This is a major find, Joey realizes in a moment of elation.

The object he is referring to is much like a radio, but operated by the vibrations of mana crystals, and transmits that unique signal at long distances. It could also transmit a signal through some types of magical shielding and shroud enchantments. These are expensive, high-grade, and usually used by SAF or by rich clientele looking to send private messages with a high degree of encryption. They could even project holographic images of the people or nearby surroundings. They are not something people just leave lying around.

"Don't touch anything yet, Kyle." She takes several images on her phone, and makes sure to capture the device. It's not the only thing in the hidden cache. Two canisters of mana primer are stashed inside, along with platinum coins, and what looks like a getaway bag filled with cash, supplies, and magical equipment for a small alchemy bench. There are also papers with some kind of written encryption. Her mind goes to one-time-use code pads, which in theory are nearly unbreakable. She takes images of the documents, too.

She takes a tally of the money–it's useless to her in this pending crisis, but someone might care about it a lot more. "Kyle, there's about three hundred grand in Euros here. And 50K worth of mage currency."

"Joey, this is a bug-out bag of some pretty impressive contents." He gently unzips one pocket. There is a collection of passports in a plastic bag, tightly wrapped together, and he opens one and freezes. "Oh no."

"Kyle? What is it?" He flips out the ID, and she recognizes the face, but not the name, and she gasps. "That's Lavernius!"

"And passports for his two kids and wife," Kyle adds grimly. "All fakes, and very good fakes if I didn't know better. I think we've got our inside man, Joey."

"So he's working with King after all?" she speaks with a whisper, and Kyle keeps digging through the papers. "Was it for money? I'd hate him less if it was just for goddamn money."

"Maybe he didn't have a choice. He might have fallen in with a bad crowd when he was younger, and tried to bury his past, except they found him and called him out for one last request he couldn't refuse. This right here, is his escape plan if things went bad. You don't pack a bag like this for your whole family if you were just being greedy, you pack it as an option of last resort. This is the kind of bag you pack when you know your days are numbered.”

She hates his reasoning, even if there's a grain of truth. "There's also a…well now, a one-time-use teleport pad," he adds after edging out the familiar folded metal plating. "Gonna guess this goes to some kind of fallback point or safe house."

"Are we sure that's what this is?"

"Joey, this evidence is as obvious as you can get, there's no reason to overthink this one, we have our man," Kyle says with confidence.

"No Kyle, we're still missing four cases of mana primer. Where are they?" She asks with dread. "Four cases mixed with fire elemental plasma could still level a chunk of the facility.”

"That's speculation. We don't know what they're being used for. But what do we do?" Kyle's face looks like a nervous squirrel, twitchy and reflexive.

"Not tip our hand yet," she states firmly. "We need to find him and trail him, find out what he's doing. Can we track him with the observer golems?"

"We could, but your psionics could pry the information right out of him–

"No Kyle, it doesn't work like that!" she protests. "I can read surface thoughts, that's it, I don't just dive in and read his mind!"

"Okay, so, just tell him not to think of elephants, and voíla!" She scowls at him again. "But, what do we do with this stuff?"

"Leave it. He has to come back here sometime for further instructions, I'll bet." She looks at the arcanlink, and looks through the contacts and most recent communications. Unfortunately, it isn't quite as adept as a modern cell phone. The contacts are...cryptic.

Chessman. Probably King, though that isn't much of a stretch either, she thinks while taking an image. Evil Lyn. Wait, like He-man? I wonder if that's a reference to Valosterla. Let's see, who else is on this. War Crime? What kind of a name is that? She shudders to think what you'd have to do to earn a nickname like that. There's one more entry, one that confuses her.

I am not a monster? There is something subtly telling in that last contact. She snaps her fingers and Kyle kneels to look at the display.

"That's it? Four names?" he whispers.

"I don't like the sound of that last one." She thinks for a minute. There are still two distinct boot prints. What was Lavernius doing? Chatting with someone? Trying to get the other saboteur to get in line and keep the quiet plan? She can't conjecture beyond the evidence in front of her. Not yet. They could have even been at different times, too.

“That last one. Why would he write that?” Kyle suggests. Guilt, maybe? She doesn’t know enough about Lavernius to make any kind of guess.

“Guess we’ll find out. Quick, cover this up. We need to find Lavernius. If we can convince him that Val’s man is going to open a way to wholesale slaughter, maybe…maybe we can try to convince him?”

“Joey. Words are done now.” His gaze drifts to her alchemical pack. Or more likely, what's inside it. “This guy is in the end game. Words aren't going to work this time.”

She hopes that he's wrong. They carefully put everything back, and Joey gently puts the floorboard into position. She turns to close the door, and freezes in horror.

They'd melted the lock. And they don't have a spare one.

When Lavernius gets back, he'll know that he's compromised. And there is no telling what he will do if he knows he's exposed.

"Kyle, the lock!" she whispers in a panic. He picks up the lock and grimaces at the mess of metal. "Okay, we need to fix this, I can--"

"Joey. It's busted. But it's a cheap lock you can buy at any hardware store–"

"He could be back any time! Think, what else can we do?” She might be able to concoct a mixture to remelt the metal, but without tools, it won't pass a visual test.

"I uh…well, there might be one thing I can do. Man, I wish you hadn't melted the lock, that might be the one time you've ever done something short-sighted." He puts the lock down on the bench after closing the door again and puts his hand to the broken shackle. He's concentrating, and she sees something unusual. The metal is bubbling, and she hears the creak of metal flexing. But he's not using any heating spell, so how–

"Kyle, when the hell did you learn geomancy?" she whispers as she witnesses mana flowing from his hands, and he gently flexes his fingers, willing the metal into shape again. Luckily she'd only melted the outer metal U-shaped shackle, and not the locking mechanism itself. He motions for silence with his free hand, and he's locked in concentration. A trickle of sweat rolls down his face, and the metal melts into the two broken faces…and merges!

It's not over yet. He smooths the jagged edges, and runs his fingers at the convergence point. The surface wrinkles then pulls taut. There is a slight discoloration from the acid, but other than that, it looks brand new, and the hoop is a little shorter. He lets out a breath, looking exhausted, but confident as he tosses the repaired lock to her outstretched hand.

She's stunned. She knew Kyle had the minimum amount of mana capacity to be considered a real mage, and most of his endeavors stemmed from his ingenuity and application of magitech sciences. "Kyle, this is…incredible," she breathes. There are no other words that can even convey this small but impressive feat. The metal is slightly warm, and this feat is beyond her. "How…"

"What, you thought you were the only one from a different species?" He says with a slight chuckle. Suddenly, the answer clicks.

"You have dwarfish blood? Why didn't you tell me?!" she asks with a gasp. He points to the lock, and stands unsteadily. The effort must have taken a lot of his reserves to pull that off.

"Alright, first off, I found out when you did your brief stay at MBPS on a random stint on those stupid ancestry sites–spurred on by a night of bad ideas and beer. I dug into Conclave archives and did the rest of the math. One of my grandparents had a secret," he adds with a grin. "Second off, it's like, maybe a quarter. Thirdly, I was never going to tolerate the fake fantasy jokes about short stature, a cultural alcoholism problem, or a missing Scottish accent.” She tries to hide a soft chuckle before he waves his hand between them. "Also, we weren't on good speaking terms until about this time last year."

"Ah come on! I told you I was a Kitsune, possibly the most massive risk I've ever taken in my life!" she protests. He puts his hands up in surrender.

"Alright, that's fair. Mind you, I've done a little subtle practice. Usually when I break a tool in the lab–you know what, let's save this discussion for when we're not doing counter-espionage. And I'm leaving Yuma here for when Lavernius gets back," he adds while tossing a golem up on the support beams that compose the roof structure. The golem springs to life and gives a salute with one of its tiny arms. "Now, what's next?"

"We need to search for Lavernius, find out what he knows about the second agent, And we need to hurry. Whatever they're planning, with Drenar and Nick having landed a massive blow to their operations at the school, I guarantee you they've accelerated their timetable." This time they firmly secure the lock, work back to the murkvine, and look at the second boot prints nearby. Joey kneels and takes measurements; she doesn't want to linger any more than she needs to.

"Size ten…maybe nine point five. Lighter indentation. Looks like a heavy boot, based on the deep tread patterns. New boots, too. It's a pitch-perfect indentation, no worn soles or fading of the tread pattern." She takes a photo and jots down a few things. "Boots. That's not much to go on."

"But they were both here. Their tracks parade around, like they were standing idle here for a bit," Kyle points out from his crouched position. "I mean it could have been Lavernius having a smoke with someone else, but…"

"It's also possible they where here at two separate times," she points out. By the sound of it, these two saboteurs are blind to each other

"We need something more to show the link." She sprays the area by the shack, then a wide swath leading to their meeting spot, with a passive extract and avoids stepping over the area. By itself, this chemical did nothing. But when combined with the other binary chemical, it would fluoresce and emit light, and it would be plainly visible. Now, all they had to do was wait. "When they meet again, we'll know exactly who our second saboteur is, even if the golem doesn't spot them."

"You need a nickname or something, Joey," he says confidently. "I vote for 'the Ruby Alchemist'." She scoffs at that.

"That's a stupid name! It completely lacks finesse!" She's not in the mood to argue this silly point. "Hmm…the Ruby Kitsune has a nice ring to it, but I really can't advertise that one. Well, until someone slaps the whole collective Conclave with a dose of human decency."

"Aha! See, you've taken your most important step! You believe it's possible, and that's the toughest step of all!” He cackles. She tries not to smile, and motions him for silence. "Alright, let's book for a bite to eat, I haven't even grabbed breakfast. Hell, I think I got maybe a few hours of sleep in the last two days."

"Alright. But we need to stay alert," she adds cautiously as they walk back to the facility entrance. "There’s no telling what they’re planning.”