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==Chapter 12 - A Toreel Wizard in Prince Davion's Court==
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===Questions about day's fantastical events ===
Militia BaseEuschelus, Taurian ConcordatOctober 14th, 3025
"So what do you think," Brigadier Howard Fiscus asked. "Psychotropics, mass hysteria, prank?"
"The first two are ruled out by video evidence," Doctor Ed Westphall replied. "A prank... Throw away four Battlemechs and a dropship to do what, exactly?" 
"The alternative is magic," Brigadier Fiscus responded. The two men were in an office at the militia command post, waiting for some unexpected guests. Fiscus had already reviewed the video feeds from the battle site, and seen the initial impressions of the troops on scene. And... well... ole Doc Westphall was an old friend, and probably the smartest man on the planet. Who better to bounce ideas off of. "They could have hired the pirates, or pointed them this way without letting them know what they were in for."
Doc Westphall leaned back in his chair. "There's still that huge question of why, though. Also, I think 'sufficiently advanced technology'" would be a more likely alternative to magic."
Brigadier Fiscus scowled. "The whole point of that quote is to say there's no meaningful difference," he said. "And we already know the why doesn't make any sense."
"Well I can't help you with the how, either," Doc Westphall said. "I'm a doctor, not a practical affects man. Puzzling this out would probably be a job for TMI, or one of the big trivid studios in the Hyades."
"Or a priest," Brigadier Fiscus replied.
"Hey, you said it, not me."
The secretary poked his head in the room. "They're coming in, sir."
Fiscus sighed. "Time to get this over with," he said and he got up from his chair and left the office. It was a short walk through the building to get outside into the hot, dry air. The militia command post was on the outskirts of the town's small starport, which gave it clear line of sight, and thus clear communication to any likely defensive points in the town and the valley below. Inconvenient to the Brigadier's immediate needs, however, there were almost no high points overlooking the post and the helopads themselves, just a small control and communications tower for regulating and monitoring air and space traffic. 
It wasn't much, but it was what he had, so he'd split his teams of marksmen between the tower and the roof of the command post, with orders to take out all three of these unknown travelers on command. He hoped he wouldn't need to give that order, but he hoped even more that if he did, his people would actually carry it out. His troopers had already expressed concern that one of the potential targets appeared to be a child. 
The helo's approach and landing were uneventful, though that did nothing to calm his nerves. The first one out, followed closely by a large black cat, was the girl. 
If Brigadier Fiscus believed in a God that took an active interest in mankind, he might have uttered a short prayer.
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===Hard Questions on things turned Out===
The man waiting for them was dressed differently from the soldiers they'd already met, trading the flat burgundy outfit covered with pockets and other gear for a brighter red coat with black trousers and boots. Gold buttons on his coat and abstract symbols on his lapels seemed to indicate his importance. A dark green, soft, somewhat over sized hat, something like what you would see an Elven merchant or noble from the Inner Sea wear, sat on his head, kinda clashing with the rest of the ensemble, if Chim was being honest. 
His look was stern, the kind of stern Chim tended to see from taciturn knights or marshals who were annoyed to deal with whatever problem she and her companions had managed to create. Which was hardly fair. They'd solved a problem this time, thank you very much!
"You should get behind me," Celia said. She'd followed Chim off the flying machine and was scanning the area around them with a practiced eye. "There are armed men on that roof watching us." 
"She has a point," L'heo said. "You're in bad shape."
And she'd been mostly able to put the aches all over her body out of her mind, too... Polly's healing ability had closed the open wounds, stopped the internal bleeding, and mended her broken bones, but below the surface she was still badly injured. She'd tried to hide it from the locals with illusion magic, but even their medics said she looked like she was "two weeks into a six month recovery period". 
But... "I think that's why I need to be in front," Chim replied. "I'm the least threatening looking." She looked back at L'heo, "Especially since they got a good look at you." 
"And if one of us falls," L'heo countered, "you're the only one who has even a chance of fixing it."
"Too late," Chim said as she started walking, casting as she went. She stopped abruptly after that, but it wouldn't look that way as the spell rendered her invisible and replaced her with a phantasm that continued towards the stern looking individual. 
It was good enough to fool Celia, who protested and made a move to follow, but L'heo rested a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. They were a little lucky there. Celia always did her best, but it was undeniably easier to sell a deception if the Paladin wasn't in on it.
The stern guy at least seemed to be buying it, concentrating on the phantasm as it approached him, flanked by Polly. 
"Hello," she had the phantasm say. "You're the... brigadier? Mister... I'm sorry, I forgot his name... he said you'd want to talk to me."
"Brigadier Fiscus, yes," the stern man acknowledged. "There isn't someone older I could talk to?"
Chim frowned, but kept any expression of annoyance off of the phantasm. "I'm actually sixty eight." she said.
The brigadier shrugged. "Well sure, and I'm over two hundred if you put me on the right planet."
She still kept the impassive expression on the phantasm, but she let a little bit of her annoyance leak through the voice. "I was actually converting to your Terran standard years, but that's not important." She was fighting a clock, at least a bit. She could only keep the illusion up for a short time. She could renew it a couple more times, but even then he might notice a discontinuity between castings. She needed to establish trust quickly before giving away how little she trusted them. "I understand you have no reason to believe us, aside from the testimony of your people, or the information from your own recording devices, or the fact that we have no motive..." Okay, she was getting a little bit bitter. "Not important. We didn't want to cause a scene, or even find ourselves in this position, talking to someone who doesn't trust us and has guns pointed at us." She let the phantasm sigh. "We just saw somebody attacking you, and decided we had to help. Really, it was my idea. The others didn't want any part of it."
A bit of a lie there. Celia was basically divinely bound to rush towards danger, and for all his cynicism, L'heo couldn't really bring himself to turn his back on people in need. But shouldering the blame herself might help Chim smooth things over.
The brigadier seemed to think about it for a moment, just long enough to force Chim to renew the spell, but he didn't seem to notice. "It's a nice sentiment and all," he said, finally. "And whatever your motives, killing those sons of bitches out there didn't just help us. There are a fair number of worlds who don't have the strength to stand up to even raiders that small time. Taking them permanently off the table is a public service. I just want you to know that."
"But?" Chim asked, expectantly. Come on, hurry up and get to the point!
"But, magic?" the brigadier replied. "Either you just staged a massive elaborate stunt to make people think you have magic powers, or you have magic powers. Which one would you think was more likely?"
"I think you're asking the wrong person," Chim's phantasm replied. "But why would we deceive you?"
"Always that why problem," the Brigadier said. "The fundamental reason anybody does anything is because they think it's worth doing. The best reason I can think of is a distraction to keep us looking the other way while you try something else. Euschelus is... did you just flicker a little?"
"Um..." Chim said, having just finished recasting her spell again. "No?"
"Huh," the Brigadier said. "Euschelus isn't worth much to most people, but it had a lot more going for it back in the old days, and there's still ruins that might not have been picked clean. And the people you came in with were prospectors. The only reason I could see you staging something this big and showy, including either scamming or hiring a pirate band to be bait, is that you wanted to distract us from something you think might be worth more. Something out in the ruins we wouldn't let your people leave with. Am I close?"
Chim invisibly facepalmed while the phantasm responded. "No," she said. "But I think I can follow your reasoning. And I don't think denying it would convince you." 
"Like I said, the alternative is magic," he seemed to love putting emphasis on that like it was completely ridiculous. Chim got the feeling she was going to hear that a lot more often before her time out here was done. "So I already ordered the rest of your ship's crew detained and sent a squad aboard for inspection."
"That..." Chim was floored by his words, already imagining what Captain Doug would say when he heard about it. "That really wasn't necessary."
The brigadier shrugged. "Prove it."
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===Seeing is Believing===
"If I can't?" the girl asked.
Brigadier Fiscus shrugged again. "Then we'll be detaining you on suspicion of piracy," he replied. "Your ship at the jump point will be free to leave, just because we have no way of stopping it before it can finish charging and escape. And by the time any Bolo is put out for it, it'll have left Taurian space. But you, your friends, and the dropship's crew will be held in custody until your trial."
"And after that you hang us?"
"Probably not, no." Fiscus said, a bit shocked. What kind of criminal justice system had they been living under? "If you're convicted, at worst you would face prison time and confiscation of materials. At best, if you own up to the prank and can convince a jury you didn't intend for anybody to get hurt? Well, none of our people actually died. You might get off with just paying restitution for the damage done."
"And if we prove our innocence?"
"If you prove magic exists?" Fiscus said with a laugh. "Sure, we'd let you go."
"Good," the girl said. "The spell was about to run out anyway." She suddenly seemed to blink out and appear five meters behind where she was. 
Fiscus briefly just stared, too stunned to react. "Did anybody else see that?" he demanded. The marskmen quickly acknowledged over the radio, causing Fiscus to focus again on the girl. "What did you just do?!"
"Sorry," the girl said. "It was an illusion to misdirect you, in case your people started shooting. You folks seem honorable enough, so I don't think it's still necessary."
Fiscus was too stunned to respond.
"I know, I know," the girl said. "Still not good enough. Give me a second." She looked down at the tarmac under her and tapped it with her foot. "This isn't quite the same as the material on the actual landing platform, so maybe it's not as important? Don't worry, either way I can put it back when I'm done."
She dropped to her knees and briefly chanted something as she rested her hand on the concrete. Then, with a flourish, she stood up, and began moving her hands, almost like she was shaping clay. And the concrete seemed to respond, drawing up from the tarmac and flowing together until, in less than half a minute, it had taken the shape of a crudely formed humanoid.
"Sorry," the girl said. "I'm not very good at sculpture."
But she still wasn't done. Reaching into her backpack, she drew out a rod of some sort, that was clearly too big to fit in the pocket it came out of, and tapped the sculpture. 
And the sculpture began to move, executing a bow with considerable flourish despite being solid concrete. The sculpture then started walking, taking a few steps towards the cat that had been sitting impassively watching the exchange. It then leaned down and gingerly gave the animal a scratch behind the ears.
"Not so rough," the cat(!) said in mild protest. "You've got the gentleness of a fat ogre." 
The girl then looked back to Fiscus, and if he wasn't so gobsmacked he might have noticed the look of absolute satisfaction on her face.
"So how was that?"
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==Chapter Notes==
*Author's Chapter Notes : Reader Question ; You using a different Taurian rank structure?Nope, standard 3025 era TDF rank structure. Fiscus is just slightly higher rank than a typical Taurian officer would be in his position due to experience. The forces on planet are citizens militia rather than regulars, and thus more informal, so they can get away with it.
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