Screw it, this time I was spitting. The globule landed on the tarmac a few feet away from the Bull Ork, and it responded with a roar, charging towards us. Apparently whatever time dilative senses I had were on recharge from last week, because it was on us before I could respond.

*BOOM*

I was barely able to keep the back half of the shield together to stop Krix and myself from becoming paste against the concrete wall we had just smashed into. I was fine, the shield projecting outwards from me, but Krix was caught at a bad angle and was out for the count, a gash on his head looking quite worrying.

20 feet away, the Ork stood where we once were, a grin on it’s brutish face. There was no way this guy wouldn’t go for a cheap shot on Krix while he was down, so the only option available to me was to bait the superhumanely strong Ork.

Yes, I, a baby wizard, at half-ish mana, was going to be convincing a Bull Ork to chase me. And yes, this time it really was a bad idea. Oh well.

I ran toward the Ork, and as I did so a plan formulated in my head. After reviewing the plan, I was dismayed to find I would have to kill this guy to have a chance at survival, for myself and for Krix.

*sigh*

Running towards this Ork was maybe the stupidest plan I had ever had, but I’ll be damned if the adrenaline wasn’t helping me through it.

As I got within a few feet, he swiped outwards with his massive warhammer, just barely missing as I slid underneath the weapon, and his 8 or so foot body. Whipping my palms down behind me as I passed underneath him, it was time for part two.

“Wαʅʅ σϝ ʂƚσɳҽ”

The Ork was hurled into the air by the sudden eruption of earth underneath him, and I skidded to a stop, barely managing to get to my feet by the time he landed. Fortunately, he had landed awkwardly upon the newly erected wall in the middle of the street, and was slumped over the top, groaning.

I limped over to him, having cut my legs while sliding on the rough tarmac, but it was worth it.

He had dropped the war hammer after his abrupt landing, and was now weakly grasping for it with one hand, wheezing, probably having broken a few ribs.

Don’t feel too bad, if I was right th- *RAAAAAAAAWWWGH*

He slipped off to the far side, and let out a deep and utterly terrifying roar, signifying that his healing factor had kicked in, and he was pissed. I leant over to grab the warhammer, and struggled, to pick it up, eventually collapsing from the exertion, and the blood freely flowing from my legs.

Hearing a few loud stomps, I looked to the side of the wall to see the Bull Ork fully healed, with a grim smile upon it’s wretched face. This sonuvabitch thought I was out for the count did he?

Well that’s where you’re wrong bucko. I just wanted to separate you from your damn hammer. I looked up at him, and smiled a devilish smile, delighting in the look of confusion upon its face.

*snap* FWOOOOOOOSH

His body toppled slowly towards the ground, eventually hitting it with a loud crash, the smoking trail from the hole in the middle of his forehead the only sign that anything had happened.

“Well if you’re going to smoke motherfucker, then I am too.”

I pulled out a cigarette, fairly confident that this was it. The bloodloss had me in a haze, and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. What a way to go, huh? My thoughts drifted towards Mina Johnson, the girl who I was now failing.

Then, as though fate were mocking me, the last thing I heard before blacking out, was of course, sirens.

I awoke in a hospital bed, similar to the one I had been in when this whole adventure started. I checked my legs, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was without scars. That’s something, at least.

A knock on the door was swiftly followed by a balding doctor entering my room.

“You are feelink vell, ya? Zat’s gud. Yes, it seems my vork vas successful. I am glad.”

It seems this was the guy who had treated me. The school of Healing was a seriously complex one, requiring 5 elements, a basis in transmutation, and a few other things besides.

“Thanks, Doctor…?”

He glanced up at me from examining his medical charts.

“Doctor Hupfauer, und you are velcom.”

With that, he turned on his heels, almost militaristically, and headed out the door.

Moment’s later, Nox came in. I started talking before he could get a word in edgeways.

“How’s Krix? Were any civilians hurt? Did we recover the warhammer?”

He put his fingers together in the classic ‘stop speaking’ gesture, and suddenly my lips were locked together. I wanted that damn spell too.

“Krix is fine, he recovered from the injury with no problems, and wants to see you when you’re feeling up to it. There were no civilians hurt, the veil managed to give them a reason to stay away, though it was starting to fray trying to hide your stone wall that sprung out of nowhere. And yes, we managed to get your warhammer back.”

“What do you mean my warhammer?”

He smirked. Obviously.

“Turns out, whichever Ork Shaman did this blessing was old school, whoever beats it’s holder in single combat, becomes it’s new owner. Even if they’re not an Ork. You could always return it to a Shaman, they’ll be highly grateful for it and might even bless grant you a favour, which is a big fucking deal, let me tell you.”

Huh, Warhammer get, apparently.

“So what now, am I like, under review or something?”

“No actually, we have diviners that can scry the past, and the review has already taken place. For your actions, you’ve been offered a ‘trial’ promotion, of sorts, with a review on how well you do in two months. Congratulations Charlie, you’re now a detective third class.”

Wicked. If I had known that I would’ve flung myself into danger weeks ago.

“See you tomorrow kid.”

And then he just wasn’t there anymore. Like, no pop, nothing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was never here in the first place.

I was discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health a few hours later, and I made my way back to the Wicked to rest and recharge. After greeting Jakobs, I headed up to my room.

I swear some magic horse shittery was going on, because at the top of the stairs was a single door, yet when I opened it the only thing behind it was my room. And yet, I had seen other people coming down the same stairs for breakfast.

Maybe some kind of portal unlocked by my specific key? Though I didn’t get any nausea like I do when traversing the door. Hrmmm.

Entering my room, I sat down on my four poster bed, and looked around. There wasn’t much. Floating lights, wood covering every surface, a desk and chair, a bin, a cabinet, and that was about it.

The room was pretty drab, but it felt like home, which I couldn’t really say about the house I used to live in.

Time to get to work, then.

I had been given the Warhammer wrapped up in a lead blanket, so no one would try and steal it, because it was currently light up like a christmas tree to anyone with any kind of mana sense.

Unfurling the blanket, I started to examine the Warhammer as thoroughly as possible. Wait a minute, I’m doing this all wrong. What kind of idiot relies on their own memory.

I pulled out the manaphone, and made a few edits, so I could erase parts of an image, by simply selecting whichever part I wanted, and then letting the light mana escape into the air.

Link that to the touch sensitivity, and bam, I had a crude editing app.

“P̸̡̣̲̭̯̲̬̳̂̍͂̔̕h̴̯̩̣́͗̒͑o̴̰̭̮̙̦̺̞͖͔͎̎͂̂̋͐̅̊̕͝t̸̻̼̎̇͊ö̵̢̡͎̣̳̹̰́̆́g̷̖̋͂̑̓̓̃͘ŗ̴̛͍̳̖̠̣͚͈̪̿̇̎̄͛͆͆͝͝ͅǎ̷͚̲̝̤͕̣͒̽p̵̣̺͔̪͕̣̞͇͕̪͒̏ḩ̷̡̛̰̘̯͓͕͖̞́̇̂͋̌͐͛”

I took a photograph of the wall, and started turning mage sight on and off, and ‘deleting’ parts of the image with my finger. Lo and behold, a few minutes later I had a simplistic, but fairly accurate depiction of the mana structure of the Warhammer, which was all I really wanted. Specifically the anti-magic parts.

Then I went back to the Division, picked up my new detective shield, and a copy of the case files on the Werewolf case. The squad’s structure was a bit different to how I was expecting, any detective could take a look at the files for any case, and cases were almost done like bounties. I suppose it promoted working together, or some such nonsense.

Sitting back down at my desk in my room, I got to detectin’. Ok, rash of werewolves springing up throughout the country, yadda yadda yadda… A note on the side from the Australian Division letting us know they had a few, but they had stopped right around when ours had started, meaning whatever was causing this had moved from Australia here.

Heh, just like Ken.

JUST LIKE KEN.

I scrambled out of the chair, and sprinted out of the Wicked, Jakobs just huffing at me as I passed. I took the metro back to the Division HQ and ran in as quickly as possible.

“Heyo Charlie, I’m sohrry but you can’t be runnin’ through the di-”

I didn’t even stop. I’d apologise to….actually I didn’t even know his name, later.

I ran into archives, and started hunting through files and folders, not even noticing the clerk.

There, the file on Ken. Now where was the file on the damn water supply case?

It took me 20 minutes of hunting through stacks of files, flinging each useless file into a heap behind me, before I realized it wasn’t there. That meant either someone had it, or it had been destroyed. Here’s hoping it was the first one.

I came out of my near delirium, only to notice the clerk giving me a death glare as he picked up each folder I had thrown on the ground haphazardly.

“Ok so I know that I’m a dick and I’m really sorry, my word as a wizard that I’ll make it up to you, but I really need to find the Water Works file from about a week ago, can you help?”

The death glare on the rabbitkin’s face turned to a look of shock as I gave him a binding oath, and he quickly nodded when I was done speaking. He held up his hands and his eyes turned a milky white, with sparks flickering through them. A few seconds later, he returned to normal.

“Ok pal, the file is on Doctor Hupfauer’s desk. He seems to be looking it over.”

“Hupfauer works here too?”

“Yeah, he usually does our autopsies when a diviner can’t see what happened or isn’t available. He’s also a hell of a good field medic.”

“Ok thanks, a lot, I’ll see you later when I’m able, but not right now.”

I ran over to the receptionist, who was still apologising at me that I couldn’t run inside, when I interrupted him.

“Listen I don’t have a lot of time, where’s Doctor Hupfauer’s office?”

He pointed at a door that definitely wasn’t there before.

I burst inside, only to see a perturbed Hupfauer looking up at me. I relaxed. The file wasn’t gone, or worse, destroyed. Hupfauer was a trustworthy guy.

“Detective Charles? Vatever iz ze problem?”

“Sorry Doc, I need to see that file if you’re done with it.”

“Oh ya, certainly. I vas simply checking zis gnomes assertion zat ze entire vater supply may be compromised. It is most unsettling.”

He handed me the folder, and I raced into Nox’s office, once again bypassing the snow elf receptionist who was telling me not to run places.

I opened the door, and slammed it behind me with a quick ǟɨʀ. I rushed over to his wacky desk and slammed down the case files.

Nox had been sipping coffee and looking at one of the books on the shelf, but he dropped the book and coffee when I came in, striding over to the desk in seconds. The coffee landed softly on the floor, and the book floated into the gap in the bookshelf it had presumably come from.

“Charlie, what the fuck, I know we’ve gone drinking but I’m still your boss, you ca-”

“Nox, shut the fuck up. These three cases….”

His head quirked quizzically.

“Yeah, what about ‘em?”

“It’s not three different cases, it’s one.”