The atmosphere of the village of Grimmel had changed. Ever since a man attempted to stir up a fight between the lizardkins and the villagers, an invisible barrier had raised between the two camps, with the Knights of the Round caught between.

A ball of dirt exploded softly against the face of a lizardkin tribesman.

‟Get out of here, you snakes!” A villager child shouted, dirt still staining his hands as his friends laughed. Another kid was already rolling up another ball of dirt.

‟Hey!” Morgan, who had been waiting on the street corner that separated the camp field and the villager, stomped up to the young group!”

The kids faked a short scream. ‟Another monster!” they yelled, before scattering back into the village with trailing laughter.

Once the children had left, Morgan looked to the lizardkin that was hit, who was now wiping off the dirt that had stained their face. They gave her a nod of thanks, before going about their day. Overhead the distant forest, dark clouds were slowly rolling in.

A familiar voice noted, ‟I hate kids.”

Morgan turned to find her scheduled appointment as detective Sherl Octavia and her partner, John Watson, sauntered over.

The detective asked Morgan, ‟Aren't you going back to Wendereight, with everything that is happening there?”

Morgan looked to her, confused. ‟Art told us to stay. It's getting crowded there and she did not want to throw in more matches.” She then scratched her head in thought. ‟How did you know about the situation there? News shouldn't arrive for a few more days.”

‟I'm a detective,” she replied smugly. ‟I deduced.”

John added, ‟Merylin told us.”

‟John!”

‟And she doesn't hate kids,” he added.

‟I hate you.”

‟I can live with that.”

Morgan watched their exchange, weighing an expression between bemused and annoyance. ‟Are you two done?”

Sherl answered, ‟That depends. Do you have something interesting for us? Or have you forgotten that all our leads dried up?”

‟There's a new body,” Morgan answered flatly.

‟Well...” The detective's demeanour changed immediately. Her tone interested, irises sharpening like a hunter. ‟What are we waiting for?”

They followed Morgan through the village. It did not take a genius to realize how different the settlement had become. Glares shot out behind weary blinds. Those out on the streets turned their heads ever so slightly as they walked by. Curoi was seen speaking amiably to a vegetable seller, but quietened when they approached, only giving Morgan a curt obligatory nod. The people had picked sides. Are you with the monsters, or against them?

By the time they reached the town hall, Morgan had already lost count of how many pair of ire eyes they had drawn.

‟Seventy-two.” Sherl said as she stepped through the door. Morgan did not ask what that number was meant to represent. The detective was creepy enough without having the possible ability to read minds.

Merylin was waiting within the building and greeted them as they entered. ‟Morgan. I see you've found our troublesome duo.”

John skipped the insult and asked, ‟Who's the victim?”

‟Please let it be the mayor,” Sherl added, only to receive looks from everyone. ‟What? I'm not the only one thinking it!”

‟It's not the mayor,” Merylin corrected flatly.

Sherl gave a disappointed sigh.

The four of them headed to one of the rear rooms of the building. A door marked archive was left half ajar for them to push through. The space within was filled with a dozen shelves of folders and parchments. A single crys lamp dangled white light from the ceiling above. There were no tables, nor chairs, and the only large space was the small empty area they stood at from the entrance before the main area. Buried beneath a snowfall of papers and scrolls, the body of the receptionist held out an outstretched hand, reaching in final desperation for the shelf. Morgan could not remember his name. On the man's back were the familiar strokes of claw marks, blood seeping into the paper around him The back of his shirt was already dried red, and the smell of ironed blood had mixed with the stale dry air of pulp and ink.

‟Oh...” Sherl let out a mournful sound. ‟I'm so sorry, Jacob.”

Morgan raised, ‟I didn't know you cared.”

‟I'm a monster, miss knight, not cruel or evil. Jacob was very kind to us in our investigations. He will be missed.”

John took out his notepad and stepped around to Merylin to get a better view. ‟Seems like a struggle. He must have fought back.” He started penning

‟No,” Morgan said.

‟Wrong,” Sherl chimed simultaneously.

‟Morgan?” Merylin asked.

The disfigured knight had the monstrous half of her face lit by the lamp. Her eyes ran over the scene, her brain ticking quickly.

She explained, ‟He fell forward, facing the shelf and away from the door. Why turn your back on your adversary for a route with no weapons or escape? The wound is on his back, suggesting he either tried to run, or was attack unaware from behind. Detective?”

‟There aren't any documents under his body,” Sherl added. ‟Suggesting the place was ransacked after the fact to make it look like a fight. The question is,”

‟Was the killer trying to alter the crime scene?” Merylin ping-ponged in.

‟Or,” Sherl finished, ‟Were they looking for something?”

Morgan searched her mind for an answer. Something about the murders were not making sense.

‟The first victim, the photographer, was missing a photo crystal.” Morgan began to think aloud, and all eyes in the room turned to her. ‟The second victim, the drakin writer, had pens and ink, but no parchments. Both their bodies were too old to determine wound types, but every victim after had the same claw-like marks.”

Merylin asked, ‟What are you getting at?”

Morgan was now looking at the shelves, and Sherl had turned her attention to the parchments as well. Were they thinking the same thing? What was she, Morgan, even thinking of, anyway? She was a soldier, a knight, not a thinker. But she found herself unable to help it. Her brain was looking for explanations, and she seemed to be drawing lines.

Morgan asked the detective, ‟You've got something, haven't you?”

‟Of course.”

‟Care to share?”

‟No,” Sherl replied playfully. ‟I like seeing you work through it.”

‟Is this a test?”

‟Call it my cat, if you'd like.”

‟Curiosity?”

She was satisfied with that answer. There was a certain challenge to the mystery that made Morgan want to work things out in her mind. A quick glance to Merylin showed the old knight tapping her foot impatiently. Maybe she should make this quick.

The missing parchments for the drakin writer. Were they here, in this archive room? Had the receptionist found it at some point? Circumstantial at best. All the victims they could investigate were killed without a fight. Did they know their attacker? Of the crime scenes they could investigate, there was always a level of tampering and theatrics. Was the suspect good at lying? Stalling? There was only one thing connecting the missing parchments, the missing photograph, and the archive room. They all recorded things.

Morgan voiced out, ‟This isn't a real serial killer.”

There were breaths of surprise from both John and Merylin.

But Sherl merely confirmed, ‟You're right, it likely isn't at this point.”

The knight continued, ‟The photographer, the writer, the archives, they recorded something someone didn't want others to see. The victims in between are just like these papers here, camouflage, to make us think the acts were of some rampaging monster with no rhyme or reason, to hide the real motive.”

Sherl's lips curled slightly up. ‟So, miss knight, who in Grimmel have something to hide?”

The innkeeper who bought a photograph? Seems unlikely. Maybe one of the acquaintances of the victims? But the first two were travellers, they didn't know anyone. Mayor Soira? He's annoying, but there are no motives. Curoi? She did not like suspecting a fellow knight, but he have a grudge against the lizardkin that would work with the framing, though he was not here during the earlier killings. Or was he? Maybe it was a lizardkin? Someone trying to hide their existence? But that made no sense. They had been openly trying to reintegrate, so why would they hide? And she was still on the fence about the wounds being organic. Someone with something to hide, then? Someone with access to the knowledge that the lizardkins still existed, to be able to be framed.

‟Merylin?” Morgan asked. ‟That lizardkin who was dating that girl...”

Wolf Bane?” Merylin reminded. She knew Morgan was bad with name. ‟What about him?”

No... he wouldn't hide. He had nothing to gain from hiding. He wanted to come out with his romance, his tribe, his entire existence to be in the open. So that left...

‟The girl, the girl Armer dated. What's her name again?”

Merylin seemed to have skipped the name herself, and scratched her hair in thought.

‟Lethel,” John brought up, having flipped through his notes. ‟Lethel Redinghood.”