Zavulon was startled by the scream.  What caused it, he had no clue, but that didn't matter because suddenly things were getting awefully strange.  He was thankful, though that Gore had tripped that lady running for the duct.  The last thing he needed, in his current state, was to have to revert to the other dimension.  It was risky enough when he was feeling his 100% best.

Holy Hell.

Gavellus's client was dead.  The break in the game, the emotions running high -- had it all been because the lawyer from Foxhewe & Doe had been caught?  What had given it away?  The earpiece was nearly invisible.  And -- most importantly -- could Gavellus himself be in danger?

He started at the end.  Level of personal danger: 1.7.  Fine.  Intensity of anger in the back room: 3.1.  Higher than Gavellus would like, but not bad for a room full of supers.  Specificity of ident: 7.2.  That was worrisome.  Whoever had detected the cheating had a pretty good idea who was behind it.  But how could Gavellus possibly have been identified?

Occam's Razor suggested that Gavellus had been ratted out.  He wasn't sure he believed that, though; surely he would have noticed an overt threat to his client.  Besides, in a room full of superheroes, the explanation could equally well have been someone's superpower.  Someone with an affinity for electronics might have traced the earpiece's signal back to Gavellus's microphone.  Someone with power over EM radiation could have done the same.  Telepathy might do it if it were sufficiently deep-probing, but that seemed least likely.  A telepath powerful enough to extract a 7.2-level ident on Gavellus from a client who barely knew him?  That would be a hell of a telepath.

In any case, little else could be accomplished here, and Gavellus didn't feel like taking chances.  Best to leave before Sammy and his gang finished their game.  He got up and started for the door, his mind spinning.

Zavulon was in a state of pure awe at what Grave had done.  Splitting a girl straight in half.  It was beautiful in a way.  Such pure brute force.  He had to keep himself from applauding this marvelous act.

He paused & thought to himself, 'of course, Zavulon, you must be careful.  Don't want that happening to myself.  Absolutely not.  Such powerful tempers would surely mangle a body fragile as mine.'

Zavulon suddenly felt nervous.  Though there were no physical signs of anyone noticing him, he could somehow feel that they had become aware of his being holed up in the vent.  The men weren't even in the same room anymore, but he could feel their attentions on him.  His first instinct of course was to fade into the alternate dimension, but that wasn't an option.  He had become too overheated in that small duct & he knew he didn't have enough energy to successfully stay in the dimension for a long enough period of time.  The other option was to burst out of the duct, run & hopefully catch onto a draft outside & glide away.  It sounded good enough... but what would he do if there weren't any winds that night. 

Zavulon racked his brain for some solution, but nothing came.  His final desicion was to wait out how they'd react to him, and if they started throwing punches, he'd run.  From observing Grave, he knew that if Grave got a hold of his frail body, he'd be a broken mass of entrails in only a matter of seconds.  But, he had one advantage over Grave & that was speed.  As long as he could stay out of Grave's reach, he was relatively safe.  Then he could run if he had to.

Gore chuckled at Grave's invitation. The guy was really a class act. "No need to be nervous, we're really quite harmless."

Mep... I'll post...

Zavulon looked up at Grave through the duct mesh, trying to find any hidden sarcasm in his words.  He found none, and if things became bad, he could always run.  He pushed the grating out & climed delicately out of the vent, his aching body happy to finally have some room to stretch.  Zavulon was cautious near Grave, though, & backed away a few steps while maintaining eye contact.

"This game of yours... if you are talking about anything that would be of similar action to what you did to that girl earlier... then I'm so sorry, but I'll have to decline."  Zavulon had chosen his words carefully, trying to not offend anyone, while not being too submissive.  He thought over his current 'employment' for a while.  His boss wasn't anything important to him & he wasn't getting paid as much as he'd like.  From the looks of it, he could get more money under the employment of these men.