ROUGHHOUSE Karma has traveled to the royal home of Prince Baran, ruler of Madripoor hoping to free the captured Lindsay McCabe, Jessica Drew and Tyger Tiger. Feigning having a stalled car she uses her possession abilities to take control of one of the palace guards to get inside. However, her awe at the Prince's wealth causes her control over the palace guard to slip. Before he can capture her he is knocked out by Patch, who has broken into the castle with Archie Corrigan who are on the same mission as she. As they sneak through the castle, Karma explains her situation, telling Patch that she started working for her corrupt uncle because her siblings had gone missing and after exhausting all other resources she hoped that her uncles underworld contacts might prove useful in finding them. Finding that the moral price of siding with her father to be too high, she had decided to turn on him and redeem herself by saving Jessica and the others. As they travel through the court yard they almost stumble into the grasp of a tentacled creature that the prince has living in his fountain.
Elsewhere in the castle, Lindsay and Jessica are prisoners of Coy, and have been forced into slave clothes for his, Bloodscream and Roughhouse's personal amusements.