Lowe frowned at the unfamiliar word, more so that Verlick was looking at him like there was a clear expected response to the news.

"Oh no!" he tried, raising his hands in a little show of unwelcome surprise.

"Fuck's sake," Verlick shook his head and turned back towards the . "That's it for today, boys and girls. Go and do . . . whatever it is you lazy cretins get up to when I'm not trying to help you better yourselves."

The group didn't need to be told twice, and in moments, Lowe and Verlick were stood alone in front of an inexpertly created wall. The cocked his head, sniffed, and then waved his hand, the bricks instantly correcting themselves into a more uniform position. "Don't get me wrong, they're not bad lads; it's just at my time of life . . . " Verlick's voice trailed off for so long that Lowe opened his mouth to speak before he continued. "It's a big site, you get me? And I can't be everywhere. I said to the Director that it was getting to be a bit much for me and do you know what he said?" Lowe shook his head, sensing he wasn't really needed in this part of the conversation. "He said I had two choices: I could retire, and he could find someone 'younger', or I could train up a proper maintenance crew and supervise. Think I've doubled my workload."

Lowe let the pause settle for a while until it threatened to become maudlin. "You said something about a Dreadnaught?"

Verlick's head snapped up, and eyes that had been in danger of becoming misty cleared. "Yeah, I did. Probably best you see this yourself." And then the crotchety man was off, Lowe struggling to keep up with the pace he set across the courtyard. Although not an unfit man, Lowe recognised that he could probably stand to do a little more exercise. He quickly found himself channelling Roll with the Punches to avoid panting like asthmatic buffalo.

Verlick reached a door in a building at the extreme end of the space - directly opposite from the room in which Lowe had been conducting his interviews - and paused to check the Inspector was still behind him. "Are you okay?"

Despite his running Skill, Lowe could feel that his face was flushed. "Yeah, no worries."

Verlick frowned at him. "You need to spend a little more time outside, sir. All the desk-jockeying is not good for you. Last thing the museum needs is another dead body on its hands."

The conversation was moving rather too close to a chat Arebella had with him the other night. The one where she tactfully raised that there was a chance he might have been partaking a touch heavily of some of Mylaf's sweeter consumables. Having no wish to revisit his mortification there, Lowe motioned for Verlick to get on with it. "You said you had something to show me?"

Casting a critical eye to the bead of sweat that had appeared on Lowe's brow, Verlick pushed a stream of his mana into the lock of the door before them. It made a complicated whirring noise and then shuddered and cracked open.

Verlick stood to one side, his face etched with the deep lines that come from years of scowling at things that don’t make sense—or, worse, things that do. “Get in, then,” he growled, “don’t dawdle. This isn’t a fucking sightseeing tour.”

As the had, quite literally, invited him along to show him something, Lowe couldn't help but feel this was slightly unfair. However, as he crossed the door's threshold - the air inside spilling out a metallic aura, like old blood on rusted steel - he let it side. The inside of the room was large, far larger than the external look of the place would have suggested, but the low ceiling made it feel smaller, as though the building was hunched over in the shadows, watching those who came in. The exhibits - if that was what you could call things in a room clearly not intended for view - were scattered about in no particular order, like pieces in a puzzle that no one had the time or patience to solve.

The first display Lowe noticed was a case on his left, its glass smeared with what looked like fingerprints, though on closer inspection, they were more like claw marks. Inside, a collection of delicate instruments—brass compasses, astrolabes, and things that looked like they were probably used to explore something more like internal biology—glimmered faintly in the light. As Lowe leaned in, he caught a glimpse of something moving in the reflection, a shadow that wasn’t his own. He pulled back sharply, his heart skipping a beat and looking around, but the shadow was gone, leaving only his distorted reflection in the glass.

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Verlick snorted. “Don’t bother trying to figure those out. They belong to an astronomer who thought the stars could talk. Turns out they can, but he didn't much like what they had to say. They used to be out on display, but there's only so much screaming the Director could countenance. Even that PR wanker couldn't keep smoothing that over. And he isn't going to be doing any of that anymore, is he?”

Lowe nodded, unsure whether Verlick was joking. It was hard to tell.

They moved on through the quiet dark, Lowe's eyes drawn to a massive tapestry hanging against one wall. The fabric was heavy, soaking up any available light and keeping it for itself. The scene depicted was chaotic, a battle, or perhaps a massacre—figures locked in combat, but their forms twisted, exaggerated, as though painted in a fever dream. The longer Lowe looked, the more the figures seemed to move, not in the usual way a trick of the eye might play, but as if they were actually writhing against the fabric.

“Careful with that one,” Verlick said, his voice gruff but laced with something that might have been caution. “It’s called ‘The Last War.’ Every now and then, one of those poor sods gets out, and that's no Sun Day morning picnic, I can tell you.”

Lowe tore his gaze away, his nerves beginning to jangle. He was having the same creeping feeling of dread that had almost overwhelmed him in the corridors beneath the museum. Surreptitiously, he checked Mental Fortress, but it was running as usual. This wasn't any sort of mind attack; it was just a genuinely freaky room.

Lowe stepped further into the room, his eyes catching on a small, unassuming box on a pedestal. It was plain wood, no bigger than a loaf of bread, with a simple latch. But something about it felt off as if it were vibrating at a frequency just below hearing. He could feel it in his teeth, a low, constant hum that set his nerves on edge.

“That,” Verlick said, with a disdainful wave, “is a music box. Plays a tune that no one ever finishes listening to, on account of what happens if they do.”

Lowe didn’t need to ask what happened. The box seemed to buzz with a barely contained menace, which certainly did have Mental Fortress performing all sorts of gymnastics. He moved past it quickly, feeling the cold sweat prickle on the back of his neck.

With a lurch, the room appeared to twist in on itself, the exhibits becoming more bizarre, more unsettling the deeper they went. A mirror reflected not their faces but a dark hallway lined with doors, each slightly ajar, with something unseen moving behind them. A table held a clock that ticked backwards, the hands scraping against the glass as they fought against time itself. The oddities went on. Every corner seemed to hold something just out of sight, a whisper of movement that vanished the moment Lowe tried to focus on it.

“This is basically a dumping ground for everything the powers-that-be can’t find a way to explain,” Verlick muttered, his tone bitter, like a man forced to babysit a pack of rabid dogs.

"Is it safe?"

"Safe? Who the fuck are you kidding? There's a reason why it's all kept under lock and key. I only have access because someone needs to keep on top of all the damage."

They had reached the far end of the room, where a single, flickering lantern cast long, jittery shadows across six towering figures. Or rather, Lowe assumed, what should have been six.

“Here we are,” Verlick said with a weary sigh, suggesting he’d rather be anywhere else. “Our Dreadnaughts. Or what’s left of them.”

Lowe stared, his mind rebelling against what he was seeing. The Dreadnaughts defied description, their forms shifting and warping with every heartbeat. One moment, they were statues, tall and menacing, carved from some black, gleaming stone. The next, they melted, flowing like quicksilver, only to solidify again as something else entirely—armoured beasts, towering pillars of light, a roiling mass of shadow. As Lowe watched, they were never the same thing twice, as if they were always in flux, trapped between realities.

And yet, for all that mutability, they exuded a terrifying presence, an overwhelming sense of terror that pressed in on Lowe like the purest essence of necrotic slime. His Mental Fortress shivered under the assault, the normally impenetrable barrier quivering like a leaf in a storm and levelling up at an astonishing pace. It wasn’t just the sight of them which was so awful - and Lowe was certainly full of awe - it was the sense that these things were alive, aware, and far more dangerous than they appeared.

And there was one missing.

“One’s gone,” Lowe said, more to himself than to Verlick.

“Aye,” Verlick replied, his tone clipped. “A few months back now. And if you’ve got half a brain in that head of yours, you’ll start worrying about where it’s gone and what it’s planning. As I told the last Inspector, these things don’t just wander off for some fresh air.”

Lowe couldn’t tear his eyes away from the remaining Dreadnaughts, their forms flickering and shifting with a slow, relentless rhythm. They seemed to pulse with a silent, malevolent energy, as if they were aware of their missing sibling and were waiting—patiently, ominously—for its return.