It was a few more seconds before she loaded the two remaining barrels and rammed the bullets down after which she did as he demanded, keeping this last pistol in hand and cocking both its hammers. Alcerys was perfectly happy getting out of the hive, with how full of musky, heavy stench the air within it was.

The moment she stepped into his line of sight, the Black Swordsman came to a stop in his furious pacing and whipped his head around, locking eyes. As she made her way towards him, she felt a tangible sense of bloodlust emanate from the Locust Noble, even though he became outwardly more calm. He went from pacing, stomping, and screaming, to calmly standing in the middle of his arena. Waiting. Poised. Eager to kill.

With her crossing of the arena’s precipice the abnormally shaped door slammed shut behind her, completing the triangle. Alcerys only had a short moment before the giant reached up and pulled his weapon free of the vestigial arms that held it affixed to his back, revealing it to be a rather new-looking sword hewn of the dungeon’s black stone.

It was exceedingly bulky and long, easily large enough to at the very least smash her organs to pulp on impact, were she so lucky as to take a hit without it cleaving through her armor. But to him, it was as proportional as her own sword was to her. So it was that the Inquisitor pulled her own blade free in turn, acting as if she were going to duel the giant bugman honorably. She wasn’t that stupid or arrogant, but he didn’t know that.

The Black Swordsman slammed his shield on the ground and took up a surprisingly sensical battle-stance with his sword held up ready to strike down on her. It was a stance that evoked shield-wall tactics used long ago, merely adjusted for a disproportionately smaller single opponent. Of course, she didn’t engage him head-on.

Alcerys simply walked around him trying to keep her distance, waiting until he lashed out. She hadn’t even completed a half-circle before he swung down on her, stomping his right foot and exposing himself - just barely, but given his size, it was a huge gap. Sure, the swordsman was unreasonably fast for his size, but said size was still a disadvantage in this case. She had no issue simply exhaling some fog to propel herself out of the way with a quick sideways jump, and after that, she quickly took aim at his head and pulled both her guns’s triggers, bracing for the recoil.

Fog-breathing or not, firing both barrels without the aid of a Fog tendril hurt. It also sent two spears of hot lead into the bugman’s face, spaced just a little more tightly than his eyes, but that didn’t matter. The bullets were still snugly guided into the cavities that his eyes once resided in, and from there it was just a matter of penetrating one of the weakest points on the human skull. Either the Black Swordsman’s skull had been seriously reinforced or he simply didn’t need the front half of his brain, because after the giant finished reeling from the impact, his blinded self sprung right back into action with a savage rage that outstripped even what he had displayed up until now.

Geysers of blood and pulped brain matter gushed from where his eyes once were to the rhythm of a frantic heartbeat, as the giant of a man whipped his head about and swung his weapon madly in an attempt to strike her. Alcerys knew better than to make so much as a noise, even as that veritable railroad track of a blade barreled only inches in front of her face. Instead, she quietly sheathed her sword and turned her gun’s barrel in sync with the swordsman’s own stomping, cocking its hammers as she aimed at his face again.

It quickly became clear that this time, she wouldn’t get a clean hit. He was thrashing about too much. So it was that she cautiously reached into her coat, reaching into the satchel of lead balls that she used for reloading and pulling one out. She tossed it as hard as she could into one of the corners of the chamber, waiting to see if it drew the swordsman’s attention. When his head whipped around at the noise, Alcerys used the opportunity to get behind him and aim her gun right at the control parasite on the nape of his neck, the horrible pulsating sack of red chitin that it was.

The swordsman stomped in the corner, slammed his sword down, screamed unintelligible slurs only vaguely distinguishable as Ikesio-Grekurian, but all that mattered was that he was standing still enough for her to get a good shot. It certainly helped that his control parasite was absolutely huge and bulging. Both triggers pulled at once, a violent recoil impulse, a mess of noise and smoke. Then, the crack of shattered chitin followed by a revolting noise only comparable to an entire barrel of organic slurry being dumped into the tank of a distiller in a Viriditas factory. Even though the control parasite was disproportionately well-armored, her gunshot still ruptured it and mulched most of its insides, leaving a gaping hole that would have certainly exposed the Black Swordsman’s ravaged insides, were it not plugged by what was left of the bug’s own parasitic appendages.

The Swordsman didn’t reel at getting shot, or spring into action - he froze, stone-still, then slowly turned around to face Alcerys, even though he was blind. He raised his blade and brought it down on his own left arm to sever the shield, murmuring all along, “Itchy… So itchy… Make it stop…”

Not a noise of complaint or a grunt of pain came from him at the horrid crunch and squelch of his own chitin, flesh, and bone, even as the massive shield slammed onto the ground and a deluge of distinctly red, still-human blood poured from the stump. He let his sword clatter to the ground as well, then stepped forward… And broke down.

The giant of a man fell to his knees, weeping and screaming like a small child about how everything itched, how he was a monster, how he just wanted it all to stop. Quickly enough, he even transitioned to the fetal position, simply lying on the ground and shuddering as he wept bloody tears from his shot-out eye sockets. Alcerys had seen many things in her time, she’d rendered herself numb to horrors such as this, but unwilling monsters forced to face their own nature like this always got to her.

With a heavy sigh into her mask, the Inquisitor stashed her gun into its rightful place inside her coat and pulled her flaming sword free of its sheath, approaching what was left of the Black Swordsman. A quick, two handed chop, and his head came clean off.

Just to make sure they wouldn’t repurpose the body, she decided to render it unusable. Who knew what they were capable of, preserving and repurposing a corpse wasn’t out of the question.

Chop by chop, slash by slash, limb by limb, she dismembered the corpse, and came to a realization, one that explained the gigantism and reduced mental state. This wasn’t a Locust Noble, at least not the normal kind. For one, his insides were relatively normal, it wasn’t just his blood that looked normal. The insides of his limbs were relatively normal, save for the utter absence of even the smallest deformities, beyond those caused after the fact. That wouldn’t have been telling on its own, some people really were just nigh-perfect specimens. Re-examining the remains of his skull, however, made the pieces fit together. She smashed it underfoo, and her suspicions were instantaneously confirmed.t

Within the puddle that now remained of his brain, there floated myriad tiny iridescent gems, each smaller than half a rice grain, surrounded by silvery, metallic treads. What little tissue remained intact was thoroughly covered by these threads as well. From what she knew of the homunculus program - and she certainly did not have any deep insights on it - this marked the Black Swordsman as…

”...A failed composite.”

He even had normal, if extremely pallid and unhealthy human skin underneath the insectoid exterior. The armor wasn’t just figurative, but literal.

“They must’ve grafted the suit onto him…” she thought to herself as she pulled an anchoring appendage off the remains of his leg, one that resembled a centipede leg. Whilst most of the armor was indeed inert chitin attached to an underlayer, some thicker armor plates weren’t even plates, but insects that had burrowed their legs into the flesh and somehow tied themselves to the host’s circulatory system.

Cutting his gut open made a deluge of stuff pour forth, composed of the organic slurry she’d seen inside the hives in which floated an assortment of live insects, that crawled about panickedly when exposed to the air. Among them were huge snake-like centipedes, trilobite-like beetles whose shells were a perfect match for many of the Black Swordsman’s plates, and even bright-red specimens. Most were too small to make out properly, but there was one about the size of her palm that scuttled about and tried to latch onto her leg, though it fortunately failed and fell onto its back. She realized what exactly it was at the wild whipping of its stinger-tipped tail.

A control parasite. Without so much as a second thought she stomped it out, turning away from the corpse as she sheathed her sword. Even as Alcerys made her way towards the door out of this place, her mind dwelled on the sorry state of the Black Swordsman - were they using his body as a glorified incubator?

It swung open and revealed a Fog Gate. She stepped through without giving it a second thought, and felt the filth slough off her as the pain of what wounds she had faded away. The pleasant feeling of refreshment was immediately spoiled when she emerged at the other side to the sight of the blonde soldier and that homunculus.

They sat on the ground up against the projector altar in the middle of the chamber, embracing one another as if they were in a far more private setting than this. It only confirmed that the blonde one would probably cause trouble if Alcerys tried to go after Zelsys without doing something like invoking a duel, but at least they had the decency to remain clothed... Even if it was rather obvious from the homunculus’ loosened chest wrappings, as well as the blonde’s unbuttoned shirt and undone belt buckle that it hadn’t been the case up until recently.

Alcerys turned her full attention towards the projected map in the center of the chamber and began extremely audible striding towards it, her neck craned. It was situations like this when she regretted the vow of silence, when she hoped she could smoke these independent contractors with such ingenious coprolalia as to make any other drill instructor break their mask of stoicism. Alas, she was an Inquisitor, and Inquisitors didn’t speak in front of non-Inquisitors unless absolutely necessary.

The map was significantly different from the one she’d caught a glimpse of topside, with clear paths towards the lower floors highlit. It even had a legible legend, with markers and all.

Floor One was the Trial of Solitude, with four three-chamber paths for each of them.

Floor Two was marked as the Trial of Halves, with only two paths highlit, and though they each had six chambers, not all seemed to have enemies. There seemed to be three types of chambers on Floor Two’s paths, each marked differently. A yellow locust head, a cyan golem head, and a grey circle.

Moreover, both paths seemed to already have predetermined participants, with very simple pictograms symbolizing each member of the party placed at each path’s beginning. Alcerys wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or annoyed that the dungeon had paired her with Strolvath. He was an annoying mix of curt and sarcastic in how he spoke to her, but she found his attitude more bearable than a single look at that twisted mirage of her own face. As for the blonde cyclops… Just the implication of an intimate relationship with the homunculus made her instinctively revile the markswoman, even though she had no personal grudge.

The path apparently assigned to her and Strolvath had this order of chambers: Locust head, grey circle, golem head, locust head, grey circle, big locust head outlined in red.

The other path started with a grey circle chamber, then two chambers marked with locusts in a row, then a chamber with a grey circle, and ended with a chamber with a larger golem head outlined in red.

Fortunately for Alcerys’ mental state, the pair noticed her after she got relatively close to the map. They shuffled conveniently out of sight, only for Zelsys to emerge from beyond the projection altar with a seal-bottle of Liquid Vigor in hand. She wasn’t even wearing any of her combat gear, did she really think this place to be that safe?

“Took you long enough,” the ultraviolent egoist remarked, her speech ever so audibly smug and self-satisfied. “Now we just wait for Strolvath.”

Alcerys purged the thoughts of lashing out from her mind, as she had done before more times than she cared to count. Instead, she started signing out questions.

“Injuries?”

“Uh…” the homunculus drawled, even raising an arm and stretching. She suddenly gritted her teeth and stopped, putting her arm down as she remarked, “Oh yeah, a couple broken ribs, got tossed around. The gate fixed ‘em up so I should be fine in a bit. Seems like the gate just makes smaller injuries go poof, so unless Strol got really roughed up we should be good to go.”

“We should exchange information,” Alcerys signed out again, forcing herself into what would undoubtedly be an irritating but useful conversation. Of course, she was right. The three of them sat at the base of the altar and exchanged descriptions of what they each went through in the Trial of Solitude, comparing and contrasting their findings.

Alcerys disclosed the facts as they were, except for her findings regarding the Black Swordsman’s nature as a composite homunculus. She herself had no way to know what of the other two’s claims was true, though she had a hunch they too excluded some parts. The hunch was, of course, entirely correct. Zelsys made no mention of her conversation with the Sister, painting her as a flat murderous traitor, and Zefaris did much the same in regards to Subcore Sigma, describing him as an entirely logical machine that did nothing besides carry out the trial and let her pass.

To no surprise on her part Alcerys found Zelsys’ tale the most difficult to believe, unable to stop herself from questioning, “You expect me to believe that thing can cut through black stone?”

Zel conceded the point with a smile, reaching for her cleaver, “I can just show you.”

Already she had stood up and pulled her blade free, ambling over to the altar, reaching down to grip the control handle. She requested the dungeon to raise one of the floor pillars up to about chest height, not wanting to just go sawing at the walls if she could avoid it. One of the floor panels nearby did indeed rise to her requested height, and not only that, but it also expanded out into four narrower pillars. She hadn’t expected the dungeon to actually do as she asked, let alone this quickly... But while she was at it, Zelsys also wordlessly asked the dungeon to raise a few pillars elsewhere to serve as a makeshift table and seating.

This took a few more seconds, but the dungeon did indeed oblige. A cluster two wide and eight long rose to the height of a table, whilst every pillar two out from it rose to a reasonable sitting height. A little strange at first, but she supposed it was better than having to sit on a single pillar stuck a certain distance from the “table”.

“And here’s some proper seating for good measure,” Zel remarked with an offhand chuckle as she let go of the control handle, making her way over to the risen pillar. Zef made no qualms about moving over and taking a seat, still doing up the top two buttons of her shirt and adjusting the collar as she did so, whereas the Inquisitor just… Stood there. That burning gaze remained fixed right on Zel’s back from behind the mask’s reinforced lenses.

The new handle thrummed reassuringly in Zel’s hand. Where before she would’ve actively hefted the Butcher’s great mass about, now its center of mass sat so close to her hand that she barely had to adjust her grip at all. It was almost unnerving, how easy the implement of death was to maneuver about. With a shift of her grip, she held the cleaver the same way she had when she used it to catch the Sister’s weapon, right hand on the main handle and left on the guard. She took a breath, filling her lungs to their fullest before she willed the Butcher’s sawteeth to come alive.

Only the slightest wisps of Fog escaped her mouth when the blade came alive and its teeth began to scream with violent oscillation, many white sparks leaping between them. Bringing the sawteeth against the black stone dulled the sound, and soon black sand began to pile up around her feet whilst her cleaver visibly sank into the stone. The Inquisitor was already signing something at her only seconds in, but Zelsys didn’t pay heed, and didn’t stop until she sawed all the way through the narrower pillar.

She had no practical reason for this - it was effort to keep pushing and maintain steady breathing, and it was noisy, but it was fun. She just kept going until the upper part of the quarter-pillar toppled to the ground with a loud thud, and with a heavy sigh, she turned to see that Strolvath was sat across from Zef, observing with an amused expression on his face. The Inquisitor, on the other hand, was emanating an almost visible aura of anger and frustration, much to Strol’s further amusement.

A breath out, relaxing. The cleaver’s sawteeth surged to life for another brief moment, before they fell silent.

“That thing can cut through dungeon stone, huh?” the scarred soldier mused, leaning back as he raised a seal-bottle to his lips. “Hell of a tool. So how’d it go for you? Not too tough I hope, seein’ as none of you look all that beat up.”

Zel reiterated what she said about her ribs, making her way over to the spot on the ground where the rest of her gear lay. She slipped the Butcher back into its Fog-infused holster and strapped it to her back, then put the ammo belt and picked up the backpack before walking over and taking a seat right by Zef’s side. Both her and Zefaris had already eaten of their rations, but nevertheless she retrieved a few more pieces of dried fruit, seeing as Strol was also in the process of satisfying his own hunger.

Their eyes met briefly, before the performer’s gaze snapped to meet what Zelsys could only assume to be the Inquisitor’s stare. She simply ignored the sound of aggressive sign language, the rustling of fabric and metal plate, but she couldn’t quite ignore the response that Strolvath gave.

“I’ve got no fuckin’ idea. Maybe the Livin’ Storm makes a different flavor of lightnin’,” he stated, grinning ear to ear. Then, there was silence. The Inquisitor joined them at the makeshift table a few minutes later, though she sat turned away so as not to expose her face while she ate. Zelsys made no attempt to interact, thinking that it’d be better to not prod at her when something was clearly eating her up inside.

So it was that the party refreshed themselves and spent a short while resting, before they decided that it would be a good idea to move on.

“Let’s get back to it,” Strolvath said, the first to rise from his seat as he stashed the near-empty bottle into his pack alongside a half-eaten meat ration. “Bugs ain’t gonna wait for us to wipe ‘em out, an’ the sooner we get it done the sooner we can get some proper rest.”

He stood up and started walking towards the projection altar before he stopped for a moment, looking back towards Zelsys, “And the sooner y’can teach me that breathing method of yours.”

Zel gave a simple nod before she stood up as well, with Zef following suit. She noticed that when Strolvath gripped the control handle, the projection changed from a map to a simple directional guide. Now it only showed the simplified symbols for each of them, paired up next to arrows that pointed to a particular door. It might not have been necessary seeing as those doors were the only ones whose glyphs were glowing, but she supposed it would help avoid confusion.

They both headed towards their respective door, as did Strolvath and the Inquisitor towards theirs. The doors, of course, opened to reveal Fog Gates.

The four of them exchanged looks briefly, before both pairs stepped through their respective Fog Gate.

Crovacus Estoras, Acting Governor for the Sovereign City-state of Willowdale, felt like he had a foot in the grave. It had only been a few days since his hand-picked extermination party departed, and though signs pointed towards their ongoing success, he was facing stiffer and stiffer opposition in his endeavor to secure Willowdale’s continued existence.

The roadside banditry had, fortunately, vanished only two days after the party’s departure, which he wagered had to do with his suspicions of the bandits just being locust-men. And then there was the case of the serial killer… One of the last surviving members of the Black Horse family that had become a wanted man for racially motivated murders. The suspect made no attempt to hide his motives or allegiance, so it was only a matter of time before a bigger fish would show up.

It didn’t worry him that the wannabe ethnic cleanser problem had been solved, but how. The expression that his face was found frozen into, the immaculate wounds that made it obvious his sword hand and his head had both been severed in one cut. There was nobody in the resident records with skills like that, not even Quincy the Knife.

Crovacus could only hope that whoever did it wouldn’t become a problem.

The threats that he received were… Benign. To be expected, when one played a role as contentious as his. Vaguely threatening anonymous letters, simple offensive symbols smeared onto the side of the town hall with mud, petty vandalism. He’d had worse before he had ever stepped foot into Ikesia.

No, it was the harassment of his collaborators that really made him concerned. An anonymous someone had gone as far as to hire a group of thugs to sabotage the geopolymer molds that were being used to make new segments for the town wall. It was amateurish work, the molds were just defaced and filled with what could be equated to quick-setting cement, but cleaning them would add precious time to the wall repairs.

Simple construction workers, local millers, farmers, merchants, all were being harassed by hired thugs or even outright cowled figures. He could keep locking them up, sure, but their benefactors also kept anonymously bailing them out. All he could do was strongly encourage anyone and everyone to defend themselves to the fullest extent of their rights, but that didn’t do much when the average citizen scarcely owned a sparklock pistol or scattergun. That type of weapon could level the playing field against two people maybe, but not the groups of four or five that the harassers usually showed up in.

This issue could be solved, and was in fact already being solved, as he had recently granted a frankly unfairly good deal on arms manufacturing rights to the very Collier that ran a bespoke firearms store across from the town hall. It was bypassing the necessary paperwork, sure, but he knew her to be the best for the job, even if other manufacturers had longer track records and ready-to-go production lines. It’d only take a week or so before the old lady had a production line for her brand-new “Tyrant-muncher” firearms in the north-western quarter.

However, what worried him most was the enemies within the town hall itself. He knew exactly who they were, and it was this fact that worried him most. Some were Ikesian, yes, and this was understandable - but they opposed him openly and directly, within the rules of the political process. On the other hand, a quarter of the council had been mandated by post-war treaties to be made up of Pateirians and Grekurians. Among them also laid not just those who caused him the most trouble, but also those whom his private investigators had pointed the finger to in regards to the blatant sabotage and harassment.

They would be dealt with, but not before the exterminators returned. Crovacus needed muscle, loyal muscle that wouldn’t be bought or threatened, and he was rather confident that these four were his best bet.

He’d nervously chewed his cigar for so long it had gone out, so he just tossed it aside and pulled open one of his desk drawers, retrieving from within it a cigar wrapped in an additional outer layer of blood-red seals. Biting off the end and spitting it into the trash, the tip of it glimmered with emerald-green droplets. In a bid to perhaps reinforce his own ego or maintain appearances to the lavish empty office that spread out all around him, the governor used his abilities in Aethermancy for a glorified parlor trick - a snap of the fingers to produce a flickering, blue flame above his fingertips.

Even the brief breath of Fog he had to take to fuel this technique almost made him break into a coughing fit, whilst only weeks ago he was in good enough health to set his personal sabre alight with such a blaze that even an Inquisitor’s Aquilla Calibur - so named for the design of its crossguard - had no hope of replicating it. The governor took a drag of his cigar, feeling the reassuring warmth and vitality of pure Viriditas in Fog form fill his body, washing away the stress aches that wracked his every waking moment.

Resolved to get work done despite his subpar health condition, Crovacus cleaned up his desk as best as he could, retrieving one of his journals and his personal fountain pen. He began to pour his thoughts onto the paper, with the intentions of refining the manuscript into a more usable form when he was in a better state. It would be the seedling for a letter that would cement his allegiance to his post and the people he ruled first and foremost, even if it placed him in opposition with the very government that allowed him to obtain this post.

I volunteered for the position of acting governor in the Sovereign City-state of Willowdale under the presumption that I would face staunch opposition by Ikesian nationalists. I assumed that my work would be stifled whenever I tried to do something to even inconvenience the natives, that they would drag me in the street and kill me for so much as trying to temporarily raise taxes to fund repair efforts. I see now that my predictions were not only wrong, but the exact opposite of reality. Never before have I had my life threatened or my work stifled more than during my tenure as governor here, but it wasn’t by Ikesians - it was by my own countrymen, those who spat insults like race-traitor at me for trying to make Willowdale a nicer place for everyone, because it would benefit the “Abominable Snowmen”, as some of them refer to you all.

It was almost funny. Inheritor of a noble line, successful businessman, trained fencer, Crovacus Estoras knew himself to be the perfect noble, he knew he had every right to act out within the rather loose boundaries that his privileged position in society allowed him. And yet, he didn’t want to amass power. He just wanted to secure the prosperity and continued growth of those under his protection - whether that be his own son, or the people of Willowdale.

Furthermore, while I fully expected Willowdale to come under attack from malicious actors, I did not expect our own supposed allies to be the perpetrators. The structural sabotage of the outer walls, the road banditry, even the incident that destroyed City Hall - each time, the perpetrators were identified not only as Pateirian nationals, but as Pateirian soldiers. Those that we managed to capture all exhibited the mutagenic side effects of excessive “Blood of God” combat elixir consumption, but it was how they reacted to interrogation that betrayed their allegiance. An absolute refusal to cooperate, open hostility, accusations of being on the side of the “Snow Devils” despite the facts that the war has been officially over for months and that Willowdale was not directly involved in the conflict. Both the captives refused to provide any information beyond their undying allegiance to the Divine Emperor, even in the face of, as they described it, “deserved exile”.

At this very moment, four of the few people who are qualified for the job are making their way through a dungeon, one that has been co-opted by Pateirian terrorists into a base of operations. Not only that, but one of our essentech specialists has intercepted aether wave communications that strongly suggest these terrorists have direct ties to the higher echelons of Pateirian government. It is because of these facts that I have come to a conclusion.

I, Crovacus Estoras, Acting Governor for the Sovereign City-state of Willowdale, believe that Grekuria stood on the wrong side of the war, and that the Pateirian Empire is the primary threat not only to Ikesia, but to the entire civilized world as we know it.

Crovacus felt the stress taking its toll, he could feel himself wasting away, and not even his daily consumption of Vitamax could stop it. No, the governor needed something more than pure Viriditas, if he were to weather this inhuman workload for as long as he needed to. Despite its nigh-miraculous effects from a layman’s point of view, Viriditas alone had reached the limits of its effectiveness for him - the formula within his special cigarillo contained the highest reasonable concentration of Viriditas before it became dangerous for a mostly normal human. Any higher a concentration would place him at risk of severe liver damage or sudden-onset tumor growth.

His options were either stress avoidance and bed rest, which absolutely wasn’t an option, or… Something more potent. A more complex, more dangerous concoction, one that he wasn’t sure anyone in Willowdale could produce. That was why he had dispatched one of his hired investigators specifically to seek such an individual out, why he...

He felt himself being dragged from the depth of inward thought when a very particular pattern of knocks sounded through his office door, and Crovacus instinctively composed himself before calling out, “Come in!”

The heavy doors opened with nary a sound as one of the guards opened it and the visitors entered. Crovacus felt conflicting emotions flooding through his exhaustion-numbed mind, first joy at the sight of the very investigator he’d assigned to find him a competent alchemist, second a resigned sense of apprehension when the second man entered and he realized it was the alchemist.

“This guy, of course…” he sighed inwardly, that stubbly face and that razor-sharp, unflinching stare burned into his memory. In retrospect it shouldn’t have surprised him at all that the very man who rented out Riverside Remedies was also qualified to use that place’s facilities to their full extent, whatever that extent was. Alas, the reason for his sudden tendency to forget things was also the reason he needed this man’s help. Crovaus of course didn’t know the extent of Riverside Remedies’ facilities, and neither did anyone else besides whoever ran the place plus their family. All that was known about that place’s basement was that it was one huge room whose square meterage made up almost half the property’s total.

The lack of information stemmed from a simple lynchpin. Before the owner departed to join the Ikesian military, the old man had invoked an old, obscure ordinance that forbade anyone from entering an absent alchemist’s laboratory except for whoever the alchemist designated.

The owner of the shop had designated whoever rented the place, as well as outlining specific guidelines as to who could rent it. In doing so, he made the basement legally inaccessible to anyone other than another alchemist who also rented the building.

Crovacus felt his mind wandering, and took a long drag of his cigarillo to refocus. New vigor flooded his body as the dark-green mix of smoke and Viriditas Fog slowly seeped out of his nostrils, before he exhaled in earnest and took a breath to start talking. Throughout this ritual, he observed the supposed alchemist.

The first thing that caught his eye was the stiffness of one arm and the bandages visible beneath his shirt, betraying the presence of some serious wound around the shoulder. Yet, the only things that betrayed its presence were those bandaged and that slight off stance. Were he not looking for it, Crovacus wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong with the alchemist. The way he held himself, that unflinching stare that tried to pry the truth from everything it fell upon. He was clearly an ex-soldier, still wearing the pants and boots of his uniform, plus an aggressively generic white dress shirt. The sleeves were… Crumpled. They already bore the creases of sitting rolled-up most of the time, yet the alchemist had rolled them down. Why could that be?

In fact, he looked more healthy than an ex-soldier had any right to be.

It was normal for alchemists to either be unrealistically healthy, or utterly ragged, with few inbetweens. But this man, he wasn’t just healthy, he was noticeably muscular.

The fact that he hadn’t been arrested on made-up charges meant that he had either gotten lucky, that he simply managed to lay low for long enough to avoid the worst of the post-war manhunts, or had friends in the right places. Not necessarily high places, but the right ones.

The governor offhandedly shooed the investigator away with a gesture and the words, “We’d like some privacy, please.”

When the diminutive, exceptionally generic-looking man exited the room and closed the door behind himself, Crovacus finally locked eyes with the Ikesian and prompted him to approach. Another drag of the cigarillo. Every toke was a bucket of water tossed out of his metaphorical board.

“Take a seat,” he prompted, and the alchemist obliged, albeit tensely and hesitantly.