Day One Hundred-Sixteen: Flying finances

Yep. It's war.

Friday was quiet, beyond the whole mural thing. Nothing else happened. I think I know why, too: Logan was busy setting up for today. This week, and maybe a lot of weeks afterward, are gonna be hellish.

I was really tired after all that fruitless searching on Thursday and Friday, so when I woke up this morning I was late for work. Surprised me that Libby hadn't woken me up when she left, but she's been charitable lately, so I figured she was just being easy on me.

Nope. Wasn't that at all. She left 'cause one of her friends ducked in to tell her something, and she was in such a rush out of the apartment that she left me snoozing. By the time I got up that 'something' was already over, and I knew what I was doing for the rest of the day.

Before I get into the 'something', I need to tell you a bit about Castle StateOfPanic's treasury. When he was planning the castle, they say, the king decided that the best way to punish criminals was to force them to stare at what they want most, which, I'll admit, isn't a bad idea for torture. So the jail is right across from the treasury, which is really just a gigantic pit filled with gold, and the prisoners can all look through the bars and stare at the riches of the kingdom - but never touch.

'cept today. 'cause when Captain Cedric went down to check on the prisoners, he found them surrounded by gold coins, but still locked in their cells.

And the treasury? EMPTY. Every freaking gold coin from the pit, gone. Stolen. Filched. And there was a hell of a lot more in the pit than what the prisoners had.

The reason Libby ran out on me was 'cause somebody, not pointing fingers but SOMEBODY, rigged up a series of ropes over the bailies and the main courtyard, and they were sending buckets filled with gold zipping across the spaces, spilling coins down on the common folk. Everybody must've thought it was some new kinda holiday, as people were freaking out and beating each other up to grab all the gold. Was a mass riot, diary, and it was still going on when I got up, 'cause the guards couldn't catch the guy flinging all the gold around, and since he had a hood on they couldn't ID him, either.

Gee. Wonder who it was.

Eventually the hooded figure left, most of the gold distributed to the peasants but some of it left on the walls, and the guards cut down the ropes while the royal guards and the kingdom's soldiers began organizing everybody in the castle into lines. They had to give the gold back. Problem is, the bookkeeping in the castle's always been bad - Robert the Librarian told me so when I visited him earlier to take a break - so there's no knowing how much of the gold was lost to us commoners.

I'm not stupid, diary. I know that's a bad thing. The king and his advisors NEED that gold to keep things running. Will that force me into squealing on my wife, who has twenty gold hidden in her pillow at this very moment? Hell no. I want some new clothes. I'm just saying, I KNOW it's a bad thing.

Between that and dozens of little heart-and-dagger symbols appearing all over the place, this has been a rather terrible day, diary. Gonna get worse, too, I just know it. What's he gonna do tomorrow…?

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Guard