The first thing that greeted Morgan when her eyes opened were the fluorescent crystal lamps of the village's clinic's ward. Slowly, the pattering of rain from outside the window to her left and smell of disinfectant drew into her consciousness first, followed by the feeling of air entering her lungs. The grey gown she wore was oversized, but that was fine in terms of comfort.

She started feeling sore in her right arm. It sometimes happened when she used her mutated arm to block strikes. Under all that crust, the insides were still mostly normal muscles and tendons. So she shifted slightly to stretch her limp, her bed creaking as she moved.

‟Oh, you're awake,” a familiar voice sounded next to her.

She looked right to her neighbouring bed to find Lethel Redinghood lying in it. Through the side of her gown, Morgan could see the woman's abdomen wrapped with bandages that had specks of dried blood from the wounds of where she had been stabbed.

Morgan smiled weakly. ‟You're alive.”

Lethel smiled back. ‟I could say the same about you.”

At that moment, the door opened and Wolf Bane walked in. ‟Hey, Leth, the doctor asked if you wanted to eat- oh, you're awake, lae knight.”

Morgan gave him a wave.

‟Ssshould I get the doctor?”

‟No, love,” Lethel answered. ‟Can you go get the detective and Lae Merylin?”

The lizardkin nodded. ‟We'll be right back.” He left quickly after, even forgetting to close the door.

Morgan noted, ‟They let him in?”

Lethel nodded. ‟After what Mayor Soira did? It was hard to find another reason to discriminate against the tribe.” She grimaced in discomfort and shifted her stomach. It seemed talking was still a chore for her with her injury. ‟But don't get me wrong, there are still a few holdouts throwing rocks. But the majority of the townsfolk have come over.”

‟And the mayor?”

‟Dead,” Lethel answered matter-of-factly and with a tinge of anger, her hand on her wound. ‟Still don't know why he would do all this.”

Morgan knew. She was probably the only person on the planet who knew. The man was mad, a serial killer granted a strange power of manipulation by a vindictive god, who took advantage of the discord the god wanted to sow and killed for joy.

Thinking back on it though, was it only simple manipulation?

That seemed a very tame ability by the standards of world ending gods. Soira had not even gotten out of a little village, let alone threatened the world. The god of darkness nearly overran the continent with shadow beasts, and the last war ended with the Battle at the Peninsula. It seemed anticlimactic for a serial killer to be the sum of a god's machination. There was that other photograph that Soira had tried so hard to hide. Something else was on it. Morgan knew it in her gut.

‟Did we ever find out what was on the last photograph crystal?” the knight asked.

Lethel shook her head. ‟You broke the wand when you stabbed the mayor with it. And there aren't any other umbramancers in Grimmel right now besides you. Merylin sent someone to the next town over to fetch either a wand or a dark mage, but it will take a while longer for them to return.”

Footsteps came from the ward door as Merylin walked in on cue, followed shortly by John Watson and Wolf Bane. Sherl Octavia came in last on crutches.

The detective chide through blackened eyes and a stitched up lip. ‟Morning, you lazy asshole.”

Morgan groaned. ‟I can't believe I was out longer than you.”

Lethel chuckled. ‟To be fair, she only woke up yesterday.”

‟And how long was I out?”

‟Six days.”

‟Hah!” Sherl laughed mockingly.

‟Shut up!” Morgan let out a pain cough.

John instructed, ‟Don't agitate yourself, you're still injured.” He walked over to her bedside and pulled out a folded black leather stethoscope from his coat, turning her over with little resistance and putting the instrument against her back. ‟You have a concussion and bruised your lungs on the fall, along with some superficial wounds. You also pulled more muscles than I thought people could have. You're lucky nothing tore or cracked.”

Merylin added, ‟Even I was out for three days, and I was barely touched. I think Moira did something to us.”

‟What?” Morgan asked, perplexed. ‟You spoke with Moira too?”

The older knight nodded. Sherl's uncomfortable shift spoke to Morgan that the detective had a communion as well. A quiet settled before the group for a short second that seemed to last forever.

Sherl rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed cry. ‟Ask the question!”

Merylin asked, ‟Did you take the deal?”

Morgan shook her head. ‟No. It was tempting, but she broke some rules for me. Is there even a way to check if any of us are lying.”

‟No,” Merylin admitted. ‟I want the three of us to be sequestered somewhere after this for observation as a precaution. But at least this business with Soira and Moira is concluded.”

Morgan nodded. ‟And the Ex Machina?”

Wolf Bane was the one who answered. ‟We've locked it up in the town'sss storage. It hasss not chosen a new massster yet, and isss currently lying dormant.”

‟What about Art? Any word from her as to our next moves?” Everyone else in the room exchanged worried glances. ‟What?”

John explained, ‟All the messages we've sent to Wendereight have not been returned, and we haven't gotten any news from Artria either.”

‟Did something happen there?”

‟We don't know.”

It was rare for it to happen, but a worry for Art's safety clouded Morgan's mind.

Sherl hobbled across the room, cutting the atmosphere with an exclamation. ‟Okay, okay, very scary. But I'm only here for one thing. Let's solve this bastard of a mystery now, shall we? John?”

The doctor nodded and got up to close the blinds to the room. The detective limped to the chair at Morgan's bedside and sat down. Merylin sighed but played along, taking out the last photograph crystal and tossed it to Sherl, who caught it. Wolf Bane stepped back to dim the lamps, lowering the room into a gentle shade. John then moved the patient table up to Morgan, who grunted as she pushed herself up to sit. Merylin took out a small tripod and set it on the table, and Sherl then placed the crystal on it, front pointed to the empty wall.

‟All right then,” Morgan let out. ‟Let's see what all the fuss is about.”

She rubbed her hands together, her magic circuits glowing. Once she felt the energy form within her palms, she expanded a small hole between the fingers. Black light beamed through cracks in her hands, but she aimed the brightest one at the crystal, projecting an expanded image on the wall opposite her bed.

It was a zoomed in image in the negative colours, foreground of trees and trunks blurred to focus on the subject. Two individuals were centred in a third of the captured image. The edge of a carriage was visible off to the side.

One of the figure was Soira, the noticeable mayor, standing next to the armadillion armour Ex Machina he had fought them in. The other was hooded and cloaked, cheeks barely visible out the side of their garment with the glint of an eye. It was not a clear visual of the face, but one could barely make out what they looked like.

Between the two conspirators was a large crate, the side opened to demonstrate the content within. In the shadowed light of the forest, it looked vaguely like an animal along the species of a leopard, leoh, or zepard. However, it was metallic, much like the armadillion, and had the faint outline of a cannon or a large grenade launcher.

John breathed, ‟Is he... trading an Ex Machina?”

‟Looks like it,” Sherl let out. ‟I wonder...”

‟What?” John asked.

‟I wonder if it's really over with Moira. Their powers of subtly manipulating the future is a little weak, if I do say so myself. But if they split themselves up to take over different conciousness, and plant themselves across society, that would be a legitimate threat on par with what the gods usually come up with. And it would justify why they took Mayor Soira as well. They needed someone outside the halls of larger powers who could still move about uninhibited with official capacity. Perhaps to do things like search for super weapons, for Ex Machinas. We might have gotten lucky that the photographer was around to capture this moment and foil their plans, even if she did not know what they were doing at the time.”

John made a deduction of his own. ‟If that's the case, could the other figure also be a host of Moira?”

‟It's a possibility, but we can't be sure until we find them.”

Merylin's eyes widened and her tone shifted to fear. ‟Morgan... do you see it?”

‟Oh good, you see it too. I thought I was hallucinating.” She had been quiet the whole time, afraid of her observation being proven wrong, or worse, proven right. ‟We need to get to Wendereight. Art's in danger.”