After seeing him turn the into soup, the crowds on the street outside were significantly less interested in Latham than they had been when he was inside the coffee shop.

Of course, the sight and smells of Lowe were also fairly inhibitive to people seemingly wishing to be too close to them.

As they tried to make their way across the city, the situation had become so dire that, even though they were still a few crossings away from the Celestial Temple and Lowe felt time was of the essence, they felt compelled to halt at a Dry Cleaner's. It was time for Lowe to clean up and sort out his clothes.

"Do I even want to know what the poison was?" Lowe asked, doing his best to scrub the thick, black substance off his skin.

Latham was guarding the outside of the washroom - although, at this stage, he was more protecting the public from the stench rather than ensuring there were no further attempts on Lowe's life. "You won't have heard of it. Pretty exotic and very expensive. Safe to say, whoever slipped it into the coffee meant business."

Ever since his beating, Lowe had felt a solid ball of rage building up inside him, which he was doing his best to keep under wraps. Finding out that Arebella had been threatened had encouraged it to grow, and if the poison attempt was in danger of causing it to explode, then having to throw away his best shirt because it was soaked in various of his own body fluids was hardly helping . . .

He emerged from the washroom and crossed, bare-chested, to the shop's counter. "Look, I understand you can't clean it, but have you at least got one similar in my size that I can replace it with?"

The at the Dry Cleaner's could not have looked less interested if he had tried. "You see the sign, mate? We clean shit, we don't sell it."

Lowe pointed at one of many white shirts hanging up behind the Level 6 teenager. "Just give me one of those, and I'll make it worth your while."

"Fuck off, grandad." The boy's eyes flicked upwards, reading the investigator's Classless state. "I need this job for the XP. I let you take someone else's stuff, and I'll end up in a worse situation than you. No offence, but there isn't enough gold in the world."

Doing his best not to see whether Slugger could punch this little twat through the wall, Lowe took a deep breath and placed one of Mylaf's cookies on the counter. "Who said anything about money? Forty-eight-hour Charisma boost. +25%. I imagine a likely lad such as yourself could be quite a hit with the ladies with this bad boy."

The narrowed his eyes. "Bullshit."

Lowe shrugged but kept his finger on the cookie. "Look, as you can tell by the state of my clothes. I'm having something of a morning. I've met with a lawyer, been beaten up and then someone tried to poison me. And there's a chance I made a fool out of myself in front of my ex. I'm just taking a moment out here before I go and relieve some of my frustrations on someone who may or may not deserve it. At the moment, I'm not looking to make your day any harder than it needs to be. However, I can happily add you to my shit list if you want?"

"Grandad, I've been threatened by bigger swinging cocks than you just in the last hour. Dry Cleaning's cut-throat, man. Besides," and his eyes darted upwards again, "I aint sure you've got enough lead in your pencil to fuck with me."

Latham cleared his throat from his position by the washroom. "Okay, as entertaining as this has been, I'm now bored. Give him the shirt, take the cookie, and we'll say no more about it. On the other hand, you can see how fast your retail career progresses with one arm wedged up your arse. And trust me, if you are wondering whether I'd do it, my pencil is all fucking lead."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

*

The proud owner of a crisp, white shirt and a brand new suit that the managed to put his hands on when Latham growled in just the right way, Lowe was feeling a million times better as he approached one of the many doors to the Celestial Temple.

He hadn't quite decided how he wanted to play it with Setort, but almost for the first time since Cenorth had gotten him out of bed to look into the case, he actually felt like he was getting somewhere.

In his mind, he could feel a theory developing that a disgruntled priest looking to remove a problematic boss got involved with powers that could quickly get out of control. It didn't quite fit in with Gravalk seemingly being quite pissed off with what had happened - it felt like somewhat of a promotion-limiting move to piss off your god - nor with water being the murder weapon. However, right now, it was the best he had got to go on.

Even as he thought that, though, for some reason, Grid View kept trying to pull his attention back to a candle with a piece of seaweed in it, but if he tried to think too hard about it, the idea drifted away.

Well, it would come. Or it wouldn't.

Certainly one of the two.

Lowe's temporary good mood lasted right up until he reached the entrance to the Temple, and a moved forward to block his path. "No entry, I'm afraid, sir."

Lowe tried to step nimbly around him, but the big woman - and she was big. Lowe's tastes went for the petite and feminine. An image of Arebella flashed, unbidden, into his mind, which he dismissed as quickly as possible - moved to intercept him.

"I cannot let you pass, sir."

"You don't understand. I'm on a case. My name is Inspector Lowe."

The Warder smiled, not unkindly. "Be that as it may, sir, but you are not going to be able to access the Temple."

"I'm so not in the mood for this. The Security Services are seeking to uncover the perpetrator of a crime committed under your noses. All I have had today is shit from people who do not want me to do my job, and now you, someone who should be anxious for me to find you a criminal to execute summarily, are making my life harder. If I were you, I'd be anxious to help me!"

"Lowe . . ."

"It's alright, Latham. I've got this." He met the woman's eyes, cricking his neck looking up. "In just the last few days, I've taken too many beatings, had my friends threatened, been poisoned and had a god melt the skin off my fucking bones. If none of that has put me off, no Bodybuilding Brenda on a power trip will keep me from going about my business."

"Little man, perhaps we should . . ."

"Dude, chill out. So, what about it? Are you going to stand here and stop me? Are you? Are you really?"

The , with a strange smile on her face, stepped to one side and waved him through. "Be my guest, sir. I hope you have a simply lovely day."

With a satisfied glance back at Latham, Lowe marched towards the open door and -

The next thing he knew, he found himself lying on the ground ten feet from the door, looking back at the two gazing down at him without sympathy on any of their faces.

"What the fuck!"

The female Warder shrugged her massive shoulders. "I did try to tell you, sir. The Celestial Temple has been temporarily closed to all below Level 25. Due to your insistence on being allowed to breach the protection field, I'm afraid you have just triggered the Repulsor Shield."

Latham clapped the woman on the back - Lowe noted that the bone-shattering impact barely made her wobble - and then moved to help the wholly dazed Lowe find his feet. "Orders from one the higher Floors, apparently. Not unusual, but certainly not common. Of course, the timing and the specifics of the level cap are somewhat suggestive."

"No shit. So, let me get this straight. I finally uncover a lead which might get the case somewhere, and - what do you know - I'm suddenly unable to access the crime scene, question witnesses or even, gods forbid, speak to my only suspect! What the fuck am I supposed to do now?"

Latham led him a little distance away from the Temple and lowered his voice. "Look, I can put in a complaint, but I'd imagine whoever made this happen will have all sorts of coverage for their actions. There's no way Arkola has actually ordered this, but by the time anyone actually looks it over, we could be a week down the road and . . ."

"Fuck's sake. Everything's working against me here! And the thing is, not everyone fucking with me could actually have killed her! This case is fucked."

"Not necessarily, little man. You can't get into the Temple as a Level 20. Ergo, we just do something to change that."

"I don't understand."

Latham grinned and flexed his own shoulders - which, Lowe noted, were quite some much advance on the female . "No reason why you should. Tell me, little man, what experience do you have of Dungeon Delving?"