Veritas Case Files: Forest of the Dead

A sanguine moon shines through the serpentine rainclouds as they constantly coil, wind and writhe in the starless sky. Wispy clouds billowed tempestuously until they smacked into and were assimilated into denser darker clouds.

Toni raised his shovel high and then stabbed it into the damp earth.

Shhnnk.

He pushed the base of the blade in with his foot.

Fffffp.

Then wrenched it out of the earth and threw it to the side.

Thud.

And repeat.

Toni sinks his shovel into the wet earth in the middle of a field of grass.

Thunk.

And stops.

"Alright V we've been at this for almost an hour. I think seven—" Toni gestured with his right arm to the craters around them, "holes has earned me an explanation. Also, who wakes someone up by throwing rocks directly at their face? You're supposed to throw it at the window or something, the noise is supposed to wake me up."

Toni and Veritas were both standing in a clearing deep in the forest. This clearing was slightly bigger than the size of a basketball court. There were twenty holes in the earth stretched out around them. Past the clearing led deeper into the forest and behind them was a very faint path only a seasoned tracker or ranger would have been able to find. Unsurprisingly Veritas blazed through it easily while Toni kept stumbling and losing sight of where he needed to walk. Even if the moonlight was bright, travelling at night in a forest that could possibly be haunted was reckless.

"You carelessly left your window open and I needed you to notice me without waking Percival." Veritas said bluntly.

"Gee I wonder why you didn't want to alert our client that we were sneaking around and digging up... trenches on his property. That doesn't justify attacking me with rocks."

"It was a pebble and it didn't have enough force to cause any lasting damage."

"You." Toni pointed at Veritas with his extended hand. "Threw." Then mimed an overhand throw. "Pebbles." He pinched his fingers together in front of him. "At my." And motioned to his body with outstretched fingers. "Face." Finally, he raised his index finger to his face.

"Fine. But no breaks. We talk and work. That hole is deep enough. Start the next one at that uneven section 10 feet ahead of you."

Toni sighed but grabbed his shovel. "Two feet diameter, six feet deep?"

"Same depth but make it three feet diameter." She didn't spare a moment to glance at Toni.

Toni exhaled slowly. He walked to the spot Veritas specified and began to dig. "All right so tell me V. Why do I get the feeling we're trying to dig up unmarked graves?"

"There's something... unusual about this whole case." Her voice remained level while she worked.

'Well we're dealing with ghosts. If there was something right about ghosts terrorizing the locals, we wouldn't be here,' Toni thought as he dug.

"Every effect has a cause. Magic follows the same rules even if we don't know all the steps." Veritas spoke as she climbed out of a ditch and walked toward an uneven patch of earth. "Mana put through some process produces Magic. Whether it's a human, Machina or even nature, things don't just happen."

She lifted her shovel and stabbed at the dirt. On command the clouds above them began to drizzle slightly.

The sound of the sparse rainfall and shovels digging into the earth continued.

Toni glanced at Veritas as she worked methodically. 'Guess that's all the explanation I'll get,' Toni thought tiredly. He looked up at the moon partially hidden by the clouds, but the red glow permeated through. He sighed and said, "Don't think I can ever get used to this moon. Even if the one in the city is fake, this real moon is just creepy. Wonder what it'd be like to see it without that red filter." He muttered to himself.

"...Once my..." Veritas paused for a moment. "Father told me stories of what it looked like before the wars. He called the city's moon cold, but said the red moon was oppressive. The collateral damage from the war between the Goddess and Devil a thousand years has passed and not even a single percent has dissipated."

"What?" Toni stopped moving. 'V had a dad?' Toni stared at her dumbstruck. 'Wait of course she did, everyone has a dad.' He shifted his head to the side in thought. 'But wait why's she talking about her family? Unprompted? Did she hit her head?' She dug as deep as she wanted and was about to find another spot. As she climbed out Toni quickly averted his gaze and resumed digging. Slowly, carefully, minimizing the amount of sound he made so he wouldn't miss a word. A difficult task now that the rain had saturated the ground making constant splooshing sounds.

Toni climbed out of his hole and found another patch of ground closer to Veritas than the previous one. He walked over to it, his shoes squelching in the mud, and started shoveling.

"Just remembering his words. He could describe the landscape vividly." Veritas said, smiling.

Toni listened to her speak and glanced toward her. His shovel slipped when he saw her smile, but he maintained his grip without her noticing.

She continued, "When he first told me the stories, I thought maybe he'd seen it himself. He'd talk about lush natural green forests. Teeming with millions of different plants and animals. The vast deserts with their fluctuating temperatures. The seas were beautiful and deadly, a calm soothing ocean could turn into a turbulent storm in less than an hour. The view you could get from the top of the mountains were breathtaking, seeing the world spread out before you from a snow covered peak." She stopped shoveling and dug the blade into the ground. She placed her palms on the hilt and relaxed her posture.

Toni also stopped his work and leaned in closer.

"He said in areas with a high concentration of mana there were natural formations of huge ice rivers that led to a huge drop hundreds of kilometers wide, volcanic rivers that flowed from deep within the earth to the surface and back down again. There were islands that actually floated above the clouds, the plants and animals had adapted so differently from on the surface. Larger roots and smaller leaves; animals evolved for speed." The rain began to slowly pool water around her feet.

"...Was your father a Machina? Even if he was one of the first he couldn't have seen that personally." Toni asked as softly as he could above the sound of the rain.

"He was, and you're right. The first Machina was created a century after that war. He was old but he couldn't have been alive back then."

"Is your father still... around?" Toni gripped his shovel right after saying it. It was the kind of prying that Veritas would usually ignore or change the subject. But tonight, he thought he might get a real answer.

Veritas took her right hand off the shovel and clenched it tightly. "I haven't seen him in over a decade. He wasn't my real father, but he raised Brun and I." She took a deep slow breath before continuing. "He said he was a bounty hunter long ago, said that's where his stories came from. But by the time I met him he was a teacher. I think he went back to hunting after she died. I haven't seen him since then."

"Was Brun your sister?" Toni regretted saying that immediately.

Veritas snapped back to reality. She pulled the shovel out and resumed working, slightly faster than before.

"Yeah, she passed away in an accident. A long time ago. Anyway, that's enough on that. How far along are you?"

"Oh right. I finished that other one and started here." Toni pointed to the previous mound.

"Alright." She had her back toward Toni so he couldn't discern her expression.

Veritas and Toni continued to dig against the sounds of the rain.

Soon Toni spoke again, "You didn't really explain, what sort of 'cause' are we looking for if the effect is ghosts? Corpses?" Toni forced a laugh.

"Yeah, it'd be great if we find animal ones too."

"Of course we are." Toni sighed as his head dropped. "So we dig them up and then what? Take them to a priest? Burn the remains? Never thought exorcisms were a real thing." He laughed again, this time a real one. "I thought it was impossible to raise the dead."

"It is, with what humans have available anyway. Just like how science has a periodic table of elements, magic has a table of spells. There are holes in it because some spells haven't been discovered or rather rediscovered with present technology because—"

Toni's eyes lit up and he stared at her. "Then does that mean we've discovered a naturally occurring spell? If we report this to the Deus Machinas, we could get a reward. Enough to—"

The rain began to slow. A brief light flickered behind them.

"This doesn't fit in the table of what's achievable. Necromancy isn't replicable, at least it shouldn't be. Nor should anything to do with the manipulation of souls. We know it exists because of the records from before the war. But none of the war relics from then still work. They should have all been shut down by the Goddess when she sealed the Devil at the end... We might find a relic that didn't shut down."

The sound of thunder boomed as the sky broke and the rain hastened. The blood in Toni's body froze, his shovel slipped from his hands and hit the ground with a wet shluck. The downpour was harder than before.

"But then why are we digging around looking for corpses?" Toni waved his hands outward.

"Assuming we find what created these phantoms, if we can find corpses nearby it means the area of effect is limited. Then there are some restrictions to work with. If we don't, it means anyone or anything is fair game. From the village elderly to any of those abominations from the history books. Burning or blessing the corpses if we find any won't help. This sort of magic isn't something I can understand much less stop if it's active." Veritas stuck the shovel in the ground, trying to expel the mud that was building faster than before.

"If we're dealing with something this... this... dangerous shouldn't we tell someone? This isn't some small-scale turf war, or even a big one. This is huge! Forget a reward! If the Deus Machinas think we were trying to get our hands on a war relic that's high treason!"

"That's why we need to be sure. And that's why we're here."

"Alright well I'm done digging here. Where do you want me to check now?" Toni picked up his shovel and climbed out of his hole.

Veritas finished digging hers and climbed out as well. She walked around the pitfall-laden earth, avoiding the puddles of water. "Well, that's it." She said, folding her arms.

"What's it, did you find something?" Toni hurried over to her.

"No, that's it. There isn't anywhere else to dig." Veritas calmly announced.

"Isn't there anywhere else we can check? Another field?" Toni began to fidget.

Before Toni and Veritas started digging, the area around them had been even at first glance. A few hours later they had turned the basketball court-sized area into a walking hazard.

"No, this spot was the center of all the sightings. Every encounter we had was an equal distance from this field."

"Then? That means?"

"It means we need to start packing."