The Detective Twelve
The day after the dungeon failed
He should not have been here, yet here he was. There were others that were in charge of the police force in the area, yes, but he had been unceremoniously placed in charge of the initial investigation into the... issues, with the Wendell-Smith dungeon.
The reasoning was simple, and mostly relied on two things. He was an outsider with a fresh perspective and the skills to run an investigation. It helped that he was from the capital as well, since that leant his work and word a fair amount of credibility.
The second factor was far more mundane; he happened to be here already.
There were other investigators in the city, but with things starting to boil over, none of them were at the dungeon at about the time when it started to act strangely, and he was.
So, when the first night came and the entire city held its breath, he found himself inhabiting a small command tent set up on the dungeon’s grounds. The ambient mana was bothersome, but he could live with it. If anything, it wasn’t as bad as it would have been just a day or two ago, which was... not great.
It was a strong clue, as well, one that the police couldn’t hide, but which was based more on a gut feeling, so maybe the news wouldn’t travel as far.
He wasn’t too familiar with dungeons overall, but it was common knowledge amongst the educated that they pulled in mana from the air and used that to somehow recreate the items and goods across their many floors.
It was what many called the Dungeon’s Blessing. That was attributed to several gods, and many had taken some amount of credit for it. Personally, Malory never much cared, and he hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. Dungeons made things. Dungeons had a mana-sucking phenomena around them. They were just minor facts in the background of his life.