“Ah yes, I see. So this must be where the victim was murdered,” said Aeshma.

  Tatzel shot me an eye roll. At some point during our short walk from our quarters to the manor’s master bedroom just down the hall, Tatzel had started to take an interest in the investigation. She had perked up right around the time that Aeshma asked Lem how long he had known the deceased.

  “Y-yes, this is where it happened,” Lem said as he dabbed his eyes with his embroidered shirtsleeve. He was looking everywhere besides the body – which was still conspicuously sandwiched between the bed and the head of an enormous, heavy-looking mace. The victim looked almost peaceful, except for the fact that his chest was caved in. The blow had even cracked the bedframe. Bits of gore and viscera had leaked through and puddled on the floor.

  It was a pretty gross scene, but I didn’t have nearly the reaction I thought I would’ve. I guess I was inured to violence, after the whole ordeal with the Gremlins and the Mimics… and Aeshma’s exploded back, and the deer we’d hunted together, and the snake Carmichael…

  “That’s a great catch, Ae. Why don’t you ask him about the cause of death next?” suggested Tatzel.

  “C’mon, it’s pretty clear how the dude died. Someone got him with a mace, right – pow! Right in the chest,” Aeshma said, miming a mace swing.

  Lem sucked in a deep, ragged breath.

  Aside from the corpse, the room itself was quite nicely furnished. More attention had obviously been paid to the master bedroom than to the guest quarters the three of us had been provided. There was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, full of leather-bound, boring-looking books. On the opposite wall was a large cabinet of some sort, though strangely it seemed to be inset into the wall.

  A suit of decorative, enameled plate armor was displayed in one corner of the room, propped up on a wooden stand. Other artisanal blacksmithing works, all mounted on plaques, had been hung up on the walls. Beside the door there was a small, intricate dagger; on the opposite wall hung a silvery sword with the fanciest, swirliest crossguard I’d ever seen.

  And on the wall beside the door there hung an empty plaque, complete with an engraved metal label:

  1st place

  Dringel & Son

  Zone Two Biannual Smithing Contest, Mace & Flail Category

  Curiously, there were two separate beds in the room. Both were draped in silk sheets bearing the Dringel & Son logo, and had so many pillows it must’ve taken a whole flock of geese to stuff them all. Between the two beds there was a simple nightstand. The only things on it were an empty bowl (with spoon) and a vase of beautiful, though now gore-spattered, flowers.

  One of the beds was obviously occupied by the deceased. The other was empty but unmade, with its duvet hanging onto the floor and its pillows all in disarray.

  I figured the empty one must’ve been Anya’s bed… but why were Dringel and Anya sleeping separately? Were they having marital troubles? Did they perhaps have different mattress firmness preferences? I smoothed down my deerstalker cap deductively. This was something we’d have to get to the bottom of.

  “Oh, damn it all,” Lem said, letting out a long sigh. He finally had managed to look at his father’s body. “For Father to have died like this, in his own home… his own bed… and with that very mace… it’s almost too much to bear.”

  “Yeah, for sure dude,” Aeshma said. “Really terrible thing that happened here, right?” She frowned. “What do you mean, that very mace?”

  Lem sniffled. “It’s just… my father wasn’t a sentimental man, but that mace… he loved that mace. When Horlen finally joined the family business, the two of them entered a smithing contest to commemorate the occasion. He and Father forged the mace side-by-side, as a team. Horlen used his half of the prize money to have it mounted, and… and… oh, I can’t stand to stay in this wretched room!”

  Lem sobbed into his long sleeves, then ran out of the room in hysterics, slamming the door closed behind him.

  “Well, I think he probably did it.” Aeshma said matter-of-factly.

  “Who, Lem?” I asked. “Why would you think that when we haven’t even looked for clues yet? Look at the mace Dringel was killed by, the thing’s huge! You really think Lem could have lifted it?”

  “Look I’m just saying, the guy seemed awful sad. Too sad, you know? It’s, like… suspicious. Besides, I don’t think the mace even looks all that heavy. I bet even you could pick it up, Roland.” She scratched her chin. “Actually, why don’t you try to pick it up? That would tell us whether it was light enough for Lem to use, right?”

  She gestured for me to approach the corpse, but I hesitated. It’d been a long time since I’d been near a dead body, and… well, Becca’s hadn’t been mangled like this guy’s was. The smell was bad enough from where I stood in the doorway, and I wasn’t too keen on getting a noseful up-close. Aeshma’s idea made too much sense to ignore, though.

  I stepped gingerly towards Dringel’s bed. A floorboard creaked loudly beneath my feet and my gaze snapped towards the dead man, almost like I was worried the sound would wake him from his slumber. That was ridiculous, though. Dead was dead.

  I grabbed the haft of the mace with two hands. The knurled iron shaft was cold and spattered with Dringel’s blood. “Here goes nothing.” I flexed what passed for my core and tried to lift it. With a lot of effort I was able to raise the handle about a foot off the ground – but that was all. The head of the weapon rotated in Dringel’s chest with a gut-churning crunch, but I couldn’t lift it out.

  When I finally gave up, the butt-end of the mace crashed back into the floor with a loud, metallic clang.

  There was no way scrawny little Lem could’ve walloped his daddy with this thing.

  “Dude, is that all you got?” Aeshma asked, striding up to the weapon. She grabbed the handle one-handed and raised the mace effortlessly from Dringel’s body. “Okay, I see what you mean, though. It’s pretty hefty.” At first, it seemed like Aeshma was going to put the weapon back where it came from in Dringel’s chest. But apparently she thought better of it and propped it against the wall instead, beneath the empty plaque.

  Tatzel took a seat on Anya’s empty bed. She trailed her fingertips across the sheets and picked at the embroidery. “It’s peculiar, isn’t it, that Anya didn’t wake up during the murder? As the maid told it, Anya didn’t find her husband’s body until morning.”

  Hm… if the mace blow was hard enough to crack the bedframe, it must have been loud, too; much louder than when I dropped the handle. There was no way Anya could’ve slept through that kind of din. No one was that deep a sleeper.

  And there was something else, too. I bounced on my heels, making the floorboards creak loudly under my feet. It seemed impossible that an intruder could’ve snuck into the room without being detected, let alone smashed Dringel with a mace.

  Yet neither Anya nor Dringel had woken up.

  It got me thinking: had Dringel really been killed with the mace? If he had been poisoned, or killed some other way, the killer could’ve planted the mace after his death. But the bedframe was cracked and splintered, so clearly the mace had been used at some point, regardless of whether it was the murder weapon.

  Tatzel wordlessly stood up and approached the weapon. She closed her eyes and ran her hands across the handle. Then she frowned and sat back down.

  “Uh… what was it you just did?” I asked.

  “Checking for magic. But I didn’t detect anything. It’s unlikely that anyone used a spell or enchantment on the weapon in the past twenty-four hours.”

  Aeshma sucked in the air between her teeth. “So you’re saying Anya killed her husband with the mace!”

  Tatzel sighed. “Uh, no, that’s definitely not what I’m saying. Almost the opposite, in fact.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Yeah Aeshma, if I can’t lift the mace, Lady Anya definitely couldn’t have,” I said. “Her arms were noodlier than Lem’s! How could she have lifted it without using magic?”

  The Succubus shrugged. “It just sounded like you guys were implicating the wife, I guess, what with her not waking up. Wait… that is kinda fishy though, isn’t it?”

  Tatzel folded her arms indignantly. “Yes, which is precisely why I pointed it out in the first place! Now we need to go interrogate Anya as to how she allegedly slept through a noisy murder. Not to mention, what the deal is with them sleeping in separate beds.”

  Aeshma nodded, stroking her chin in thought. “What if… what if there wasn’t a murder? What if Dringel’s… faking?”

  My eyes flicked to the corpse. “Expand on that,” I said.

  “No, please don’t,” said Tatzel irritably, before once again falling into taciturn silence.

  I guess it was time to track down Anya, then. I turned to leave the room… but there was something still wigging me out. That recessed cabinet in the wall. Why build a single, recessed cabinet in your bedroom? It didn’t seem like the extra storage space was worth it. I swung the cabinet door open to investigate… but it wasn’t even a cabinet. The door opened into a vertical stone shaft. It was empty except for a set of ropes hanging from some kind of pulley system just above my eye-level.

  “Are you two seeing this?” I asked.

  “Yes, the wealthy business owners have a dumbwaiter in their room. It’s very impressive,” said Tatzel.

  I stuck my head into the dumbwaiter to get a better look. The shaft seemed to descend all the way to the ground floor. It smelled really intensely like food inside, like onions sauteeing in butter, and the faint sounds of sizzling and chopping were echoing up the shaft. The dumbwaiter must’ve led straight to the kitchens. I leaned my torso further down to get another whiff… and almost fell in.

  There was nothing to stop me from falling straight down to the ground floor. My whole body could’ve easily fit inside.

  That’s it! “The killer could’ve snuck in through the dumbwaiter!” I exclaimed.

  Aeshma gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth. Tatzel looked at me dully. “So what? That doesn’t solve anything. The killer could’ve just as easily walked through the bedroom door, too.”

  “Before we go, can we call dibs on who we think did it?” Aeshma asked. “My money’s on that business rival guy, Dracorn. He couldn’t stand how successful Dringel was, and he killed him out of jealousy!”

  Now that I was thinking about it, I guess maybe Dracorn could’ve done it, too. With his weird, v-shaped body, he definitely looked strong enough to have swung the mace.

  Tatzel sighed. “What’s the point of doing this if you’re just going to jump randomly between suspects?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you accuse Dringel of not really being dead like a minute ago? And before that, didn’t you accuse Lem?” I asked. “Anyway, my money’s on the older son, Horlen. He and Dringel were arguing the night before, the murder weapon has some kind of sentimental value to him, and he’s probably strong enough to have done it.” I closed the dumbwaiter door.

  “So who do you think did it, Tatzel?”

  “It’s far too early to speculate… but I suppose Horlen is a perfectly viable suspect.”

  “Can I change my answer?” Aeshma asked. “Because now I’m totally with you guys on this Horlen dude. Maybe we should go find him and get him to confess–”

  “The wife! Let’s go talk with the wife!” Tatzel shouted.

  –

  We found Anya in the parlor, slumped over in the same cushy armchair we’d left her in. The only sign she wasn’t totally catatonic was that she occasionally sipped a fancy beverage out of the cocktail glass she was holding. When she saw the three of us descending the stairs, she startled and sat herself more upright.

  “You have our condolences, Miss Anya. Whatever they’re worth, coming as they are from a bunch of strangers,” Tatzel said. She was trying to sound earnest, but in my opinion it came off as smarmy. “I realize that we never formally introduced ourselves. I’m Tatzel.”

  “Roland,” I said with a little wave.

  “Aeshma.”

  Anya shook each of our hands in turn. Her handshake was shaky yet firm.

  “Now, ma’am, I know you’ve been through a lot, but would you be so kind as to answer a few questions for us? It would really help expedite our investigation,” said Tatzel.

  “If it’ll help catch my husband’s killer, then yes. Go ahead and ask.”

  Aeshma cleared her throat. “Ahem, yes, well–”

  I’d be damned if Aeshma was going to take a second turn interviewing people, when she promised I could have the next one. “Thanks, that’s very helpful of you!” I loudly interrupted. “We heard from two different sources that your husband was fighting with Horlen last night. Do you know anything about that? Like, what the details of the fight might have been?”

  Aeshma glared at me. She wasn’t going to give up control of the interrogation without a fight. “We’re not, like, implying that your son killed your husband or anything like that,” Aeshma said, stepping forward slightly to physically block me out of the conversation. “But it’s interesting that their fight happened so close to the murder, you know?”

  “Yes, it is interesting, but not conclusive by any means, ma’am, so no need to worry. Just a point we need some clarity on,” I called to Anya over Aeshma’s shoulder.

  Anya raised her eyes as though she was really looking at the three of us for the first time. Then she let out a sad, but heartfelt chuckle. “I’m sorry, it’s just… Horlen, a suspect in the murder? You don’t understand, Horlen adored his father, ever since he was a boy. He hung on Dringel’s every word, even followed in his footsteps by joining the family smithing business! The day it went from Dringel to Dringel & Son… well, it was the best day of Horlen’s life. And Dringel’s too, even though he didn’t always show it.”

  She drained her cocktail potion and set the empty glass down on the side table. “Well. I didn’t hear the two of them arguing last night, but I don’t doubt that it happened. Their fights have been a frequent occurrence of late. Not about anything personal, you understand, just about the business.”

  “What are the arguments about? Like, specifically?” I asked.

  “About what to do with the company. Dringel was ready to retire, and needed someone to take the reins. Horlen’s got a strong arm and a good heart… but he doesn’t have a mind for business. And the smithing business is a business, above all.”

  “Horlen knew he wasn't ready to take over. He was begging Dringel to hold out a little longer, so that he could learn the ropes. But Dringel couldn’t wait any longer. That’s why he called this meeting with Dracorn: to finally sell the business.”

  She sighed deeply. “I… I can’t help but feel responsible for all this. Dringel wanted to retire so that the two of us could spend more time together. If I hadn’t pushed him to call this meeting, maybe he’d still be alive. We’d dreamed of a retirement lounging on the beaches of Zone Four. But n-now… I guess it will never be. Oh, Dringel...”

  Aeshma’s eyes went wide with realization. “Oooh! Guys, guys! If they love each other so much, why do they sleep in two separate beds!”

  “Aeshma!” scolded Tatzel. “I must apologize for the Succubus, Lady Anya. She’s clearly forgotten her Queen-given manners.”

  Anya laughed and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “It’s quite alright. One cannot expect perfect social graces during a murder investigation.”

  Tatzel paused delicately. “Ah. But perhaps you’ll still answer my compatriot’s question?”

  Anya cleared her throat. “We slept apart because Dringel was always getting up during the night. Coming to our country estate made him restless, he said. I'm a light sleeper, so he had a second bed commissioned so that he could get up without waking me. He was always so c-considerate….”

  Anya shuddered a few times before breaking down into a proper ugly sob.

  “Nice work, you two. Look how upset you made her!” I hissed.

  Tatzel scowled at me. “We still need answers,” she said quietly. “If anything, the fact that Anya’s a light sleeper makes it more suspicious that she didn’t wake up during the murder.”

  “Ooooooh Dringel! Oh my sweet husband!” Anya cried. We waited for her to finish before continuing our hushed conversation.

  “I don’t think we’re gonna get a lot of information out of her in this state, but I guess we can try?” I stepped towards Anya and gingerly patted her on the shoulder. “I’m very sorry about your loss, ma’am. Um… we have some more questions for you, if–?”

  BWAAAAAAH! Anya wailed.

  “Okay. We’ll come back later, maybe.”

  I indicated for Aeshma and Tatzel to follow me out of the room so we could talk in private. The door we went through led to a small walk-in closet full of toiletries, which wasn’t very comfortable but was good enough to hold a conversation in.

  “So, that did not go super well,” Aeshma said as she leaned against a shelf stacked with decorative soaps.

  Tatzel was grinding her teeth. “If you hadn’t blurted out that we noticed the separate beds, maybe we would have extracted more information from her.”

  “You don’t believe her story about the two beds? You still think she and Dringel were having problems?” I asked.

  Tatzel shrugged noncommittally. “Why didn’t the murder wake her up? Until we have our answer, I have to believe that Anya was complicit. And I’m not going to simply take her word for it that she didn’t have a motive.”

  The three of us mulled over what we’d learned and what we still hadn’t. My stomach grumbled loudly; we hadn’t eaten anything since those grillberry sweetrolls. After a few minutes of contemplation I couldn’t take it anymore. “Man, I’m starving. Agita said she was putting a meal on for us, right?” I asked.

  That perked Aeshma right up. “Oh yeah! Whaddaya say, Tatz? Take a break from the investigation, go grab a bite to eat from the kitchens?”

  Tatzel frowned. “I suppose some food couldn’t hurt.”

  Jie chirruped his agreement from on top of my head, and that settled it. Together we all exited the closet.

  Dringel & Son Smithy and Supplies

  ----------------------------------------------------

  Business level 15

  Leadership structure: Owner-run

  Business locations: Zones 1-3

  Perks:

  Smithy - Quickens the smithing process for items made with business owned machines.

  Mundane quality booster (moderate) - Increases the base stats of non magical items produced with business owned machines.

  Alloy stabilizer- Alloys created with business owned machines have a reduced failure rate.