Chapter 172: Liquid Gold
Arthur watched as the god left his tent. Part of him - a part that he was much too afraid to voice - couldn't help but worry about what the little troublemaker would uncover next. Well, maybe it was smart not to voice that. Perhaps calling a deity a "little troublemaker" would get him smited.
It wasn't that he was ungrateful for the embezzling scheme being brought to light. It was good to deal with corruption wherever he could, of course. But the case here wasn't so simple.
Things like this were to be expected in any unit, and most commanders actually encouraged them or looked the other way. It helped to make sure that they had a firm grasp of their underlings' loyalty, even above the loyalty they held to the crown itself. This wasn't a practice Arthur took part in, of course, but rooting it out might cause problems of its own. Problems he wasn't sure he could really afford right now.
Looking at the paper, he couldn't believe that anyone would have noticed this for a very long time. It wouldn't have been till year-end reports that things might not have lined up. A normal person would have just added the numbers together and said it was fine. He certainly had when he was going over them. But all in all, this sort of thing added up over time. Here it was only a few hundred golds, but to many people, that sum amounted to years' worth of work.
Arthur sighed. He got up and stretched before putting his head out of the tent and calling his aide. He could track down each of the people responsible personally, but he had people for that, people who he could trust far beyond these small matters. Not too many, honestly, and one of his primary ones was a prime suspect in this case. But he should have enough to handle it.
Honestly, he didn't believe this was the Quartermaster's doing. The man was too dedicated to his job and too precise. Things like this would have probably even harmed his class progression, and Arthur had never met a non-combat class that was so obsessed with leveling. That the man had also served for over a decade under Arthur's personal command without even an insinuation of wrongdoing also helped matters. No, Arthur probably held some responsibility for this. The man had been asking for assistants recently. Something might have happened...
The aide returned a short time later; ducking under one of the tent flaps, he held it open and motioned for a grizzled man in leather armor to follow.
"General Arthur," Lieutenant Jericho said, coming to a halt and snapping a salute. As the aide left the tent, Arthur waved to his old friend to set him at ease.
Leaning back in his chair, Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and tossed the papers toward the other side of his small table. At a gesture, Jericho sat down and rifled through the papers. "What is this, sir?"
To many people, having a friend call them "sir" feel awkward, but Arthur knew better than to try and correct Jericho. When they were not on a campaign, at home drinking with their families on leave, Jericho might call him Arthur. But otherwise, he was always "sir."
"Check the units." It's all he had to say. A few moments later, Jericho frowned.
"That's a right mess, sir. Any idea how long this has been going on?" The man rubbed his clean-shaven cheeks in thought.
"No, but it has to have started sometime this year." Arthur said grimly. "Got to be someone here in camp. This report was too new and anything older would have been left behind. Embezzling like this is risky. Someone would have to be watching, maybe even doctoring the regular reports. This isn't the kind of retail record we carry with us obviously."
"Commander! Something is happening, I think you need to come see this!"
What now, Arthur thought to himself. He turned and hurried out of the tent toward the next emergency.
—-
I wasn't able to sense oil anywhere from Arthur's tent, so I left to go look around more thoroughly. With a quick tour of the camp, I was able to account for most of the valid allotments, but I found no massive hidden cache of oil that someone had misplaced or stored away.
The closest thing I found was in the kitchens, and upon closer inspection, I found that it was a different kind of oil. So I moved out of the more central locations and started exploring the rest of camp.
As I moved through the soldiers' camps, I found lots of smaller amounts of liquids other than water stashed away. A few times, I found a few gallons hidden away in personal packs and saddle bags, but it wasn't nearly viscous enough to be the missing oil, either.
Among the resident tents, I did find the rest of the properly allocated oil, though. It was aliquoted in smaller amounts and put to good use. I continued my search for a long while, but try as I might, I didn't find any hint of the stolen stuff. I also checked people's souls in case that gave me some clue of where to go, but it wasn't very useful for finding objects.
I really hoped that Arthur would be able to track it down. As embarrassing as it was to admit it, I may have been getting a little too cocky recently. Perhaps it was just arrogance talking, but with all my newfound power, I just felt like I could help and teach these humans so much more now. Maybe I was a bit too far out of my areas of expertise, though.
If I couldn't find something as simple as a huge amount of missing oil, then was I really in any position to talk?
In a last fit of inspiration, I did a last sweep through the camp to see if anyone had buried it in the ground. To my surprise, I found a lot of liquid not too far below us. A lot of liquid. Way more than I was looking for.
I couldn't quite tell how viscous it was at its depth. Also, it was deep enough that I highly doubted someone was able to put it there recently. At least, not without some advanced digging skills. Which I suppose could have been a possibility, but I think I would have noticed something like that happening.
Well, I might not be able to find the missing oil, but maybe I could replace it. I just had to figure out how to get the liquid out of the ground. Unfortunately, it was far enough away that I couldn't be sure what it actually was. It did feel hot and under pressure. Perhaps I could use that pressure to help get it out?
I ran through my list of skills and mutations but didn't find anything that would be immediately useful. If I could get my mop close enough, I could start a siphon effect, but it was much too far down to reach. I could dig down part of the way, but that would cause a rather large disturbance in the middle of the camp.
Finally, I had an idea. I had only ever been able to slightly affect things with my domain intentionally, but I hadn't truly tested its limits. What if I was able to move the underground rock structure a little bit to align the grains more? Maybe I could do it in such a way that the liquid could escape upward more. Maybe then I could get it from there?
I went right over the hidden reservoir, which happened to be in the center of camp, then I got to work. This was a great idea.