It is early in the morning. Dawn has not yet broken, yet Agita the maid has already begun her day’s work. Having already swept the den, she enters her late employer’s secret sex dungeon, intending to remove the bowls he left in there. Instead she finds a corpse. She runs from the room screaming.

  Twenty-one hours remain.

  Today’s murder was even more shocking than the last one. And with all the shouting, shoving, and posturing that was currently going on, we were at risk of a third murder to top it all off.

  Almost everyone had heard Agita’s screams and come running to the scene – only to find Petunia’s body, laying on the floor in a puddle of her own now-drying blood. The metal drains set into the dungeon’s floor – the original purposes of which I didn’t care to think about – were doing an excellent job of preventing the blood from spreading too far.

  “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, you lousy bastard!” Dracorn shouted, as he jabbed a meaty finger into Horlen’s chest. “You better give me a good reason to believe that you didn’t do it, boy, or on the Queen’s name, I’m gonna put you in the ground!” With every passing word, the Dragon was taking on a distinctly less-human aspect.

  To his credit, Horlen stood his ground, apparently unperturbed by Dracorn’s outburst. “I’m not falling for this little performance, Dracorn,” he said. “You know, up until now I thought Petunia was the one who killed my father. But I’ve reconsidered. You had plenty of reasons to kill the both of them, didn’t you?”

  “You’re accusing me of murdering my own wife!” Dracorn roared, his mouth bristling with an increasing number of teeth.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Her and my father,” said Horlen, brushing aside Dracorn’s finger and taking a step towards the enraged Dragon. I hoped it was just posturing and they weren’t going to come to blows. Neither of them seemed certain enough in their suspicions to make the first move. Or maybe neither of them was confident that they’d win in a fight.

  Anya sat in the corner of the study, nearly catatonic. Agita the maid was fussing over her and trying to be of some comfort.

  Lem, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found.

  Aeshma, Tatzel, and I, however, were standing over the new corpse. After the dream I had last night, it felt especially eerie. It took a minute for me to convince myself that Petunia’s body wasn’t going to reach out and grab me, or that her eyes weren’t going to roll in my direction. Thankfully, the corpse stayed motionless.

  I hadn’t had nightmares about Becca for years. Being around all this death must’ve been dredging up old memories.

  Petunia seemed to have died from a knife wound – well, quite a lot of knife wounds, if the red, polka-dot-like stains all across her ermine coat were anything to go by. There were at least a dozen of them. It was kind of dreadful, especially given that the murderer was still in the mansion with us. Possibly even in the room with us.

  Aside from the body, the dungeon looked about the same as it had last night. Dringel’s butt-paddle was still on its hangers, the chalkboard still listed out its five cardinal rules, and nary a marital aid was out of its proper place.

  There was one thing I noticed, though. Something small and yellowish-white was sticking out of the front pocket of Petunia’s coat.

  The very same pocket I saw her discreetly deposit something into yesterday.

  “Guys, remember how I said Petunia stole something from the study? I think it might still be in her pocket. Do you… do you think it’d be okay for us to, you know, grab it?” I asked nervously. Whatever it was might be relevant to our investigation, but I didn’t think Dracorn would respond positively to any of us fiddling with his dead wife’s belongings in his current emotional state.

  Tatzel crouched down to get a better look without approaching the corpse. “Hm. I believe it’s a piece of paper. Maybe we can ask–”

  Before she could finish her thought, the argument going on in the study behind us reached a crescendo. Horlen and Dracorn were full-on shouting at each other.

  Dracorn’s torso was swelling beyond the limits of his usual bizarre proportions. “And why would I have killed ‘em, boy? Huh? You keep sayin’, oh, you know why you did it, not sayin’ any damn reason! And it’s because you know there ain’t no denyin’ that you’re the one that did it!” Dracorn shouted.

  “You think I’ll believe that you didn’t know about the two of them? You must think I’m as stupid as you are–”

  With a roar of rage, Dracorn transformed even further. His mouth split all the way down to his neck before elongating into a proper, crocodilian maw. His back erupted with red-hot molten spines and dagger-like claws grew from his fingertips. It was frankly terrifying to see. Even Anya was startled out of her stupor as a gust of steam and smoke poured out of the gill-like vents opening all over Dracorn’s body.

  Horlen responded calmly, simply rolling up his sleeves to reveal a set of bulky forearms. He seemed undaunted by the enraged creature before him. I was impressed by his confidence… but I didn’t think he was being very wise here. It looked like a single bite from Dracorn would be the end of him.

  Time seemed to stand still as Aeshma darted out of the sex dungeon, into the study, and punched Dracorn in the throat. A plume of smoke ejected from the Dragon’s open maw as he flew backwards, hitting the bookcase behind him. Dozens of leather-bound accounting books went tumbling to the floor.

  Dracorn seemed beyond words at this point. He let out a monstrous roar and charged at Aeshma like a giant scaly gorilla.

  Aeshma allowed him to close the gap. She waited until Dracorn was in range – then delivered a swift jab to his shoulder, which dislocated with a cringe-inducing pop.

  Dracorn’s howl of pain trailed off into a choked whimper as Aeshma grabbed him by the throat and suplexed him straight through Dringel’s desk.

  “No killing one another until we solve this case! Understand?” Aeshma yelled, brushing the splinters off her arms. “We’ve got a hefty chunk of experience riding on solving this mystery, and you are not going to screw it up for us!” She leveled her fingers at Dracorn and Horlen in turn. “Got it?”

  Horlen nodded, stony-faced.

  “How about you?” Aeshma asked, glaring at Dracorn.

  “Hoo doggy, I got it. You’re one darn tootin’ Succubus, I’ll give you that,” the Dragon said, still lying in the wreckage of the desk. He had reverted to his mostly-human form. “That was a fine suplex you landed. When you were right up next to me, you almost smelt like… like… ohhh, oh dear Petunia!” he cried. He bowed his head to his chest, wracked with heavy sobs.

  Aeshma sauntered back over to us with a self-satisfied grin smeared across her face. “I call that conflict mediation.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Tatzel rolled her eyes… then nodded discreetly towards Petunia’s body. This was probably the best opportunity we’d have to rifle through Petunia’s pockets without Dracorn noticing.

  When Aeshma and I both gave her go-ahead, Tatzel scooched over and reached into Petunia’s blood-stained pocket, then retreated holding a single, folded-up piece of paper.

  She absentmindedly licked Petunia’s blood off her hand as she unfolded it.

  “What’s that face you’re pulling, Tatz? Did you find something juicy?” Aeshma asked, attempting to snatch the paper out of Tatzel’s hand. But Tatzel deftly pulled away and continued reading. Her eyebrows crashed down in a furrow when she got to the end, her forehead scales wrinkling ever-so-slightly.

  Aeshma was dying with impatience. “Come on then, what’s it say?”

  Tatzel wordlessly passed her the note. As Aeshma read it, tracing her finger beneath each line in turn, her face puckered like she’d just eaten a lemon. She shoved the paper into my hands.

  The note was a long, poorly-written, grotesquely detailed love-letter from Dringel to Petunia, all written by hand in cursive. It detailed a wide variety of raunchy acts, both ones which the two of them had successfully performed in the past, and ones which Dringel would have liked to try in the future.

  I could see why Petunia hadn’t wanted anyone to find this.

  There was a crash of wood as the door to the study flew open. Lem burst in, wide-eyed and terrified. “It’s… he’s… F-Father’s body is g-gone!”

  Anya sat up straight in her chair.

  “What?” Dracorn shouted, suddenly roused from his stupor. “The bastard’s missing? If he had anything to do with Petunia’s murder, I’ll – I’ll rip him in two!” He jumped to his feet, popped his shoulder back in place, and barreled past Lem out the door. Horlen cursed, then rushed out after him, apparently not wanting to let the Dragon out of his sight.

  “Ooooh Dringel! My poor husband! What’s going on?” sobbed Anya. She ran from the room with her faithful maid Agita and her dopey son Lem in tow.

  Then Aeshma said, “I think there’s something in Petunia’s hand, too.”

  “What’s that?” Tatzel asked, irritatedly. “There’s – oh. So there is.”

  Petunia’s left hand was half-concealed under her puffy coat sleeve. Aeshma rolled the sleeve up – and indeed, clutched in Petunia’s fist was a crumpled-up note.

  Aeshma held it up for the three of us to read. In big block letters it read:

  I FAKED MY OWN DEATH. MEET ME IN OUR ‘SPECIAL PLACE’

  “Huh,” Aeshma and I said in unison.

  “But the… the Deathclock spell?” I half-said, half-asked. “I thought you had to die in order to trigger it.”

  “Hush, I’m thinking!” Tatzel hissed. “Yes, he would need to die to trigger it. Unless… I suppose… well, faking it would be difficult, to say the least.”

  I remembered the eerie, uneasy sensation I’d felt approaching Dringel’s corpse. “You don’t think… I mean, Dringel was really dead, right? Could he have just been faking it?”

  “You’re the expert here, seeing as you’re our resident Human and everything,” said Aeshma. “Did the dude seem dead to you?”

  I recalled the ruin of Dringel’s chest. “Yeah, he seemed super dead. Maybe… could he have died but come back to life after? Like, gotten resurrected?”

  Aeshma and Tatzel both tittered like I’d said something really stupid and juvenile. “No, Roland, people can’t just come back to life,” chided Tatzel.

  “Okay, so what’s going on, then?” I asked.

  That put an end to their snickering. They were as stumped by the note as I was.

  We had plenty of evidence that Dringel and Petunia were having an affair. But for Dringel to have killed her? To have faked his own death, including the complex magic required to falsely trigger the Deathclock spell, only to… to what? To lure her back to the sex dungeon and murder her? It was insanely convoluted. It just didn’t make sense.

  As we stood around pondering, Horlen, Lem, Dracorn, and Anya trudged back into the study. None of them looked like they were in a good mood.

  Even Horlen was looking shaky. His composure was beginning to wane; either the stress of committing all these murders was taking its toll, or he was legitimately freaked out by all that was happening. “Lem was telling the truth. My father’s body is missing,” he announced. “You three are supposed to be our detectives. Do you have any idea what… what might have…?”

  Tatzel produced the crumpled-up note. “We found this in Petunia’s possession. It implies that Dringel was the one who killed her.”

  Horlen’s eyes went wide. So did Dracorn’s.

  “That’s not–” began Lem tearfully..

  “No, that’s impossible, Dringel would never! My husband was a good man!” Anya interrupted. “Even if Petunia was coming on to him like that, he would never!”

  Over Dracorn’s noises of outrage, she turned to Horlen and Lem. “The Deathclock Shroud – Dringel couldn’t have passed through it. If he’s alive, he must still be in the estate somewhere. We have to go find him!” Even as the words left her mouth, she was already running out of the room.

  Lem and Horlen followed close on her heels. Dracorn followed behind them, cursing Dringel every step of the way.

  Aeshma looked furious. “So now we gotta find this guy, who’s supposed to be dead, hiding somewhere in his own home? He’s probably got another secret room or something! Another stupid puzzle we’ll have to solve!” She kicked at the leg of the already-broken desk. “Gah! Pfah! Let’s just… let’s just sit the rest of this one out, gang. Call it a wash, get another night of free room and board, and bounce in the morning. Just like Tatzel said at the start.”

  “Oh come on, Aeshma! There’s barely any time left on the Deathclock! Just think of the experience we’ll get if we solve it.”

  Aeshma crossed her arms petulantly. “Fine. But we better take some time off when we get back to town. And so help us all if I so much as smell another riddle.”

  –

  Six hours remain.

  The whole day was a colossal waste. We found neither hide nor hair of the dead man, although we did successfully confirm that he was no longer lying on his blood-soaked bed. We expected to find some blood smears on the floor, or bloody footprints, or some other sign that he had moved from the bed. But curiously, there was nothing. It was almost like Dringel’s body had just up and vanished.

  Everyone else in the house spent the day searching, too, but no one reported anything of interest.

  If Dringel was alive, he obviously did not want to be found.

  And if he wasn’t alive, then his murderer was walking freely among us – pretending to help us investigate the very crime, or crimes, that they themselves had brutally committed.

  It was maddening to think about, and by the time dinner rolled around, we were all in a sour mood. We glumly settled into the dining room, which now felt all-too large for the number of people seated within. No one wanted to look at the two empty chairs beside Anya and Dracorn.

  For dinner, Anya had requested that Agita prepare Dringel’s favorite meal, in his honor. Now Agita was emerging from the kitchens, bearing silver trays laden down with hot, steaming bowls of the stuff. Night soup was apparently a hearty dish of leeks, fresh garlic, and ground venison, served with a nice crusty baguette. Even the bowls it was served in were fancy: bone-white porcelain with decorative gold rims.

  Aeshma’s mood improved rapidly as she dug into her bowl. “Wow, I can see why Dringel liked this stuff!” she exclaimed, dribbling and spraying all the while. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be staining the nice, embroidered tablecloth. Every drop of soup seemed to absorb into the fabric.

  I took a spoonful of the soup myself. It was… fine. Not, like, mindblowing or anything. I guess it was nice that Aeshma was enjoying it so much. I discreetly dribbled a spoonful of broth onto the tablecloth, just to see how much liquid it could handle in one go. As it turned out, the tablecloth absorbed everything I threw at it without a trace. Only the little bits of venison that had gotten in there were left behind.

  “It really is wonderful, isn’t it?” Tatzel beamed between spoonfuls. “Agita is a gem. I wonder how many Levels she has in Maid?”

  Dracorn was eating with ravenous enthusiasm, only pausing to wave down the maid for seconds and thirds.

  I chewed another spoonful, but something was starting to feel… off. Horlen was eating too, but slowly, cautiously. Like me, he seemed to sense that something was amiss.

  A loud crash echoed through the dining room as Agita tripped, dropping a heap of empty bowls onto Dracorn’s lap. “Watch it, woman! What kinda maid can’t handle a platter?” the Dragon scoffed.

  Agita’s hands were shaking as she gathered up the dropped bowls and scurried back to the kitchens.

  What was going on? Even Lem and Anya seemed to be enjoying the meal, loudly smacking their lips and tearing into the fresh bread, and…

  The soup? Anya and Lem weren’t eating the soup.

  I slowly chewed a lump of meat. The Monsters around me gorged themselves like it was the best thing they’d ever tasted.

  I spat out what was in my mouth and stood up. “Hey, everybody listen up!” I yelled. “Everyone go to the den. Right now. We’re doing the parlor scene.”