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There was a good reason why people were so readily eager to hop over the fence of reality and onto the greener plains of denial. Rather than stumbling and then bumping your knee at said picket fence, it was so much easier to just bear a grin and deny, deny, deny.

No one likes bumping their knee. No one likes facing the truth.

I think Howard was denying. He bumped his knee and now he doesn\'t want to admit it. That has to be it, it has to be it. I mean, what else could explain as to why he looked so clueless right then and there?

"You just admitted fault," I said, trying to rein back squirming fingers from seizing the collar of his suit. "What\'s playing dumb going to do for you now?"

Howard started to stammer, croaking, tripping over his tongue, before finally becoming comprehensible again. "Y-you think I had a part in whatever the heck is happening out there? How… how could you ever think that in the first place?"

"All. Signs. Point. To. You!" I hissed, jutting my finger at him with every syllable. "This\'d be so much better if you just started admitting to it."

It just infuriated me so much that he just kept persisting on willful ignorance. I don\'t get it - every blink, every fleeting moment in the dark, that buzzing, that whirring, the entire building was enshrouded in magic, his magic! What, he doesn\'t think that we could sense it?

"I don\'t… I don\'t know what you\'re saying."

But with every flutter of eyelids back into sight, I just kept seeing that face of his, so lost, so confused, and I just… I didn\'t know what to think. Maybe I bumped my knee… maybe I wasn\'t the one facing the truth.

Maybe it really was me that was denying. Maybe it really wasn\'t him.

I backed away from the desk, handing Irene back the reins to the question and answer game. Tried my luck and went nowhere, so instead of spouting more and getting even more flustered, I opted to keep silent. 

Because, in the smallest chance that he really was speaking truth - then going into any more detail with him about the magical side of things would only serve to incriminate both Irene and Ash… Amanda was already quite enough, I don\'t Irene was keen on letting any more people know that mythical beings do indeed walk the Earth.

If we were to proceed forward, our questions henceforth needed to subtle, and there was no denying subtlety was more of the detective\'s forte. Irene leaned herself closer to Howard, less intense, less aggressive, but still speaking as imposingly as before.

"Try and forgive my partner," She said to him. "He can get a little vocal when it comes to things like this."

Howard rubbed his face, both hands vigorously stroking the creases on his forehead. "What do you mean things like this? Your partner just accused me of something that\'s completely impossible!"

"But it is something that you do know of, yes?" Irene said.

Those nervous hands of his fumbled about, landing resoundingly at the surface of his desk. "No! I don\'t! Why would I?" 

Irene looked to Ash, whom at this point was too growing a bit skeptical of the man before her, clearing this confrontation did not go at all the way we all were expecting it to.

"Refresh his memory for him if you would," Irene told her. "It seems only fitting that you do it."

Ash nodding, readily complied, and stood before his eyes with not a sliver of hesitation. "Blightfall, the rain of the dead, rots and decays all that it falls upon. A Speaker and a LIstener in tandem would be required if one would hope to ever cleanse the Blight. So it is said… so it is written… if your words are to be believed that is."

Howard was leaning back so much, his chair was starting to creak. Those eyes, bright and blue, couldn\'t tear away from Ash\'s. There was that face again, the one that just didn\'t believe what it was seeing, hearing.

"You sound…" 

"Just like her," Ash finished for him. "Peculiar, is it not?"

"Memory refreshed yet?" Irene butted in, crossing arms and marching herself back into his sight. "Or do we need to jog it a little bit more?"

"No, no… I… Blightfall?" His voice was breathless, throwing his stare out the office window. "You mean that thing out there - that\'s what it is?"

I scoffed, still maintaining a small hint of doubt. "You mean to say you don\'t see the resemblances?"

"How could I?!" He sniped back at me. "It\'s a game mechanic that was scrapped three whole years ago! You think I\'d remember something that\'s never even made it past the beta phase? My question is, how do you people know about it?"

"Well, you like to talk a lot, don\'t you?" I said. "Amanda had like four full pages of just your words alone."

Slow on the uptake with a year and a half\'s worth of memories to burrow through, naturally at first glance, there\'d be some confusion on his display, but eventually, we finally got ourselves onto the same wavelength. 

He remembered, alright. He got up, walking, taking slow dazed steps towards the window, placing a hand firmly against the murky glass pane.

"That can\'t be Blightfall," He said, shaking his head. "It\'s physically impossible. Blightfall is… It isn\'t… it\'s not real. Whatever that is out there has to be something else. I mean - Blightfall in the real world? It\'s psychotic."

"Can\'t deny the similarities though, can you?" Irene said, gazing at the lost confused back of a lost confused man. "Certainly similar enough that we came running your way. So I\'ll ask once more, just to confirm - do you have anything to do with this?"

"No!" He spun back, desperation quivering in his eyes. "I just thought… I thought you were… I thought you came here for... I thought you knew what I was doing."

"Yeah, you certainly did look awfully guilty beforehand, and that was before we even asked anything of you," Irene said, narrowing her eyes. "So what were you doing, hm?"

"Screw it… why even bother to hide it now," Howard sighed. "Asteria… look we never expected it to be a worldwide hit, and then suddenly when it was… suddenly we had more than we\'ve ever seen… suddenly I was the top dog in company… I thought maybe… perhaps… no one would notice if I took a bit more than I should."

"Embezzlement," Irene rolled her eyes. "Tale as old as time. Well, thanks for the confession, buddy. You\'re a felon now."

"Look, it was just one time! A hundred grand! Nobody batted an eye, nobody noticed!" 

Irene didn\'t look too sympathetic to his plight.  "That six years in a cell if convicted. Twenty if you aren\'t lucky." 

"You\'re not gonna haul me off to jail now are you?" 

At this point, that man with a pompous stature that could turn the head of the highest narcissist was reduced to nothing more than a bumbling, quivering jelly of worry.

Even with eyes so stricken and desperate, Irene continued to remain indifferent to all. But she was no ice-queen.

"Can\'t. I don\'t have a case. Don\'t have any evidence besides your word. Can\'t do anything." 

Hearing that, Howard slumped back into his chair, melting in his seat in pure relief. "Oh, thank you… thank - "

"Not done speaking yet," Irene said sharply. "If you want it to remain that way, at least for time being… you\'re gonna have to work with us - anything we want to know, you give, and it better be the truth, you understand?"

"Loud and clear." He nodded somberly, sitting up at attention.

The way Irene played him was like watching a master at work. From outraged and confused to complete and total submission. He was like putty in her hands, and she didn\'t even have to use her other \'means of persuasion.\'

Lucky him. Or unlucky him depending on how you look at it. All matter of perspective, I guess.

Irene started again, hands on his desk once more, question and answer game round two. "Now there\'s no denying the fact that you\'re still a little suspect in our eyes. Like my partner here said, everything is pointing the blame squarely at you."

"And like I said," He flailed his arms. "I have nothing to do with what\'s happening out there!"

"If it was really that easy to convince us we would have left you well alone by now. Try a little harder than that, Howard. Why don\'t you have anything to do with it? It\'s your game, right?"

He hung his head. "Well... Yes…"

"Your creation, yes?"

"Yes... I sup -" He gave a sigh. "Okay, no… not… not exactly."

"What?"

"Asteria is…" He smacked his lips. "Truth is, I wasn\'t the one that came up with Asteria."

A soft, quiet simple admission of guilt, had us all throwing glances at one another. Ash, Irene, and I - we all mirrored each other\'s expression, the confusion we shared spoke more than words ever could.

What he just admitted to went against everything we\'ve been told thus far - Amanda\'s blog revered him as a genius with an eye for crafting rich, intriguing stories for players to live and learn from. Jay placed him on a pedestal high enough to reach the stars… all that for nothing? 

Was that really how this was going to go down?

Of course fucking not. 

We were here and we were staying. Ash especially wasn\'t about to let that go unanswered. Now she was hunching over, now her hands sat firmly on his desk.

"Explain yourself."