The moment Hel's feet hit the pavement, she was off and running.

To have been within the Celestial Temple at the time of one Priest of Gravalk was unfortunate; to have been seen at the discovery was the beginning of a somewhat unhealthy habit.

It was the sort of thing that might be thought to invite comment.

And who had been the man she had hit with Wind Blade? That had been unfortunate. All she had wanted to do was to free her cloak so that she could slip away through the open window. But panic had taken over, and she'd overpowered the attack. Sloppy.

As the poor guy had been only a Level 25, she'd probably one-shotted him totally by accident.

"Fucking hell," she said to no one in particular. "What a complete and utter disaster."

What in Soar had she been thinking? Well, that was the point, wasn't it? She hadn't been. From the moment she'd noticed Arwel was missing a glove, she'd known the only place it was likely to be was in the High Priestess's chamber. Hard-won experience - over many, many years - had taught her that if any given situation had the potential to be fucked up beyond all recognition, then assume that was what was about to happen. Of course her sister's glove would have been left at a crime scene. Where else would she possibly find it?

It had been, oddly, relatively little challenge to get access to the Third Floor. Really, if she came through this in one piece, she would be writing a very stiff letter to the to express her outrage at the ease with which security at the holiest site in the city could be circumvented. If she and her little team had known it was this easy to pay house calls, then their little vendetta could have been sorted years back.

That thought put a hitch into Hel's step. But that was the point, wasn't it? The Celestial Temple was incredibly tricky to gain access to. She'd managed not once but twice in a couple of days. Now, Hel had a very healthy appreciation for her talents and abilities - it would have been hard to have come through what she had without a substantial dollop of self-regard - but even she thought it was stretching credibility to believe she'd got in and out, scot-free, twice.

Had someone smoothed her entry? And if so, who?"

"Or, more pertinently, why?" Hel asked a very started who was just crossing her path, walking the opposite way down the cramped street.

He started to smile, but then, noticing her Class and Level, he blanched and, head down, scurried away.

Hel barely noticed - he was hardly the first moderately attractive man to turn tail and run when they got a look at her stats - but slowed her walk down to an amble, deep in thought.

Any number of people in Soar wanted the High Priestess dead. Many of them were highly enough placed in society to know of Hel's reputation. And a couple of them were even powerful enough to be privy to the confidential intel about why she and her little gang might be motivated to do something about it. However, even with all the resources these 'clients' had to bring to bear, they had never got close - not once - to accessing d'Avec's floor of the Temple.

Twice in as many days? Both times following a murder?

Someone was up to shenanigans.

Although, Hel thought, it hardly helped that tonight she'd managed to break into the wrong room . . .

That was hardly her fault, though, she told herself. Hel couldn't fly, per se; rather she was able to drive herself upwards on spiralling tunnels of air. It looked pretty impressive and certainly was the simulacrum of flight, but it gave her much less specific control than may be assumed. It was actually a very disorientating experience if she did not keep her wits about her, and this - apparently - was one of those occasions where her focus had failed.

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So she'd ended up outside a different chamber on the Third Floor than she had intended. No harm. No foul. Apart from the fact that she'd found herself, once again, in the presence of a slaughtered worshipper of the Fire Demon.

Violent death had never bothered her - hardly surprising considering her line of work - but Hel preferred her murders to be clean and clear. What had been done to that priest was overkill. And in every sense of the word. Indeed, in her experience, that sort of sloppy mess only usually occurred when several pressing questions had been posed, and the answers had been less satisfactory.

Hel suddenly stopped and looked around her. She had no idea where she should be going. If the were not outlawed as of yet, she could already see the narrative developing where both she and her sisters were likely to have an 'accident' when being questioned over recent events.

"Fuck it up, down, left and right. And right back again. After everything, what a bloody trite way for it to end."

Hel pressed her back against a shop window, earning an angry shout from someone inside. Without opening her eyes, she rearranged the rude man's neatly arranged clothes rails with a small, yet intensely motivated, localised . He seemed to mind her resting against his window less after that.

Irek would put her and her sisters up, she was sure of that. Tenia could be relied upon to help her out if the chips were really down. Even Charl would be happy to have them as guests. Although he'd tell everyone who'd listen they were there . . . But she couldn't do that to any of them. didn't fuck about when the security of the Celestial Temple was concerned.

That train of thought reinforced the fact that it kind of made the slackness of those giant guards over the last couple of days even more noteworthy. She was being set up, wasn't she?

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Hel banged her head against the glass. If the manager of the shop was irritated at all the knocking, he was too busy trying to escape a vengeful twister focused on royally devastating his stock to mention it.

And the thing was, even if she was able, by some miracle, to skate from the charges over the priests, they had her bang to rights on the slaying of the man who'd grabbed her. Hel replayed that moment in her mind. Who had that been?

He wasn't a priest; she was sure of that. Tenia was very good at collecting all necessary information around a target, and she knew the names of all the Priests of Gravalk. So who was it she had killed?

Hel had no useful memory Skill - it was hard to opt for one of them over an extra offensive skill that was likely to get much more use - but had always been good with faces. It was frowned upon in her line of work to pick off the wrong target, so she'd relied on that natural gift more than once in a pinch.

That man had been familiar, hadn't he? Like he was someone - not famous - but known. Like she'd read something about him. A minor celebrity? Hardly. What would one of the movers and shakers of Soar's entertainment scene be doing on a closed floor of the Celestial Temple? No. If he wasn't a priest, he had to have a reason to be there. A member of the Security Services? That'd explain his reaction to seek to restrain her once she broke into the room.

Excellent, she thought. I killed an investigator. That sort of thing always went down well. Commander Cenorth was famously sanguine about the deaths of his officers. She was actually amazed the whole quarter wasn't already sealed off.

In fact . . . that was a good point, wasn't it?

Hel pressed off the window - shattering it with a hastily cast behind her. No one ever got poorer betting on Hel holding a grudge - and began to walk briskly away, risking a quick glance over her shoulder back at the towering sight of the Celestial Temple.

No fuss at all.

They hadn't even started to close off the entrance. It simply wasn't credible the dogs of war had not yet been released.

She thought back to the man from whom she had detached an arm. Why would she be familiar with the face of a low-Level member of the Security Services? They jealously guarded their privacy. You only ever heard anything about them when one of them fucked up enough to be dismissed, and the threw them to the wolves . . .

Hel suddenly slapped herself on the head. "The fucking Classless!" A few people looked around due to the force of her shout, and she stared them out. "You want to make something of it?"

Surprisingly, no one did.

Hel started running. The funny thing about newspaper reports into such things is that they tended to overshare the details, didn't they? It shouldn't be hard to find an address. And if, as she was coming to suspect, the man had survived - hadn't there been something about him having an unusual healing Skill? - then there might be an opportunity to have a further conversation.

It felt like there were a number of things she needed to explain.