“What’s the situation, McKenzie?”

“We’ve got a dead elf, chief.”

“Age?”

“Estimates put the victim somewhere between sixteen years and seven thousand years old.”

“Oh great. What about dental records?”

“Yup, checked those; their teeth were absolutely fine.”

“Hmmm. Male or female?”

“Again, hard to know, I’m afraid.”

“Christ, the attack was that brutal?”

“No, no, we just can’t tell the difference.”

“Well what about clothing, any clues?”

“The victim was wearing very little, because of that we’re thinking that either the victim was in bed at the time, the attack was sexually motivated, or…”

“OR we’re looking at a heavily armoured high ranking member of the female warrior caste.”

“Right chief.”

“Blood spatter results back from the lab yet?”

“It’s weird, although there are clear indications that the victim was attacked with some sort of bladed weapon we couldn’t find any blood. Anywhere.”

“Damn it! Not much to go on. What about the neighbours?”

“Neighbours aren’t talking, guv. At least, not until we’ve given them three hundred and forty seven wolf paws, or one hundred and seventy four slightly better warg paws.”

“Johnson, get to work on that; we’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“Right you are, boss.”

“Okay they weren’t much for dressing, but did you find anything on the body?”

“Yes guv, a couple of bits and pieces: one hundred and twelve glass bottles containing sundry potions, four broadswords, an axe, a dagger, a tower shield, a crossbow and six hundred bolts, eleven hundred feet of rope, fourteen boar spleens, twenty six goblin toes, a dress, three chainmail shirts, ten recipes, a pet badger in a cage, two horses, seventeen different barbequed foodstuffs, a quarter tonne of iron ore, a garden statue, a bearskin rug, a lute and a map.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary there. What about bank records?”

“We checked with the bank, in recent weeks they’ve deposited one hundred and twenty different styles of hat. We can’t really underst…”

“McKenzie!”

“Guv?!”

“The body, it’s gone!”

“Stolen? But nobody could have got in here…”

“How can it jus… Cole!”

“Guv?”

“Go and check with the neighbours, find out if they saw anything!”

“Already have, guv. They won’t talk until we’ve planted two beds of marigolds, painted the fence out front and…”

“Blast it! Gentlemen, it looks as though we have a traitor in our midst.”

“Hallo, what are you all doing in my house?”

“You! You’re… alive?”

“Yes of course I am. I came back to life three towns over and I’ve been running back for the last two hours. What the hell are you all doing?”

“W-we were, uh, trying to work out how you’d died so we could avenge you.”

“Gruk’s sake! Next time just give me a damned rez, then ASK!”

“Well there’s not much detective work in that, is there?!

Speaking of which, just between us, are you male or female? We really couldn’t…”

[SMACK]

Next week on CSI:MMO – The team faces new challenges when confronted with the murder of an undead barkeep from Chester.