Quoted By:
"Uh," you say. "Yes! Any of them! Any of the important ones— the, um, companies? Namway and Headspace and— and they've got some sort of 'Management' they're all scared of, and—"
"I do appreciate the lead, but I'm plenty occupied with one case, Lottie. I'll investigate out once I wrap this up, how about that."
You frown. "No, that wasn't a— that was me telling you you're a bad detective."
"Ah! Thank you for the clarification." He smiles. "I never claimed to be a particularly good private investigator. I do take my time. I'm an excellent psychic detective, though."
You blink. "You're—"
"Ah, yes. I often solve cases before the crime even occurs." His voice is deadpan. "Though I'm afraid my abilities appear to be on the fritz."
"...Oh."
«What are you doing. What is being accomplished.»
Whatever is or isn't being accomplished, it's clearly Horse Face's fault. You hate Horse Face.
«Poor answer.»
«If you are not here for any purpose, you should leave.»
Easy for him to say! He gets to sit all pretty, tucked into your vest collar, while you do all the hard work of dealing with this loathsome individual. Not that it's hard work for you, of course. You clear your throat. "A-*hem.* Disregarding... that, I believe we should refocus to the fact that you, inexplicably, work for the Wind Court, which— you'd think you'd pick somewhere that'd improve your reputation? Not make people hate you more? I don't get it."
"People generally don't hate me," says Horse Face, straightening up.
"No? Well, even if we were in a universe where that's true... I think the Wind Court alone is enough to make people hate you, right? Especially scary, important people, like the ones I'm detectivating right now... and Madrigal. What if I went in and told maybe-Madrigal you came in and interviewed her under *false pretenses*?"
"Well, I'd imagine she might be somewhat peeved."
"Yes! She'd be peeved! She'd be—" That really wasn't the adjective you were looking for, but okay. "—*very* peeved. At you. Specifically. And you don't want that, right? So—"
"I can't say it'd make me much difference." He taps his chin. "It doesn't seem to *be* Madrigal, as far as I can tell, and if it were... well, I'll be more careful next time."
What? "No! She'll be really really mad at you, and maybe she'll try to kill you with her spear, and—"
"I believe any spear would've been confiscated, don't you? I could be wrong."
You look upon Horse Face's horse face and see the truth: he is utterly *undisturbed,* the human equivalent of those impossibly steep, dark trenches where all the snails and trench-lobsters went blind and turned white. Or something like that. You want to throw a blind lobster at Horse Face and see if that would bother him. You want to bother Horse Face, is the issue, and you did there for a moment— about the god-summoning— and then he went straight on back to tranquility. You *hate* Horse Face.
...You guess you're going to have to ramp things up.
(Choices next.)
