Alter felt good as he waited patiently in the corridor outside Oliver’s office for his debriefing. Too good. He knew full well he was cruising on maybe three, perhaps three and a half hours sleep, and that until Tabitha had handed him a steaming mug of something as he’d trudged out of his quarters he’d been more zombie than man. Now though, he had been filled with an unusual, unexpected energy. The colours of the world were captivatingly bright and seemed to shift and swirl in the corners of his vision. Every sound, from the chirping of the birds, to the footsteps of servants moving through the hallways, to the scratching of quill on paper coming from inside the office were all crystal clear. His right foot tapped rhythmically and uncontrollably, and for some ungodly reason the part of his brain that remembered useless rubbish was playing tv ads from the early noughties at a rate of twelve cringe-worthy jingles per minute. He was undeniably happy, but he could tell, sense, that it was a false, chemical happiness. A quiet part of him wondered if this was what it felt like to have multiple personalities, the rest of him told that part to shut up and simply enjoy itself for once.

  The sound of soft voices and footsteps from within the office released him from his car insurance and predatory loans company-based mental prison. A moment later the door opened and a small handful of city officials stepped out and quickly hurried away. The door was not closed behind them, but neither was he called to enter. After a few seconds of awkward hovering he stuck his head through the empty frame and scrutinised the interior. Oliver sat alone behind the imposing desk at the far end of the room, he held a densely inked piece of paper in each hand, his eyes flicking between them with an expression of wary relief. Alter took a couple of tentative steps into the room and coughed politely to draw his attention. The young lord’s eyes shot up and a small smile greeted him as he placed the papers back on the desk and gestured towards one of the chairs arrayed before it.

  “Did something good happen?” Alter asked cheerily as he sank into the indicated seat.

  “Indeed.” Oliver patted a stack of paperwork with pride. “Two new sawmills, fed by three fresh logging operations. Supervised by local experts, staffed by newly arrived and trained immigrants, with the initial materials generated earmarked for new housing for said immigrants. It’s a good start, and while it’s taken considerable effort to gain enough local support to make it this far, I hope this will prove a catalyst for expansions all across our industrial sector.” He announced.

  “That’s wonderful news!” Alter laughed, whatever he’d been given that morning causing his voice to be uncharacteristically loud.

  Oliver offered him a slow nod and a wicked grin. “Oh, how I’d like to be in the room when my uncle realises that I’m fully capable of handling any problem he dares throw at me.”

  “What kind of response do you think he’ll give to the news that you’ve successfully pushed this through? With the number of agents we’ve already captured or disposed of his options must surely be limited by now.”

  “You’ve always come across as a more cautious, level-headed individual, Captain. I’d hate it if you started underestimating our opponent now.” Oliver’s jubilance suddenly sobered, his eyebrows dropping slightly as he regarded him with a hint of disapproval.

  “It was not my intention to imply anything of the sort.” Alter protested, painfully aware that the corners of his mouth were still slanted into a content smile.

  Oliver made a non-committal noise in response and turned to pick up a different paper report, scanning it quickly before sighing. “Let’s get to why you're here. It seems that quite the mess was made last night. The reports I have gathered so far are, shall we say, ‘interesting’. I will have yours now.”

  Alter swallowed inadvertently, the man was all business now. Fighting the intense urge to fidget and fiddle with all the items on the desk within his reach, he began to recant his version of the events that had transpired last night. From the precise nature of his instructions, to the actions of the mob and the sudden appearance of Ruffle, and finally of the partial building collapse and the squad’s efforts to contain the situation as best they could. Finally, he commented on their withdrawal, and the held regret of not being able to do more in the aftermath. Through all this, Oliver simply sat and listened until all was said, only then did he open his mouth.

  “I want to make it perfectly clear to you that I attribute no blame to either you or your squad for what happened, nor will I be doing so in the future.” He spoke slowly, reassuring words mismatched by a dark expression. “The damage caused to the Pebble Maze will be a long, protracted nightmare to sort out. I know I am not exactly popular there, nor is anyone in my family, but they are still my people. My responsibility. We can consider ourselves excruciatingly lucky that we managed to mop up the last of the agents in the attack, otherwise I dread to think how my uncle would utilise this splendid ammunition we have so generously provided.”

  “I understand.” Was all Alter could think to say.

  “Try not to think about it too much.” Oliver’s expression softened slightly. “The Maze has always overcome these crises as they appear, and they’ve done it without our help each time. This will be no different. It sounds like you did well to avoid violence against them, and you risked yourselves to help once the walls came down. They’ll remember that.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I hope so.” Alter answered, cheering up a little too quickly for his taste.

  “Very well, let’s turn our attention to what happens next. The brown-haired man, as you refer to him, is currently in a holding cell beneath the barracks awaiting interrogation. I want you to handle that personally.”

  “Absolu– wait what?” Alter stammered.

  “Exactly as I said, I’m assigning you the duty of extracting information from a captive.” Oliver answered neutrally.

  “But why?” He continued to protest. “Surely Winslow would be much more suited to the task? Or one of his subordinates?”

  Oliver expelled a sharp breath and shook his head. “As the leader of the operation, Winslow has taken responsibility for the damage caused to Jestriff. As such, he has been temporarily reassigned to more civil duties for the time being. I am giving you this task in order to prove to both me and the other forces under my control that you have this tool in your belt. They say capability moves mountains, and I believe you have that capability. You won’t prove me wrong, will you?”

  “So, yeah, that’s what happened.” Alter finished his sheepish explanation and looked across the briefing room table to the assembled squad.

  There was, unsurprisingly, a stunned silence. Riptide and Boozehound gave him looks of confused horror, Boats was expressionless, while Walross and Pavejack displayed varying levels of disgust. The only man who didn’t seem to immediately hate the idea was Whim, who seemed to be lost in all-consuming thought.

  “I think the only questions I can think of are how? And why?” Riptide asked uncomfortably.

  “I don’t know, I felt like I couldn’t refuse.” Alter complained. “Tabitha gave me this weird go-juice stuff, it made me very agreeable.”

  “The locals called it ‘Pannata’. It’s a combination of substances taken from the Panna plant, a root vegetable grown in these climates. The root bulb contains a high amount of something like caffeine, I don’t know what it is, I’m not a chemist. Suffice to say it's the answer to the timeless question ‘what if coffee drank coffee?’. However, sometimes the root-based drink is combined with a sap extract taken from the plant’s flower bulbs, which gives it an extra kick, plus some other effects. The locals are exposed to the stuff from childhood and build a resistance to it over time. We have no such resistance, didn’t I tell you to keep away from the stuff?” Boozehound explained, wanting to avoid the previous topic.

  “Don’t you drink a mugful every morning?” Pavejack asked cheekily.

  “Heavily watered down, and strictly no bulb added.” Boozehound shot back.

  “Well, there goes my plan to force-feed him a bunch of the stuff to get him talking. I won’t lie, Gents, I’m already scraping the barrel for ideas on how to handle this. I can’t exactly back out now, so please, does anyone have any suggestions?” Alter pleaded.

  “Oh, oh!” Whim suddenly perked up, his voice excited as his hand shot upward like an eager schoolboy. “You could give him the speech!”

  “The speech?” Alter looked at him confused.

  “Yeah, from Joey’s dungeons and dragons game he ran a couple of years back, you remember? We’d captured that evil lizard guy and Flakes’ character gave this whole sinister monologue that was so effective he didn’t even have to roll an intimidation check. Use that.” If the man had a tail then it’d be wagging so hard he’d soon be reaching escape velocity.

  “Wait, hang on.” Alter rubbed his eyes as his memory kicked into gear and the specified evening of beer drinking and dice rolling loomed out of the murk of history. “Technically I could, I remember it well enough, but we’re missing a couple of key elements. Namely access to a level twelve necromancer, and I don’t think we’re going to bump into one strolling through the streets of Jestriff.”

  “But we have one already!” Whim answered triumphantly. “Oliver. Remember when we first arrived here, we kneecapped that bandit near the burning carriage then Oliver extracted his memories. He even killed him in the process, it’s basically the same thing.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit that he makes a pretty good substitute. But he may well not want to use his powers in that way again, he gets some pretty nasty side effects. Second issue, we don’t have any magic that’ll charm the man, how do you propose we bypass that?” Alter reasoned, hating the fact that he was actually coming around to the idea.

  “Now that’s a good question.” Whim tapped his chin thoughtfully before having another idea. “What about your medicine, Marcus? I’m sure you’ve got something in there that could help loosen his tongue a little.”

  Now it was the medic’s turn to give the topic his confused attention. “Maybe? I don’t have anything like a truth serum or any other miracle drug. But I guess I could pump him full of enough painkillers to give him enough of a high to think that he’s under a spell. I don’t know, it seems like a waste of resources to me. Unless you wanted me to use a, uhm, whatever that word you guys have for fake medicine is.”

  “A placebo? It could work, depending on how wound up the guy is by the time we start. I think we’d need to give him something that he can feel the effects of though. Something like a jolt injector would probably be enough to convince him that we’ve done something to him.” Alter suggested.

  “If you feel it necessary then I suppose I could spare one for the cause.” Boozehound shrugged.

  “Alright, then.” Alter paused, looking across the faces in the room. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but in the absence of any other ideas I think we have a plan.”