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Chapter Text

Record Notebook
Date: RY 769 first day of ascending air, Yu-Shan.

Calibration just ended, the time of folly and revelry is over. Great. I never liked Calibration. As a mortal, it was a time of fear and pain to me and those I love, as an exalt, it is a time where everybody stops doing their job and gets angry for having to clean up all the mess. I am the one who cleans the mess.

The day started as usual, the flickering fires of my house didn't let me sleep properly, leading to me meditating for rest once more, and eating some simple fruits of knowledge along with the drinkable mercury. Bland. You would expect a divine house to be good, and it is definitely better than my previous shack on Creation, but it is surprisingly broken. The marble floor started to creek again and there’s some black sludge coming from the kitchen floor. Maybe the essence is getting unstable now that the geomancer gods took a break for Calibration? I am simply theorizing.

Keeping the flow of the day I woke up slightly later than usual, so I had to take the communal transport for my division, teleportation. It was as quick as it should be but was honestly overpriced for my taste, probably because of, of course, Calibration. The work was nothing to be impressed by, simply paperwork and more paperwork, the usual things that my position have to deal with, not as if anyone else was having any fun, as it always is, a good chunk of my department got cut, their seats were destroyed while they were partying and now have no job or are in a lower position. Sucks to be them.

At least at first. During the middle of the shift something unexpected happened, I received a letter. No, not just a letter, a mission scroll, It is easy to recognize them by the jade seal they utilized, and that quickly fades back to the sender once the scroll is opened. The text read the following:

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To: Eye-Of-Heaven, Chosen of Divine Investigations

The Assistant of Divine Investigations, The Division of Godly Crimes

Regarding: Mate-Matem’s mysterious death.

Greetings specialized agent, i, Looks-Into-Skulls, come to you with shocking news: The Eastern God of Murder, Mata-Matem, is dead. His divine body was found by my terrestrial agents in a search for fallen celestials, and unfortunately they did.
In a normal situation I would simply order a search and investigation for your common divine colleagues, but I have questions about Mata-Matem’s permanent death, since all signs point to something not only disconnected from the bureaucracy, they point to someone who somehow stole divine power.
Per the Creation Ruling Mandate, we, the celestial bureaucracy, are not allowed to interfere in mortal lives unless extremely necessary, and for such, we call upon your assistance as an exalt to investigate the situation. We expect you to descend towards Creation, where the original body was found, and not ascend back towards Heaven until your investigation is finished.
To avoid creating some form of panic, we, the Division of Heaven, insist on keeping the potential murder of Mata-Matem a secret from other gods for the present period.

with all due respect, Looks-Into-Skulls, Overseer of Godly Graves.

-

This. This is why I am here. This is what I was Chosen to do. I want to solve something, and now I will. This is my opportunity to prove my position as beyond a simple assistant for the Celestial Bureaucracy and finally be allowed to do more than just to stay back. Even if the ones above me already know my potential, this will be my opportunity to make holding me back truly impossible.

Although, deep down, I am still apprehensive. All my last missions were minor crimes in Yu-Shan, so I am not sure how well I will do in Creation, especially with how chaotic Creation itself is. I hope I succeed. I hope I impress my superiors.

I hope I get a chance to put the unjust into the light, and take the innocent out of the darkness of fear.

Chapter Text

Record Notebook
Date: RY 770 second day of ascending air, Scavenger Lands.

Creation's air. Something that most people completely disregard, air is the kind of thing that you just never noticed. Meanwhile, I have no choice but to notice, at least what it carries, smells, noises, sensations, all of those, I feel it.

As I enter the realm of mortals through the portal, I feel my senses being filled from all directions, pushing and pulling me towards all sorts of mysteries and clues. It has been this way ever since I acquired my status of Chosen. Fortunately, I already knew how to use this Clue Gathering Synesthesia to my advantage, I knew it would lead me to more knowledge.

My superiors gave me a few bits of information on the case, simply ordering me to go to a city called Naruja and see what I could find. I guess it's just me and my Devil Caster. Luckily, I never leave stones unturned. The city smells bad, but I can take it, the rivers of mercury basically burned my capacity for thinking anything smells bad enough. It's a simple town, I can't see how someone would be suspicious here, and yet, my eyes are filled with red lines and dots, I had to look deeper into the place. Normal thinking won't cut, I must use my Obsession Gathering Approach.

Insanity fuels my analysis, the townsfolk have a lot of candy around their houses, i can see inside, but i see no candy tent, i don't think they know how to make candy themselves since even the kids seem to be constantly walking around with sizable portions, and even they do have some kind of cultural tradition that spreads the recipe, they wouldn't have enough sugar for everyone as i can see their plantations are small and not focused on sugar cane, meaning something from the outside is bringing candies, but the town is landlocked and would not have the conditions to order so much sugar per house, leading to the only potential explanation being…

Then my head started to hurt.

I didn't have an actual answer, I walked around the town thinking for myself when I saw something strange. A pink knife thrown in the trash. No, not just a pink knife, it was some kind of candy-like material. I licked the knife and it was, in fact, actual candy. But who would make a knife out of candy? Who makes the knives? The blacksmith. I knew where to go next.

I asked for directions, where the blacksmith lives, but no one seemed to give a straight answer. I smell secrets, and it smells good. I couldn't make use of my power, all my tools needed a name or at least a piece of connection, and while a lot of things were probably made by the blacksmith, my experience points that things tend to point towards the last owner, not the one who built them and tossed to someone else. Yet, perhaps, this could be more useful than I first thought.

The smell. I sniffed the knife, analyzed its scent. Officer Nose Approach, i called. If the blacksmith is the one who does the candy, they live in where the smell is the strongest, so I followed the scent. My senses overloaded once more, my eyes were filled with images of sweets, slowly, yet surely, I would be taken to where the blacksmith lives. Breathe in, the air of Creation, of mystery, of chaos.

Breathe out, the answer. I believe I have found the blacksmith's workshop of the blacksmith, although it was closed by the time I reached, so now I sleep in an inn as I am writing this, tomorrow will be another day.