The echoes of footsteps brought me back to myself. I was sitting on the chair again, but the ropes were replaced with angry swelling, enough that I could notice even without the light to see. My ability to feel pain hadn't returned yet, but the last of the spinning had let up some time ago. All that was left of my previous euphoria was a dryness in the back of my throat and the waves of an incoming headache. The muffled steps were getting closer.

My knees popped as I stood up and the flickering light from outside my cell rushed in to meet me. I took my captors by surprise as they came into the cell. The world on the corners of my vision blurred, but their movements were perfectly, intoxicatingly clear. The first one was still walking forward when I bowled into him. The second was able to stumble his way clear, but it was too late for the one that I was already on. His face showed surprise and determination, but no fear. It was probably because of the knife that he was bringing up to gut me. It was a good try, but a slight twist turned it into a gash in my side. The corridor outside the cell looked like it had been dug out just recently and was barely two arms lengths across. It was so narrow that my momentum carried us all the way to the other side. I braced myself for impact and used my elbow to focus my weight into the unfortunate man's neck.

The feeling of resistance only lasted for a moment before something crumpled inward. My arm felt numb with the impact and it was only with a concerted mental effort that I was able to get it moving again. The man whose neck I had crushed had collapsed to the ground with his hands moving toward his throat even in death. It was close enough quarters that the second one had wisely decided not to try drawing his sword. He had a torch, our only source of light down here, but no other weapons. He was coming at me too, so I didn't have time to retrieve the knife, but it hardly mattered. Whatever the kiff was doing to my brain, it made it trivially easy to slide around his charge and trip him. His fall smothered the torch, but the last embers were enough to let me follow up and stomp my boot down on his unprotected head. It took a couple dozen tries before he fully stopped moving, but I made sure.

I took both the sword and the knife from the dead bodies before I started down the dark corridor. It was damp just like it had been in the cell, but the sense of claustrophobia was all the stronger when I was surrounded on all sides by dirt. There were no support beams or any other signs that the ones who dug the tunnel were concerned with the possibility that it caved in on itself.

It was hard to tell how far I went given that I couldn't see anything, but eventually I could see a faint light up ahead. There was a ladder and what looked like a trapdoor at the top. That was probably how they were able to hide this place in the middle of the city. The trapdoor opened up to an empty warehouse. The only thing of note was the large crate that was right next to the trapdoor. I would need to send some people to investigate this place to see if they could find out more about my attackers.

Judging by the smell of salt water, the warehouse led out to somewhere in the wharfs district. Across the street was a bustling brothel complete with bright lights and soliciting women outside its doors. Then the light-headedness really hit me. I had forgotten about something, but what, I had no idea.

***

I never thought about it before, but waking up in new places is a worrying trend. Maybe I just got used to it back then. It shouldn't matter now though. After all, if there's one word to describe this body, it would be healthy. Despite that characterization, the one distinct feeling that I was having was the searing ache along my side. It was difficult just to keep my eyes open. At the very least, the bed that I was lying in was a stark contrast to the dark cell previous. The softness of down and the warm sunlight that was starting to peek through the window enveloped me. If there was one similarity, then it would be that I still couldn't move. Well, I could try, but the shooting pain that found its way from my torso all the way to my fingers and toes was enough of a disincentive that I was more than happy to give in to the softness of the bed.

One of the most interesting mechanics of Hearts of Glass and Steel was that of health. At first glance, it was just a percentage ranging from 100 to 0 where running out meant game over. Many a first-time player had therefore treated it like a resource, and as previous game design had taught them, a resource that could be recovered. This turned out to be wrong on both fronts. First, the only way to get health back was to load a save or restart entirely. Second, it turned out that health was used as a modifier for every other stat, so losing just a little bit at the start basically maimed the playthrough. I still hadn't confirmed whether the mechanics of the game were manifest in this world, but they certainly hadn't been loosened any.

It was the scent of food that finally enticed my eyes open and kept them that way. The smell of ham was distinct and easy to pick out, but the smell of the eggs took a bit more effort to discern. The door clicked open and the slight sound of a plate sliding on a tray let me know that the food had arrived. Based only on the unmoving ceiling, the overwhelming scent of food, and the light footfalls, it was not possible to tell who it was that was bringing me food. It remained a mystery then, when the tray was set down somewhere next to me and the door clicked shut behind my retreating server.

I was left to stew in a mixture of hunger, pain, and impotence. If only I hadn't been reminded of the need to eat, I might have been able to put off my hunger for a while longer. Instead, someone had interrupted my rest, and then, despite how it should have been obvious that I couldn't get up on my own, had left without saying a word. The ceiling of this room wasn't quite the same as the one I had first woken up to, but there were enough similarities for me to suspect that it was the bedroom of the previous Baron Masler. Actually, the cold tingling of a draft confirmed it, I was back at the Masler residence. Replacing the staff was climbing ever higher on my list of priorities.

***

~Mary~

Mary continued her silent vigil over her attendant's bedside even as the dawn's light crept over her. Chella's breathing was steady but shallow, and the bandages wrapped around her head were stained with blood. During the attack, Mary had watched Darren kill two of them before he was finally knocked out. With just the two remaining, they must've given up on taking anyone else since they just left Chella bound and bleeding where she was. Mary had tried her best to stop the bleeding from the head wound, but Chella still hadn't woken up. It was only some time after the attackers had evacuated that the city guard was called in and the scene was cleaned up. All that time, Mary just tried to keep pressure on her closest friend's wound. All she got from the people she knew were waiting inside their shops and homes was cold indifference. The guard was barely better when they found out that Chella was just a commoner and Darren was still alive when they dragged him away. They didn't even bother with an investigation, just saying that a ransom offer would show up eventually.

The knocking on the door could only be from her father. None of the other staff lived at the estate, so he would be the only other person here at this hour. It occurred to Mary that she hadn't told her father why she was going out last night. He was probably worried sick when the guard informed him of what had happened. It would be better to explain things herself.

"Come in," she called.

Her father walked in with the perfect poise that signaled more than any other tell that he was furious. Behind him was an overweight old man wearing the blood red uniform of the inquisition. Pinned to his lapel were an assortment of iron and gold insignias, but most striking of all was the small black circle pinned at the center which marked him as a member of the King's Tribunal. His gaze wandered over the scene before resting on Mary. She was sure that the red puffiness around her eyes was doing her no favors, but the man didn't seem all that bothered by her distress.

"This must be Miss Marilynne Wellsworth then?" the inquisitor said, "A pleasure."

"What is your business, inquisitor?" Mary bit off with slightly more anger than she had meant to reveal.

"As always, my business is the law, and all too often, those times when it is forgotten." His jowls coming up along with his too-wide smile.

Mellok kept his voice low and even, but even his famous control was clearly being tried as he said, "Inquisitor Risch, you did not come to play games. Ask your questions and then leave."

"Fine, fine. We just need to know if your recent engagement announcement was made under duress. It wouldn't do if our presumptive next queen was pressured from her rightful position by unsavory parties."

Mary was stunned that the inquisitor was so blatantly ignoring the kidnapping. At the same time, a member of the tribunal wouldn't have made a move without the express orders of royalty. It was even a possibility that the one behind the attack was the crown prince himself. An ill-conceived and rash plan, but not something that she would put past him.

"There were no threats made nor did I feel any compulsion to answer my fiancé's proposal. Now I'm sure that you will have no trouble finding your own way out."

Inquisitor Risch gave a theatrical bow and then made his way out without another word. The room settled into an uncomfortable silence punctuated by Chella's rasping and clearly painful breathing.

"I'm sure that you knew what would happen after pulling something like this, so why did you do it?" asked Mellok.

"What, do you not remember? When they say that justice is blind, do you think they're talking about who it can't see?"

***

~Darren~

Sitting up was excruciating, but it was either that or lying there the whole day. I could feel the stitches tugging at my flesh as I stressed them. The portrait of Darren's late mother confirmed that I was in the previous Baron Masler's room. Unlike my own room, signs of disrepair were nowhere to be found. If not for the lack of finery, it wouldn't have been easy to tell that the owner was going through financial troubles. Even then, the finely worked gold making up the frame to the portrait was enough that he could've just passed it off as a preference for minimalism rather than poverty.

The ham was cold and the eggs rubbery, but I ate the food anyway. It wasn't exactly fare for an injured patient, but I wouldn't be surprised if some nobles disdained oatmeal for its association with commoner fare. At least the ale, as disgusting as it was by default, hadn't gotten any worse in the time that it sat there. I hadn't tried alcohol before ending up in this world, but now it was a large part of what I drank. The ways that water could be made safe to drink were still limited, so there were few other choices.

It took a fair amount of time to transfer myself from the bed to my boots. Unlike when I was getting up however, I was fueled by my desire to get on with the selection of new staff. Additionally, I would have to figure out who had brought me back from the wharfs. It was possible that it had been Hector's people, but that implied that they knew who I was and that was dangerous in and of itself. If any of them were arrested and they knew that I was the one at the head of the organization, the inquisition would be after me within the hour. The other possibility was that the city guard on patrol had found me and then brought me back. That carried the risk that they ran their mouths. The risk of getting the inquisition sicced on me would go down, but it wouldn't be long before news of the incident was widely spread. There was also some nonzero chance that a good samaritan had found me, identified me, and then brought me all the way back to the estate, but simply by virtue of it being the best possibility, I discarded it.

***

"So you don't have a single possible candidate that matches her description?" I asked.

Hector looked rightfully remorseful, but didn't answer. All he had given me so far was that we needed to restart our operations soon if we were going to at all. Worse, he had outright admitted that the investment I received from Lorn would barely cover a week of costs if we kept things out of sight.

"Can you find loyal people to replace the estate's staff then? There are still some holdovers from old blood loyalists and things are about to start changing. If I leave them on the job, it's possible that they become leaks," I said.

"Yes, I can manage that. I'll recruit from my people's families to ensure their loyalty if that's alright," Hector said.

"That will do. I want a full investigation of who that woman is though," I said.

I waved him off so that I could nurse my tea. The kiff was taking longer to take effect than usual and every moment of sobriety was another moment of pain. Intellectually, I knew that it was a bad idea to continue down this path, but the animal part of my brain was not to be denied.