"I don't think so."

She runs her fingers tentatively over the surface of her skull just in case, searching for anything that might've gone unnoticed.

The skin is unbroken, unwashed and slick. You're not currently bleeding from any open wounds, but there could still be an injury lurking below the surface. It's hard to sense what you have in your hair through touch alone – this would be more conclusive if you bathed first.

Surely you have not forgotten about the splitting headache plaguing your every waking moment. You don't need me to remind you of that, I trust? Good, just letting you know that the ongoing torment above your shoulders might be relevant.

That is a hangover, not a head injury. Between the state of your room and the testimony of that lady whose name you forgot to ask you can be pretty damn certain that you were drinking hard last night. Open and shut case.

Not necessarily. The headache fits both theories, but think of it this way: the empty bottle in your room and your past behavior are commonplace evidence of this being a hangover, but the total retrograde amnesia and the absence of a magical mindwipe are much stranger and therefore stronger evidence of brain damage.

Suppose you lost your balance and clipped your head after a fall. Or you drank until you couldn't defend yourself, then took a blow to the head from an assailant in your room late at night. Nothing says you can't have a hangover and brain damage at the same time.

Crap.

"I miiiiight have a head injury," she says sheepishly.

It is at this moment something even more worrying belatedly occurs to her.

"Was your equipment missing when you got up this morning? Your commission, weapons, handcuffs, tools, anything else you might have brought?"

"These are my weapons," she says solemnly, holding out her empty hands. "I'm missing everything else though, including some of my clothes. What's a commission?"

"It's the document that proves that you're in Starwatch. Look, the clock is still ticking on the murder case we came here for, but we need to find your gun as soon as possible. Is there any chance you might have lost it underneath something in your room?"

"None whatsoever."

Gwenhwyfar nods.

She has Locate Object prepared, for all the good it'll do. In a city like Escadar, locating a specific gun with magic would be like finding a needle in a haystack – a subsection of a haystack, not necessarily the one the needle's in. Even if her partner can somehow cast Locate Object herself, it won't work unless she can visualize the gun. Their best bet is for her to heal quickly and hopefully regain some of her recent memories.

The hope is vain if she's not actually suffering from a head injury, of course. Gwen knows that comprehensive mind-wipes are rare but not impossible. Are undetectable comprehensive mind-wipes possible? Probably not, but if you only wanted to pass some basic scrutiny…

You are no longer the party leader.

"We need to visit a temple and expose you to positive energy. If that doesn't work, clerics know more about medicine than I do. Do you have a preference– no, you don't. We'll use whichever one we get to first."

That's not a bad idea, especially if the brain damage theory has merit. There is a non-zero chance that internal bleeding is on the verge of punting her off the mortal coil. She's willing to put the case on hold until she's back in fighting shape.

"After you, lieutenant."

Escadar is a vertical city riddled with outdoor staircases, most of them quite steep. Navigating from one tier to another in a timely fashion is an exercise in checking every alley you pass and poking your head out to see whether the stairs there will take you where you want to go. If they're descending to sea level, where most of the city's temples are, it will take them a few minutes to find the fastest route down.

She has more than enough questions to fill the time. Gwen has never met her before and presumably can't tell her anything about herself, but underpinning that fact is one of the other absurdities regarding this whole situation.

"Why are two different city watch departments working together on a single murder case? For that matter, I don't think I even live in Escadar. What's going on here?"

This is not a conversation that Gwen wants to have. It will not make anyone look Lawful or righteous. Her partner's confusion is tragically reasonable, however, so she will do her best.

"Like everything else in Absalom, our august law enforcement bodies are engaged in an eternal pissing competition. There are ten district watches, which answer to the council of the district they patrol and have no authority outside it. Starwatch's charter grants it jurisdiction over the entire city of Absalom. You and your colleagues investigate interdistrict crimes, internal affairs, and criminals that district watches are not equipped to handle. The First Guard is Absalom's army and intelligence service, charged with defending Absalom from external threats. In the event of an invasion the First Commander is the general of Absalom's military, outranking the admirals and Spell Lords. During peacetime we're responsible for manning the gates, several euphemistic tasks that primarily amount to espionage, and hunting dangerous wildlife on the Isle of Kortos. Both Starwatch and the First Guard answer to the Grand Council rather than the Primarch, if you were wondering."

"It doesn't sound like Starwatch and the First Guard have any overlapping duties."

Gwen laughs bitterly.

"You'd think. After thousands of years, most of the conflicts have been obviated by tradition and decree. The First Guard patrols the interior of the Isle of Kortos, so it acts as law enforcement in settlements too small to have their own law enforcement – except for the villages adjacent to Absalom, which Starwatch patrols because their headquarters are outside the city in one such village. The First Guard is headquartered inside Azlanti Keep, which is large enough to count as a district of Absalom for some purposes, so we have an internal department of provosts that doubles as a sort of district watch, except Starwatch has jurisdiction everywhere inside Absalom including Azlanti Keep, which they have so far only made use of in emergencies but could theoretically abuse at any time. Starwatch is the sole legitimate law enforcement body within Precipice Quarter, which also has no official district watch, but sometimes it's hard to tell whether a particular problem in the Precipice Quarter is organized crime or a foreign adversary, so the First Guard maintains a presence there as well."

Gwen pauses to check whether the next alley has the staircase they're looking for. Not so.

"The district watch in the Docks is the Harbor Guard, which only has authority on land and in practice is mostly interested in fraudulent shipping manifests. Crimes committed underwater are supposed to be handled by the Wave Riders, but they rarely have the manpower to spare so that's often delegated to Starwatch, except Starwatch doesn't always have aquatic personnel, so the First Guard is frequently involved in patrols out of necessity. That's only underwater, mind you; crimes committed on ships that haven't berthed yet are the jurisdiction of the Harbormaster's Office, which doesn't employ any watchmen itself. The current Harbormaster delegates that job to Starwatch, but in the past that's been the First Guard, the Wave Riders, the Pilot's Guild, and sometimes nobody at all. The Warden's Office operates prisons with their own guards, but jails are run by Starwatch. There's one prison, Black Whale, that's run by the First Guard on paper but in practice is staffed not by the First Guard, not by Starwatch, not by the Warden's Office, but by members of every single district watch, despite being located half a mile offshore most of the time. Foreign dignitaries are protected by a detachment from Starwatch while visiting Absalom – apart from the monarch of Cheliax, who is protected by a detachment from the First Guard, and the Grand Prince of Taldor, who is allowed to bring their own guard into the city. There are many such asinine details in our line of work."

Another alley. This staircase looks promising, so Gwen takes it down to the next tier.

"Escadar ought to have its own city watch. It's the second-largest city on the archipelago, larger than Diobel, which has a watch. It does not. Nearly everything in Escadar revolves around the navy and the Wave Riders, including the watch. The Provost's Office is responsible for enforcing the law in Escadar. Unless," she growls, "they decline to do so, on the grounds that they don't think the victim or the perpetrator are affiliated with the military. Then it's someone else's problem. There is no tradition or decree here – both Starwatch and the First Guard have a reasonable claim to jurisdiction over Escadar's civilian population."

"That does not sound reasonable. That sounds completely insane."

"Then maybe you and I will get along after all."

"We've been sent to assert territorial claims," she surmises. "This isn't cop cooperation, it's a cop-off. Two cops enter, one cop leaves. The survivors of the copocalypse are the rightful cops of Escadar."

This elicits a half-smile.

"Perhaps. I suspect it's less a matter of who gets to police Escadar than who has to. Be that as it may, I assure you I did not come here to participate in a 'cop-off' against Starwatch. Our win condition is apprehending the responsible party – there are no bonus points for embarrassing ourselves in the process."

Gwen is more competitive than she lets on. She's interested in winning, but not against you. You are not her opponent.