"Oh, this stuff is incredibly rare..."
"That's the eighth time you've said that."
Caleb shot him an impatient look.
Singed's scientific ability was rare enough on its own. Even rarer was the almost fanatical obsession he had with chemtech.
"So what exactly can this thing be used for?"
Caleb had watched Singed work for quite a while now, and still had no idea what the man was getting at.
Sure, Caleb had a beginner's grasp of Hextech and chemtech.
That was enough to put him on even footing with Jayce.
But in front of Viktor and Singed, he was practically a blank sheet of paper when it came to science.
If beginner level was like a seed sprouting, growing, and blooming, then Viktor and Singed's achievements were more like a towering tree with deep roots and a full crown.
Like the one Ekko had planted back at the Firelights' original base.
Viktor at least had the excuse of his condition, lately he had not been able to devote himself fully to Hextech research.
Singed was someone who had worked with Heimerdinger years ago before the two of them eventually split apart.
So even while Caleb stood there watching him work, without any explanation, it was all meaningless noise to him.
"May I interrupt you for a moment?"
The sudden female voice startled Caleb, then he quickly realized who it was, Camille.
"You..." Caleb stared at her, momentarily speechless.
The old Camille had been a human body with a Hextech crystal-powered heart.
The current Camille looked more like something Hextech itself had created.
Her eyes glowed with yellow and violet light, and the hair she had once worn loose was now pinned up.
And if there was one feature that showed the difference most clearly, it was that her long legs had been replaced by two cold, gleaming blades.
"I underwent Hextech surgery as well." She was still wearing that courteous, charming smile.
"So... did it work?"
"It looks... it looks great," Caleb said, stumbling over his words a little. After all, this was the first time he had seen the real Steel Shadow in the flesh.
Everybody knew it, a beautiful woman and precision machinery was basically every man's dream.
"Ahem. What about Viktor? How is he?" Caleb snapped back to himself and asked.
"The surgery went fairly smoothly, but..."
That single but instantly put him on edge.
"And?" When she did not continue right away, Caleb started getting anxious too.
"But our Governor still seems to have a lot on his plate."
She covered her mouth and laughed softly. She naturally knew what Caleb had been busy doing these past few days.
And honestly, a monster like that would have been a nightmare in Piltover too.
If it had been her, at most she would have locked it in a reinforced cage and dumped it into the sea.
After that, whatever happened would have been up to fate.
"Get to the point."
Caleb knew Camille well enough. She only came to find him when there was business to discuss.
If there was no business, she would just stand there watching and not lift a finger to help.
Pretty promises were hard to trust.
"There have been several bombing incidents in Piltover lately."
"They were carried out using discarded Hextech residue."
Caleb frowned.
Jinx definitely hated Piltover, but if Zaun kept getting better and better, she would settle down some too.
After all, Singed had never put her through Shimmer surgery, and Vi had not become a true Piltovan Enforcer either.
She acted crazy, but inside she was sharper than almost anyone, that was Jinx in a nutshell.
Caleb did not even know whether he should call her Powder or Jinx.
So he just called her his little maniac, even though she was not the least bit crazy around him.
"Shouldn't residue be almost out of energy?" Caleb knew enough to understand the basics. Trying to make an explosion out of Hextech residue was like trying to smelt steel with half-burned scrap wood.
In theory, unless you kept feeding more material into the fire and added forced air, it would never reach the temperature needed for forging steel.
Jinx's Hextech skill should not have been at that level yet.
"Exactly, which is why before the blasts, no one imagined that stuff could still explode."
"Did Jayce inspect the scene?"
Caleb's brows twisted tighter and tighter.
"He did, but he didn't come to any useful conclusions. Here, these are the images."
Camille pulled out a stack of photographs, each showing details from the blast sites.
Caleb took them and flipped through them one by one, but he could not make heads or tails of any of it.
"Heimerdinger did say he has a troublesome kinsman who might be the one behind it."
Camille added that from the side.
"Ziggs."
Caleb named him almost without thinking.
"Yes, that's the one. Supposedly he's a yordle with quite a talent for explosives."
Camille nodded, then lowered her voice.
"And apparently the Dredge has been getting restless too. Baroness Voss, who used to rule the place, has already fled to Piltover."
"What kind of mess is that supposed to be?" Caleb did not know the lore all that well to begin with, so now he was even more confused.
"The Dredge was originally a prison run by Zaun itself."
Camille kept her voice low as well. As Clan Ferros' intelligence operative, her information network was far better than Caleb's.
"The prisoners down there were basically never meant to get out. There was only one hidden passage leading upward."
"Just yesterday, Voss, the so-called baroness who used to oversee the prison, came up into Piltover through that passage and then blew it up behind her."
"At this rate, Zaun's starting to make Gotham look wholesome."
Caleb felt worn out all over.
He had barely finished dealing with one problem when two more jumped right out at him.
"You really should take this seriously."
Camille gently rested a hand on Caleb's shoulder.
"Piltover's also had a serial killer turn up lately, the kind who treats murder like art."
"So I can't help you either." Camille shot him a flirtatious glance.
Two hook cables extended from her waist, latched onto a distant wall, and in the next moment she disappeared around the corner.
"Seriously..."
Caleb let out a long breath.
He had already dragged a whole lot of people into the last mess. Now Ekko and the others were already working overtime.
The pollution problem alone was going to take a massive amount of manpower to deal with.
And now two new problems had surfaced. There was no way he could check on the Dredge right now, so he would have to start with Ziggs.
Thinking that, Caleb rubbed his temples and returned to the lab with a heavy mind.
...
"Lord Urgot?"
The man below called out in disbelief.
Urgot opened his eyes and looked at him.
"I remember you, you're a Noxian agent, aren't you?"
Urgot found the face familiar. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered being received by this man long ago.
"We've all been deceived! The throne stands empty now!"
"That bastard Swain has already seized power!"
Even someone as brutal as Urgot froze for a moment when he heard that.
How was that possible?
The empire had still seemed to be functioning perfectly before he was sent here.
Could it be... that old bastard came to Piltover because...
"Once this leg is finished, we go up."
Urgot's voice remained calm, but there was a bloody edge beneath it.
"Understood. I know a way out. The hidden passage is gone, but we've got this."
The Noxian agent patted Urgot's chemtech leg with satisfaction.
The leg alone was enough to crush ordinary men, and it could fire buckshot wrapped in chem-flame.
And there were six of them.
Urgot's severed right arm had also been fitted with a machine gun.
And as for his abdomen, several mechanics were still hanging there at work.
If an ordinary person had gone through that, the pain would have made them pass out long ago.
Urgot, on the other hand, looked like he was enjoying it.
After Baroness Voss had cut into his flesh, he had broken past the limits he once had as an executioner.
"We are going to bring the city above..." Urgot's mind flashed back to that utterly indifferent face.
"Cleansing."