Grackle Nuroon stared at the man sitting opposite him.

The room was quiet.

Horribly quiet.

The kind of quiet that crawls under your skin, opens a can of itching powder and just goes to town all over your histamines.

Overhead, the fractured mana light hummed with an erratic, uneasy rhythm. It sputtered like a broken incantation, carrying an electric charge that was an uncomfortable reminder of the instability that had seeped into the Museum's very bones.

The Dungeon’s aborted attempt to root itself in the Museum had left its mark.

All of the arcane protections—passive Skills painstakingly woven into the building’s fabric by the Director’s own hands—now sputtered and groaned. Where there had once been the soothing hum of perfect magical balance, there was now a series of disjointed clicks and snaps, as if the spells themselves were struggling to heal, knitting broken enchantments back together in a patchwork of strained effort.

Grackle sat still, one finger tapping against his chin in a slow, measured rhythm.

His expression remained carved into its usual belligerent mask, but his thoughts betrayed him. A roiling undercurrent of unease twisted through his mind. The vulnerability was a foreign sensation, and he loathed it with every fibre of his being. Even the satisfaction of gaining three new Levels in the Dungeon couldn’t soothe the discomfort crawling beneath his skin.

Power gained or not, the Museum felt precarious.

With his newly acquired Skill—Temporal Archive—he should have been feeling like a million bags of gold right now. The ability to transform the Museum into a time-fractured version of itself for one minute, overlaying the past onto the present, was nothing short of extraordinary. The Skill allowed him to temporarily manifest objects and entities from bygone eras—legendary artefacts humming with dormant power, spectral echoes of past visitors, allies, or enemies—all brought to life within the Museum's walls.

That said, there were caveats. The mana cost was obscene—an almost parasitic drain that threatened to leave him crippled for hours afterward. And, right now, with his Museum so badly compromised, he couldn’t afford to properly explore its possibilities.

Especially as, sitting across from him, like a crumpled monument to all that had recently gone wrong, was Jana Lowe, hands rested loosely on the armrests, but his eyes were anything but relaxed.

Nuroon resisted the urge to shift in his seat.

A bead of sweat rolled down Nuroon’s temple. He told himself it was just the light—the room was warm, after all. But Lowe’s gaze didn’t give him an inch.

He cleared his throat, a sound that felt embarrassingly loud. “Was there something you wanted, Inspector? As you may imagine, I have an awful lot to be getting on with.”

“I’m sure you do, mate. I’m sure you do. Can’t be every day a Dungeon establishes itself in the middle of your Museum?”

“No,” Nuroon said, resisting the urge to nervously smooth out the papers on his desk, “it has all been very traumatic for everyone who works here.”

“Yeah, it’s been quite a month for you, hasn’t it? Bunch of murders, bit of random mayhem and I see you also managed to hit your Level 70 threshold. Congratulations! You must be feeling very proud.”

“What I’m feeling isn’t remotely your business, Mr Lowe. Now, if there’s nothing else?” Nuroon stood, pushing out with a mental Skill - Executive Egress - that had never failed to cause subordinates to scuttle from his presence. Lowe just looked back at him with the same, intense expression.

“Isadora. Harker. Preece. You've lost three Curators in a very short space of time,” he began, “For the completion of my report on all that has occurred, could you clarify the arrangements you’ve made for their families?”

“Mr Lowe, not that it is any of your business,” Grackle said smoothly, “but Curators are all independent contractors. Their deaths are, of course, regrettable, but they are due no recompense. I trust that satisfies your curiosity?”

Lowe’s brow shot up in exaggerated surprise. “Independent contractors, you say? No recompense? Oh, that’s fascinating. Truly. Let me make sure I’ve got this straight—three people die, in your museum, under your roof, while working on your behalf, and you think that’s just… what? A footnote? A ‘whoops, my bad’ situation? A shrug and move on?”

He leaned forward, his hand glowing as Slugger, almost unconscious activated, the faux curiosity in his tone giving way to something darker. “That’s the play you’re going with? Because let me tell you, Grackle my old mate, that’s a bold strategy. I mean, sure, why not. You’re Level 70 and are probably feeling pretty chipper right now. Let’s just ignore the glaringly obvious part where this is entirely your responsibility and focus on the real issue here—your complete and utter lack of shame. But hey, who am I to judge? What would I know about accountability, right?”

“The terms of their contracts were clear. It’s hardly unusual in—”

“In what? Exploitative corporate practices?” Lowe said, voice rising. “Let me tell you, Grackle, Soar loves a scandal. Imagine the headlines: ‘Museum Director Leaves Families Penniless After Tragic Deaths.’ You think the Trustees are going to love explaining that one to the public?”

“Their contracts…” he started, but Lowe was already cutting him off.

“Oh, I’m sure their contracts were airtight,” Lowe said. “But here’s the thing: the court of public opinion doesn’t give a flying fuck about contracts. They care about how it looks. And right now, Grackle, your optics are looking pretty damn bleak. So how about we skip the part where I leak this to someone with a sharper quill than me and jump straight to the bit where you do the decent thing?”

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Nuroon’s jaw folded his hands together as if to physically stop himself from wringing Lowe’s neck. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting,” Lowe said, his tone casual but his eyes like steel, “that you make a gesture. A big one. Something that says, ‘Hey, I’m not a completely heartless bastard.’ Let’s call it… a hundred thousand gold per family. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?”

“A hundred—” Nuroon choked, his composure slipping for the first time. “That’s preposterous. It’s—”

“Doable,” Lowe finished for him. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’ve got a whole museum full of priceless junk. Sell a vase or two. I hear the city’s elite will pay absurd amounts for a little cultural enrichment.”

Nuroon’s expression stay frozen, but he was already mentally inventorying the artefacts he could part with as well as the potential profits he could wring from his newly developed Skill. Three hundred thousand goal wasn’t nothing, but he could probably make that work . . .

“Very well. I’ll arrange something for the families.”

“A hundred thousand,” Lowe reminded him.

“Yes, yes,” Nuroon snapped, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll have to convene with the Trustees, of course, but it will be done.”

“Excellent. Now,” Lowe reached into his pocket and withdrew a bloodstained notebook. “Do you know what this is?”

Nuroon recoiled slightly. “No idea at all.”

Lowe gave him a hard look, and then nodded. “I actually believe you. Okay, well at least you have that going for you. This is Kelvin Kregg’s little diary of . . . interactions. I assume you know that your employee was a colossal piece of shit?”

“Bard Kregg was . . .”

“Don’t. Just don’t,” the glow in Lowe’s hand increased substantially.

Despite the disparity in their levels, Nuroon found himself flinching slightly. How was he being intimidated by this man? A Classless non-entity with three Skills? “I don’t understand what you want from me here, Mr Lowe”

“There’s a whole book of women here that, in the very near future, are going to receive some good news. Fifty thousand gold each feels about right. It won’t make them forget what he did to them but, considering the one good thing the Dreadnaught that escaped from your museum did was to literally tear this guy a new one, I figure the cash will be a welcome second act of appropriate contrition.”

Nuroon picked up the book and flicked through it, disgust on his face. “There must be a hundred odd names in here!”

“I know. Terrible isn’t it? Imagine employing someone that predatory and not doing anything about it! Thinking about it, sixty thousand gold is probably appropriate.”

“I don’t know what leverage you think you have in these negotiations, Mr Lowe . . .”

Lowe reached into his other pocket and, from within, he retrieved a small sphere—much smaller now than it had been when the Dreadnaught had clutched it. The object’s surface was slick with some unnatural sheen that shimmered like oil on water. He placed it on Nuroon’s desk with a wet thunk, leaving behind a smear of charred skin that hissed faintly against the polished wood.

The smell hit the Director first. It wasn’t just the reek of scorched flesh but something far worse: the smell of mana corruption laced with the unmistakable stench of cooked meat. Nuroon’s stomach churned as his eyes flicked to Lowe’s hand, and his bile rose further.

The Inspector’s hand was a ruin. Skin blistered and blackened, the flesh cracked open to reveal raw, angry tissue beneath. Patches of his palm looked like overcooked parchment, peeling away in thin, jagged strips, while the tips of his fingers still smoked faintly. Blood mixed with the burnt remnants, dripping sluggishly onto the desk as if unwilling to acknowledge the mess it had come from.

“Thought you might want this back,”

Nuroon didn’t move, his gaze torn between the grotesque damage to Lowe’s hand - already repairing itself - and the pulsating sphere now sitting on his desk. “What do you propose I do with that?” he asked eventually. “That thing nearly destroyed my whole museum!”

Lowe shrugged. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck what you do with it. I imagine you’ve got plenty of secret little hidey-holes in this place for your very special exhibits. Stick it in one of those. Or, if it’s too much trouble, I can always haul it over to the Celestial Temple. See if anyone there’s got a use for it—or better yet, a taste for the kind of trouble it brings.”

“No. No. No. We’ll take it,” he almost leapt across the desk to prevent Lowe taking the Dungeon Core back. “It is only right, after all, that an object of such importance is maintained for posterity inside our walls.” Nuroon already knew exactly the spot in his . . . private collection this piece would sit in. “Sixty thousand gold, you say? Done.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? Who knows, Grackle, maybe this’ll be the start of your redemption arc. If you don't mind - and not that I don't trust you, you understand - a little oathbinding, please?”

Nuroon sighed and placed his hand on his heart. "I solemnly swear, by all I hold dear, that I shall fulfil the terms of the contract I have made with Inspector Lowe. So mote it be." The Director glowed gold as his god accepted the oath. “Now, if there wasn’t anything else, Mr Lowe?”

Lowe stood, brushing the charred remnants of his ruined skin off his lap like dandruff. "No," he said, "I think that’s my lot."

He turned and strode toward the door, his footsteps echoing in the uneasy silence of the room. His hand reached for the handle of the office door, and for a moment, it seemed like that was it. Business concluded.

Then he stopped and gave a sharp intake of breath, just audible enough to make Nuroon flinch. Lowe tilted his head slightly, as though something had only now occurred to him. "Oh, uh… just one more thing. You know, Director, it’s funny," he said. "I’ve been noticing the upgrades around here. Quite the budget you’ve been working with lately."

"The Trustees have been very supportive of my vision. They understand the importance of maintaining Soar Museum’s standing as the crown jewel of this city."

"Supportive, you say?" Lowe said. "Fascinating, then, how that vision aligns so neatly with the sudden flurry of auctions I’ve been hearing about. Unusually rare artefacts hitting the block, fetching eye-watering sums. A Blacksmith’s Codex from the First Age? That was in your inventory during your last audit. Oh, and wasn’t there a legendary Tome of Binding that mysteriously found its way into a private collection in the south?"

Nuroon’s smile didn’t falter. "I am, of course, always looking to ensure the museum’s sustainability, Mr Lowe. Some lesser pieces are occasionally deaccessioned to make room for—"

"Lesser pieces," Lowe said. "Interesting term for priceless historical artifacts that just so happen to vanish without a trace. I’m sure the Trustees will find that definition fascinating when I bring it up. What do you think? Do they even know you’ve been flogging off the family silver? Or is this a little side hustle of yours?"

Lowe pulled the door open with a flourish, stepping aside as Karolen filled the doorway, resplendent in her full Auditor regalia. Her polished armour positively gleamed, and the sigil of her station glowed faintly on her chest. Behind her stood Liando Verlan, arms crossed.

Nuroon’s smile faltered for the first time, his composure cracking just slightly as Karolen stepped forward.

“You know what, Director Nuroon?” Lowe said, slipping past her and out the door, “I think you’re going to want to make sure all of that compensation gold comes from your own accounts. I imagine the Museum’s books are about to be… rigorously considered moving forward.”

Karolen didn’t say a word, but the glint in her eye and the faint upturn of her lips said plenty. Liando remained silent, his gaze locked on Nuroon.

Lowe tipped an imaginary hat, “Have a great day.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Nuroon alone in the office with Karolen and Verlan.