This story is a preliminary version and subject to updates and further editing over time. It is meant as a guide for writers to get a clearer picture of the world of Mistforge and the personalities of the main cast. 

Alaric turned the valve until the pressure gauge read precisely 15 Kf—enough to force the elixir from its gaseous state into a low-viscosity liquid state, its most precarious form. The orange gas condensed on the sides of the bell-shaped glass, dripping down into the final chamber. Steam breathed out as the chamber vacuumed the last remaining vapor and thickened the mixture, turning it a deep purple. He wiped the sweat from his brow as the timer clicked down to zero.

“Transfer the containment unit to the dispenser,” he ordered.

The parameters needed for the automaton to follow that task took longer than he spent developing the elixir, but he needed the precision of the bot to avoid jostling its contents during the process.

The automaton obeyed, walking on seven carefully calibrated legs that adjusted with every step to ensure the mixture stayed flat and still. More steam filled the room as the magisteam core powered the automaton and proceeded with its pre-programmed set of instructions. Alaric wiped the sweat from his brow.

Its arms rested on either side of the container. Clamp-like fingers tightened, sealing its contents before unscrewing it from the rest of the apparatus.

Everything proceeded as expected until the door to his lab burst open, which missed slamming into the bot but less than the length of his nose.

“Stop!” he screamed out. “You nearly killed us both, you idiot!”

The burly ogre woman leaped backward, landing hard on the dilapidated wood floor inside her workshop, with enough force to shake the bot slightly.

Alaric sucked in a deep breath, fearing the worst, but the bot compensated for the movement and proceeded to the dispenser without issue. He blew out the air held in his lungs and threw up both hands. “Just… don’t move. Wait there for two more minutes.”

Griselda nodded and stood motionless as a statue.

“I told you not to enter when I’m brewing the elixir,” Alaric reminded her calmly.

“I forgot,” she replied.

Alaric rolled his eyes. When it came time for building custom automatons, Griselda became a genius with a hammer. Outside of her work, she remained as clueless as one of her creations.

The little bot screwed the container into the dispenser and attached a long, slender glass tube to the bottom of the ball-shaped copper tank. The purple elixir, now a thickened sludge, pulled into the vial. When it filled, Alaric flipped the switch on the side, pressing the stopper over the tube, sealing its contents and eliminating the immediate danger. He held his breath, pulled the test tube out, and examined the seal for any signs of a leak. There was none.

He sighed, letting the breath out slowly, and waved Griselda into the room. “Now, what was so important that it was worth risking our lives over?”

Griselda coughed, “Well, maybe not important, but still incredible. Been playing with that supposed magic core benefactor gave us—”

“—and it turned out to be rubbish, I’m guessing.”

The ogre shook her head. “Actually, it’s doing something new.”

Alaric raised his brow a little more intrigued. Griselda had fashioned automatons with every kind of core: leaf, branch, trunk, bark, root… For her to be surprised, this core had to be special. “Oh? How so?”

“Gidget, c’mere!” she called out behind her.

A series of clanks and pops echoed in the hall as another bot entered the room.

Alaric shifted his stance. “It’s not wise to have a bot that is not properly calibrated inside this room.”

Griselda smiled. “Gidget, kick Mr. Grump in his shin.”

The bot obliged in an instant, leaving no time for Alaric to react before its metal leg slammed into his.

“Ow! Son of a half-troll! Why would you code that action?”

Griselda’s grin twisted wider. “Gidget, shake his hand and apologize.”

The bot obliged, extended a hand, closed it slowly until it held Alaric’s and gently shook it a few times. Its head bent over into an apologetic bow.

“Is this a prank or something? What was the point of all this?”

“Go on. Say name and give command. Something I not have coded.”

Alaric’s eyes widened. “Not possible.”

Griselda laughed. “Yep.”

Alaric stared at the automaton, which barely came up to his waist. “Gidget, spin in a circle.” The bot obeyed. “Gidget, rip this bot’s arm off.” He watched in horror and excitement as it ripped and pulled at the bot’s arm until its joints squealed. He turned to Griselda. “No parameter-setting? No code-punching?”

“Nope.”

Alaric blinked. The squeal became a screech as the joints threatened to give. “That’s enough. Stop.”

The bot kept pulling.

“I said stop!” It jerked harder.

“Gidget, stop,” Griselda said, saying the name first, and the bot complied.

“Remarkable.” He bent over and looked at the gears and cogs clicking away inside and the shimmer of a core in its metal chest. “So what kind of core is it?”

Griselda beamed. “Gidget, good job.”

The robot gazed up at her, raised its arms into the air and did a quick spin.

“Did it just…” His voice trailed off.

“A lifecore,” Griselda whispered.

“Incredible. Have you told him yet?”

“Of course. He wants a test: Nicholas Atwood.”

Alaric allowed his lips to crack a smile. “Will he be giving more for this unusual task?”

Griselda beamed. “I did not need ask; he paying double.”

“How very generous.” He held up his elixir and looked at the bot. “Think you can get it to work with anything bigger?”

“Already got you,” she replied. 

Knight’s Inspector Valerius Hennerough sighed as lifted the rope and allowed his newest rookie detective, Knight’s Seargeant Ellie Bennett, into the well-contaminated crime-scene. Bennet, a human woman about two heads taller than the unusually short elf, ducked to climb under his arm’s highest reach. Several constables wandered about while bright white smoke billowed from the lumber mill’s chimney. Loud bangs clanged from mechanized gears cranking and spinning large saws to turn trees into lumber.

“Tell me, Bennett, what have the constables here already done to earn my ire?”

The knight’s sergeant paused, looking around. “There are too many people around the body, disturbing the surrounding area. The lumber mill is still operating, with workers roaming about.”

“Good. What else?”

She pressed her chin for a time. “I don’t know, Inspector.”

“Hmm,” Hennerough grunted in reply. “Come. I’ll show you.” He approached the white sheet covering what could only be the victim. “Constable!”

The massive ogre patrolman stomped over, leaned over, and saluted down. “Yes, Inspector?” His deep voice echoed over Hennerough.

The knight’s inspector wasn’t one to judge a being based on size or race, but protocol mattered. “I assume you found the body with this sheet on top of him?”

The patrolman fumbled with his words. “Um, well… we thought it best to keep the family and public from seeing.”

“And destroy precious evidence, no?”

“Oh.”

“What have you learned so far?”

The ogre whipped out a massive notepad sized for his hands. “The victim is Nicholas Atwood, the owner of the Atwood Logging Company. His son, Ralph, found the body and called it in.”

“And?”

The patrolman frowned and rechecked his notes. “That’s all we have so far.” Hennerough took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Fine. Go back into the mill and shut off all that blasted machinery. Get those workers’ statements, then get them out of here. Understand?”

“Yes, Inspector!” The ogre saluted once more and sauntered off, gently shaking the ground beneath the inspector’s feet.

Hennerough shook his head. “Bennett. Help me remove the cover and try to disturb as little as possible.”

The rookie eagerly circled around to the opposite side and grabbed the corners of the sheet.

“Now, raise it slowly.” Together they lifted the sheet, only for Bennett to shriek and let go of the sheet, which slid across the victim. Hennerough grunted and yanked the sheet hard to salvage what he could.

The body was bright purple.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, trying not to look. “I just wasn’t ready for… well, that.”

“It’s alright, Sergeant. Now, focus and tell me what you see.”

Bennett took a few more glances to adjust but forced herself to face the crime scene and to treat is as such. Hennerough nodded, seeing the change in her expression.

“The skin is a deep purple hue, but the victim is definitely human.” She bent over and gently pressed her finger into the skin on one arm, which turned white. “The substance is in his bloodstream. Possibly injected. We’d need a closer look back at the Keep for any injection sites.”

Hennerough tilted his head and gazed at the victim’s face. He lowered his goggles over his eyes and adjusted the magnification. Using tweezers, he pulled the front of the victim’s shirt out. “Injection, you say… It’s possible. How else could this have happened?”

Bennett looked around. “There’s some residue on the ground and a little over his mouth. Maybe he ingested something.”

“Getting there. What else?”

The rookie frowned. He let her study a while longer until he spotted the frustration of someone eager to succeed and bemoaned to fail. “Check his nostrils,” he offered.

She complied. “Oh.” She pulled his shirt down enough to expose the chest. A dark purple pattern spread out in spider-like veins from his lungs to the rest of the body. “He inhaled it.”

“Very observant.”

“I’m sorry, Inspector. I should have spotted that.”

“Nonsense. If you’d spotted everything, what would be left for me to teach you?” He cracked a smirk and winked.

The tension lifted from her shoulders, and she smiled back.

She unclipped her magaemeter from her belt and waved it over the body and anywhere she spotted the purple substance along the ground.

The needle on the pocket watch-like device twitched here and there. “I’m detecting trace amounts of magical energy, but barely above background levels,” she noted. “Perhaps a wizard was involved?”

Hennerough held in a chuckle and shook his head. “There hasn’t been a wizard seen in public since before I was born a couple of centuries ago. Rookies always love the wizard theory, but it never is.” He lifted one lens on his goggles and lowered a different one with a yellow hue. Gold shimmered in the loose gravel on the ground around the victim. He gently dabbed a bit of the slick rock and squished it between his fingers. “Oil,” he commented.

“From the mill?” Bennett asked.

“Possibly, but this feels less like industrial lubricant. More like the refined stuff they use for more sensitive contraptions.”

“Or an automaton, perhaps?”

Hennerough didn’t hold back his laughter this time. “Coding a bot to commit a murder would be like trying to teach your grandmother about the magae-physical coefficient to build a bot of her own. He laughed again. More likely, some kretz put together a homemade mechanical weapon with a small core to produce this… stuff.”

Bennett didn’t seem convinced. “What magical element could create that?”

Hennerough furrowed his brow. “I honestly don’t know. Hopefully, Everson will have more insights on that. For now, let’s go have a chat with the family.”

Two days later, Hennerough and Bennet leaned over their office-bound counterpart inside the Keep—the Knight Patrol’s headquarters responsible for the Central District at the heart of the city of Mistforge and oversight for investigations within the greater area. Despite the outer walls retaining much of the original stone architecture, complete with battlement fortifications from early histories, within the massive tower was a building filled with office workstations illuminated by dim green glass lamps on each desk and brighter lights hanging down from the ceiling and dangling over their heads.

Knight’s Inspector Durathol Everson was rarely in a good mood, and this day was no different. The human-dwarf hybrid scrunched up his long nose, rubbing it with his finger, before scooping up several papers from his desk, bouncing them on their edges until they came together neatly. He handed it off to Bennett, who pinched a corning of the report between two fingers and curled her lip.

Hennerough read the look on her face and opted to take the pages from her.

Everson seemed not to notice. “I have no clue on Aethos where this purple stuff comes from, but it’s a marvel.”

“How so?”

Everson snatched the papers back from him and shuffled to a page in the middle and pointed at a bunch of meaningless numbers paired with an exponential graph. “If you heat it enough, the stuff turns into a lethal gas that spreads quickly. Too quickly. Almost found out the hard way.”

He shivered and stuck out his tongue. Small purple lines spread out across it.

“Eyrwen’s Bow, Dur!” Hennerough exclaimed. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

He waved it off. “Fine; fine. I only used a pin-drop’s worth. I’ll be okay, but if it had even been a gram’s worth of the stuff, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If this new weapon hits the streets broadly…” He shuddered. “Let’s just say start practicing holding your breath.”

Hennerough nodded. “Would a mask help?”

Everson shrugged. “If you could get your hands on an air-core filtered mask, sure. But last I checked, Knight Patrol didn’t have that kind of budget.”

Hennerough sighed. “How about the oil? Did you find anything?”

Everson smiled and pointed a finger straight up. “Now, there, I can give you a little more.” He mixed the pages of his report around again. Any semblance of order to the pages vanished in the shuffle. “Here. The oil comes from a specific lubricant brand used almost exclusively in automatons.”

Bennett grew excited, but Hennerough waved his hand down to temper her excitement. “What else might use this oil?”

Everson rubbed his chin. “You could use it for just about any gear or cog that needs to move, but the refinement needed for automatons to work right is a special grade. Using it for anything else would be an expensive waste.”

“Hmm,” Hennerough replied and took a moment to think.

“I suppose some of the wealthier lot might use it in some high-end pocket watches.”

“That sounds more promising,” Hennerough said. “We’ll check out some of the more exclusive jewelry stores and see if we can find a match.”

Bennett frowned but nodded.

“Got any suspects?” Everson asked.

“A few disgruntled current and ex-employees, but the son is the primary—Ralph Atwood, human male, aged twenty-six. Set to inherit his father’s company upon his death, but employees have suggested they had a falling out recently.”

Bennett perked up. “Why would a logger’s son buy an expensive watch?”

Everson chuckled. “You’d be amazed what these kretzes will do with money they don’t even have yet. That’s how we catch half of them.”

The door to his office burst open with Chief Inspector Sasha Narrows entering. The late middle-aged woman’s grey hairs stuck out at odd ends every which way as they escaped from the bun she’d tied in the back. Her expression revealed no possibility of a light discussion. “We've got another body matching the logger case. You’ve got two hours to get to the site and give me a report for the newsies.”

“The newsies?” Bennett asked. “Why would we need to give them a statement this early?”

“The victim is Mayor Arthur Windlass.” 

“What time was Mayor Windlass assassinated?”

“Are there any suspects yet?”

“An inside source suggests the mayor’s death is related to the recent murder of Nicholas Atwood. Would you care to comment?”

Hennerough pushed through the crowd of newsies surrounding Castle’s entrance. “No comment,” he replied to each. Twice, he needed to double back and extract Sergeant Bennett from a gang of press cutting her off.

“I don’t—we can’t say—that’s not what,” she stammered.

“Ignore them, Sergeant,” he ordered, grabbing her arm and yanking her away. Once through the main archway, the doors closed behind them, cutting them off from the noise of the crowd.

“That was brutal,” Bennett commented.

“You expect anything less today?” Hennerough responded.

“Not really.”

The lobby of the Castle building matched exactly what you’d expect of the ancient palace, filled with expensive portraits, statues, and various collections of historical artifacts. Tapestries draped down over archways and intersections. Typically, at this time of day, noisy tourists would fill the lower floors. They followed Castle’s security guards into the staff lift. Large gold gears twisted around as the doors closed and locked with a loud clang. A crank echoed as a large chain rotated around over their heads and carried them to the upper levels of the Castle building, where local politicians and staffers kept their offices.

As they entered the mayor’s office, Hennerough was pleased to find security had left the crime scene intact. The mayor lay dead on the floor with the same ghastly purple hue coursing through his skin. Oil stained the carpet in a line leading to a piece of metal clinging to the mayor’s hand. He bent over and pulled back the darkened fingers until he could extract the object.

He rotated it around in his hand, examining from every angle, each only causing his frown to deepen. Three metal prongs connected to a base joint like fingers in a hand.

“I told you,” Bennett said with a slight smirk.

The inspector cringed but couldn’t deny what he held up in front of him—an automaton hand.

“Murder bot,” she whispered.

“If that’s true. The residents of Mistforge are in danger.” 

With the pressure on Inspector Hennerough’s shoulders to solve the mayor’s murder, he, Bennett, and Everson combed through the case files and old newsprints searching for any thread to pull.

Hennerough drove his hydromobile up the path of the Willian Estate, where a wrought-iron fence barred them from proceeding up to the mansion. He dampened the valve leading to the magisteam engine, allowing the billowing white smoke to clear from its ventilation pipes and the engine to shut down.

As he stepped up to the gate, he wondered if knocking would draw anyone’s attention from this distance. He didn’t see any staff around outside, save for a dozen bots busying themselves with their tasks and unable to perform something so complicated as answering a knock at their door. But as he raised a hand to the metal gates, a flash of green scales jumped into view on the far side, accompanied by a long hiss.

Both detectives leaped back, startled by the reptilian woman’s sudden appearance.

“Sir Knights,” she said, lowering her scaled head into a soft bow. “I am Scylla Asoklu, Archibald Willian’s personal administrative assistant. I was not aware of a meeting scheduled for today with the estate. Might I inquire as to your presence?”

Hennerough recovered his neutral expression as best he could. “I apologize if it is inconvenient, but we would like to ask Mr. Willian some questions related to an ongoing case.”

“Oh dear, I hope nothing too serious,” she muttered with a soft tut of her spiked tongue. “However, it would be most difficult to arrange an audience.”

“I see.” It was easy enough for Hennerough to recognize the tone of finality to her words, so he needed to switch tactics. “Then perhaps you might answer our questions, Ms. Asoklu—as Mr. Willian’s personal administrative assistant.”

Her vertical eye-slits blinked. “Of course, I have a few moments and will answer what I can for you.”

Hennerough stared at the still-closed iron gate. “Perhaps we could discuss this inside?”

“I’m afraid I’m not prepared to offer you tea today, Inspector. Perhaps you could just ask what you’ve come here to learn so that you can be on your way.”

He frowned, but nodded. “Bennett, take notes, please.”

The rookie whipped out her notepad and pocket quill. “Ready.”

“We found an old newsprint article that detailed Mr. Willian’s request to the mayor to ease restrictions on logging in the Shadowvale Forest about two seasons back. Do you recall this?”

Ms. Asoklu’s facial expression gave no hint of reaction to the question. She blinked and allowed her tongue to taste the air once more. “Logging in Shadowvale… I suppose there was something along those lines. Mr. Willian wished to utilize the natural gifts in the trees grown within for business. But since the mayor rejected the idea outright, he tabled the project for the time being. Was there anything else?”

Bennett’s hand danced over the paper with quick flicks of her wrist to scribble every word of the woman’s reply. “Was Nicholas Atwood one of his business partners then?”

Hennerough might not have asked so directly, but it was a valid question.

“Atwood?” she turned up her nose to the sky and sniffed. “I know I’ve heard the name recently, but I can’t recall where.”

Hennerough coughed and gently eased the rookie back a step. “He was a logger. If Mr. Willian was getting involved in the logging business, he would need an actual logger, would he not?”

Catching a reptilian’s smirk was difficult but not impossible. The tiniest corner of her mouth, where two scales fused into one at the joint, pulled back slightly. “I’m sure you’re right, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know of any loggers involved with the estate at the present moment. And sadly, I’ve run out of time to entertain your questions further. But should you require more information, do reach out in advance so that we may include you in our schedule next time, yes? Good day, detectives.”

With that, she turned from the gate and headed back to the estate.

“She’s hiding something,” Bennett muttered as she finished jotting down the last of the conversation.

“Of course she is,” Hennerough replied with a sigh as he staggered back to the hydro. “Old money types like them always do. The question becomes, are they hiding something related to the murders of Nicholas Atwood and Mayor Windlass, or just the usual crimes of the elite?”

Bennett raised an eyebrow at her mentor. “I’m surprised you’d think that way, considering you’re a—”

She didn’t finish the thought, but Hennerough did for her. “A Northland Elf, yes. That’s exactly why I know how they think.” He decided not to add that it’s also why he left the Northlands the moment he came of age. “Let’s just hope our next lead can give us something more useful.” 

“First time in the ghetto, Bennett?” Hennerough asked, noting her anxious glances out the window of the hydro.

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Relax. Despite its reputation, the Krazberd Ghetto has its charms… and some of the best food in the city.”

They passed a food stand with what could only be a dire rat on a rotisserie spit slowly turning over a coal fire. Bennett’s face turned a shade of green, causing Hennerough to laugh. “Don’t judge it until you’ve tasted it.”

Bennett shot him a glare. “I thought elves didn’t eat meat.”

“Depends on the race and lineage. It’s more of a custom than a dietary requirement. Although I will admit that some of the best-tasting food sometimes comes with the risk of the worst stomach aches you’ll ever experience. That’s the risk you take here.” A store sign hung from a metal fence just ahead of them: Griselda’s Automative Bots Sale and Repair. “Looks like that’s the place,” he said and pulled into the parking lot.

The exterior of the shop gave off the impression it had been abandoned decades ago, but the lights inside were on, and the oversized entry door was open. Inside, the workshop looked more like a junkyard. Scraps of metal piled in heaps every few feet, and they couldn’t see the walls behind hundreds of completed and partially completed automatons.

The ground thumped slightly as a large ogre woman approached them. Bennett moved her hand to her pistol instinctively, but Hennerough quickly covered her hand and shook his head.

“Knight Patrol?” she asked and gave them a sharp eye. “What you want?”

“Sorry for the intrusion, madam,” he said in a sweetly polite voice, “but we came looking for your services and expertise.”

The ogre’s glare lingered a moment longer, then softened into a crooked smile. “Always happy to help paying customers. What do you need?”

“I have what looks to be a severed automaton hand that may have come from your shop. Do you recognize it?”

Bennett held up the appendage for the ogre, who lifted it up to her face and sneered. “Some customer trashed one of my good bots then? Gonna arrest them for me?”

“Not quite as such, but you can confirm then that this is, in fact, an automaton’s hand?”

She scratched her chin, not replying for a while. “Look like, but not,” she said, dropping the piece back into Bennett’s arms, who caught it with a huff as the weight impacted her grasp.

“Oh?”

Griselda nodded. “This a hydromobile crank. Special. Custom. But not bot.”

“I see. Is there anything more you can tell us?”

Griselda crossed her enormous arms. “You said you was paying customer.”

“My apologies again.” Hennerough bowed, then reached into his pocket and pulled out two silvers. When he noted the ogre’s reaction, he pulled out another two and placed them into her palm.

She leaned down and whispered. “This expensive piece. You looking for rich one.”

“Interesting. Are you familiar with a Mr. Archibald Willian?”

The ogre’s face curled into a knot. “Don’t know.” Her reaction seemed genuine.

“Can I ask you a small hypothetical about automatons?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Is it possible to code a bot to find a specific person and attack them?”

Griselda frowned hard, forcing her lower pointed teeth to rise over her mouth. “Not possible. Too much code needed.” She stood up and walked away without saying another word.

“That’s it?” Bennett asked, clearly irked. “That’s all you have to say?”

“It’s all right,” Hennerough said. “I think we got more information than she intended to give away. Let’s get back to the Keep for now and turn in our latest report.” 

“Hennerough! Bennett! Get in here now!”

The chief inspector’s voice came from across the office, yet reached their ears with no trouble. Bennett scrambled into the office, but Hennerough took his time. Over the years, he’d learned well the lesson, “If you’re going to be chewed out either way, then there’s no need to rush.”

He entered Chief Inspector Narrows’ office behind Bennett and closed the door.

“You went to the Willian estate without going through me?” she asked, but it wasn’t a question so much as a targeted accusation.

“We just went to ask him a few questions,” Bennett said defensively. “We weren’t accusing him of a crime or anything.”

“Nevertheless, I’ve just been on the wire with Archibald Willian’s personal administrative assistant demanding answers about why the Knight Patrol thought it reasonable to show up unannounced demanding answers. At the very least, you should know better, Val.”

Hennerough smiled and nodded. “I would expect nothing less from that estate.” He neither agreed nor confronted the chief’s argument.

“Did you at least find anything out from that potentially career-ending visit?”

“A little. Nothing arrest-worthy yet.”

Chief Narrows scoffed. “A little. Well, if he was your chief suspect in the murders, I’m sorry to inform you that Willian’s lawyers have already put together a complete timeline of his whereabouts for the last two weeks as a ‘gesture of good faith.’”

“Funny that,” Hennerough commented. “I mentioned no crime or event. Why did he suddenly need to send an alibi?”

“You mentioned logging. Atwood’s murder was all over the newsprints. It wasn’t hard to make the connection, I’m sure. Now, let me be clear, Val, Bennett. Stay away from Willian unless you come to me first with evidence. Understood?”

Bennett saluted so hard she knocked her hat off. She picked it up hastily and fled from the room.

Hennerough responded with a wink and closed the door behind him.

“My first bloody week as a detective, and I already got chewed out by the chief,” Bennett grumbled as they got back into the hydro. “I should have said something, or realized sooner. I should have—”

“Done exactly what we did then and in the Chief’s office. Sasha just needed to keep up appearances in case there’s some snoop in the office.” He flicked the core starter, and white puffs of fresh steam rose from the exhaust pipe leading into the engine. He kicked the lever into gear, and the vehicle pulled forward with a pop and click as it warmed up.

“I noticed you and the chief are on a first-name basis,” Bennett commented. “I take it you’ve worked together for a while now?”

“Since our Knights Academy days,” he replied with a laugh. “And she’s been the boss of me at least that long. Serves us well, though. She keeps me in line when I go too far and lets me loose when I need to go farther. Just don’t mention that around her.”

Bennett grinned. “I won’t. But it sounds like you’re good friends.”

“Most days,” he agreed. “Having a friend for a boss can be challenging when harsh orders need to be given. We’ve had our share of bitter arguments.”

“So, where are we headed now? Back to the Willian Estate?”

Hennerough shook his head. “That would be like trying to get honey from a hive you just kicked. I don’t think we’ll get anything useful.” He turned down the street leading back to the Krazberd Ghetto.

“The bot tinkerer?”

He nodded. “That arm spooked her. And it definitely was not some custom hydro crank. She knows something and isn’t sharing. So let’s just keep an eye on her for a bit. You good for possibly a long boring night?”

Bennett smiled. “As long as you brought snacks.”

“I would think that should be the rookie’s job,” he replied but chuckled. “Side compartment.”

Bennett opened the latch in front of her, and a drawer filled with sweet and salty noshes spilled out onto her lap.

“That should last us a few hours, I think,” he commented.

She extracted a packet or two and shoveled the rest back into the box. “This should last us a month!” 

They didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes after Griselda flipped the front sign on the shop from Open to Closed, a dark figure approached from around the corner and followed Griselda into the shop and shut off the lights.

The sun had set only a couple of hours before, but the streets were dark. He expected the rookie to need a nudge to pay attention, but her eyes were alert, her goggles on, with the night-view lenses in place.

“Male, appears human. He’s wearing a long black cloak. Dark hair, possibly black. Hooked nose in the front.”

Hennerough stared at her. “Well done, Sergeant.” She’d been paying closer attention than he had.

A single light remained on in the workshop, barely visible from a side window. It flickered occasionally, but offered no other sign of movement within. Time passed long enough for Hennerough to wonder if that was just a roommate and the two simply slept inside the place.

The door finally reopened halfway through the night, but neither the human male nor Griselda exited through it. Instead, an automaton, roughly the size of a grown man, exited the shop and started sauntering down the street on a single wheel with all the purpose of a well-coded bot.

“Here we go,” Hennerough said softly, starting up the hydro. He kept pace behind the automaton, making sure not to trigger any kind of recognition response, just in case. He still didn’t think that was possible, but so far, the machine had traversed the roads, leading back out of the ghetto with the precision of a local resident, something he didn’t think possible.

It took nearly an hour, but the bot made its way to the Willian Estate.

“Still think he’s not involved?” Bennett asked with a wry grin.

“It would seem they are in fact connected in some way.”

The bot proceeded to the gate, but rather than trying to call someone’s attention, the automaton’s arms stretched up to the top of the gate and lifted itself right off the ground, twisting at the top, slid back down the far side and landed smoothly.

“Um…” Bennett started, “What if Willian isn’t behind the murder bot, but is its next target?”

Hennerough’s heart thumped. “We need to get in there now!”

The pair leaped out of the vehicle and raced to the gate. Hennerough’s Elven traits made traversing the gate trivial, but was surprised to see Bennett follow the same route.

“Impressive,” he commented in just over a whisper before sprinting off toward the mansion. “If you see anything purple, Bennett, you hold your breath tight and run away. No exceptions. Understood?”

He glanced back at her and for a moment thought she might refuse, but after a pause responded, “Understood.”

They caught up with the bot by the front entrance and tackled it to the ground. Hennerough expected a pre-programmed quick response. Instead, the machine fought back, throwing a punch that collided with his jaw. The force of the metal smashing into him left him dazed with a loosened tooth.

The robot can fight?

Bennett grabbed the bot from behind and pulled it back onto the ground—or more accurately, on top of her. She grunted from the impact but kept her arms tight on its neck and wrapped its legs around in a vice-like grip.

Hennerough shook off the pain and reached out to grab its arms. But they stretched and spun wildly. He spotted the familiar paneling used to access the guts of the machine. If he could remove the core, it would shut down. He ripped open the lid and spotted a long purple glass tube under a metal pin hammer clicking with gears into position.

He slammed the lid, grabbed the bot and flipped over as quickly as he could. “Run, Bennett!”

He heard the hammer strike and the glass crack. He shut his eyes and prepared for the worst. No purple gas came out. The bot struggled against his grip. His eyes snapped back open and whipped around back to the panel. The hammer had struck, but the glass remained mostly intact. It didn’t punch through. Ignoring the weapon, he reached behind it until he felt something like a core box and yanked as hard as he could. The effect was immediate. The bot seized and lay still.

The front door of the house opened. An elderly man in pajamas and a long cane peered out. “What is all this noise about?” His eyes widened when he spotted Hennerough and the bot on the ground. “Oh my. Are you some kind of thief? I warn you, I’m quite prepared to defend myself.” He raised his cane like a cudgel but teetered off-balance.

“Mr. Willian?” Hennerough said and sat up fast. “It’s Detective Hennerough from the Knight Patrol. We’re here to protect you.” 

The raid happened quickly. Hennerough and Bennett stormed Griselda’s workshop and quickly subdued Griselda and her human partner. Griselda put up a fight, but Bennett surprised the inspector by leaping between the ogre’s legs before slamming her heels into the back of her knees, causing them to buckle and fall. The other constables quickly held Griselda down and restrained her.

“Nice job, Bennett,” Hennerough praised. “They said you were tough.”

Bennett beamed as she hoisted the restrained ogre back to her feet. However, tough or not, an ogre weighed a lot more than one human, and the inspector rushed in to help.

“Inspector!” a patrol person called out. “You’re going to want to see this.”

The pair followed the constable to a side room filled with glass beakers and pipes with various chemicals churning and bubbling. At the far end was a tray filled with little glass vials filled with a purple substance. Something looked different about them. He pulled out the half-broken vial he’d extracted from the murder bot and compared them. The bot’s glass was slightly thicker than the others, which might explain why it didn’t break through.

A manufacturing error perhaps? he mused.

He looked forward to interrogating those two and getting some answers.

“This is all your fault!” Alaric exclaimed, leaning against the metal bars in his cell. “Your big mouth led that detective right to us.”

“I gave them nothing,” Griselda replied, crossing her arms and grunting. “They just got lucky.”

“Yeah, I just hope our benefactor will get us out of this. We did everything he asked. Why he wanted the bot to attack and not kill that old coot is beyond me, but we held up our end of the bargain.”

“He good investor. He need us. We be fine.”

A small clicking sound tapped on the wall outside. Alaric turned to look and spotted a large insect-like creature crawling between the bars into the cell. As soon as it made it past the bars, a lid popped off the long, slender body, revealing a small hammer pin clicking over a tiny purple vial.

“I think not,” he growled as the hammer cracked deep into the glass and released its contents.