“You broge by fugging dose!”

Lowe yelped and shook out his hand, Slugger fading away even as Roll with the Punches took charge to rebuild a considerable number of fractured bones. Say what you liked about Grackle Nuroon – and there was certainly plenty that could be said – the guy could take a punch. Lowe didn’t really feel much better for unloading – even in his prime, he’d never been someone who worked out his emotions with his fists – but there was something about the outraged shock on the Director’s face that, even if momentarily, cured what illed him.

"How did you do dat! You’re a fugging Lebel 25!"

Lowe turned his back on Nuroon and walked instead to Preece, prodding a mangled finger into his chest. “I don’t know what it was I realised about you with that Essence running, but you need to tell me how you’re involved in all this. Now!”

The held up his hands in supplication. “I’ve no idea! Honestly! I’ve told you everything I know. About Delphina. About the blackmail. About her and Kregg. There’s nothing else!” Preece’s eyes strayed, with horrid fascination, to the bones visibly rearranging in Lowe’s hand, the twisting, rotating finger of which was resting on his breastbone. “I’m doing everything I can to help you out here! Honestly.”

Lowe swore under his breath. Every instinct he still possessed said the man was telling him the truth. Which made no sense at all. He couldn’t remember what his revelation had been about Preece, but he was absolutely certain he was not what he seemed. And, more than that, that he was dangerous. “Tell me again about your friend. The other , Harker.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

"Insbegdor! I wan' to dalk do you!"

Lowe felt a brief, painful pressure on his mind – presumably, Nuroon had activated some sort of command Skill to bring him to heel? – but Mental Fortress batted it away. Without turning around, he flipped the Director the bird – his broken finger still not quite upright – and concentrated on Preece.

“When we met before, you said you wouldn’t have been surprised to have heard Harker had killed himself?”

“Yeah. Delphina had something over him, and it was making him sick . . . “

“But Harker died a month after her. Why would he still be so depressed – so much so you genuinely feared he would take his own life – if the person blackmailing him was dead, cremated and gone.”

Preece shrugged. “I don’t know. Guilt? Fear of being blamed for her death?”

But Lowe was already shaking his head. In other circumstances, he could imagine Harker’s low mood would make sense. His extraordinarily successful clear-up rate for murders was as much down to his former brilliance as it was to the utter stupidity of most criminals. No blinding leaps of deductive logic had been required, for example, when he charged the wife of a slain wealthy industrialist with pushing him in a vat of his own solvent. That she’d taken a selfie on her Sending Stone of her stood over said machinery with the caption ‘"Well, I did promise I'd help you dissolve our differences" hadn’t exactly hindered his investigation. Lowe had a million such stories. The average bad guy in Soar was – almost to a fault – spectacularly dumb. Thus, it would be totally reasonable for Harker to be going out of his mind with worry that his crime in offing his blackmailer was going to be uncovered. If, that was, Grackle Nuroon hadn’t successfully closed down the investigation. Inspector Wyst had written it up as an accident far before Harker himself shuffled off this mortal coil. There was absolutely no reason in Soar for Harker to be anything other than gleefully smug at getting away with murder; if that was what truly had been bothering him.

So, if it wasn’t fear of discovery that had that man in such a state the night before he was murdered, what was it? He'd been murdered in Martha Culloden’s office. A woman obsessed with Dreadnaughts and who had one who had not been seen since . . . Pieces of the puzzle continued to move in Lowe’s head, but it didn’t feel like these were the same revelations the Essence of Silent Thought had led him to. No, they had been more about Preece . . .

“Inspector Lowe, on the instructions of my client, I am issuing you with notice of an intention to prosecute.”

Lowe turned to look into the wide-set eyes of Felicitous Gral. “I’m sorry?”

“I rather think this has gone too far for a simple apology to be acceptable. In full view of witnesses, you casually, and with no provocation, struck Director Nuroon in the face. You have caused him considerable distress and we intend to lodge a complaint with the highest of authorities. You will never work in Soar again. I will be needing your witness statement,” Gral said first to Karolen and then nodded towards Preece. “And yours too, sir. Nothing fancy, just confirmation you witnessed the assault will do for now.”

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Karolen pulled a 'Who me, guv?' face. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh, my dear,” Gral tutted sadly. “I really would not encourage you to risk your promising career by doing anything as silly as this. You already have one rather significant strike against you for going up against Soar Museum. Do you really think anyone will employ an that has, not once, but twice, needed to be taken out to the woodshed and shown the error of her ways?”

“Honestly, I have no idea what you are getting at. We’re in the middle of a Dungeon! Pardon me if I wasn’t looking in the right direction when your ‘client’ took the beating he so richly deserved.”

The two glared at each other for a moment. Lowe was pretty impressed that it was the greasy lawyer who broke away first. He could grow to like this girl. Maybe all of Arebella's friends weren't wholly without merit. “Well, be that as it may. Alongside my testimony, we will only need the evidence of one other person who saw the event to secure a prosecution. Ms Menin clearly cannot comment either way as she ‘wasn’t looking’ so the word of Mr Preece will be all that is required. Can you confirm you witnessed the assault, sir?”

The colour leached from the face, and he gave a nod. “I saw Lowe hit the Director.”

Gral smiled widely and made an ‘ah, well’ gesture. “And that’s all she wrote. I am very sorry, Mr Lowe, to say that I cannot see someone even of your redoubtable resilience coming back from this one.”

Preece gave a little cough. “I said I saw Lowe hit the Director. But as the Director is in a different Party, I’m not sure why that would be a problem.”

“What?” Gral’s voice was irritated.

“Director Nuroon is in a competing Dungeon Party. I absolutely saw Inspector Lowe strike him, but such an attack is not just viewed as lawful under Dungeon law, it’s actively encouraged.”

“Whad do you dink you are doing, Mr. . . ?” Nuroon clearly cast around in his memory for Preece’s name and came up blank. He pressed on regardless. “I would suggesd you dink bery garefully aboud whad you’re saying here.”

Preece, if possible, went even whiter. “I’m absolutely happy to testify anywhere you want that Lowe hit you, Director. No problem at all. Saw it clear as day. But it’s not against the law to hit another delver.”

Nuroon glared at Gral who shrugged back. “Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid, sir. However, that does sound familiar.”

“Mr. Lowe,” the Director snarled, stepping up close to the Inspector, blood still dripping down his ruined nose. “It may surprise you to know this isn’d the first dime someone’s seen fid do lay hands on me. My life’s been rich, full of experiences, afder all. Bud one thing’s always been true—those who dared do do so lived to regred it. Nod long, of course. Bud helbless, blubbering sorrow for their imbosidion? Yeah, that was alwags their final emotion."

“Mate, I’m going to be honest, I’d be trying to use fewer plosives until you get that damage buffed out. I don’t have a clue what you just said.”

There was a moment of stretched tension as the two of them stared at each other, during which Lowe could feel mental Skill after mental Skill crashing against his defences. So much psychic energy was sloshing about that the other three party members were brought to their knees, clutching their heads in agony. Lowe simply stood bolt upright and winked back.

“You are… an unushual man, Mr Lowe. I’ve always been drawn do rare and curiush things—like a cragged vase, or a piece of art that defies classivication. I like do dake by dime with shuch pieces, study dem, unbick ebery thread until I undershtand preshisely whad makes dem sho... unique. You, Mr. Lowe, will be no different. When I finish, I’ll know exactly how do dismandle you, down do the lasht tick of your clockwork soul. And believe me... I dake by dime.”

“Nope. Nothing. Sorry. Still not getting it. Is it possible you are offering to bake me a cake?”

Nuroon glared and then turned to stride down the corridor. “Felishidus, cub. Led’s see how well these low-lebel non-endidies do widdoud the brodection of their bedders.”

Gral glared at them, but scurried after his master without another word.

Felicitous Gral has left your Party

Preece, Karolen and Lowe stood in a silence for a minute before the Inspector broke the mood. “That true?” he asked. “About there being no laws about PVP in a Dungeon?”

“Fuck me, not at all!” Preece said, grinning. “Can you imagine if there were rules like that? It’d be carnage on every run. Violence against other delvers is actually more strictly enforced in a Dungeon than it is on the outside.”

“He’s going to be pissed when he realises you lied to him,” Karolen cautioned.

“To be honest, it sounds like he’s really looking forward to dealing with it personally, so I doubt he’ll much miss taking me to court. Thanks for having my back, though,” Lowe said to Preece.

“Don’t mention it. Glad to help.”

Was there an odd expression to Preece’s face when he said that? Lowe wasn’t sure. Maybe he was just becoming paranoid. It would hardly be the first time “Come on,” he said, stretching out his newly repaired hand. “We need to get moving if we want to beat them to the Dungeon core.”

But Karolen was shaking her head. “We’ve got no chance of keeping up with those two. You saw how Nuroon massacred those monsters. He's going to be unstoppable”

“Ah,” Lowe said, beaming, “you seem to have forgotten that this Dungeon scales to members of each individual Party. And whilst Nuroon is going to be, pretty much, soloing his way there, our little party has just lost it's Level 33 dead weight . . .”

The race was on.