Fok Axelad sauntered in to the holding area.

"Ravenna Asterian. We meet again. And this time you brought me homicide paperwork."

"No comment."

"Come on. Don't give me that goblin bullshit."

"I consent to a cursory search of my clothing for the sole purpose of assessing threats to constable safety." I elbowed Nellis.

"Me, too."

"Go on then. They want their cuffs off." Detective Axelad gestured to the uniformed constable to pat us down. She did Nellis first, then me.  Professional as she was, she quickly located my "weapon". I kept my face straight as her face went from confusion to realization.

"That's a penis. I'm not going to stab you with it. Not unless you ask me to."

If she blushes, that means I win.... Damnit. No points.

"They're clean."

"Go ahead and remove their manacles."

"They put regular manacles on me. Not etherist restraints. I don't think they even tried to use Identify."

Fok covered his face with one palm.

"Can we not do this goblin style right now? I already have a pretty good idea what happened today, and I'd prefer not to stretch this out for the entire rest of the week. No, we have not briefed the uniformed officers on alflins yet.  You are the only one in town, and you arrived less than a week ago. We didn't have any reason to believe you would be warring with Hegem Unus spies in the tunnels!"

"No comment."

"Godsdamn it. Take the troll to interview room 2, and I'll take the alflin to 1. If she were being cooperative, we could have done them both together."

Ah, shit. Nellis. Trolls had kind of a bad reputation, but I don't think she ever got the cop talk.

"Wait. I don't want her to be alone right now. But you'd better not let this get back to my Gramma Freya."

"Freya Durgaling?"

I nodded.

"Perhaps you would like to drop another name on me that I definitely don't want to hear? Because right now I have the granddaughter of Freya Durgaling, daughter of Gammon Asterian, in custody, for splattering the brains of two spies all over my tunnels, using a pistol worth more than a month of my pay.  Get to the interview room, so I can get you the Ogrun out of my station before a fucking reporter shows up."

"The pistol only got one of them."

"Move!"

I put an arm around Nellis, and maneuvered her through the hallways, following Fok's instructions, until we got to the interview room. Certified and sealed recorder machines were present and operational. We sat in the gratuitously uncomfortable chairs of the appropriate size. Fok took his seat on the other side of the table, and the constable posted up by the door.

"Okay. Detective Lietenant Fok Axelad, conducting witness interview of Ravenna Asterian and Nellis Spann, regarding the events of Sesjer, 28th Octmon, in the College District of Cairns. You were arrested in the presence of two dead humans: one elf, one orc; and three weapons: an infantry combat knife, a two meter wrecking bar, and an AFA 200, customized and signed by the designer, serial number 0000002. You will now be given an opportunity to describe the events of the day before specific questioning."

Nellis spoke up.

"We were shopping. At a hardware shop. We needed to get a ladder for our housemate, Chrysoll. So Rav paid, and we walked out. We were going back to campus when some guy attacks me out of nowhere. He cut my throat, all the way down to the spine!"

Fok interrupted.

"Hold on. If the attacker cut your throat that deeply, how are you speaking now? I know you're a troll, but you barely even have a protoscar now."

"I have an improved regeneration feat. From my subrace."

"Would you be willing to submit to a confidential Identification to verify this? The results of such an Identification require a court order to be disclosed, but if it becomes relevant to a criminal matter, it may become known to the officers of the court and several members of a petit jury."

Nellis looked at me. I nodded. "Yes."

"Okay, continue, from the point where your throat was cut."

"The elf cut my neck, and I wanted to yell to warn Rav, but it all came out like a hiss. She rolled around behind him, and pulled out a big black gun.  The elf was swinging that knife at me again, trying to cut me more. I used Lazar's Swordbreaker to trap it in my arm bones, and Rav shot him. So he dropped the knife and tried to wipe my blood out of his eyes. That's when I slammed his head against the wall and knocked him out. I don't remember what happened next, not until it was over."

"Why don't you remember? What happened?"

"I... When I came to, I had a system notification that I got a level in Berserker."

"Then continue from the next thing you do remember."

"I was crying on the ground, and Rav was pulling my hands out. Because the cops were yelling at us."

"That's enough. Miss Asterian, your story, please."

"We were shopping at a Rathling tools shop. I bought a monkeypole, three spring catches, some machine rail, a biconic compression spring, and a packaged set of assorted machine parts, all worth about @8700 at list price, but I paid @8000. The bag should have been found at the scene. I sort of lost track of it as the fash thugs were trying to grab me off the streets again."

"You get a discount from Rathlings. Because of course you do. This keeps getting better, princess. We'll get you your stuff back. Continue from the Rathling-run hardware shop... that you get a discount at. Of... Calculate... eight bloody percent!"

"We left the tool shop, heading back to campus. My first indication that we were under attack was when Nellis's blood splashed my face. I dropped my shopping bag, dove behind the attacker with the knife, and drew my pistol.  When Nellis bound him up with her arm, I shot at him three times. That's when the orc with the crowbar hit me. Sorry. Wrecking bar. It was as tall as he was, I guess. I don't know if he hit me with it, or just shoved me over, but it knocked me to the ground. I got up and did a wall jump, with a Remon's Gamble. When I landed, I saw that Nellis had knocked out the elf against the wall, and so I pie-sliced around the orc. He was paralyzed, and drowning on blood, so I gave him one for mercy's sake, in the head."

"Did you notice when Nellis activated Rage?"

"It was probably while I was circling the orc. Her vocal cords were still torn up, so I don't think there was any kind of War Cry effect. Or maybe it just works on enemies? She may have hit the elf again. I'm not sure. I was busy trying to avoid another potential attacker that turned out to not exist.  I sent etherflares down the tunnel, both ways, and didn't see anyone else."

"Two etherflares. In a row. Barehanded."

"Yeah? Boom, turn, boom. Maybe half a second apart."

"And you still have all your fingers."

I showed off my hands. All ten.

"We're going to have to call on Colonel Lance."

"Weren't you supposed to do that already?"

"Yes. We're going to have to talk to him. Again. Because the daughter of the founding designer at Asterian-Freyaling Armory--the guy who makes most of our sniper guns, and a good portion of our elite forces guns, and who made all the numbwands for our own force--she got kidnapped by Hegem Unus spies. And after she was shopping with the family that makes a third of our artillery and logistics carriages, and who runs most of the property crime in this city off the books, she killed two of said spies with the second AFA 200 ever made.  Sorry. Correction. She killed one with the million-ting gun, and her berserking troll housemate smashed the other one's skull with her bare hands.  So this recording is shit. It's going to get burned, and we're going to write whatever the fuck they tell us to write in the report. And then you're going to be Army Intelligence's problem, not mine. None of this happened today. You were right from the start. Do it goblin style, and don't say shit about any of it to anybody."

He took a breath.

"And I talked to the lads about the bandits, by the way. Thank you for that.  If you don't mind me saying so, next time, if it isn't one of your cousins, just shoot the fuckers. Clearly, you're on the fast track for the hero's party in the next demon's run. You're above my pay grade, and I'm passing you on to someone better able to handle it. Please don't destroy my city while you do your army spy business. Constable, get her her shit, and get her the fuck out of here. The gun, too. It's not evidence. I don't want it anywhere near me."

That went well.

The dwarf officer trundled us off into the corridors, and deposited us back on the campus side with the security guys. They escorted me back to bailment, and then on to the Roundhouse. Ladder fetch quest complete!