happened, I wasn't there. They would have probably gotten rid of me as well if I was there. That's why I tried to steer clear from them after showing them the place in the slums. The only contact we had was whenever they needed me to stop the patrols in certain areas to do their business."

Maiara raised an eyebrow at the new revelation. "They paid you off?"

"Eh... yes. It's wrong, I know, but I kept a list of every time and place they wanted me to clear out the guard patrols. If you let me go, I'll give it."

"I can't promise we'll just let you walk, but every bit of information you can give us will surely lessen whatever punishment is in story for you. Do you remember anything about how they infected rats and people?"