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EPiSoDe 78: Interrogation

“Students at the Forest Grove High School in north east Ellinia had a nasty surprise when vieweing video tapes and memory crystals. The FG Fireflies hockey team who returned home from the high school hockey champoinship expected to see videos of them in action when instead found footage of magician murder. The CCA siezed the video tapes, DVD’s and memory crystals and is investigating the students’ posession of such materials. At a press release, a spokesman for the CCA stated after debriefing of the hockey team, there is no sign of any action on their part in how they acquired the footage. CCA investigators believe that the hockey team was used as a mule to transport the crystals.
Students from the team said that a stranger sat with them at Gate E in Orbis Station while they waited to board the ship home, and that the man did not board the ship. Orbis Station security said that the man was an arrival from the North, and he deposited the suitcase with the hockey team’s stuff. The suitcase was identical to the coach’s and had ‘FireFlies’ written on it, too. According to Orbis Station security, GM officers inspected everyone’s property, and the students mistakenly said the video crystals were theirs. The man, who boarded a plane back to Riprey, left a message in broken Singlish, instrucing the discoverer to turn the video crystals to the Ellinia authorities immediately. The video crystals hold footage of magicians being slaughtered at a market. Additional materials included maps, invoices, copies of paychecks, and other articles. While authorities in Orbis and Ellinia are investigating the matter, no charges are being laid against the students. “They were used as mules and they were completely unaware,” GM maxell said, “We are working with Orbis Station security officers on the matter. One student pointed out in a school paper that the invoices and documents on the disks trace back to parties involved with the Justice Arrow…”— Maple Radio, Winter 18, 2008.

CCA Operating Centre, Avasta Tree
Southeast Ellinia
Winter 26 (Tuesday, Jan 15)
10:15 AM

Rusty Miller sat in the interrogation room; only his feet tied to the legs of the wicker chair. The applewood table infront of him seemed to glow in the bright crystal light above. He felt like he was in a soundproof room as the floor, ceiling and walls seemed to absorb the sound. They were coated with a special treesap mixture that allowed nutrients to be transferred from the roots to the branches another 1000 feet up. Rusty remembered that the whole place was carved out inside a giant living tree.
The door, made out of plyleaf (its like plywood, but made from compressed giant leaves) slid open, and two archmages walked in. They were both dressed in the black and turqoise robes, and carried customized Marine staffs. Both mages, a man with blue hair and a woman with silver hair, both in their early 40’s entered, and sat accross the table from Rusty.

The woman mage waved her hand, casting a bolt of blue magic and the door, and it slid shut again.
The man placed a folder on the table and took out some papers and looked them over. The woman stared at Rusty like she could shoot magic from her eyes and fry his brains.
“Miller, Rusty. KCP SWAT. Asia Team 27. Born: 71st day of the Summer season (August 30), Year 1985. You graduated from Burnaby Lake High School with minimal scores, expelled from Kankoku University for cheating the entrance exam-“
“That wasn’t me, the guy next to me, his handphone went off-“
“Silence!” the woman snapped. “You do not speak until we tell you to speak!”
“As of Spring 4 of 2006, you were hired by the Edmonds branch of the Kerning City Police. Served as a rookie street-clothed officer. During which service you infiltrated a mana drug operation and your work lead to a huge bust and numerous incidents of police brutality against the magicians in the Blue Star district.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen-“
“Promoted to the SWAT forces after you captured magician suspects Jack Cobh and Lana Marrison and turned them in. They were convicted of production, posession, and trafficking of illegal mana drugs, REGARDLESS that they were simply producing mana fuel products to other magicians!”
Rusty was speechless. Those magicians were producing and mixing mana fuel to make chemical weapons and drugs! The weapons, such as ‘mana-napalm’ which was mana fuel and styrofoam, compressed into a spraycan which people could spray others in the face, chemically gouging them. Many people were aggressively using them, and the crackdown he worked in was the KCP’s effort to get such personal-weapons off the streets. The mana drugs were that. Drugs, not mana fuel supplements. Mana fuel was mixed with drugs, and chemicals and made a substance worse than meth. Despite the KCP’s report on this, the CCA refused to understand, because they accused the city cops of disrupting normal mana fuel supply lines to the civilian magicians. It’s like cutting off blood to a cancer patient.

“Your last duty was to guard a children’s building in 7ung Hwang, where you killed three Justice Arrow rangers. Even though you showed quite a commitment when you were put against the Arrow, your role in the KCP’s crimes against magicians is quite significant. What do you have to say to that?” the man asked in his monotone voice.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, okay? I never meant to take away somebody’s mana pills. When I did find any, I was ordered to turn them in so my superiors could figure it out and confirm they were not going to be used to make drugs. And there was a drug operation, and that crap was being sold not just to magicians but to everybody. Then there’s the spraycans we had to stop people from making. I saw a guy get sprayed in the face with that stuff, and his whole face melted off!”
“Go on,” the woman mage prompted.
“I wasn’t mean to street magicians, and I tried to be as fair as I could to suspects as with hackers and pureblood suspects.”

“What is your personal position on magicians. To be specific; city magicians?” the male officer asked.
“I don’t really have anything against them. Guys I worked with were racist and unprofessional when talking to them or arresting a suspect. Magicians in Kerning pretty much hate cops, I don’t know why. they always harass us, so when we go in to arrest somebody, or break up a fight or hold down a tweaker until a medic comes-“
“Hold on a minute,” the woman interrupted. “Define ‘tweaker’!”
“We used the word for magicians who had too much magic energy going off inside their bodies and they would have siezures or suffer and get internal burns until medics arrived and sapped the excess energy out of them. When we go in, the other magicians attack us or harass us; making our job difficult, so in order go get the job done, we-“
“Play rough is that it?”
“Yeah. I always thought magicians and noobs hated the cops for crap in the past. Then some of them totally disregard the law- I mean basic, basic laws such as you can’t attack somebody or steal, you know crap like that. When we go in to talk to somebody or give tickets for this or that or make arrests, they get mad and mob us, thinking we are invading foreigners or something-“
“But in a sense you are!” the woman snapped. “Magician communites outside Ellinia have a moral of self government. They get along on their own policies and law. They are not lawless fiends!”
“True, but when it comes to conflicts with other groups like noobs, or other people, they’re dealing with people outside their group, and thats where the cops come in, to work out the problem for both sides. Well, thats what my idea of being a cop was anyways. It’s messed up. When I had to go after people, it wasn’t just somebody with an overdue speeding ticket or people playing rough, its usally somebody who commited a serious crime against someone else.”

The CCA officers nodded. “Interesting testimony, Miller. Perhaps you would like to prove it in a lie detector test?”
Miller answered the same questions, only with his hands bound to big flat crystals that emitted certain sounds.
It came out he was being truthful.

“The relationship between law enforcement in the Kerning area and the magician communities hasn’t been a peaceful nor fair one. Complaints over misconduct by authorities against magicians have often been dismissed, without even a reprimand for the officers in question.” the man said. There are even cases where the police killed their captives, or abused them. The magicians in your city turn to us for aid or help and we are seeking to deal with the police officers accused of their crimes. The Kerning City government refused to work with us on the matter, one of the factors in our strained relations. You were arrested as a suspect and this is standard for all KCP officers who come here.”

Rusty was taken by the archmages to another room where he had to lie down on a bed while they strapped more memory crystals to him.
“Just relax and breathe slowly. These crystals will scan your mind and record your memories. They will reveal to us your true memories, perceptions, views, and the like. If you told us the truth, then you have nothing to worry about. The silver haired lady mage waved her hand and the crystals started glowing. “Relax. This will take up to two hours.”
and then the mages walked out and shut the oak door and locked it from the outside.
Rusty lay back on the leaf bed and listened to the humming and whistling of the crystals attatched to his head, face, chest, neck arms and hands. He had to lie here and not move for 2 hours. Great.
__

“Agh~*…where am I?” Meeka groaned, covering her eyes to block out the sunlight.
“You’re in Ellinia. In the clerics’ wing if the infirmary,” a female voice said, soothingly.
She opened her eyes and found herself in bed in a hospital room. The walls were polished wood, there was moss on the ceiling, and a light blue crystal lamp. Her bed was beside the window overlooking the trees and other buildings of the Institute or academy as commonly called and Ellinia beyond. The clouds parted and sunlight was pouring in.
Meeka’s head hurt and she felt wierd pulses in her brain. She looked at her arm and saw an IV needle sticking out of it.
“Agh! what are you injecting me with!”
“Don’t pull it out!” the cleric nurse said, rushing over to her. “That is diluted mana, and your body needs it!”
“but it burns by arm,”
“This is organic natural mana, not the synthetic kind you’re used to. This stuff is stronger, and your body has to adjust to it.”
Meeka gave up trying to pull it out. The nurse pressed her hand against Meeka’s back and helped her sit up.
A doctor came in, dressed in a white robe. “How are we today?” he asked.
Meeka shrugged. “I feel like crap.”
“Well, it’s not a surprise; you were deprived of mana to the brink of death when you were brought in. And what with the adjusting your body will have to do in order to use the mana fuel we are giving you, you may feel not the best for a day otr two.”
“Can’t I just drink it?”
“‘Fraid not, child. Your body must be first adapted to this stuff before your stomach will accept it. If you just drank it, you would vomit,”
“Oh. Dam.” Meeka put her hands to her head again. “How long have I been out?”
“About more than half a day. Your body was using energy to make up for its mana loss, making you unable to more than sleep.”
“Who brought me here?” she asked.
“Enough questions.” the cleric said, stroking Meeka’s blue hair. You need to rest. Your questions will be answered in time. Are you feeling hungry at all?”
“Hey! Where’s the baby?” she asked in panic.
“The baby was taken in by the NBNC and is at the Broa children’s reserve. Is she yours?”
“No, she was my friend’s kid, and my friend got killed by the rangers.” and she started crying.
“Just relax, the baby is fine.”
Through her tears, Meeka told them how she escaped the JA back home, and how they killed her friend Sharlotte.
She cried even more when she told them how some cop saved her life and got her out of the police building before the JA blew it up.
“Take it easy then.” the cleric said, hugging her. “You’re going to be okay. Everything will be fine., You’re safe now.”
–
“…more and more refugees from Kerning City continue to arrive daily. The Justice Arrow’s attack against the police has left them non-functional, allowing the JA and their allies to continue their campaigns of terror in the city. A camp has been set up at the Deh-Choh Tree for incoming refugees. According to sorces, most people, many of whom are Azn and magicians, and general poor people were forced to flee unprepared and unable to pay for passage to Ossyria.
Last night, the JA and their allies in Kerning City launched an attack on several communites in Edmonds, killing dozens and destroying many buildings, leaving hundreds homeless and at the mercy of the winter cold…” Maple Radio Ellinia.

“On Saturday, this footage shot secretly by an Urban Rust TeleVision crew showed Justice Arrow troops moving into Perion and taking control over the main petrol station on Victoria Road. The JA has expanded its presence in Perion, and along the northern stretches of Victoria Road and Rocky Road. According to spy companies, the JA has set up a makeshift base at the abandoned excavation site and ruins, and the guild quest arena. At 1:45 PM, the JA’s rangers established a military like checkpoint on both sides of Victoria Road, one mile west of Perion. at 3:00 PM, the Mountain Guardians, Perions security force, clashed with Justice Arrow rangers. The fight broke out suddenly and lasted for about 15 minutes when both sides were ordered by the GM to cease. Perions’ regional commissioner DancesWithBalrogsIV addressed Saturday’s conflicts this morning, and issued an order to all JA members to leave Perion. Despite DB4’s intent on keeping Perion neutral in this crisis, he said he will not allow the rangers to overrun the Perion Domain region.– C-WOLF TV News

“‘I have to warn the people of Perion in the clearest possible terms, that an assault on our rangers will not be tolerated. These actions taken by the Mountain Guardians are reckless, and warlike, and extremely provocative. If Perion continues to be of harm to our troops, their actions could lead to an armed conflict with severe concequences on both sides,’ said Henesys mayor Peter Smithe on Saturday night. The Justice Arrow is threatened by the magicians and by the noobs and hackers from all sides, and JA leader Dani Jalonska warned the people of Perion the JA will not tolerate any hostile action….KCP launched a total assault operation against our men and women with bows in Kerning City, killing 17. Fortunately, Captain Isaiah Shamsmacka was there and launched a coordinated counterattack, decimating the KCP, and finally leaving much of the city open to reform. Shamsmacka was given full power as a bow master and commander to take on any resistance the city denziens prevent, and as ordered, the troops will eliminate any threat to the ‘peaceful’ process. “They need to change, and I hope we won’t have to use deadly force in pursuasion”‘–KLON, Henesys.

“This morning, an emergency meeting was held between the Magic Council and leaders of the KErning City Council, who secretly arrived early this morning. The KC mayor Dan Dullivan has dropped his demands from prior negotiations and is pleading to the Magic Council to aid the Kerning City refugees in town. Dullivan also said the KCC agrees to the Magic Council’s demands for better treatment of city magicians, in exchange for military aid. Dullivan hastily signed the treaty of alliance between Ellinia and Kerning. According to inside sources, Dullivan made this move without the KCC’s approval. In a press statement, Dullivan said that his city’s fighting force has been destroyed by the JA, and without help from Ellinia, Kerning ‘is already lost to the JA'”–ESN

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k i gotta im late for stupid math class