Latham surveyed the empty plates on the table. He was still working his way through what seemed like the last stack of buttered crumpets the had brought, and though his fingers were slick with grease, his expression was suddenly serious. Across from him, Lowe nursed a lukewarm cup of tea, untouched for a while now. The chatter of the coffee shop around them—clinking cups, murmured conversations, the hiss of the steam wand—provided an oddly serene backdrop to the tension bubbling between them. If it wasn't for the panic of their server, it might even have been restful.

"The obvious choice," Latham continued between bites, his voice almost lost in the low hum of the room, "is Thought Amplification. You've got, especially for a Classless, pretty high Intelligence and Willpower—enough to make most people nervous. That upgrade can only add to it. In your job, with that freaky memory power of yours, it'd make you pretty fucking astute."

Lowe raised an eyebrow, sensing the direction of the conversation as one might anticipate an approaching fist. "I'm sensing a 'but' coming here…"

Latham paused, his giant hand reaching out to cradle a half-empty cup of coffee. He stared into it like a peering into the dregs of an ill-omened future. For a moment, Lowe wondered what the man was thinking. Whether the sudden introspection was due to the weight of his words or the sheer volume of food he'd consumed, Lowe couldn’t tell. Finally, Latham looked up, his eyes sharp with an intensity that belied his casual tone.

"For me, it's all too perfect. I think you're being played."

Lowe blinked, the straightforward declaration taking him off guard. "What do you mean?"

"Look, little man," Latham began, draining the coffee and setting his cup down with a deliberate clink, "I don’t know a better way to put this, but everything you've told me thus far feels a bit too fucking coincidental for my liking. You're on a case knee-deep in necrotic bloody slime—oceans of the stuff washing about, right? And then—oh, how convenient—your OP healing Skill suddenly evolves to block out mental attacks. That’s pretty fucking situationally useful, don’t you think?"

Lowe couldn't argue with the logic. It was like Soar was handing him precisely what he needed, right when he needed it. "Okay…"

"And then," Latham continued, leaning forward slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper as if the walls themselves had ears, "not only do you end up with this ridiculous new Skill that largely negates any and all mental attacks, but it then, almost immediately, ‘ranks up’—which again, if anyone is keeping score, is more colossal bullshit—and offers you three stupidly useful new upgrade abilities. And let's not forget, the Council has expressly limited you to three Skills. So, not only have you broken through that barrier twice, but your newest fucking Skill can now become even more powerful."

Lowe felt a pit forming in his stomach. The way Latham laid it all out made it sound pretty unlikely. "What are you saying?"

"I’m saying, little man," Latham replied, his voice heavy, "that for someone who, famously, does not have a patron god, you're getting offered some pretty nifty toys lately. And that brings me back to Thought Amplification." The appeared next to him, replacing his cup, which Latham downed in one gulp, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. "It’s the perfect upgrade for you, particularly in the middle of a case that’s proving to be a bit of a stumper. Choose that, and I’ll put my left ball on you being able to pick your way through whatever tangled web Grackle Nuroon is spinning down at the museum."

"Sounds pretty good to me," Lowe said cautiously.

"Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? So why don’t you be a good little pawn, pick it, and get on with doing the bidding of whoever is fucking dangling useful baubles in front of you?"

Latham's bluntness landed like a punch to the gut. And Lowe had plenty of context of that occurence to feel like the simile had merit. He let those words sink in, the implication gnawing at the back of his mind. "You think I’m being manipulated?"

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Latham nodded, his expression grim. "Don’t get me wrong, Thought Amplification would be a massively beneficial enhancement for you. It’s just . . . too useful—too coincidentally useful—right now. You get what I’m saying, little man? This is Soar. No good deed goes unpunished, and no gift is entirely without strings."

Lowe leaned back in his chair, the worn leather creaking under his weight. He took a deep breath, letting his eyes wander around the room as he processed Latham’s words. The coffee shop was full of life, oblivious to the existential quandary unfolding at their table. The world of Soar outside the fogged-up windows carried on as usual, blissfully unaware of the cosmic chess game Latham suggested he was a piece in.

He thought back over the last few days. Since being assigned to the museum case, his luck had indeed been uncanny. The appearance of Mental Fortress had the potential to be a game-changer—a seismic leap forward for him. Complete protection against mental attacks was invaluable, particularly in a city as treacherous as Soar. And now, to be offered Thought Amplification on top of that? Something that could push his mental faculties to new heights . . . It was everything he could ask for. It would make him formidable again, maybe even close to what he had been before the Classtration.

But Latham's words hung in the air like, coincidentally, the bitter scent of burnt coffee. The was back, swapping out cups and plates. Watching her low-level panic at being in the presence of such a powerful being, Lowe recognised her feelings of helplessness. He knew what it felt like to have everything stripped away, to be left with nothing but the hollow shell of what he once was. Despite all the gains he had made recently, the wounds of losing his Class had never fully healed, and the thought of going through it again was almost too much to bear.

"I'm not going to belabour the point here, Jana," Latham said, his voice softer now, tinged with an uncharacteristic note of concern. "I’ll say this once and leave it up to you. You’ve had everything taken from you once, and most people don’t bounce back from that. I doubt I would. But you did, and you’re still here. I respect that. But I’m worried that by hook or by crook, you’re having all sorts of new goodies given to you that are just ripe for being taken off you at the worst possible moment. Do you remember what I told you in the Dungeon?"

Lowe didn’t need to trigger Grid View to recall the words. They were etched into his memory, a mantra repeated in the darkest hours. "Skills are temporary; Stats are forever."

"Damn straight," Latham said, nodding with approval. "You’re a Level 25 with the stats of a Level 50. And you’ve achieved that without being artificially boosted by any god-given Skills. That’s solid, and it’ll only get better. And, crucially, they can never take it from you. You could be called in front of the Council tomorrow, and they could strip you of all your Skills, and you’d still be in a decent place."

Lowe wasn’t so sure about that. "Without Roll with the Punches . . ."

"Fuck it," Latham interjected, waving away the concern as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "It’s a nice healing Skill, but by the time you’re Level 30—with the various Threshold Bonuses you'll pick up on the way—you’ll have enough Progress Points to move at least Strength and maybe Constitution to Rank 2. At that point, you’ll be tanky enough that just with normal HP regeneration, you’ll make that Skill pretty redundant on a day-to-day basis. Sure, you'd still need it if I decided to kick your arse, but not against anyone close to a normal Level. So yeah, Thought Amplification would be awesome for you, but—given enough time—it won’t do anything for you that you won’t be able to do yourself."

The words were meant to be reassuring, but they had the opposite effect. Lowe’s thoughts drifted back to his post-Classtration cell, the cold emptiness of it, the way the world had felt like it was collapsing around him. Losing all but three of his Skills had been like losing a part of himself, and the idea that it could happen again—that his new powers could be ripped away just as he was beginning to feel whole again—was terrifying.

"So… Shared Bulwark then?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

"Put it another way," Latham said, standing up from the table and stretching his massive frame, "I’ve always wondered what a few of the gods look like without all their glamours in place. Think of it as just scratching one of my itches as payback for all the times I’ve saved your life!"

Lowe watched as Latham prepared to leave, the 's presence as imposing as ever, even amid a crowded coffee shop. He knew that Latham was speaking from a place of genuine concern, but that didn’t make the decision any easier. He felt the weight of it pressing down on him like an unseen hand, the choice between power and safety, between risking everything for the chance to be more than he was or playing it safe and potentially living with the regret of never knowing what could have been.

As Latham pushed open the door and stepped out into the misty Soar afternoon, Lowe moved to follow him, not noticing - as he was deep in thought - the various eyes that tracked his progress and the hands that dropped into pockets to retrieve Sending Stones.