Lucca nods in agreement. "That's what I thought, too, I just needed to make sure I wasn't imagining it. I bet Ward thought the bomb would wipe out anything that could point blame at him, maybe even make us think it was the Tremere, striking while we were distracted by their coterie in the sewers."
A vaguely familiar voice catches you off-guard from just outside the nook. "Agad the Imperishable, I'd like to speak to you in private." Damn…Adeline's arrived. You don't have much choice but to do as she asks. Lucca cocks her head to the side and you mouth the word "Archon." She flinches slightly before catching herself and nodding, then turns back and busies herself examining the corpse.
Adeline taps her foot impatiently as you sweep aside the melted bead-work and join her in the hall. The Archon is nearly swallowed up by a well-worn olive-green military jacket and a dark pork pie hat snugged tightly on her head. If you didn't know any better you'd think she was an eccentric mortal who arrived in Elysium completely by accident. Those piercing eyes, though. There's no mistaking the power behind them.
"What can I do for you?" you ask.
"Come with me," she says, not waiting on a response before turning her back and leading you through Elysium's myriad social areas, eventually turning down a smaller hallway meant for the staff. She stops and sniffs the air, frowning in distaste. At least half of the hall has been reduced to stumps of charred wood and rubble slashed with coarse rebar scorched black in the blast. "This is where they set the primary charges," she says. "Even if I couldn't smell the Semtex, the conclusion is obvious." She rolls the melted husk of a desktop computer tower over with her foot. The motherboard and memory modules have been reduced to slag. "Tell me. Why is your sire not overseeing this investigation?"
The question is not what you expected and it catches you by surprise.