Incident On Record. At A Loss For Words, #1

In Clarion Quay, careless words do more than cause misunderstandings. They alter reality. Idioms become instructions. Metaphors acquire physical force. Jokes detach from their speakers, buildings reconsider their purpose, and an innocent remark about calling it a night can plunge a tavern into darkness before breakfast. Containing the consequences is the responsibility of the Office of Clarifications & Consequences-a bureaucracy with a form for nearly every linguistic emergency and a committee actively reviewing the ones it does not understand.
Senior Field Clarification Officer Maribel Quince has spent eleven years keeping the city's language under control through precise speech, decisive action, and a clipboard that carries almost as much authority as she does. Her partner, Orrin Bellwether, suffers from Arcane Hypersensitivity Syndrome, making his sneezes, rashes, and increasingly alarming medical reactions the OCC's most sensitive instruments for detecting unstable meaning.
When the phrase "just kidding" transforms a dockside tavern into an escalating semantic disaster, Maribel and Orrin expect another difficult but containable incident. Then it happens again. Across Clarion Quay, unrelated expressions begin producing effects of unprecedented complexity. Public ceremonies turn ordinary language into binding force. Architecture rearranges itself. Harbor Square develops impossible geometry.
Evidence suggests the incidents are not accidents but carefully engineered sequences created by someone who understands language-and the OCC's procedures-better than the officers investigating them. At every location, witnesses fail to notice the same short man in a threadbare coat. He never speaks. He never interferes. He simply watches, smiles, and leaves moments before conditions become critical.
As the city faces a foundational utterance capable of teaching reality an entirely new way to interpret itself, Maribel and Orrin must find the precise words that can stop it. Because once language decides what something means, changing its mind requires considerably more than a clarification notice. Incident On Record launches At A Loss For Words, a humorous linguistic fantasy investigation filled with dangerous idioms, weaponized ambiguity, supernatural wordplay, bureaucratic absurdity, and two overworked officers trying to keep civilization from taking everything literally.