Kim and I arrived ten minutes after the alarm was tripped, because Actuarial had determined that a focus on response times would lower losses in the long run.

The client, a thin dwarf with a black beard, clipped short like they did in the Border, stood outside waiting, siren blaring and warning lights flashing.
Kim took the lead on the small talk, while I stepped back and looked at the building.
The warehouse looked ordinary enough, with a small office adjacent.
Black panels circled the warehouse, hiding proprietary warding underneath.

The client, Dara, lived in an attached housing block and arrived shortly after the alarm went off, and no, he didn't know what had tripped it.
Dara was quite keen to please turn off the siren, and ushered everyone into the small office attached to the warehouse.

The wards were connected to a small electric receiver, which had a flashing light indicating that motion had triggered the alarm.
The forced-entry, anti-teleport and ward-breaking lights all sat dim, interestingly enough.
Another light underneath, labelled "Priority Emergency", remained unlit too, so the wards weren't picking up anything too time-sensitive.
Which made dispatching Kim and I so quickly seem an odd choice.
Not that I was going to complain about being able to bill off-hours time.

―We're not contractually allowed to fully disarm the alarm until MBoCM get here, Kim said.
	You export Deepwood, right?

Dara nodded.

―We can silence the sirens though.

Kim held their company ID near the receiver and held down the silencer button.
The sirens stopped, and as a bonus the alarm lights stopped flashing, and the subtle tension of standing near a loud sound lifted off our collective shoulders.

―While we're waiting, Kim said, we can take care of some paperwork.

―Will it be a while? Dara asked.

This was an optimistic question, and Kim nodded with an empathy I shared.
Mountberg's Board of Control for Magic barely responded to emergencies quickly, and a low priority alarm like this one would garner even less interest.
But as much as Dara might like to see what was happening inside of his warehouse, it would not be worth violating an MBoCM regulation.
Security wards set off at any exporters of what MBoCM considered Sensitive Magical Material required a Board response.
And the ward owners, would be billed.
Handy way to make a profit.
That bill would be paid by the owner's insurance, unless of course an investigator (me) could show that it was their fault.
Which is why an investigator like me had to show up far too early in the morning for loud alarms.

Kim asked Dara to find the original certificates of installation of the security wards, along with the registration details of the Scribes who'd actually written the runes.
I knew that Kim had that information in their folder, but if Dara couldn't produce information like that, Kim could record it in the report.
And then Underwriting could make sure to increase Dara's malpractice premium.
Not by a lot, but enough that Kim's reputation would go up and some executive's bonus would increase.

―I'll step outside and do an inspection of the doors, I said.

The panels of warding extended over the large service door of the warehouse, and I could see another electronic relay controlling a large bolt holding the door closed.
Wards like this could trigger in a few different ways, but the most common was unexpected motion in the interior when the alarm was armed.
In order to have motion inside, either someone from outside had to enter, or whoever was inside had to have been there since last night when the doors were locked.
Except the type of wards made that unlikely.
Forced-entry and anti-teleport measures were standard for wards, and the wards detected neither, which covered the obvious methods of entry.

But the system had had a ward-breaking light, too.
It took sophisticated systems to detect ward-breaking, and sophisticated systems were smart enough to detect unexpected occupants during arming.
So how had someone gotten in to trip the alarm?

The outside of the warehouse looked entirely uninteresting.
Untouched ward panels, no damage to the service door.
I started to walk back to the office, but