The phantom scent of smoke and charred flesh clung to the inside of Lutz's nostrils, a persistent ghost from Eisner Lane that not even the damp, foul air of the warehouse could erase. He woke not with a start, but with a slow, cold certainty, his fingers immediately going to the lump of the Mosquito's jar beneath his thin mattress. It was still there. The journal, the vials of shimmering ingredients, the money—all of it, hidden away. The knowledge was a hard, warm stone in his gut, a counterweight to the lingering horror.
Today was the day.
He found Karl not in his office, but in a secluded corner of the warehouse where the light from a single, high window cut through the gloom, illuminating a small, clean workbench. The Baron's Spark was meticulously disassembling and cleaning a complex-looking pistol, its parts laid out on an oilcloth with geometric precision. He didn't look up as Lutz approached.
"The supplementary ingredients are secured," Lutz began, his voice even. "And the main components have been acquired."
The soft click of a spring being set into place was the only sound for a moment. Then Karl's coal-like eyes flicked up, assessing him. "Both of them? The Core and the Mosquito?"
"Yes." Lutz didn't elaborate on the how or the where. Karl valued results, not excuses, and not necessarily the details.
A slow, almost imperceptible smile touched Karl's lips. It was not a pleasant expression. It was the look of a master craftsman seeing a flawed but promising tool finally take the correct shape. "Good. Then we prepare it tonight. Midnight. In the old smelting room downstairs. It's isolated. The stone contains the… energetic backlash."
"The stone contains the madness, you mean," Lutz said, the words escaping before he could stop them.
Karl's smile didn't falter. "Is there a difference? Power that does not change you is not power at all; it is a parlor trick." He picked up the barrel of the pistol, peering down it. "The process is simple in theory, complex in execution. You will bring all the ingredients. A cast-iron crucible. And your will. That is the most crucial component. The potion will try to unmoor you, to scatter your consciousness to the winds. You must hold fast to the core concept of what you are becoming. You must Maraud your own sanity back from the brink."
The way he said it, so matter-of-fact, sent a chill down Lutz's spine. This wasn't just a graduation; it was a trial by spiritual combat.
"And if I fail?"
Karl finally set the pistol parts down and looked directly at him, the banked coals in his eyes glowing with intense focus. "Then you will either die in a convulsing heap, or you will become one of the Lost—a mindless thing, forever chasing a satisfaction you can no longer comprehend. The Baron would put you down like a rabid dog. I would do it myself." He said it without malice, a simple statement of fact. "Do not fail."
The rest of the day passed in a blur of agonizing slowness. Lutz performed his duties on autopilot, his mind a thousand miles away, trapped in the future, in the windowless smelting room. Every beat of his heart felt like a countdown. He saw the concern in Henrik's good eye, the old man sensing the tectonic shift about to occur, but Lutz offered no explanation. There were no words for the path he was about to walk.
When midnight finally crept upon the city, the warehouse was a tomb of shadows and snores. Lutz collected his hidden treasures and the heavy iron crucible, his footsteps echoing too loudly in the oppressive silence. The stairs to the sub-level were narrow and slick with condensation, leading down into a deeper, colder dark.
The old smelting room was a circular chamber of blackened stone, its air thick with the ghosts of old metal and ash. A single gas lamp hissed on the wall, casting a feeble, dancing light. Karl was already there.
"Place the crucible in the center," Karl instructed, his voice low and resonant in the chamber.
Lutz did so, the iron ringing dully against the stone.
"Now, the process is one of layered theft," Karl began, adopting the tone of a lecturer. "You are not merely mixing components. You are compelling each ingredient to surrender its essential nature, to be stolen and repurposed for your own transformation.
Lutz worked with trembling but deliberate hands, following the instructions. The verbena dusted the bottom of the crucible with a dry, herbal scent. He used a pestle to grind the beautiful sapphire necklace into a fine, glittering blue powder, feeling a twinge of regret for the destroyed beauty. The nail fragments he sprinkled next, a grim confetti of human debris. Lastly, he uncorked the vial of blood, its metallic tang cutting through the other smells as he poured it in. The mixture began to sizzle and smoke without any applied heat, a faint, phosphorescent glow emanating from the center.
"Now the core components," Karl's voice was a hypnotic guide. "The Candle Devourer Core first. It represents the theft of light, of energy, of the very spark of awareness."
Lutz took the fibrous, dark lump and dropped it in. It did not sink, but rather floated on the surface of the now-bubbling mixture, seeming to absorb the faint light in the room.
"And finally, the heart of the matter. The Blood-Speckled Black Mosquito. The essence of a creature that steals life itself, that takes what is not given."
With a final, deep breath, Lutz uncorked the bell jar. Using tweezers, he lifted the dormant, grotesque insect. For a second, it seemed to stir, its proboscis twitching. Then he dropped it into the crucible.
With a final, deep breath, Lutz uncorked the bell jar. Using tweezers, he lifted the dormant, grotesque insect. For a second, it seemed to stir, its proboscis twitching. Then he dropped it into the crucible.
The reaction was not explosive, but transformative. The churning, phosphorescent mixture stilled instantly. The colors—the murky red of the blood, the glittering blue of the sapphire, the grey of the other components—swirled together and then collapsed inward, as if being consumed by a single, dominant hue. In the span of a heartbeat, the entire contents of the crucible settled into a liquid as deep and dark as a moonless midnight sea. It was perfectly still, its surface reflecting the feeble gaslight with an oil-like sheen. The whispering in the air ceased, replaced by a profound, waiting silence. The potion didn't look powerful; it looked… patient.
"It is ready," Karl said, his voice cutting through the quiet. "Remember, Fischer. You are not being gifted power. You are seizing a nature. Make it yours."
Lutz picked up the crucible. The iron was cool to the touch. He brought it to his lips, the dark surface showing only a distorted, shadowy version of his face. There was no aroma, just a dry, metallic scent that tickled the back of his throat. He tipped it back and drank.
The taste was profoundly, shockingly bitter, a flavor that seemed to coat his tongue and cling to his teeth, reminiscent of crushed aspirin and burnt wire. He forced himself to swallow every last drop, the viscous liquid sliding down his throat like cold oil. He stood there, braced for an earthquake, for fire, for the shattering of his mind.
For a long moment, nothing happened. He felt… normal. A trickle of cold disappointment started in his gut. Had it failed? Had the ingredients been flawed?
Then, it began not as a storm, but as a tide.
A deep, pervasive warmth started in the very core of his being, radiating outwards to his extremities. It was not the heat of a fever, but the warmth of a well-tuned engine coming to life. His body began to hum with a low, thrumming energy. The minor aches and pains from the fight the previous night, the perpetual tension in his shoulders—all of it simply melted away.
Lutz's world dissolved into a silent, screaming chaos. The deep blue-black potion was a bolt of frozen lightning in his veins, and the moment it hit his stomach, a storm of foreign impulses erupted in his mind. It wasn't pain, but something more insidious: a thousand whispering urges to take, to steal, to let his fingers twitch and his desires roam free without the constraint of conscience. His senses sharpened to a painful degree—the flicker of the gas lamp was a strobe, the scent of old metal and ash a choking fog. He felt his own consciousness, the careful synthesis of Lutz and Andrei, beginning to fray at the edges, threatening to unravel into a mindless thing driven only by avarice.
"Fight it, Fischer," Karl's voice cut through the psychic static, calm and authoritative. "The potion gives you the power, but the mind controls it. Your consciousness is the lock on the box. If you let it shatter, what's inside will spill out and be lost. You will become one of the Lost."
Lutz gritted his teeth, a low groan escaping as he pressed the heels of his palms against his temples. "How?" he managed to rasp, his voice sounding alien to his own ears.
"Listen carefully," Karl instructed, his tone becoming pedagogical. "You must perform Cogitation. It is the foundation, the first skill every Beyonder must master to centralize their thoughts and anchor their rationality. Let your brain go somewhat blank. Do not try to fight the whispers head-on; that is like trying to grasp smoke. You must divert your attention."
Lutz squeezed his eyes shut, trying to obey, but the chaotic energy of the potion seethed against his will.
"Think of an object," Karl guided, his voice a steady anchor in the storm. "Something common, simple, and easy to picture. Place all your focus on it. Create its outlines in your mind, over and over. This will turn the potion's energy seepage inwards and help you control it."
Desperate, Lutz scrabbled for a mental image. The first thing that surfaced was the spiral-marked lead coin that had brought him here, but it was fraught with too much emotion, too much chaos. He discarded it. Then, he settled on something simpler, more mundane: the simple iron crucible he had just drunk from. In his mind's eye, he began to trace its form—the curve of its bowl, the rough texture of its handle, the dull, black sheen of the metal. He repeated this process, forcing the simple, geometric shape to the forefront of his consciousness.
At first, it was like trying to build a dam against a tsunami. The whispers of theft and avarice, the new instincts of the Sequence 9: Marauder, battered against the image. But with each repetitive mental trace of the crucible's outline, the dam grew stronger. The chaotic energy that threatened to shatter him began to flow around this new, solid core of his focus. The sensory overload receded from a scream to a manageable clamor. He was no longer drowning in the potion; he was learning to float atop it.
He didn't know how long he sat there, mentally tracing the crucible, but eventually, his breathing slowed and the tremors in his hands stilled. He opened his eyes, and the world had snapped back into a coherent, if sharper, focus.
Karl nodded, a glint of approval in his eyes. "Good. That is the first step. Cogitation is not a one-time remedy. You must practice it every day. It is through this daily practice that you will truly grasp the powers of the potion, dig out the mysteries it symbolizes, and avoid the danger of losing control."
Lutz took a deep, shuddering breath, the bitter taste of the potion still a ghost on his tongue. He had taken the first step on the path. He had stolen his own sanity back from the brink. Now, he had to learn to fortify it, every single day.
Then, he realized, he became acutely aware of his own body in a way he never had been. He could feel the individual muscles in his fingers, the delicate bones of his wrists. He flexed his hands, and the movement was so fluid, so effortless, it was as if he'd been moving through water his entire life and had only now stepped onto land. The callouses on his fingers, earned from hard work and rough living, were still there, but the skin beneath felt more sensitive, more alive. He ran a thumb over his fingertips, and he could feel the minute ridges of his own fingerprint with a clarity that was almost auditory. Agile Hands, a part of his mind whispered, the term surfacing from some newly awakened instinct.
His senses sharpened. The hiss of the gas lamp was no longer a background noise but a distinct, layered sound he could almost dissect. He could smell the oil on Karl's gloves, the damp stone, the faint, lingering scent of his own sweat. But it was his sight that underwent the most profound change.
He looked at Karl, and his vision seemed to hyper-focus. He could see the individual weave of the man's wool coat, the slight scuff on the toe of his boot. And then, his gaze was drawn, compelled, to the inside breast pocket of that coat. There was no glow, no magical aura. It was a… a certainty. A knowing. He knew, with an unshakable conviction that felt as natural as knowing his own name, that there was something of significant value in that pocket. A small, hard object. A money clip? A valuable watch? He didn't know what, but he knew it was there, and that it was worth taking. Superior Observation. This was the intuition of value.
The feeling expanded outwards from Karl, a subtle radar pinging in his mind. His attention, however, was snagged by a loose stone near the wall, ten feet away. Beneath it, his new sense whispered, was a single, tarnished Silver Shield. Someone had dropped it, or hidden it, long ago. It was waiting for him.
This wasn't a violent power; it was a quiet reorientation of his entire perception of the world. Everything was now categorized by its potential for acquisition.
He set the crucible down, the movement unnaturally graceful. The action felt… different. The weight of the iron was negligible. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the coordinated power in his muscles, a latent strength and agility that promised he could scale a wall or dodge a blow with ease. Physical Enhancement. It wasn't the brutish strength of a brawler like Rudel, but the efficient, coordinated power of a acrobat and a knife-fighter. He felt a sudden, instinctual understanding of balance and trajectory, a knowledge that he could throw the heavy crucible and hit the far wall with pinpoint accuracy if he wished.
He looked at Karl, who was watching him with an intense, analytical focus. The man's expression was unreadable, but Lutz could now see the subtle tells—the slight tension in his jaw, the way his weight was distributed on the balls of his feet. He was ready for anything.
Lutz decided to test the core of it all. The theft.
"It's done," Lutz said, his voice steady, carrying that new, subtle resonance.
"So it seems," Karl replied, his eyes narrowing slightly. "What do you feel?"
"I feel…" Lutz began, and as he spoke, he took a single, casual step forward, his body moving with a predator's grace. His right hand, his fingers feeling more like separate, intelligent entities than part of his body, gestured vaguely to illustrate his point. "...like the world has suddenly laid all its secrets on a table." As his left hand, hidden from Karl's view by the angle of his body, moved with impossible speed and delicacy. His fingers slipped into Karl's breast pocket, brushed against cool metal, and withdrew, all in the space of a single heartbeat. The movement was so fluid, so devoid of hesitation or fumbling, it was as natural as breathing.
He took another step back, opening his hands in a placating gesture. In his left palm, now visible, lay a heavy, gold-chained pocket watch, its case gleaming in the lamplight.
Karl's eyes dropped to the watch. Then, a slow, genuine smile spread across his face, a sight more terrifying than any scowl. He didn't check his pocket; he just stared at Lutz with a look of profound satisfaction.
"Excellent," Karl breathed. "You didn't just gain the skills. You understood the application immediately. The Role is settling upon you well."
Lutz handed the watch back, the action feeling like the most natural transaction in the world. He had taken it not because he wanted it, but because he could. Because it was his nature to take. The bitter taste of the potion was finally gone from his mouth, replaced by the far more intoxicating flavor of potential. He was no longer just playing a part.
On the 6th day of December, 1352 of the Fifth Epoch, three weeks after his soul was violently grafted onto this world, Lutz Fischer ceased to be a mere vessel of two desperate lives and became a Beyonder of the Marauder pathway.