"Are you fucking kidding me?"

The squinted down at the angry man lying on the bed. At least, he assumed the speaker was angry. Considering his line of business, Brona rarely had the opportunity to come across people in a good mood.

"Jana Lowe?" he asked, checking the name on his clipboard.

The man on the bed sat upright, hastily pulling on a bloodstained shirt over the top of an equally stained vest. "Mate, you know who I am. You were in here just last week. Remember? You took away most of my shoes."

Brona frowned, trying to recall the last time he'd been in the particularly rundown part of Soar. The problem was all these crappy places tended to look the same, and it was hardly like he was employed for his memory skills. Saying that, there was something vaguely familiar about the particular door he'd just put his foot through. And the pissed-off man with all the bruises? Yes, that did start the old neurons flaring.

Then, it all slotted into place. "Ha! You're the guy without a Class!"

Lowe stood, steadying himself against the wall as his head swam. He'd ended up burning all his mana away the night before, and, as always, there was a debt to be paid for such profligacy. Although whether running dry in order to heal a sucking chest wound was really all that profligate was a question for another day. "That too. I'm also the guy you took twenty gold pieces of footwear to cover a debt of a bag of silver. What could you possibly be back for now?"

Brona raised his clipboard to his nose to better make out the writing. His lips moved as he deciphered it. "Different client this morning, Mr Lowe. This is 'Merk's Tailoring.' You failed to keep up payments on an HP Enhancing suit."

"Fuck's sake!" Lowe crossed to the far corner of his bedroom and picked up a bundle of ripped and damaged clothes. "You mean this shit?"

Brona shrugged. "I'm just here for five gold bars."

Low's face went white. "Five? For fuck's sake, man! It was two gold when new and didn't do as advertised. I should be suing that crook, Merk!"

Brona shrugged again. He tended to find that when you were his size, a casual shrug reminded people about the size of his shoulders. "And I'm sure my company would happily represent you should you file the appropriate paperwork. As you know, our motto is "Can't Pay, We'll Fuck You Up" and satisfaction is guaranteed. Although, not usually to the people I end up calling on. Speaking of which, five gold pieces, please."

Lowe threw the ruined suit back to the floor and put his hands on his hips. He wasn't by any means a small man, but he doubted he really wanted to get into a fistfight with a . Even a Level 14 one, such as Brona, would have access to Skills that would probably further ensure his day was a shitty one. "Look, I don't have five gold pieces."

Brona clicked his tongue sympathetically and looked around the room. Now that he thought about it, he did recall being here before. There hadn't been much to take that time either. "Look, I really don't want to have to hurt you again. Are you sure there's nothing you can offer?"

Lowe's glanced at his inventory. To be honest, he had any number of odds and ends that he could probably put up as collateral, but if the lacked the Skill to scan his personal storage space, he certainly wasn't going to offer any of them up. Besides, he was damned if he was going to be held to ransom over some shitty protective equipment that had given up the ghost at the first sign of a swinging battleaxe.

He opened his mouth to share these ruminations with the and then quickly closed it when the flat of Brona's hand slapped him on the cheek. The force of the blow took him off his feet and left him sprawled on his bed.

"Dude! What the fuck?"

Brona opened his hands in a 'what am I supposed to do?' gesture. "Standard operating procedure, Mr Lowe. However, on the plus side, you now owe four and three-quarters pieces of gold. Mr Merk is clear he will accept payment in the form of the brutalisation of your body, so we can continue on this path if you would prefer. By my calculation, two broken legs would clear the debt in its entirety."

Lowe stood back up again and shook the stars from his vision. "Can I remind you that I have no Class? You're basically demanding money with menaces from a guy who would struggle to hold his own against an asthmatic toddler."

"Yeah, I thought that last time. You're a Level 19, right? How did you make it that far without a Class?"

Lowe took a breath. "Would the story of my career to date be worth four and three-quarters pieces of gold?"

Brona shook his head. "Fraid not, mate."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Fine." Lowe sat down on the floor and extended both his legs. "Have at it."

*

The soft buzzing of the Sending Stone brought Lowe back to consciousness. He'd mercifully passed out after the had stamped down on his left leg. However, it seemed that was where his good luck had run out. It looked like the hit to his Health Points had been considerable, suggesting the breaks were unlikely to simply heal on their own. He must have been out for a good few hours, though, as there were now a good few drops of mana available to push towards the two fractures.

Lowe pulled a common Ring of Regeneration out of his inventory and slipped it onto the index finger of his right hand. By his reckoning, he had at least a sevenday before the next of his creditors sent the heavies in, so he could afford not to keep all of his goodies hidden away for a bit.

The burst of Mana Regen was welcome, and the pounding headache receded for the first time in a few days. Of course, that then gave room for the searing agony of his splintered legs to take precedence.

So, it wasn't all sunlight uplands and frolicking unicorns.

One of the Skills he had been left with after his summary Classtration (was that the official term? Who knew and - more importantly right now - who cared?) was a reasonably uncommon ability to trade his Mana Pool for Health Points at a preferential rate. Provided he had enough mana available, there were relatively few injuries Lowe was not able to shake off eventually. It was Roll with the Punches which had made him one of the more effective of Soar's investigators. When you were ferreting around in the lives of the great and the good, it helped if you could tank the occasional punishment beating.

Unsurprisingly, this had meant he tended to get assigned the really high-risk, low-reward jobs. Which, of course, led with crushing inevitability to a reasonably spectacular fall from grace.

The buzzing of the Sending Stone began to get on his nerves. However, the fact it was this which was bothering him, rather than two broken legs, suggested he was feeling a bit better. He stopped filtering all his mana to his injuries and squirted some of it towards the communication device. "What?"

"Lowe?"

The voice of his ex-boss was not exactly at the top of his list of things to hear right now. "Sorry, you have the wrong stone. This is the Happy Egg Escort Service. We're up for a good yolking."

There was a pause during which Lowe imagined the wide-set eyes of Cenorth narrowing in frustration. It was an expression he'd seen often enough over the years. "Jana, I'm really not in the mood for you this morning."

"Oh, excuse me! I'm so sorry for bothering you. Imagine me phoning you up out of the blue and disturbing you on this fine day. What a colossal wankdoodle I am." Lowe pulled the stream of his mana out of the stone and directed it back to his legs. With a snap, both bones suddenly pulled themselves back into shape. He rotated his ankles, easing out some of the stiffness.

The stone started buzzing again.

Lowe ignored it. He had no interest in hearing what Commander Cenorth had to say. It had been over a year since he had been put on gardening leave from his job in Soar's Security Service, and he felt more than a trace of bitterness at the absence of contact from his previous colleagues.

He stood and made his way out of his bedroom and into the living space of his small apartment, straightening up the chaos as he went. To be fair to the , it looked like he hadn't indulged in too much wanton destruction this time. There were a couple of tables tipped open and one or two cupboards ransacked, but nothing too terrible.

Although, if we were at home to Mr Glass Half-Empty, that was probably because anything worth nicking had been appropriated on one of the previous visits by debt collectors.

Soar was an expensive city to live in, particularly if you didn't have a patron god watching your back. Lowe had been doing his best to make ends meet by acting as a sort of unlicensed private detective. But so far, all he had been able to do was annoy a particular element of the criminal underclass who took great delight in kicking every colour of shit out of him whenever he poked his nose into their business.

It had been a rough year.

A knock came at the door. Considering it was hanging off its hinges, this suggested a level of courtesy not usually found in his latest visitors.

"Jana? I think your sending stone might be playing up.

Lowe moved to the entrance hall - all his pictures had gone, he noticed - and met the eyes of Cenorth.

The tall, thin Level 45 had once been one of his closest friends. He wasn't sure he would have taken a Fireball for him. But he'd certainly have warned him one was on the way.

"It's working just fine, Commander. I have it set to filter out the arseholes. Sounds like it's firing on all cylinders."

"Look, I'm sure I'm the last person you want to see right now."

Lowe left the following silence hanging in the air. His Ring of Regeneration was doing the business, and combined with Roll with the Punches, he started to feel a little chipper. That was until, with a jolt, he remembered it had been a reward from Cenorth after the completion of a particularly challenging quest. Never to be one not to cut off his nose to spite his face, he slipped the ring off and back into his storage.

"Jana, this isn't a social call."

"Imagine my shock and surprise. You being such a fixture around here."

Cenorth pressed onwards. "Have you got much on at the moment? I heard you went private?"

"And I heard you were a tosser. Funny the things you can pick up on the grapevine."

"Look, we can talk about what happened, but now's not the time. A case has come up that I think is right up your street. I've been permitted to ask if you will come and give it the once over. On a limited basis, of course."

Despite himself, Lowe felt his stomach swirl with interest. There were only so many kickings you could take from and before a change would be as good as a rest. "How limited?"

"Private consultation. I'll be your client. To smooth things out, you will receive a temporary reinstatement of your rank. And a good word will be put in when your case finally comes before a tribunal."

Which would be never, Lowe knew. There was no need for the powers that be to take anything further. Without a Class and with all his savings depleted, he'd be dead and gone in a few more months.

Sighing, he turned one of the upturned chairs upright and indicated that Cenorth should sit. "So, spill. What's the deal?"

"Excellent. Okay, so listen up. How much do you know about Gravalk?"