"Mate! You look like shit. And trust me, when it comes to the aftermaths of a real shoeing, I know of what I speak! What in Soar happened to you?"

Lowe activated Medic! and pushed it towards Latham, who, he realised, was only standing because a red-faced and breathing heavily Hel was lodged under one of his armpits. Seeing that she also looked significantly worse for wear, he triggered a second instance of Medic! and cast it towards her, too.

"What do you think happened, you fucking idiot?" Latham put out a hand to lean against the doorframe of Arkola's chamber. "You kicked a hornet's nest and then ran away. The adult in the room then had to deal."

Lowe was so aghast at the amount of mana Medic! was sucking down to address the various injuries the and the were sporting that he had almost forgotten the reason both of his friends looked like shit. A vision of Mr Law swam forward in his mind.

"And?"

Latham left a pregnant pause, straightening up slightly as Lowe's healing finally started to take effect. Once she was confident the big man could stand again under his own steam, Hel slipped free from under his arm and stretched out her back.

"What do you think happened? I took care of business."

Lowe's eyebrows shot up. He had a very clear memory of the capabilities of Mr Law. He knew Latham was good, but . . . Lowe glanced Hel's way for confirmation.

She shrugged back. "To be fair, he's not lying. I've never seen anything like it. Tenia, Charl and I were barely able to make the Big Bad miss a step, but then your man did his thing."

"So, we're safe?"

Latham laughed grimly. "Well, for now. But I wouldn't give much for any of our chances if we leave the Temple without having this all wrapped up. The two of us left things on somewhat of an 'I'll be seeing you soon' note . . ."

Lowe cursed and looked around the empty chamber, searching for . . . something. The imminent danger might have receded, but that didn't change the overall dynamic of the situation. It was clear their only path to survival was to solve the case and then hope they would no longer be worth bothering with.

That felt somewhat like a forlorn hope right now.

The moment Latham opened the door to let light flood in, Lowe had felt the presence of Arkola fade. Not that had had much more to say to Soar's supreme being. He had been so sure that the responsibility for all the week's events lay within this room: nothing else made sense of everything that had happened. But, to hear Arkola's version of events, they had simply taken advantage of someone else's throw of the dice.

And, what was more, Lowe believed what he'd heard.

"So what next?" Arebella said, tapping him softly on the arm. "If it wasn't Arkola who was responsible, who should we be looking at?"

Lowe's eyes glazed over as he activated Grid View. Thanks to all of his recent upgrades, he'd been able to leave it running more or less constantly after his Dungeon Dive. Moreover, he found that the speed at which he could review things had also increased exponentially. Being able to review everything that had happened in the last few days in an instant was quite a trip. On more than one occasion, Lowe had been close enough to death to experience his 'life flashing before his eyes.' This was like that.

With slightly less traumatic peril.

Latham cleared his throat, pulling Lowe out of his reverie. "Actually, whilst I was kicking Mr Law's arse - "

"I mean, let's not get carried away here. You were damn impressive, but there was only one arse being kicked down there. The dude took off because he literally grew tired of whupping you."

"- as I was saying!" Latham continued, ignoring Hel's sotto voce commentary, "While fighting Mr Law, I realised the problem with this case. We are looking at everything the wrong way around."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Lowe frowned, pausing his review of everything that he'd seen or heard recently. Even as he did so, he could feel there was something there that was waving its arms and shouting for his attention, but it wouldn't quite press forward. Ignoring that for a moment - often, it was concentrating on something else that let the hidden present itself - he looked up at the big man. "How do you mean?"

"From the very first moment this all occurred, we've been thinking too big."

"We have a dead Level 67 Pyromancer, ripped to pieces in the Celestial Temple under the full protection of her god. On top of that, we have an Advanced Class hitman floating around casually slaughtering people, a bunch of assassination attempts on the two of us, another dead Priest and then a heavy-hitter from Jewel Town implicated. Dude, this is the definition of 'big'."

"All true. But we've become obsessed with looking for shadowy figures and massive conspiracies since the get-go. I just wonder if we've let ourselves be distracted by everything that happened after the murder."

"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc," Arebella exclaimed.

"What?"

Latham smiled slowly and nodded. "Exactly!"

"'Exactly' what?"

"Interesting," Hel's voice was soft, her expression thoughtful.

"What's 'interesting?' What the fuck are you all sagely agreeing about!" Lowe's sense of frustration was almost a distinct, separate person in the conversation. "Can I remind you there's only one investigator in this room? If anyone is going to have a moment of blinding epiphany, it is going to be me!"

"It was one of my Law favourite expressions. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Come on, you know this, Jana!"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest he's got no idea. From my very limited contact with your boyfriend, it strikes me that you're the brains, the beauty and all of the classical education. He's the . . . I actually don't know. At this stage, I have to assume he's an amazing lay, right?"

Arebella blushed at Hel's words and cleared her throat. "After this, therefore, because of it. It's a term in law for the logical fallacy of assuming one thing caused another merely because the first thing preceded the other. A whole host of things have occurred since the murder of Gianna d'Avec, but that does not mean they happened because of the murder. Or, at the very least, that the person who murdered the High Priestess was responsible for putting them in motion."

Lowe let that percolate in his mind for a moment. Both Arkola and Mr Law had expressed something similar - that there had been 'opportunities' presented by the death of Gianna d'Avec, and they'd jumped all over them. But they'd each denied being responsible for firing the starting pistol, as it were. For all the sound and fury that had occurred since the discovery of the High Priestess's body, was there anything that couldn't be explained by powerful beings in Soar taking their chance to settle some private scores . . .

Lowe dived back into Grid View, trying to parse out anything that could be locked away in the file marked "Unrelated Shenanigans of the Rich and Powerful Being Wankers."

It left precious little.

Then it hit him. For the first time since Cenorth had arrived at his apartment and dangled the case before him, the pieces slotted together to reveal a coherent picture. When you faded out the noise and ignored the threat of violent death, what remained was actually pretty mundane.

It all came down to a piece of seaweed, a missing glove, and, of course, a second dead Priest.

Everything else was just the noise of Soar being Soar.

"You've figured it out, haven't you?" A massive grin was spreading over Arebella's face. "You always look that way when you've figured it all out. You know who's responsible!"

"Maybe," Lowe said, glancing at Latham and Hel. "You both feeling okay?"

"These things are relative. Could I stomp you like a bug? Sure. Do I have another entanglement with Mr Law in me? Probably not."

Hel bumped Latham with her hip. "Don't listen to him, Lowe. He's more than fine. What have you got?"

Lowe took a deep breath and held it. If he was right - and he thought he was - then there was only one place left for them to go. "I think I might have it figured out. But proving it is going to be tricky. Where are your sisters?"

Hel frowned at the unexpected seque. "A friend is looking after them. Why?"

"Because I'm a drama queen, and it'd be good to pull all the players into one room when I talk through it."

"It's true. He is." Arebella affirmed, taking Lowe's hand in hers. "It's kind of his thing."

Hel looked between them, clearly baffled. "I mean, I can arrange for them to join us if you think it will help?"

"It will. It really will."

"Okay," Hel tugged on her connection with Irek, letting him know he should bring her sisters to her. "If you're sure this is necessary? But where is this big reveal going to take place?"

"Where else?" Lowe said, exiting Arkola's chamber and moving down the corridor towards the Portal Stone. "Let's go to where all this started: the High Priestess' Chamber." Lowe activated the portal to the Third Floor.

After the last of them vanished through it, the light in the First Floor corridor flicked off and - should anyone have listened carefully - an extremely satisfied sigh was heard from the now darkened chamber at the end.