Chương 15: Side Story: A Serious Incident

Mr Black sat behind his desk at the Glimmerhome Serious Incident Office, idly drumming his fingers. It was quiet. Too quiet. It was Tuesday, after all, and yet the city had failed to be rocked by a single explosion. Mr Black was far too jaded and cynical to believe the peace was anything other than the build-up to a very serious incident indeed. His office only dealt with the worst of situations. Rob a bank without filling in the required paperwork beforehand?

The thieves' guild would have the perpetrator strung up under a bridge by sundown, and would have delivered a posh hamper of fruit to the bank in question by way of apology. It would probably have a bow on it, and maybe even some flowers. Of course, they'd never dream of returning the money. They were thieves, after all. Kill someone for insufficient payment?

The perpetrator could expect a visit from their friendly neighbourhood branch of the assassins' guild, who would politely sit down with them and carefully explain the economics of murder and why undercutting their business was such a bad thing for everyone involved, especially the victims. There would be large, labelled diagrams. Whether the perp understood or not rarely mattered, since the diagrams were generally carved into their stomach. No, he didn't deal with petty things like theft or murder.

The guilds could police themselves. He dealt with the serious stuff. The stuff that had the potential to end the city. If someone grew irate over the price of mangoes and tried to summon an elder god in the middle of a marketplace to smite the offending merchant? He or his compatriots would be there to stop them. If someone decided the summer sun was too hot, and attempted to teleport the entire city a hundred miles underground to get a bit of shade? The Serious Incident Office would take notice.

If someone smashed down the guarded, reinforced door that led to the city's self-destruct button? They'd find Mr Black standing behind it, dressed in his neat suit and polished shoes, with an empty crossbow levelled at their face. If they were very quick, they might even have a chance to wonder why it was empty. But those events had all taken place the previous week. This week, there had been nothing.

The mages at the Institute of Inadvisable Incantations had, for some reason, collectively decided that a couple of weeks of rest were required. They'd also outlawed all summoning magic on campus, for reasons that no-one seemed quite able to articulate. Likewise, the Abode of Abhorrent Alchemy had spent recent days smelling positively floral, with none of the usual caustic outbursts. And now The Shed Which Explodes On Tuesdays For No Apparent Reason had gone all Tuesday without exploding. It was... concerning.

The universe was saving up for a big one. Mr Black was sure of it. The universe was never one to disappoint its believers, and sure enough, in the sewers beneath Glimmerhome, malign forces plotted the next Serious Incident.

"So, Thursday then?" asked First Brother, his face and body shape hidden under a thick, hooded robe. As was appropriate for the situation, it was blood red, for ease of hiding the stains.

"I can't do Thursday," answered Eighth Brother, dressed in an identical outfit. A casual observer would never have been able to tell the shadowy figures apart.

"Next Monday works best for me."

"You..." started First Brother, a vein bulging on his forehead, before he took a few deep breaths to calm down.

"Why didn't you say that ten minutes ago? You know, when I asked if everyone could make Thursday!"

"Sorry. I must have been distracted."

"Yeah, by Third Sister," sniggered another one of the brothers.

"Don't think we didn't see that."

"You know what? I don't care. I will be here Thursday. You lot can turn up, or not. Up to you."

"Aww. But it's my mum's birthday!" whined Eighth Brother.

"Don't make me choose between visiting Mum on her birthday and seeing the long awaited fulfilment of our glorious revenge against this rotten city and everyone in it!"

"Doesn't your mum live in this city, and is therefore part of 'everyone'?" asked Second Sister, attracting a round of insulted glares. First Sister whacked her over the back of her head. Applying logic in the middle of a group of cult members, held together only by festering grudges, deep-seated hatred and the general lack of entertainment on Tuesday evenings? Whatever was she thinking?" Thursday. At six PM sharp," declared First Brother.

"Second Brother sacrificed much to buy us this chance, and we'll not waste it. If all goes well, we can finish in time for tea." Second Brother, standing in the queue at the thieves' guild reception, was having second thoughts about his life choices. The reception was, as usual at the start of a new season, fairly busy.

The population of Glimmerhome, or at least the subset of it that couldn't afford their own private security force, generally preferred to get their theft quota sorted as quickly as possible, and were therefore carefully informing the receptionists that they were stepping out of their homes for a funeral, wedding, vacation or quick smoke at such-and-such a time, and what a shame it would be if anyone took advantage of the momentary absence to stage a burglary.

The receptionists would then need to check their diaries, and suggest that perhaps the following week would be better for a vacation, or could the wedding maybe be brought forward a few hours? The logistics of theft could be quite daunting at times. The back and forth took time. Time enough for Second Brother to not only have second thoughts, but third, fourth and fifth thoughts as well.

The only reason he didn't turn around and run for it was because he knew full well that making it out of the city wouldn't be enough. Suicide probably wouldn't be enough. He'd get to hell, or whatever afterlife happened to claim him, and find a thieves' guild enforcer there, waiting for him, tapping his club meaningfully.

"Next," called the receptionist, so with a sigh, he stepped up to admit his unlicensed crimes. A distance behind that receptionist, separated by a few regular walls and one very irregular one, with so many privacy enchantments carved into it that it was a surprise the thing still had enough structural integrity left to not collapse under its own weight, four of those enforcers were standing around looking menacing.

Not that they were trying to threaten anyone; it was simply the normal background menace they gave off unconsciously on account of being over six foot, heavily armed walls of muscle. It was something about their expression that suggested they'd find it easier to punch their way through a door than do something complicated, like figure out how handles worked. Indeed, one of them had a few splinters sticking out of his face. He didn't seem to have noticed.

"Professor Venenum came here in person to complain, again," whispered The Shadow, the head of the thieves' guild." In person! I don't have to tell you how bad this looks, gentlemen."

"So? We'll find the bugger, express our displeasure by feeding him his own hands, then send his head to your professor. Same as usual," said Fred, the vice guild-master, who'd refused to take part in the latest fad of 'cool' monikers, and secretly thought 'The Shadow' sounded ridiculous.

"Yes, I'm sure we will. But that's not the point. That's the fifth unlicensed robbery this week. Perceptions matter, gentlemen. You would not like to live in a world where the population of Glimmerhome no longer believes we can police our trade."

"What are they even after?" asked Cudgel, the guild's chief of enforcement. That wasn't even a moniker; it was his real name, given by a father who was prepared to sacrifice his child's entire future to make a bad pun at the birth. Poor Cudgel had done with it what he could.

"A few books? A 'sacred' chamberpot that a god once allegedly pissed in? A bunch of highly illegal mushrooms someone from the III was growing. What was taken from this professor?"

"An alchemical catalyst of some sort."

"The books were taken first, so someone looking up some alchemical reaction, and now they're pinching the ingredients?"

"It's not a proper alchemical reaction if it doesn't involve a few pounds of sulphur."

"You can buy sulphur. Maybe they're only stealing what they can't otherwise get their hands on."

"But what sort of alchemical reaction requires a god's bathroom equipment?"

"If we're talking about buying things," interjected Fred, "one of my mates at the tailors' guild mentioned getting a big order for cultist robes recently. You know the things; floor length, hoods you could lose a cow in, specially coloured to camouflage blood stains. Sounds like the sort of people who might find a use for a divine piss-bucket."

"Oh no. Not cultists 1," complained The Shadow.

"As if things weren't bad enough already. Fine. Cudgel; I want this group found. Yesterday. Maybe we can win some goodwill back by shutting down whatever evil plan they're concocting before it becomes a Serious Incident."

"Bah. I'm no time traveller," muttered Cudgel, opening the door to the warded conference room, only to find a receptionist waiting patiently, a nervous-looking figure flanked by two more enforcers waiting impatiently behind her.

"Sorry for the interruption, but this man has admitted to several unlicensed thefts."

"Umm... If it's not too much trouble, please could I humbly beg you to take my cooperation and remorse into account and make it painless?" Cudgel stared at the shaking man for a few seconds.

"I may not be able to do yesterday, but how about today?" he called back into the room. The Shadow swore. He knew full well how devoted cultists could get to their cause. His turning up here had nothing to do with remorse. It simply meant that their group had already gathered everything they needed, and now he was sacrificing himself to get the heat off the others.

"How about you return the stolen items, and then we can talk about remorse?"

"Ah. Uh... Any chance that can wait until next week?" One of the enforcers smashed a knee.

"I'll take that as a no, then," groaned Second Brother from his new position at ground level. Mr Black sighed as he read the intelligence report. Cultists again. It was the third time in the past month! It was greatly concerning that this was the first he'd heard of them, though. Apparently, their plans would come to fruition within the week!

For them to be so close to their doubtlessly nefarious goal and yet to have never heard of them until one literally handed himself into the thieves' guild was a huge professional failure, and Mr Black prided himself on never having failed 2.... And yet, according to the information from the thieves' guild, they'd put in a bulk order for cultists' robes. There had been no attempt at hiding it; someone had simply walked into a shop and ordered two dozen of the things.

Not to mention the unlicensed theft of a god's piss-bucket. Both of those things were such enormous red flags that the regular guard should have taken care of the group long before they ever had reason to come to Mr Black's attention. That obviously hadn't happened, and there was only one possible conclusion as to why. These cultists had someone on the inside. Intelligence had been made to disappear. He was fortunate that the report from the thieves' guild had come directly to the Office and not via the guard.

Making a note to leave a nice gift-basket on the table the next time he arranged to make his theft quota, he stood up, straightened his tie, and stepped out into the summer daylight. Mr Tailor waited patiently inside the clothiers, placidly watching the man in the neat suit and shoes that were somehow still shiny despite the street's inch thick layer of manure. It was unfortunate, but such excrement-encrusted conditions were always a danger in any city that relied on equine locomotion.

Meanwhile, Mr Butcher, the owner of Butcher's Bespoke Robes and Vestments, talked to the man.

"I already told you government lot everything I know. Guy came in, ordered two dozen robes, then left. Came in a week later to collect. I reported it. The end."

"And those things happened in that exact chronological order?" queried Mr Black.

"Yes?" hesitantly answered the tailor, 'chronological' containing one or two syllables more than he was comfortable with in his words.

"Might I ask why you produced the robes, and waited until after the collection to report it?"

"Hey, just because they're cultists doesn't mean I don't want their coin." Mr Black sighed. The average resident of Glimmerhome would sell their own mother if they thought they'd get good money for her, so merely delaying a report to the guard was on the tamer side of things. Nevertheless, it was annoying.

"And to whom did you make this report?"

"How should I know? It's not as if guards wear name tags, plus they always keep the guard stations gloomy and never take their helmets off. It was whoever was on the front desk at their Jaunty Street office." Not helpful; the guard house would have a duty roster, of course, and it might even, broadly speaking, be accurate.

It was the finer strokes that were the issue; the smoke breaks every ten minutes, or leaving to take a piss, and they were only a couple of the natural reasons for the scheduled receptionist to leave their post. If the inside man had been prepared, it would have been easy enough to slip something into the duty officer's beer to give themself an excuse to take over. He got times and descriptions anyway, both of the guard and the purchaser, then proceeded away from the premises to make further inquiries.

Meanwhile, Mr Butcher turned to the next person in line.

"Sorry for the wait. How can I help?"

"I was hoping my new robe was ready for collection," answered Mr Tailor the butcher.

"Ah, yes. A robe made from rubber. I imagine that would be very helpful to keep yourself clean while working; the blood will wipe right off it."

"Huh?" asked Mr Tailor, displaying a brief bout of confusion before brightening up.

"Ah, yes. I suppose it'll be good for that, too."

"With those ingredients? Won't do anything. Wouldn't even explode," said Cyanide, fully fledged member of the Abode of Abhorrent Alchemy, and three times runner-up in the Glimmerhome aptronym championship 3. Mr Black glanced at his notepad.

"And if you added sulphur?" he tried.

"Ah, then it would explode."

"Big explosion? Danger to the city? Any sort of noxious fumes that would poison the continent?"

"Not really. Whoever was mixing it would probably need a new pair of eyebrows, and anyone who breathed the smoke would be seeing purple elephants for a few hours, but that's about it."

"Then what's the point?" frowned Mr Black.

"Sorry? You want the city to explode?"

"No, of course not. But I must assume that the people who stole these ingredients do."

"Dunno what else to tell you, mate. I mean, you could add this stuff to a few tonnes of nitroglycerine and it would do some decent damage, but that would be equally true if you didn't add the mushrooms." Mr Black tapped at his notepad. Even if the alchemical ingredients didn't do much, there was still the divine commode to worry about. Perhaps mixing stuff up in there would boost the effect, somehow? He'd need to go see a priest.

"It's all a bit of an embarrassment, really," explained a green cotton sock puppet. The priestess acting as host to the sacred puppet was fairly high ranked in the clergy of Jelehelehen, god of mimes, ventriloquists and the rear halves of pantomime horses, and was able to hold her mouth perfectly still while the sock spoke. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Too damn right it was," agreed the yellow puppet on her other hand.

"Just imagine it. A god blows his nose, accidentally drops the tissue, and suddenly there's a million people proclaiming it a holy relic."

"Don't they have any idea how many holy relics we have already?" moaned the first puppet.

"Just flush the damn thing down the toilet!"

"That's very interesting," interrupted Mr Black, "but I want to know about this specific relic." The priestess turned around, made a few seconds of rustling noises, then turned back, one hand now wearing a brown sock with a monocle drawn on.

"That would be one of the seven hundred and eighty known sacred chamberpots of Graxilox, god of bodybuilders, gym bunnies and anyone who has muscles where their brains should be," droned the sock, in a thick scholarly accent.

"After a tryst with a courtesan in the Marketplace of Affection, he needed to relieve himself and was too lazy to return to his divine realm, or indeed to leave the room, so he employed her chamberpot instead. A priest of Graxilox seized the item the following morning, enshrining it in the local temple."

"And what happened to the contents?"

"Drunk by Graxilox's high priest."

"They weren't after that, then. And what if the chamberpot was used as the container for an alchemical reaction?"

"As per the treaty of heaven, heaven, heaven, paradise, paradise, nirvana, hell, hell, hel, the abyss, Hades and Gehenna 4, the contents would become the irrevocable property of Graxilox."

"Ah," said Mr Black, a suspicion forming.

"And if those contents had the effect of inducing a few hours of hallucinations?"

"A muscle-bound idiot like Graxilox? Hah. Wouldn't want to be on the planet that caused that," laughed the yellow puppet.

"You are on that planet," pointed out the priestess, speaking for the first time in the interview. The yellow puppet stopped laughing.

"Monday, three weeks back? That would have been Ned," answered the guard, flipping through some cheap yellow paper covered in barely readable chicken scratches. That wasn't anything to do with illiteracy on the part of the guards; in fact, the average guard was quite well educated. It was just the way they never wanted to remove their gauntlets to do paperwork. Extracting an on-duty guard from their armour was every bit as hard as extracting a crab from its shell, and for pretty much the same reason.

"Hey, Ned! One of those Serious Incident guys wants you!" A clatter sounded from the break room, followed by a rude word. Nevertheless, within a few seconds, a suit of armour walked into reception. Mr Black could only assume that it contained Ned, somewhere deep inside.

"How can I help?" asked a voice from within the armour.

"Three weeks back, Monday, you were on reception duty. What do you remember about any reports filed that day?" A gauntlet awkwardly rubbed at the back of a helmet.

"Sorry, sir, but I had the runs that day something awful. Couldn't get off the toilet all shift." Sometimes, Mr Black hated being right, but he nevertheless ploughed on.

"Who covered for you, then?"

"Uhh..." stammered Ned, then looked at the current receptionist.

"Don't look at me," she replied to the silent plea.

"I was off that day for my daughter's birthday."

"Could have been anyone," said Ned.

"If the desk is empty and someone shouts, it falls to whoever happens to be near enough to hear and sufficiently bored to want to deal with it." Mr Black pondered, unwilling to believe the guards were a dead end. He could interview all of them, but as well as being time consuming, it would have little chance of success. The person who dealt with it could easily be off shift today, and would assuredly lie even if he wasn't.

The questioning would give away that Mr Black was on to them, and all he'd get for his trouble was a lot of people denying ever having seen Mr Butcher. With a sigh, he stepped back outside, moving on to his next line of enquiry. A pair of impassive helmets watched him leave. Professor Venenum cracked his knuckles, glaring at the victim in front of him.

A dozen thick leather belts secured the man into an uncomfortable metal chair, a contraption of iron screwed into his skull, wires running between it and a big metal box engraved with mystical sigils, crackling with electricity.

"Just to warn you, this is going to hurt," said the professor.

"Mmmpf!" moaned Second Brother, doing his best to scream into his gag. He wasn't overly bothered about whatever the professor was warning him about, being focused on the pre-existing pains of his broken knees, toes, fingers and the magical headgear that had been screwed into his brain. The professor flipped a switch." Mmmpf!" exclaimed Second Brother, suddenly discovering that broken knees were actually quite a mild problem, all things considered.

An image appeared on one side of the box, displaying Professor Venenum and Mr Black, standing next to a box, on one side of which was an image of Professor Venenum and Mr Black. The machine stuttered and sparked, and the muffled screaming grew more urgent.

"One moment, please. It doesn't deal with recursion well. I should have been more careful with the angle," explained the professor, rotating the cube to bring the image out of sight of Second Brother. The stifled screaming dropped back down to the levels that might be expected for someone having his brain slurped up through a wire.

"I must admit, this is an impressive piece of kit," said Mr Black.

"I don't suppose we could order one for our Office?" The professor shrugged.

"You can have this one once I'm done with it. The damn thief that took my sandwich from the break room is going to get his comeuppance, I swear. Too petty for the thieves' guild to deal with, my arse." Mr Black blinked.

"You built a tool capable of ripping memories out from someone's head to solve a stolen sandwich?"

"It was bacon!" exclaimed the professor, as if that explained everything.

"Never mind," back-pedalled Mr Black, remembering who he was talking to. Expecting common sense from any employee of the Institute of Inadvisable Incantations was as bad as expecting blood to come from a stone.

"Let's just see what he remembers." The professor nodded and rotated a bunch of dials on the box. In response, the image paused, then reversed, replaying the previous few minutes backwards. Muffled screaming turned out to be perfectly recognisable even when played in reverse and at high speed.

"So, when are we looking for?" Mr Black checked his notepad for the date of thefts, but they weren't really all that interesting, except to confirm he was being truthful when he admitted them. What he really wanted was to listen in on a cult meeting.

"Can we just rewind and look for lots of people in red robes?"

"Sure," answered the professor, dialling the playback speed up a few notches. Mr Black implacably watched fingers healing as hammers bounced off them, while the professor cackled to himself, amused by the guild's punishment of the unlicensed thief. It showed his arrival at the thieves' guild, the drop-off of the professor's stolen catalyst, which unfortunately had been a dead-drop that lacked the involvement of any other people, and then the sight of him changing out of very familiar armour."

He was the inside man?" muttered Mr Black.

"Can you show me three weeks ago, Monday?" The screen blacked momentarily, before displaying a very plush room containing a very large bed. The noises suggested that Second Brother had been having a good time. Of course, his standards had been lowered somewhat since then, and he was at the point where he would consider having only one broken knee to be a good time, but a few seconds more of video was sufficient to confirm his Monday had been very good.

"Eww," commented the professor.

"Indeed. Let's just play the entire day on fast forward." The professor did, and at no point did the apparent guard don his uniform or go to work.

"Dammit. Were there two inside men? Let's keep going." Further viewing confirmed that yes, he was responsible for the thefts. It also confirmed that the lifespan of someone with magical wires sucking their brain dry generally failed to exceed an hour.

"Useful, but not as much as I'd hoped," commented Mr Black, pondering the scenes of enrobed cultists he'd witnessed. Less than two dozen each time; either they weren't all there at every meeting, or else they'd ordered spare robes. They'd also failed to helpfully divulge their plans, assuming everyone already knew and only giving progress updates that weren't overly meaningful to an outsider. The uncooperative prisoner had passed on before they'd got far enough back to get the actual plot.

And, of course, being cultists, they all called each other Brother or Sister. Not a single damn name in the video!

"Thanks for the testing help," nodded the professor.

"Now it's time to try it out for real. I will see justice done for the brazen theft of my sandwich!" Mr Black left him to it. Back in his office, Mr Black steepled his fingers, pondering. Firstly, he had no motive. Yes, watching the cultists for two seconds had been sufficient to unveil some deep-seated resentment and anger issues, but had offered no clue as to why. Obviously it was something important enough to risk the ire of the thieves' guild, but no-one had been thoughtful enough to articulate it.

Secondly, he didn't know when. Yes, the so-called Second Brother had slipped up and revealed it would be at some point in the next week, but that was more of a time limit than a time. Second Brother hadn't been able to articulate an exact time—even if he'd wanted to and didn't have his mouth full—having been occupied having his bones broken during the meeting it was being decided. Mr Black knew how it would happen, but that didn't help him much.

A crossbow bolt to the face was unlikely to work on a god, and while there were options that would, the collateral damage would be... unprofessional. Mr Black was a neat person, and collateral damage was not neat. Thankfully, he also knew where. Or at least, strongly suspected. Every meeting of the cult had occurred in the same section of sewer, so he just needed to wait there and stop the ritual before it started.

Tucking his foldable crossbow into his jacket, he followed the route he'd seen in the memories of Second Brother, and settled in to wait. What were the chances of them breaking habit on their very final meeting? Eighth Brother peered at the invitation in confusion. The contents were straightforward enough; a simple handwritten invite to his mother's birthday party. The problem was that the handwriting wasn't hers. Nor was she having a party.

He knew that full well, because he'd apologised that morning for not being able to arrange one.

"Hey, what...?" he started questioning the woman who'd slipped him the card.

"Shhh," she interrupted, turning to walk away.

"Why did...?"

"Shhh!"

"But..."

"Shush!"

"I..."" Shut up!" Eighth Brother stared down in confusion, utterly failing to comprehend the message. It was always a risk when people started communicating in euphemisms or code, particularly when the people on the receiving end of the communication were a little slow on the uptake.

In this particular case, a group of homicidal cultists had reason to believe their organisation had been compromised, and were doing their best to ensure their members refrained from attending the next planned get-together, since it had a high probability of becoming an ambush.

Of course, walking into someone's workplace and telling them that the long awaited fulfilment of their glorious revenge had been postponed would be likely to raise undesired eyebrows, so the message had been changed to something a little less direct. Alas for Eighth Brother, it was a little too indirect. That was why, at six PM on Thursday, he (briefly) found himself looking down the barrel of an empty crossbow.

Mr Black felt a pang of professional pride as he swiftly hid the body, listening intently for further footsteps. Alas, none came, with the other cultists being a little quicker on the uptake, and having avoided the trap. He'd acted quickly, expecting the entire group to arrive at more or less the same time, but that meant he'd killed someone who would potentially have made a useful witness. Someone turning up alone had been unexpected. Was he here early to scope the place?

To tidy up ready for their next real meeting? Would anyone notice his absence? Was he not associated with the cultists at all, and was someone attempting to infiltrate their activities? Mr Black hastily searched the body, hoping it would contain some answers, but found only more questions. Tucked away in a pocket was a badge, stamped with the authority of the city guard, and engraved beneath, the name 'Ned'. First Brother paced around his room, a commode taking pride of place upon a small table.

"I picked out that sewer chamber for being directly beneath the Sprightly Street station," he murmured to himself.

"I could activate it here, but what's the point? If the damn Serious Incident Office is onto us, they'll doubtless have a plan to contain the damage. Can't believe the damn thieves sold out to them. Don't want to waste our shot if it isn't going to take out the main offenders." He ceased his relentless circling, then glared at the commode as if it had personally offended him.

"Guess I have no choice. If the sewer is compromised, we'll have to find somewhere new. Somewhere close. But it's all rich, snooty places up there. No handy abandoned warehouses to hide in. It's not like we can do it in the street, or standing in mid-air." He blinked, coming to a sudden realisation, then smiled.

"No... That could work... How long would I need?" First Brother grabbed a pen and paper, sat down and engaged in something rare. Something horrifying, that he knew would strike fear into the hearts of his fellow cultists. A foe tougher than any he had previously faced. But he was prepared to make any sacrifice to ensure the success of their plan. Even if that involved... maths.

Mr Black peered into a wardrobe, simultaneously pleased and disappointed at what he saw inside: a blood-red robe, identical to the one worn by a recent corpse. With a sigh, he left the apartment, carefully locking it shut behind him with the aid of a paperclip. The owner was another of the guards; the one who had first called out to Ned. It had been a hunch—based upon finding Ned and realising that the count of ordered robes matched the usual number of guards assigned to a guard house—but apparently a correct one.

He checked another few houses to make sure, then made his way back to the Jaunty Street guard outpost. It was always a shame when the fine people who were supposed to be protecting the city turned bad, but there was nothing to do other than clean house when they did. The guard at reception looked up on his entry, the sharp intake of breath almost hidden by the clang of metal.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a professional voice.

"I was hoping to speak to Ned again."

"He didn't show up for his shift today. Sorry, but we have no idea where he is. But if you do find him, please let him know he's fired."

"I see," replied Mr Black, sighing internally at the pair of guards taking up positions outside the entrance. How they thought they could move stealthily while wearing dozens of pounds of metal was a mystery.

"Then may I speak to your captain?"

"He hasn't shown up for his shift either."

"Is that so? Very well then. Shall we get this farce over with?" A few minutes of metallic clanging, sharply curtailed screams and wet splashes followed, after which Mr Black once again left the guard outpost, still with clean shoes and neat suit. His tie was a degree or two askew, though, so he corrected it with one hand as he set off towards the home of the captain 5.

None of the stolen items were stored at the guardhouse, the guards had fought to the death rather than talk, and it was unlikely he had the time to drag them back to Professor Venenum, so tracking down their captain was the best bet. Alas, the items weren't at his home, either, and neither was he.

"Sorry, what?" asked Mr Canon, owner of Canon's siege, ballistics and artillery emporium 6.

"I said there's no need to wrap it. I'll use it here." Mr Canon gave a careful look at First Brother, and then at the freshly purchased, fifteen-foot trebuchet.

"As you say, sir," he agreed, with the usual Glimmerhome nonchalance of someone who had already been paid and didn't much care about the consequences. Then he watched on as First Brother donned a heavy backpack, carefully aimed the thing, turned the winch, and sat in the projectile bucket.

"If you would, please."

"As you say, sir," repeated Mr Canon, reaching for the release.

"Not the way I'd have chosen to commit suicide, but to each their own." Mr Black had made another logical leap, and hence was walking towards the Sprightly Street guard station. It was only a suspicion, but given the positioning of the cultists' little get-togethers combined with the way they were all guards, it seemed possible there was some sort of feud between the pair of outposts. He was thus optimally positioned to hear the shrieking.

"Now there's something you don't see every day," he muttered after looking up and seeing First Brother in free-fall, furiously mixing ingredients together in an upside-down chamber pot, screaming his head off the whole while. A second later, a crossbow bolt struck First Brother between the eyes. A few more seconds and his unfinished concoction and lifeless corpse splattered onto the floor. Mr Black smiled the smile of someone who had, once more, saved the day.

"So they planned to abuse this holy relic to get Graxilox all drugged up and unleash him on Glimmerhome?" asked Graxilox's local high priest, switching from one finger to the next as he completed a batch of a thousand press-ups." Why?" By way of answer, Mr Black gestured around the room. Given the numerous gods and their rather niche portfolios—resulting in low worshipper counts per god and hence low donations—many of the poorer congregations shared a building.

While the muscle-bound priest didn't let the news of the day's near-catastrophe interrupt his workout, neither did the priestess giving a sock-puppet show to a bunch of giggling children, nor the one meditating in the worm pit, nor most of the others engaged in their respective divine activities. The one nailed to the ceiling was at least paying attention, but only because there wasn't much else to do up there.

"A god told them to?" queried the priest?

"Which one? If it's that damned Jurgulez again, it's going to come to blows."

"No, I was just pointing out that nothing that is currently happening in this room makes sense, so why would you expect anything outside it to?" The priest gave a look of incomprehension, beads of sweat dripping from his chin as he continued his exercise.

"Never mind. Talking to the captain of the Sprightly Street guard station, I think there's just a lot of general unhappiness at the way guards don't actually do very much, between the guilds policing themselves and the Office dealing with anything Serious. Then the Sprightly Street station beat the Jaunty Street station at football—which was something Jaunty Street had historically been the champions of—emotions boiled over, and someone decided the best way to resolve it was to level the city."

"... Football? Seriously?"

"I have recently spoken to a man who developed an entirely new branch of magic to avenge a stolen sandwich."

"Really? I hope it was a good one. Bacon or something. Would be weird to go that far over cheese." Mr Black opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. It was a perpetual hazard of his job that he often needed to talk to people, but the more he talked to people, the less he felt they were worth the effort to keep saving. Continuing the line of questioning could cause him to finally abandon Glimmerhome.

"Well, thank you for your time, and please take better care of your relics. Or... well, any care really. I understand it had no protection whatsoever and was left on open display."

"We're fully paid up with the thieves' guild. We don't expect people to just walk in here and take stuff," complained the priest, switching finger again with a grunt of exertion. Mr Black held his tongue, wandering back out of the shared temple and onto the streets. Yes, Glimmerhome was a very silly place, but it was his silly place.

"It's a pain being the only sane person in a hundred miles," he muttered, once again straightening his tie, and then employing some very complicated spatial magic to step through a pile of manure. If there was one thing about Glimmerhome he wished he could change, it was the amount of effort he needed to put in to keeping his shoes shiny.

1 It's often said that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and likewise it was unfair to assume that just because someone placed a batch order for identity-concealing, easily washable clothing, they were up to no good. They might just be planning a really intense costume party. Nevertheless, many generations of evolution had taught the residents of Glimmerhome the importance of pessimism, and the vital role it played in not finding themselves tied to an altar with a knife through their heart.

2 Of course, an astute reader will spot the observational bias here. After all, given the sort of Serious Incidents dealt with by the Office, had he ever failed, he would no longer be around to experience the resulting humility. 3 The winner the previous year had been Mr Butcher the tailor, not so much because of his tailoring business, but because of what he'd threatened to do to the judges if he lost.

The description had been quite graphic and had displayed extensive knowledge of human anatomy, awing the assembled audience and proving his butchery skills beyond any doubt. 4 Unfortunately, despite extensive negotiations during the drafting of the treaty, the various religions were unable to come to any agreement on the selection of unique names for their respective afterlives.

5 In a fight between someone who sees the necessity of easily washable, carefully coloured clothing and someone who doesn't, always bet on the one who doesn't. 6 And also the one time winner of the Glimmerhome aptronym championship. He had, alas, been disqualified the following year on account of one of the judges knowing how to spell.