George asked Lexi to wait where she was as he went to the chief to ask this question.

SIren paused "What about Chrysalis?"

"Already exists" Romeo pointed out "I think one is trying to run for a governor position actually"

"Uh...well what do we know so far about this creature?" Siren said trying to help.

"Well, from the size of the specimens, it's clearly a medium sized creature, completely aquatic, it's scales are quite unique as they glow in the dark..." Romeo stated as he started to shift into a teacher mode "Now bio-luminescence isn't a new thing to sea life, Angler Fish, and some eels have that ability. However if my research is correct, these things can...in a layman's term...glow in the dark completely.

Now further study when the creature is found is required to know if it's for catching prey or warding off predators. Next, the teeth I've found are extrodinary..."

Siren asked "How so?"

"Well look?" opening a case Romeo revealed teeth that glowed like the brightest diamond. "I think this is pure crystal...which raises so many questions...how does it eat? What does it eat? Is it like a shark where teeth just rotates..."

Siren asked "Do you think it has sentience?"

"That is a good question" Romeo stated as he went to work "I have evidence for both yes and no. The ocean has often been overlooked, even with all of our magical ability...and the power of Hydromancy, we have still only explored 5% if that...of Brumel's oceans. So it's not out of the ordinary to think that there is some creature we did not meet under the sea, be it animal or sentient" He sighed "For it being an animal, there's behavior patterns that show that it has a simply mindset, eat, sleep, survive, breed. Simple animalistic mindset that is common. As for the sentient part, I have tried to leave containment units in the dock before with various kind of bait."

Siren gave him a little look as Romeo stated "Sweetie, you know it would only just hold it. I would never kill this creature for examination."

"I know, but I still don't approve" Siren said with a sign.

"Point is...the bait is usually all gone when I get back... with the container not disturbed at all." Romeo stated "And when it is disturbed, it's usually just local wildlife"

"That's assuming there's no corruption they work around." Raul pointed out, which was his typical fallback argument for how corrupt elements could exist.

Lexi waited as told.

The chief was standing near his office, using one of the coffee machines in the main area before he headed in.

"Alright, let's get to work then." Torgh replied, moving over to the desk he was pointed to in order to get started as quickly as possible.

Thanks to his incredibly low center of gravity Rungle kept a steady stance, and used that time saved to begin rushing toward the crash area to look for anyone that needed help. Hopefully nobody did, but he needed to check and see.

“I think my mom has enough integrity to at least let us know if there was some corruption going on,” Willow said.

Aspen followed, giving him his log in ID and passcode, and then explaining the different things they’d use the computer for, such as files, and communications. “We won’t be at our desks too much though, we’re the fieldwork team,” she said.

It would seem that Marsha was able to get any stragglers out, but most had been alerted by Yves shouting.

Howard moved forward, worried for his son. “Yves? Are you alright?” He asked.

Yves sat up, panting and frustrated. “Yeah, I’m fine. We should get down.” He said, not looking at his father.

George sighed "That's true," he went back to his desk and told Lilly "You're going to have to shadow me then. I'm going to be working on a new case, a sad one. John Bull, Minotaur, found shot dead by mystical bullets. By no means a saint, has been arrested for assault, battery, and loitering. There were rumors that Mr. Bull was in a gang so this could just be a case of Gang on Gang Violence." He leaned in a bit looking it over. "However, there are other suspects too. Mr. Bull had a girlfriend named Mary Thane, young elf girl, no prior records, and supposedly was pregnant but was forced to abort the baby. Whatever your stance on that is, forcing it is wrong. She would definently have a motive for his death. Then his brother, a Mr. Athens Bull. Athens's record is clean but he is running for Mayor of his local town. Having a criminal brother would make it pretty bad for politics. Then we have, and odd one, Marine Biologist by the name of Romeo Valasca, rumor has it they had a confrontation about Romeo doing some research into a mysterious creature near Mr. Bull's territory. Not only that, but Mr. Valasca is dating one Siren Aqua. Yes, of that Aqua fame. There have been rumors like crazy of Mr. Bull working for Senator Aqua. Senator Aqua does not like Mr. Valasca so there is a possible motive to try to kill Mr. Bull before Mr. Bull killed Mr. Valasca."

George sighed "This case is early, so I'm glad you are here to start it out since all we have is suspects. Since you need to learn the ropes, where do you want to for investigation?"

Romeo and Siren started to make their way to the main biology lab where Romeo worked.

(I'll post for George as soon as I get a couple of clarifications. 1, in his bio the case is supposed to be over a merfolk murder not a minotaur, which one do you want to stick with? 2. Is George working in homicide or is he a homicide detective? These are two different things. Homicide handles all the paperwork and things found at crime scenes, acts as the people investigators refer to on such cases, homicide DETECTIVES do what you want George to do. This is a subsection of what Aspen and Torgh are doing, and it makes George and Lexi detectives as well.)

"Because we don't know what they're REALLY doing! All your examples are things we already know, they could be policing the upper crust for all we know!" Raul replied. "It may not even be about classism! They're secret, nobody knows who they are, what value does that bring them in a social standing? My guess is that it's just a want to have power over others, or to not have anyone that's above you in power." Raul continued. "By being a senator, you might be above us citizens in power, but you're still yanked around by the need for us to vote you back in later. These illusionists, this shadow government, there's no election, no forced balancing act between what you want to do and what the people expect you to do, nothing to keep them in check! They're practically untouchable!"

"What kind of artifacts are we talking about here?" Torgh asked, flipping through the file to look at what was provided.

Rungle looked around as they talked, noting the damages. Definitely didn't seem fit for much more than scrap, which wasn't worth a lot down here. He didn't speak up, he didn't need to, they knew he was always willing to be a part of the runs. He instead headed back to grab the bag, intending to take the food where it needed to go so it didn't sit out of the way and go bad.

"Hm well, you're the expert here, but it sounds like the first person we'd want to talk to is his sister, since she called it in, then maybe the girlfriend?" Lexi stated and questioned at the same time, wanting to run everything by him since she wasn't sure about her decisions yet. "Or do we have a report from the sister to reference already?"

"What's the point in worrying if we can't even tell they're there or how they're affecting us, if they are?" Willow asked. "It seems to me that if there was some secret shadow government, they're not causing any evident harm."

"Anything and everything imbibed with magic. Could be upper crust magic assistants, cursed lamps, armor and weapons from the war, car engines and batteries, generators, water purifiers, it's a whole lot of stuff disappearing and then reappearing in different cities," Aspen said. "We've been able to track their magical outputs, but when we question the people that have them, they've found them at random sales that we haven't been able to trace."

"As loathe as I am to agree with it, we'll have to, Hun," Marsha said, reluctantly agreeing with Yves. "I'll handle it," her son said, not looking at her or Howard. "We'll get cleaned up and start work around here."

"Right," Yves grunted, walking past Utopia, who followed quietly.

"We do, i just went over what was in them" George said standing up. "Now you and I go to our suspects and ask if we can ask them questions. If they comply great, if not, we may have to come with a warrent. Red tape, I know, but it's that way for a reason"

"Maybe you motivated them all to turn their lives around." Makoto remarked, though she obviously wasn't completely serious about it. "Some of them were probably fake homeless that don't wanna get called out if a protest goes down their street, though. All the camera crews and stuff, people might recognize them."

Raul looked like he had a remark, but chose not to say it. Only Willow could see it before it went away, as Makoto was looking at Willow at the time.

"What's the first step, then? Any standard procedures for the computer here?" He asked as he went through the steps needed to get up to the account part.

"Do we know what they look like?" Lexi asked. She hadn't seen the file, so she hadn't seen the pictures like George had.

Rungle turned and gave a thumbs up to Yves before hurrying to get done with what he was doing.

George said "Oh, right, sorry" He pulled out the pics of the suspects, the mug shots of the victim and his sister, the pic of the girlfriend, and a magazine cover of Romeo.

“I dunno, it’s been ages, really. I didn’t hear about it, just noticed a lack of homeless people, a decrease in conversation about magdefs,” Willow stated.

“Feel free to research the artifacts and their buyers, it’ll be in a folder labeled with the case number, and then in a file labeled artifacts,” Aspen said.

“Come in,” Yves said, sitting in his chair. Utopia perched on the edge of a table, leaving several open seating options for Rungle, be it bed, sofa cushion, or floor.

(Lexi told george to lead the way, she's following him, not the other way around)
"Maybe they're forming some sorta rebellion." Raul suggested. "They're not exactly treated well, they might wanna overthrow the government."

"Noted." Torgh replied, going about doing that once he got there.

"What's wrong with them?" Lexi asked. She'd never used one, she flew everywhere.

Rungle entered, immediately going to the bed after he closed the door since it made him tallest. He hated the height gap being artificially grown, but he didn't mind it being shortened.