Elara was not the only one desperately trying to find the quiet distortion in the city's paperwork. Joric Tahl, formally sidelined from the "Architect" case, used his established status within the new City Oversight Committee to pursue his own shadow investigation. He knew Magistrate Ruhl's frame-up was sophisticated, requiring internal, low-level access that mirrored Elara's own archival expertise.
Tracing the Footprint
Joric focused on the Records Bureau, the place where the Judge's fabricated financial collapse files were accessed post-mortem, according to the data Jerome "The Ledger" had hinted at. He couldn't go in officially, as Vesper was monitoring his activity, so he relied on his knowledge of the city's small, ignored personnel.
He located Jerome, the nervous, middle-aged archivist who worked under Elara (as Veridia). Joric found Jerome late one night in a dimly lit, municipal cafeteria, hunched over cold coffee.
"Jerome," Joric greeted him, keeping his voice low and firm. "I need to know about the Judge Elric files. The ones that were altered after his death to suggest financial shame."
Jerome flinched, scattering sugar packets. He had seen the Kaelen dynasty fall and was terrified of being implicated in the new wave of political chaos. "Commander, I—I only verify the paper, I don't touch the digital flow," he stammered, his eyes darting to the door. "But Veridia... Elara... she always spoke of the architecture. The power isn't in the armies, but in the brittle fibers of the documents."
Joric pressed him gently, mentioning the discrepancies in the access logs. "Someone used an internal Records Bureau login to edit a deleted sub-directory related to Elric's financials. You logged the original file."
The Key to the Ghost
Jerome, recognizing Joric's genuine commitment to the truth—a contrast to the corruption he usually saw—finally crumbled. He admitted that, days after the Judge's death, he noticed a temporary, subtle corruption in the access code for a deleted folder.
"I didn't report it. I just cleaned the system and logged the event to a private index," Jerome whispered, glancing nervously around the empty room. "But the log showed the user bypassed the primary security. It looked like someone was covering their tracks, making sure the digital paper trail led back to... the Architect."
He slid a small, heavily encrypted card across the table. "This is the index key for that private log. It contains the exact deleted sub-directory code, proving someone inside- or with deep knowledge of the Records Bureau's system- was staging the collapse."
Joric was close to catching her enemy. The key wouldn't immediately reveal Magistrate Ruhl, but it proved the frame-up originated inside the political establishment, not from a lone, fugitive avenger. Ruhl's team had used the bureau's internal vulnerabilities, confident they could erase the trace.
Joric took the key, his expression grim. He realized that Ruhl was using the very systems put in place to ensure justice (the archives) to frame the one person who risked everything for the truth. He now had the means to verify Elara's belief that she was being framed, but he had to decrypt the information without alerting Vesper or, worse, Ruhl's growing security network.