Chapter CCLXV: Sherlock’s Run for the Money ~Multehx

D'Nel wandered towards the fountain in the town square. This would be much easier to do if the mage was not poking him in the side as they walked.

The pirate groaned and glanced over at Redaz and asked, "You're going to keep this up until I talk, aren't you?"

Redaz nodded matter-of-factly.

"Rgh, I thought so, I'll just have you know, Ray used to do this to stop me from saying something–"

D'Nel thought, cleared his throat and continued walking at an increased pace.

"Never you mind; it was a lot, that's all I'll say."

Redaz reflected on this for a moment, grinned slightly, then frowned as he realized he still didn't quite understand, following the blond-haired man off towards the square.

----

After a brief run in with a rather irate man, who claimed that the mage had incinerated him, things were abruptly resolved as the accused once more tapped into his supernatural abilities and the man was once more running through town, blazing pretty hard.

Shortly after this brief occurrence, Scilas seemed to melt in from the crowd itself. He inquired what the two had learned, and upon finding out the information they had he took D'Nel aside and talked about something with him, gesturing at Redaz a few times during the course of it.

The conversation was concluded with D'Nel remarking something along the lines of, "What, do you take me for a total idiot or something?" and him turning to the magic man before the assassin could respond, by odd timing indeed.

"So, what's the verdict?" Redaz inquired of the pirate.

"Well, the masked man," he jerked his head at Scilas, "thinks that we should go investigate the plains to that way," he said, pointing out of town, "as that's where they said the mech went."

Not wanting to question the assassin, Redaz shrugged indifferently. "Alright, sounds good to me."

The three started off, but D'Nel suddenly wheeled about and raised a hand to the mage. "One more thing he wants to make clear."

"What?"

"Well, he wishes to make it specifically known that you're not to set any more people on fire while we go out there."

He turned and began to walk again before turning once more.

"Or any living being."

Once again, he turned, hesitated, then turned back again.

"Or any not living thing." he added, finally continuing forward.

Redaz frowned and stopped in his tracks. "I wonder what that was about. Not like I'm a maniac with it, afterall."

****

The trio wandered across the barren expanse; only its rocky, purplish mineral-comprised ground made up the expanse. Otherwise, it was like a rock desert.

But abruptly, at one basin portion, Scilas held up a hand and stopped the other two. He narrowed his eyes and crouched down, running a gloved hand over the rock ground.

"This...certainly is different," he muttered to himself, combing the ground with his hand. "The place seems desolate...but there was a huge scuffle here recently."

"How can you tell anyway? All looks the same to me," D'Nel remarked.

"Simple," the assassin succinctly replied. "I may wear a glove, but it's very thin material; I can feel the temperature through it." He got to his feet and nodded in affirmation. "Yes, I'm sure of it now, taking a better vantage point." He pointed to the ground. "For starters, it's emitting a fair amount of heat. Since there's apparently no sun; all the light seems to come from the surface of the planet, I can tell that something was moving about quite actively."

Pointing to a fallen mountain of purple mineral rock he explained on.

"That probably was a massive structure, comprised of the rubble at its base. Apparently, something knocked it to pieces." He turned and looked back at the others. "I've learned in my travels that for something like that to happen, it takes an earthquake, something massive to knock it down, or just something, or someone more likely, of incredible power to do that kind of destruction. If you note, there are several other rock formations like it just as badly damaged nearby."

Redaz leaned over to D'Nel and whispered something. D'Nel thought, shook his head and shrugged.

Scilas ignored this and continued, "But the marks of battle must have been discretely covered up by someone, as to the untrained eye, nothing is out of place here. So, obviously, someone or some people do not want anyone knowing what happened here..."

"Also..." he said, drawing his sword from its sheath, "someone especially does not want us to know about–"

He raised the katana high, and then brought it down in a vicious stabbing motion.

As the blade's tip stabbed into the earth, instead of meeting resistance from the rock, it cleaved easily into a finely ground mineral powder. As it shifted from being punctured, it could be noticed that it filled a rather nice-sized crater.

"This," the assassin stated.

D'Nel blinked and Redaz knelt to get a better look at this powder-filled crater.

"Something apparently broke through the ground here, then left the area, and something else tried to cover up this."

"But...how...how did you-"

Scilas smirked as he sheathed his sword. "Trick of the trade, kid."

D'Nel shook his head, muttering something along the lines of "Twisted, man…" while Redaz only frowned. He sifted through the powder, pulling up some miniscule fragment in his hand and examining it.

"Say...assassin person."

Scilas glanced over questioningly.

"I think you should take a look at this."

Crossing the distance, the stealthy killer knelt by the mage and took the small fragment when it was offered to him. He turned it around in his palm, scrutinizing it carefully.

D'Nel watched with half interest from his spot.

"Seems to be some small...flake of something, caked in black ash…" He tried to rub the ash off, to no avail. "But...I can't tell what it is."

"Metal," D'Nel promptly stated, causing the other two to look at him questioningly. To this, he shrugged. "Hey, when you work around a tin-can, you get to know how the stuff looks when it gets scraped off them, burnt, painted, or whatever. From my guess, at least. "

Scilas rubbed his chin with his free hand, studying the metal flake. "Metal…strange…" He shook his head slowly. "This is getting to make no sense whatsoever. What's metal got to do with this all??"

"It could be a piece of the mech," Redaz offered.

"No," Scilas shook his head, "A gundam, no matter how high tech stuff it's made of would be pretty darn hot after an intense fight that caused it to vanish. And with all the ash, there had to be some intense heat here." He held up the flake and frowned slightly. "This...this is ice-cold. It almost chills me to the bones just holding it, for some odd reason..."

"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary; the child's play of deduction."- Sherlock Holmes (That's the full quote, as so few ever recall the full thing)