Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Seven - Haystack

“This is neither easy nor peasy,” I complained.

The area with warehouses was way, way worse than I had imagined. I thought it would be a few rows of warehouses, with the interiors filled with all the cargo passing through the port. But I was wrong.

Instead, there were several rows of warehouses, with warehouses above them, and then some warehouses below them too. The sylph had a whole system of elevators, cranes, and scaffolds so that they could use the limited space they had to maximum effect.

That meant that everything was a whole complex array of passages, ramps, and lifts, with carts being pushed around all over by sylph who weren’t usually in a good mood when we happened to step into their way.

The warehouses had nice big numbers next to their doors, which was helpful.

Less helpful was the way the warehouses started at forty-two, went to sixty-seven, then had single digits beyond that for a bit. Some even had letters at the end, for some inexplicable reason.

“And the sylph claim to be sophisticated,” Amaryllis muttered.

“Maybe there’s some sort of logic to the system that we, ah, just don’t get?” I tried.

“I think the warehouses were numbered as they were built,” Awen said. She pointed across the street and down. The road, which was really more of a grated catwalk, ended at a set of rails, and we could see down a couple of floors across. “The bottom floors are all lower numbers, and they tend to go up.”

She was right, the warehouse across from us went from thirteen, to fourteen, to sixteen, to twenty-one.

“So they’re always rising in number, but they don’t have odd or even sorting, and the numbers sometimes skip a few,” I said.

That had nothing on the warehouses who had multiple numbers next to their doors, for some unfathomable reason.

“Alright, enough of this.” I walked away from my friends for a moment and flagged down a passing sylph. He had a hardhat on, and a sort of yellowish tabard over plain clothes. “Excuse me, sir. Could you point us towards warehouse number seventy-four please?”

“Huh?” he asked. Then he pointed towards the far end of the street. “That way, left, then right at warehouse one-one-one.”

“Thanks!” I called after him. That had been easier than I expected. “Come on!”

We navigated around the maze of warehouses, and I realized that I didn’t ask which level warehouse seventy-four was on. That was a bit of a mistake, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, not unless I flagged someone else down, and I really didn’t want to interrupt another worker. None of the sylph on the roads were idling either, it was impressive. Or maybe they just had their own little corners for relaxing?

We had to go down a level when we came upon a block in the road, then back up around the next intersection.

Warehouse one-one-one was easy enough to find, the three numbers being painted all up the side of the building.

“There it is!” Awen said as she pointed ahead and down.

We were a floor above the closed doors of warehouse seventy-four, which meant we had to backtrack to the nearest elevator, then go down a floor and back to where we’d been.

In the end, the three of us stood in front of a pair of wide doors, hanging in place on a set of coasters. There was a smaller door next to the main entrance, so I walked over to it and knocked.

Nothing happened.

“Well, this isn’t great,” I said. “Maybe we can come back tomorrow? We know more or less where it is, now.”

“And lose another half-day?” Amaryllis asked. “I bet I can blow that smaller door right off its hinges.”

“That would be a crime,” I said.

“And noisy,” Awen said.

I nodded along with her.

“I could pick the lock, I think,” she went on.

I stopped nodding. “Awen!”

Awen shrugged. “I don’t want to have to come back either.”

“You two are giving into the idea that crime solves problems way too easily.”

“If we’re not going to break in, then we can at least check things out inside, right?” Amaryllis said.

“I... guess, but it’s locked up,” I said.

“Just here. Look at the side, they have vents,” Amaryllis said.

I moved to the side a little, and in the space between the two warehouses, where a lot of junk was collecting at the bottom, was a small sort of alleyway. The warehouses did have vents on their sides. “That would still be breaking in,” I said.

Amaryllis rolled her eyes. “Fine. The warehouse above isn’t locked up, we’ll see if there’s a staircase or something.”

I nodded. That would be better. That way we could at least say that we were just looking for the grenoil cargo, without breaking and entering. Just... entering. I was pretty sure that wasn’t as bad of a thing to do. It wasn’t like anyone lived in the warehouse.

So, we went all the way back to the elevator, then back up a floor, and then back to warehouse number seventy-seven, which was just above our target.

Amaryllis grabbed my arm and had us wait as a group of sylph left the warehouse with a couple of empty carts.

“Are you stopping me from walking into a busy warehouse because you don’t want to raise suspicions?” I asked.

“Yes,” Amaryllis said. “That’s exactly right.”

“That doesn’t sound all that nice of you, Amaryllis. If we were allowed to be there we wouldn’t need to be sneaky about it.”

“Oh no, please don’t act sneaky. There’s nothing worse than looking suspicious to attract undue attention. Just walk as if you’re allowed to be there.”

“Implying that we’re not,” I said.

Amaryllis patted my head with her talons. “Just follow along and don’t ask any difficult questions.”

I pouted as I followed Amaryllis into the warehouse. She really was walking as if she owned the place. Awen didn’t quite have that level of birdy swagger, but she did make an effort not to hunch her back as she walked, and was looking around with open curiosity as we stepped into a wide room, filled with rows of shelves where boxes and crates were resting.

“They use tags,” Awen said.

I followed her gaze and noticed a long tag stapled to the side of one of the crates. The paper was yellowish and looked pretty cheap, and the stamps on it were a bit faded, but they were still legible.

“Maybe the tags on the grenoil boxes fell off?” I asked. “It might explain why they got lost.”

“Maybe,” Amaryllis said. “But I’m loath to attribute to stupidity what could be attributed to maliciousness.”

“Doesn’t that expression usually go the other way around?”

Amaryllis didn’t reply. We moved past the entrance, and immediately turned right and away from the brightly lit entrance. The warehouse wasn’t all that wide, really. It was more tall and deep, with three main rows of shelves and a lot of boxes stacked up on the ground between them.

Amaryllis snapped her talons and summoned a small ball of swirling mana that she used to light the path ahead. Awen did the same next to me.

I focused, nose scrunching up hard, and managed to make a small light of my own. It wasn’t all that bright, but combined with my friend’s light it was more than enough to see the stacks as we moved into them.

The floor was wooden planks, and a glance at the ceiling above revealed that they’d used entire tree trunks as joists. I figured the warehouses probably got pretty heavy when they were full, so they had to build in consequence of that.

“Here,” Amaryllis said. She gestured ahead to a part of the floor at the very very back where there was a hatch.

“It looks a little dusty,” Awen said as we came closer. She knelt down and grabbed a ring from off the ground before tugging it up. The hatch shifted, barely, then refused to budge. “Heavy.”

“Maybe if the three of us worked on it?” I asked. Awen let go and backed up while Amaryllis and I both grabbed the ring and pulled.

“Pull harder,” Amaryllis grunted.

I let go of my magical light and grabbed the ring in both hands.

I pushed stamina into my legs and lower back, then really gave it my all. Amaryllis groaned next to me, and together we got the hatch to lift, little by little, until it was nearly ten centimetres open.

Then my hands slipped and the whole thing crashed down with a whump.

Amaryllis coughed, and I pushed some Cleaning magic out to clear the dust we’d kicked up. “You know, Awen, maybe if all three of us lifted,” Amaryllis said.

Awen stepped up between us, a large metal clasp in hand, and hooked it to the hatch’s loop. There was a chain on the clasp that ran up to the ceiling. I followed it up with my gaze to a pulley block above, then back down to a large locking wheel on the far wall.

Awen began cranking the wheel with one hand, and the hatch started to rise.

“Or you could do that, that is also helpful,” Amaryllis said, a bit sheepishly.

I glanced down the hole leading to the floor below. The hatch was obviously large enough to let some cargo pass down, probably using the pulley system that Awen had found. That meant that there wasn’t a ladder or anything to get down by. The sylph workers probably just flew up if they needed to.

The bottom was only four meters or so down, so I sat on the edge of the hole, then scooted forwards. “I’ll check for a ladder,” I said before dropping.

I landed with a heavy thump on the wooden floor below, then created a small light to see by. More shelves, with more crates, though a lot less than we’d found on the floor above.

There was also a distinct lack of ladders with which to help Awen and Amaryllis down.

A chain rattled from above and came to a stop at about head-height. I looked up, hand raising to illuminate the ceiling, and Awen’s legs as she crawled backwards down the hatch.

Amaryllis leapt down next to her, wings spread to catch the air and magic roiling below her to create a sort of cushion just before she landed talon-first next to me.

Awen hopped down and sighed. “That was harder than I thought,” she said.

“Sorry, I should have carried you down.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. I like figuring out my own solution now. It... it’s good.”

I laughed. “Okay then. But if you ever do need help, then you know you can ask, right?”

She nodded, very seriously.

As long as she knew that. I grabbed the manifest and hovered my light above it so that I could actually read it. “Ah, more numbers and letters,” I said.

Amaryllis moved closer and peeked over my shoulder to read the list too. “Great, we’ll have to walk all over to find that. If it’s even actually here.”

“If what is in here? Trespassers? Because there are plenty of those.”

All three of us jumped, and I flashed my light towards the corner.

A rather scruffy pair of sylph were standing there, looking mighty displeased about our presence.

“Who are you?” Amaryllis asked.

“We could ask the same!” the sylph said.

Then the door at the very far end of the warehouse slid open so fast it banged against the wall. “This is warehouse security! Come out with your hands raised!” someone screamed from just outside.

“Oh no,” said the sylphs partially obscured in the shadows.

“Oh no,” I agreed.

***