In Mot Mekess, the last room of Marchioness Agatha’s life was a kind of private shrine/meditation area with a miniature enchanted fountain in the center, constantly flowing with water in a relaxing trickling ambiance. Like any other room of hers, the place was aesthetically pleasant. Here, some of the sharpness of the tea room’s grandeur was missing, replaced with tender understatement. The few paintings were of sunny nature scenes.

  As largely any other morning, Agatha had begun it by having broth-heavy soup for the sake of her sensitive digestion. Blood was drenched all over the chair, the small dining table, and the ornate rug underneath.

  It was a great time to kill her because she relished this final moment of isolation before the business of the day came. An open book on the table also had a bit of blood splattered. ‘The Continued Adventures of the Mountain Strider.’ Light fiction reading — also routine. Without an emergency, she would not deal with any official matters until she had her soup.

  “She read those books dozens of times,” Jon Three commented sadly as he just as sadly looked on, while Crow scanned the scene and utilized some informational spellcraft. “Just about made me reread it, too, talking about it. After I mentioned I read it when I was a youngin’. We had inside jokes…”

  In sweeping over the various objects, Crow quickly noted a ‘collapsed’ aura of magic in the soup. Something destructive, but otherwise non-informative.

  Something triggered by ingestion? Exploding out. Hmm. Did I mistake the wounds? I thought they were from outside, ripping in and out.

  “I assume there is some protocol for security screening for magical shenanigans?” Crow asked without directly looking at Jon Three. “She’s been a potential assassination target for years, as I understand it.”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” the servant replied. “The house wizard is required to check any meals or correspondence before being brought to the marchioness. He’s always grouchy about getting up so early, but it’s his job. He’s probably screening letters right now.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he’s very reliable.” This is the same loser that wasn’t with Agatha when she was kidnapped. If I remember right, it was because he was sick with the shits. Lucky him. He might be dead otherwise.

  “He drinks too much after dinner, but Gran- The Marchioness stages-... staged false spell stuff randomly on things to make sure he’s doing his work. He missed something once, I think they said seven years ago? Before he knew. She confronted him and told him about it, and if he ever missed something again, she’d send him packing. Cleared it right up, it did. He never missed another of those tests, and he’s right proud of that, too.”

  Crow stared at the soup bowl and rubbed at his chin. “I see. I’m afraid he’s likely lost his job after all, though.”

  “So you found magic? Godslovin’ suckasses- excuse me, sir.”

  “You’re fine, Jon. Yes. So it seems. I suppose it could’ve been cloaked somehow until it triggered.” Ingestion. Couldn’t alchemy be used and betray no aura at all in that case? Though I suppose that is rare and expensive.

  “It’d be way beyond our wizard, if so. Far as I know — and that ain’t sayin’ much, now — but if so, that’s high order. High-level stuff. If a noble had it done, they paid a king’s ransom for it.”

  “A marchioness’s ransom, at the least. Thank you, Jon. Your perspective is appreciated.”

  “If it helps figure out who did this, it’d ease my wee heart a little more. Don’t mention it.”

  The soup is slated for careful analysis I suppose. Hmmph. I just don’t like it.

  Jeeves popped into his head. “Agatha is somewhat salient, but she’s forcing herself to hold it together. Anxiety, it would seem. She has a thousand threads left hanging with her demise. I’ve questioned her about the murder. Unfortunately, she remembers little. She was partaking of her soup, reading, and suddenly felt jabbed in multiple parts of her body at once. Her words: ‘Flowing bloody gushing feelings inside me. Shock and wonder. Overwhelming sharp pain and paralysis. Choking, falling. My vision was blurry and cut off suddenly, or I can’t remember the fade out. I think there was movement. Lines passing across in a blink. I don’t know. That’s it.’ End. Not much to go on, there, I’m afraid.”

  Crow pondered the info. “Lines and movement? The soup itself has an aural spell residue.”

  “Bah! What a useless wizard. We should’ve replaced him… but we’re rather stretched thin ourselves out here. Alright. Soup. Perhaps a spell trigger inside her, blooming out after ingestion?”

  “I believe the wounds are external in origin. Outside, in. If she was looking dead into her soup, and doesn’t recall seeing it emanate outward… well. I suppose I can look at her wounds again to verify.”

  “Hmm. Curious. I leave it to you, Crow.”

  Crow did not immediately leave. He shifted and leaned over the table, eying every inch almost to the end of his nose. The opened book. The simple ceramic bowl, the plate underneath it. An untouched cloth napkin — untouched but by a splatter of blood, that is. The wooden chair. Was the chair suspicious? Wood it kill? Hmm. No. It was just a chair.

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  And then he squatted to eye the blood-soaked rug below. He was close enough to inspect the structure of the ornate pattern. It was… well, what the hell was any rug pattern? Psychedelic nonsense. Rows of many-colored flower-like things. Prominent little white swords framing at many right angles, in a continuous unbroken matrix connected by something like a vine.

  Crow blinked. Does that even fit? The matrix seemed contrasted with the rest. “Jon, my friend… this rug seems especially odd. Come see, would you?”

  Once Jon squatted down, Crow pointed out the sword-and-vine matrix, and Jon squinted at it. He exclaimed, “Blow me to the Unders, I never once saw that! It’s crazy how these things go right under your nose for years! Like an unpainted wall or rough-coated floor. See new visions every time you look.”

  “Jon, my friend… how many times have you come in here and seen this rug?”

  “Oh, hundreds. Thousands maybe. She likes- liked my precise and careful cleaning. Runs in the family. And she was like one of the family. Only place I don’t go is the bedroom. Not proper.”

  “Have you intimately cleaned this rug? Handled it directly, close in?”

  “Sure. Carried it out of here and beat every dust bunny and straw bit out of it many times. Enjoy beating the rugs, actually. Gets the aggression out from arguing with my da or losing at the ole dice throw.”

  “Surely you’d have seen this pattern before.”

  Jon frowned. “It is that obvious? Maybe my eyesight is going bad already…”

  “No, Jon. I’m saying this could be transplanted here, somehow. That it could be the method of murder.”

  Jon stared at him for a second, dumbfounded, then stared for another split second at the rug. Then he shot up onto his feet and backed away, face a bit whiter than before. “Oh.” He swallowed and looked abashed. “Sorry. You- are you sure?”

  “No. If you had to choose between whether this pattern existed and you overlooked it, and that it was not here before at all, which would you?”

  Jon frowned as he squinted at the rug from a standing position. “Honestly, I do see it somewhat even from here. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it a slightly different rug. But it ain’t. Those patterns, they’re one of a kind. Not just the vines and what, the whole rug. How they’re made.”

  Crow nodded slowly. He tried out ‘Identify’ targeting the rug. Nothing. Tried targeting just the vines-and-swords. Nothing. He drew his dagger and slipped the point under a vine, attempting to see if it were cuttable thread. It resisted.

  Like wire threaded in, but no metallic gleam.

  Recalling he had a certain special item in his possession given to him by Beikiar, he pulled a small kit from his coat. It was a small, rectangular, wooden box. It took him a few moments to remember how to open it, as it was some tricky maneuver with both hands in different positions.

  Finally, there was a chik sound as the box partially opened. He pulled it the rest of the way and pulled out a thin, wooden wand with a piece of chalky, white metal at the end.

  Beikiar had called it a ‘disrupter’ — an expensive antimage tool. In skilled hands, it could interfere with spells, spellcraft, and alchemical items. Beikiar was only passing familiar, but told Crow to try it out against anything ‘suspect’ that otherwise ‘eluded one’s sophistication of identification.’

  What he had meant, and what he had used it for, was for traps. Even in unskilled hands, a disrupter supposedly had a discernible ‘reaction’ upon crude contact of the metal with something supernatural. Beikiar said it was something like a ‘spark.’ You’d feel it, even if you failed to interpret anything or stop the effect, and the wand would ‘almost never’ trigger anything. It had saved Beikiar’s skin several times while debating on whether to try a suspicious handle, corridor, item, and so on. He’d used it, then walked away — or found some way to trigger the trap safely.

  Crow took it in hand and slowly lowered it to one of the little interlaced blades… oh so slowly and carefully bringing it closer with a surgeon’s precision…

  The little sword popped out from the rug in a flash and whipped lightning-quick, chopping the wand in half. The rest of it whipped up and out, too, forming a loop and going right for Crow’s throat.

  Well then.

  Only cat-like reaction speed saved him. His off-hand grabbed it firmly and stopped it as he pivoted and rolled away at the same time — chancy, not knowing the strength of the vine.

  His roll saved him from yet another unfurling whip-like motion of the lethal construct. His hand thankfully jerked the mass a bit as he moved — also un-thankfully, as he felt it bite deep into his hand with its razor-edged sharpness.

  Crow let go of it and pulled his hand free a moment before it tightened violently, which would have quite possibly severed his hand at the palm.

  He used the time to roll away and create some distance, expecting another attack. Instead, the vine mass darted away, zipping through the air at high speeds, on a beeline for the door.

  Damn. Making a getaway. Was the coast never clear immediately after the deed? Or it was dormant until I disturbed it. If I hadn’t noticed, it might have slipped away at night, no one the wiser.

  He prepped a sound spell cone at an angle to blast it right as it made the open doorway. Then he heard a shrill scream from the room beyond and saw movement, and — in a split moment decision — aborted the spell.

  Fucking hell. Stupid bystanders. I’m hypothetically good against fragile constructs, but not in a crowd whose guts I’d splatter everywhere in the crossfire. Didn’t think about damage to the walls, either…

  Stupid rubberneckers! Can't let an adventurer sow wanton destruction wantonly. Unbelievable.

  Next Chapter...

  Crow gives chase, while also dealing with stupid assholes in the way.

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