The following morning, Lutz presented himself at Karl's office as the first grey light of dawn filtered through the grimy warehouse windows. He moved with a deliberate calm, though every muscle still sang a dull hymn of protest from the climb and the tension. He carried no visible triumph, only the quiet assurance of a job completed.
Karl was at his desk, the ever-present ledger open before him. He looked up as Lutz entered, his coal-like eyes immediately noting the subtle stiffness in Lutz's posture, the fresh, focused stillness that had settled over him. This was not the same young man who had been given the task.
"It's done," Lutz said, his voice flat. He didn't wait for a question. He reached into his jerkin and produced the green ledger and the bundle of Loenish correspondence, placing them on the desk with a soft thud.
Karl's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. He picked up the ledger, flipping through the pages filled with Alaric Vance's precise script—a record of bribes, unofficial fees, and names of compromised customs officials. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips. "Efficient. Any complications?"
"A dog. A watchman. Neither raised the alarm," Lutz replied, the words carefully chosen. He said nothing of the unfinished letter, of Karbinian Hass. That piece of intelligence was his alone, a private stockpile for a future he was only beginning to map. A Marauder always kept the best trinket for himself.
Karl's smile widened. He could sense the omission, the withheld detail, and he approved. Initiative and discretion were more valuable than blind obedience. "The Baron will be pleased. The Vance problem is now… manageable. You've proven the investment's worth." He gestured dismissively. "Your usual duties are suspended. Rest. There will be more specialized work."
Lutz gave a curt nod and turned to leave. As he walked away, he could feel the weight of the hidden letter against his skin, a secret more valuable than the Baron's approval.
Later that day, in the well-appointed study of Number 17 Upper Anchor Road, Alaric Vance was a man unraveling. His face, usually a mask of composed authority, was pale and slick with a panicked sweat. He paced before his empty desk, his hands trembling. The locked drawer was forced open, its contents gone. The Loenish letters, the damning ledger… all of it, vanished. He had been meticulously, surgically robbed.
He had already screamed at his watchman, fired his housekeeper for the unlocked attic window he assumed was her fault, and now a cold, crushing terror was setting in. This wasn't a random burglary. Nothing else was taken. This was a message.
His mind, fogged with fear, raced to the only possible source of such targeted, brazen theft. The Harbor Vipers. Baron Vogler had discovered his plans and had reached into his very home to pluck them out. He was a dead man. They would ruin him, or worse.
Desperation overriding his earlier misgivings, he scrawled a frantic, unsealed note on a piece of plain paper.
H. My hand has been forced. The Vipers know. They have taken everything. I need protection. I need your consortium's intervention now, as discussed. – V.
He summoned a street urchin from the corner, pressed a silver coin and the note into his grubby hand, and hissed an address on the fringes of the merchant quarter. "Run. Tell no one."
The message found its way to Karbinian Hass in a quiet, tastefully anonymous office that overlooked the commercial docks. The room was sparsely furnished, all function and no comfort. Hass read Vance's panicked scrawl, his flint-colored eyes showing no surprise, only a cold assessment. He crumpled the note and dropped it into a brass ashtray, where a small, contained flame consumed it to ash.
He stood and walked to the window, watching the ceaseless motion of the cranes and stevedores. The Vipers. It was their signature. Crude, but effective. Gunther Vogler's way of reminding everyone who controlled the mud and blood of the port. But this was too precise. A simple enforcer beating would have been the Baron's style. This… this theft required a finer touch.
A suspicion, cold and sharp, formed in his mind. He recalled a sharp-featured young man with calculating grey-blue eyes, posing as a disgraced nobleman. The one who had so cleverly resolved the Finch situation without betraying his own gang. Fischer. The Baron had a new tool. A specialized one.
This was an escalation. The Baron wasn't just suppressing a snitch; he was gathering intelligence on his opposition. That made him more dangerous, and his new operative a priority concern.
Hass turned from the window. A man who had been standing silently in the corner, a shadow with the build of a dockworker but the eyes of a predator, straightened up.
"It seems the local pest control is becoming more sophisticated," Hass said, his voice devoid of emotion. "The Baron has acquired a new rat-catcher."
The subordinate nodded once, understanding.
"This requires a professional solution," Hass continued, his gaze turning inward, as if consulting a private ledger of assets and liabilities. "Not local muscle. Contact 'those people.' The ones we use for delicate, permanent pruning. Inform them we have a job in Indaw Harbor. A specific target within the Viper's nest. I want it handled before this new tool can be used again."
The subordinate's lips curled into a faint, cruel smile. "Understood, sir." He turned and left the room, his silence more threatening than any oath of violence.
Karbinian Hass returned his gaze to the window, to the city sprawling under a blanket of industrial smog. The game was indeed changing. But he preferred to play with pieces that could be removed from the board permanently. The Baron's new Marauder was about to learn that some treasures, once stolen, came with a deadly price.
With Karl's vague directive to "rest" hanging over him and the weight of the stolen documents—both given and withheld—still a palpable presence, Lutz found the warehouse's oppressive atmosphere more suffocating than ever. The memory of the Vance job was a cold, sharp stone in his gut. He needed to move, to re-establish a sense of control. And control, in his new life, often meant managing threats.
The card in his pocket felt heavier than any stolen coin. Matthias Brenner. Trade Compliance Office. Church of Steam and Machinery. The "helpful" inspector who had been hunting the Vipers without knowing he was asking directions from one.
It was time to check on the hound the Church had unleashed. To see which way it was pointing its nose.
He found Brenner not in a sterile church office, but in the same secluded corner of the public library, surrounded by a fortress of books and papers. The man looked up, his expression of academic focus shifting to one of pleasant, professional recognition.
"Mr. Moss! A surprise," Brenner said, using the false name 'Henrik Moss' Lutz had given him on the street. "I trust you've been well?"
"Well enough, Mr. Brenner," Lutz replied, adopting the respectful tone of a freelance translator. "My schedule has opened up, and I remembered your offer of work. I thought I would see if the need remained."
"Remained? It has only grown!" Brenner gestured to the paper avalanche on his desk. "The administrative history of Feysac's northern ports is a labyrinth of terrible handwriting and deliberate obfuscation. Your help would be invaluable." He pushed a stack of papers towards him. They were shipping manifests and customs ledgers, exactly the kind of dry, bureaucratic records a trade compliance officer would need to sift through.
Lutz's mind saw past the mundane surface. This wasn't just academic research. Brenner was building a case. He was tracing the flow of goods, looking for the irregularities that pointed to Viper operations—the mis-declared cargos, the vanished shipments, the bribes hidden in plain sight. By translating these, Lutz would be literally reading the blueprint of the investigation into his own gang.
"For a small fee, of course," Lutz said, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Of course," Brenner agreed, his own smile not quite reaching his eyes.
For the next several hours, Lutz lost himself in the work. His agile hands, capable of picking locks and pockets with equal ease, now formed elegant, precise script. His mind, accustomed to calculating threats and trajectories, untangled the convoluted syntax of bureaucratic Feysac. He was a double agent in a war only he knew was being fought across this desk. He carefully translated the documents, his inner scholar cataloging every mention of a ship's name, a merchant's alias, or a customs official that might be on the Vipers' payroll—information he could use for himself or subtly misdirect later.
Brenner observed him with growing admiration. "Your eye for detail is exceptional, Moss. The way you caught that transposed figure in the tonnage column… my last assistant missed it entirely."
"I find clarity is a matter of focus," Lutz replied, the understatement immense.
As the afternoon light began to fail, the library's quiet was broken. The main door opened, and a man entered.
Lutz's new instincts, lulled by the rhythmic work, snapped to attention with the force of a whiplash. A silent alarm screamed in his mind.
The man was in his late forties, with long tied hair the color of autumn leaves. He wore a long, dark coat of good quality but practical cut, with the insignia of the Church of Steam. His eyes, a piercing green, scanned the room with a swift, comprehensive assessment.
But it was Lutz's Thief's nose that truly set his nerves on edge. The man was a constellation of focused, dangerous auras. The subtle bulge of a flat, metallic case in his inner coat pocket radiated a cold, orderly energy. This was a Beyonder.
Brenner looked up, and his demeanor shifted instantly from friendly academic to formal deference. "Captain! I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."
The man, Signeil, gave a curt nod. His gaze swept over Brenner and then, inevitably, landed on Lutz. Those dark green eyes felt like a physical pressure. Lutz forced himself to remain perfectly calm. He was Henrik Moss, a translator. A nobody. He met the gaze for a fraction of a second, then politely looked down at his work.
"My schedule shifted, Brenner," Signeil's voice was a low, measured baritone. "I require the Ketterman folios. Regarding early Church governance."
"Of course, they're right here," Brenner said, turning away.
This was the moment. Signeil Krieg's gaze remained on Lutz. The pressure intensified. Lutz kept his breathing even, his hands relaxed. He was a translator. He had nothing to hide but everything.
After an eternity, the gaze lifted as Brenner presented the folios. "Thank you, Matthias." The pale eyes returned to Lutz. "And who is your colleague?"
"Oh, this is Henrik Moss," Brenner said. "A brilliant linguist I've enlisted. His help has been invaluable."
Signeil Krieg's eyes held Lutz's for a beat too long. "Moss," he repeated. "A pleasure. Your work is commendable." The words were polite, but the tone was a dismissal. The assessment was over, for now.
"Thank you, sir," Lutz said, injecting a note of respectful nervousness. "I should be going, Mr. Brenner." He began gathering his things.
"Of course, thank you for your work today," Brenner said.
Lutz stood, nodded politely to both men, and turned to leave. He could feel Signeil Krieg's gaze on his back all the way to the door, a cold spot between his shoulder blades. He didn't hurry. He didn't look back.
Once outside in the cool evening air, he let out a shaky breath. The encounter had been more dangerous than the fight in the alley. Captain. No names, but he didn't need any. The man's bearing, his items, his aura… he was Church, but not the bureaucratic wing. He was the muscle. The kind of man sent in when investigators like Brenner finished their paperwork.
Lutz had gone to the library to manage one threat, a cautious hound. He had instead stumbled into the path of the wolf that followed it. The game board had just grown exponentially larger, and the stakes had become mortal. He had played the part of Henrik Moss perfectly, but he had the chilling certainty that for a man like Signeil, a perfect performance was often the most suspicious thing of all.
3 Hours later
The room was in the upper floor of a nondescript trading company, its windows overlooking the murky canal that marked the border between the merchant quarter and the slums. Karbinian Hass sat behind a plain desk, the only light coming from a single, hooded gas lamp that cast long, dancing shadows. The air was still and cool, devoid of personal effects. It was a place for transactions, not living.
The two men who entered moved with a silence that was more than just stealth; it was an absence of presence, as if they absorbed the sound around them. They did not wait for an invitation to sit.
The first was younger, perhaps in his early twenties, with an almost unsettling beauty. His features were sharp and symmetrical, his hair a cascade of dark curls, his eyes a warm, liquid brown that should have been friendly. They weren't. They held a flat, observational quality, like a painter assessing a subject for a portrait, devoid of human connection.
The second man was older, around thirty, with the weary air of someone who had seen too many nights end badly. Dark, tired circles hung under his eyes, which were a pale, washed-out gray. He moved with a slight, deliberate stiffness, and there was a strange quality to the air around him—a faint, metallic scent, like ozone after a lightning strike, and a subtle pressure that made the flame of the gas lamp flicker momentarily. A small, worn leather bag was slung over his shoulder, its contents unknown.
Hass did not offer greetings. He slid a single sheet of paper across the desk. On it was a name, a rough physical description, and the location: the Harbor Vipers' warehouse.
"The target is a new, promising asset for the Vipers. Average height, sharp gray-blue eyes, ash-blonde short hair. He is the one who neutralized the Vance situation. I believe he is a Beyonder, low sequence. He is clever, agile, and has proven unexpectedly resourceful."
The handsome young man picked up the paper, his eyes scanning it with detached efficiency. He smiled, a brief flash of perfect white teeth that never reached his eyes. "Ambitious of them. Sending a thief to do a diplomat's job."
The older man with the eye bags didn't look at the paper. His pale eyes were fixed on a point somewhere in the middle distance, as if listening to a frequency no one else could hear. "The location is problematic. A fortress. High traffic. Unpredictable elements." His voice was a dry rasp, like stones grinding together.
"The difficulty is reflected in the payment," Hass replied, his tone flat. "I do not hire you for simple tasks. I require this handled before he becomes more than a nuisance. He has drawn the attention of my... business partners. It creates instability."
The younger man placed the paper back on the desk. "We'll need to draw him out. Create a scenario he can't resist investigating."
The older man finally shifted his gaze, his pale eyes focusing on Hass. "The means are our concern. The body will never be found.
A cold, satisfied smile touched Hass's lips. That was the answer he wanted. Not just a kill, but an erasure. A message of absolute finality.
"Then we have an understanding," Hass said. "The first half of your payment is with the courier downstairs. The second upon confirmation."
The two men stood in unison. The handsome one gave a slight, mocking bow. "A pleasure doing business, as always."
The older man simply turned and walked towards the door, the strange, atmospheric pressure around him receding like a tide.
As the door closed behind them, Karbinian Hass allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction. The Baron's new tool was about to be broken. The game was ruthless, and he had just played a very sharp piece.