The past few days had been a study in controlled metamorphosis. With Karl's tacit approval granting him a reprieve from mundane duties, Lutz had dedicated every waking hour to the refinement of his new nature. The warehouse, once just a prison, had become his training ground, its shadowy corners and high, rusted rafters a private gymnasium for a budding Marauder.
His body, already honed by hardship, was now a instrument responding with unnerving precision to his will. He practiced scaling the interior walls, finding fingerholds in the crumbling mortar, his movements a silent, fluid ascent that would have made a seasoned burglar weep with envy. He would hang from the rafters by one hand, then the other, strengthening his grip until the callouses on his palms felt like iron.
But his focus was on the knives.
The two blades taken from the dead thugs had been given to Henrik. The old man had said nothing, merely taken them to his grindstone. When he returned them, the edges could split a hair. Lutz had also procured, through a combination of petty theft and barter, a set of six smaller, balanced throwing knives. They weren't masterwork, but they were sharp, weighted, and his.
His training with them was relentless. In a deserted corner of the warehouse, he'd set up a target—a faded painting of some forgotten Feysac warship, its sail pockmarked with a growing constellation of nicks and gashes. At first, his throws were wild, the enhanced strength in his arm sending the blades clattering against the brick wall. But his agile hands quickly learned the geometry of flight. He learned to feel the balance of each knife in his palm, to calculate the minute adjustments of his wrist, the release point. Within days, he could plant three knives in rapid succession into the painted captain's heart from twenty paces. The thwack-thwack-thwack of steel biting into wood was a satisfying sound, a testament to a skill that was purely his, untainted by the original Lutz's memories.
To conceal his burgeoning arsenal, his attire had evolved. Beneath his usual trousers and shirt, he now wore the dark, close-fitting jerkin Henrik had provided. Over it all, he wore a long, heavy coat of thick, dark wool, frayed at the cuffs but serviceable. It was slightly too large, perfect for concealing the two sheathed fighting knives on his belt and the bandolier of throwing knives strapped across his chest. The coat felt like a shell, a mobile fortress from which he could deploy his stolen and sharpened tools.
It was in this new guise that he observed Rudel being summoned by Karl one morning. The big man emerged from the office with a familiar, brutish scowl. "Another whining merchant who thinks his signature is worth more than his coin," Rudel grunted to no one in particular, cracking his knuckles. "Fischer. You're idle. Come along. Maybe you can talk fancy while I break his fancy furniture."
It was an offhand comment, but Lutz's mind seized it. A routine collection. A public outing. It was an opportunity. Not for the Vipers, but for himself. He could observe Rudel in action, perhaps even find a moment to "acquire" some unrecorded bonus from the merchant's premises while the enforcer provided the distraction.
"I could use the air," Lutz said, his tone neutral.
Rudel just shrugged, indifferent. "Suit yourself. Just stay out of my way."
Their target was a purveyor of "exotic" spices—a euphemism for smuggled Intisian peppers and other contraband—named Herr Weiss. His shop was in a marginally better part of the Salt-Weep, a two-story building with a shopfront below and living quarters above.
The confrontation was as predictable as the tide. Weiss, a man with the pallor of a mushroom and the eyes of a cornered rat, wrung his hands, offering a litany of excuses about customs delays and poor market conditions. Rudel loomed, his silence more threatening than any shout. Lutz stood near the door, his enhanced hearing picking up the frantic beat of the merchant's heart, his eyes casually cataloging the shop. A locked glass case held what looked like genuine saffron. His fingers twitched.
It was then that the first rock smashed through the shop window.
The crash was followed by a volley of curses and more projectiles. Three rough-looking youths stood in the street, their faces contorted with a strange, performative anger. "Viper scum!" one yelled, his voice cracking with a tension that didn't match the generic insult.
Rudel's reaction was instantaneous and primal. The merchant was forgotten. With a roar of pure fury, he burst through the remains of the shop window, sending glass shards flying like glittering rain. "YOU LITTLE SHITS!"
Lutz was right behind him, his own instincts screaming. This was wrong. The attack was too brazen, too stupid. These weren't Gray Sharks making a power play. This felt… staged.
The youths, seeing the mountain of rage bearing down on them, didn't stand and fight. They turned and fled, their flight a little too coordinated, their speed a little too practiced. They ducked into a narrow, refuse-choked alley two doors down.
Rudel, bloodlust clouding his vision, charged after them without a second thought. His philosophy was simple: see a threat, crush it. His physical resilience had always been his answer to every problem.
Lutz followed, but his steps were slower, his senses screaming a warning. The alley was a dead end. The buildings on either side were windowless, their walls slick with grime and moss. The air, which should have been stirred by the fleeing thugs, was unnaturally still. The sounds of the city faded, replaced by a thick, muffled silence that pressed against his eardrums.
This is a funnel. A killing zone.
"Rudel, wait!" he called out, his voice sharp.
But it was too late. Rudel had already plunged deep into the alley, his focus entirely on the fleeing figures who were now scrambling over a pile of collapsed barrels at the far end. As his heavy boot came down in the center of the alley, the ground itself seemed to react.
A circle, ten feet across, flared into sickly, phosphorescent life on the filthy cobblestones. It was not a simple circle. At its center, painted in a thick, granular dust that glowed with a sickly red light, was a large, upside-down cross with a symbol of two clawed hands in a grabbing gesture, and they were grabbing Rudel. Around the circumference, at the four cardinal points, were symbols Lutz didn't recognize—angular, hateful things that seemed to writhe in the dim light. The air grew cold, so cold that Lutz's breath plumed in front of him. The faint, coppery taste of blood and the cloying scent of rotten flowers filled his nostrils.
Rudel stood frozen, not out of caution, but out of sheer, bewildered shock. He looked down at his feet, at the glowing sigils now clinging to his boots like malevolent moss. "What in the Seven Hells…?"
Lutz's mind, cold and analytical despite the dread coiling in his gut, processed the scene. The candles. He saw them now, tucked into shadowed nooks in the walls—black wax, their flames burning with the same unnatural red hue. This was no gangland ambush. This was a ritual. A trap. And the thugs had been the bait, their rock-throwing a performance orchestrated to lead a specific target right here, to this precise spot.
His eyes, frantically scanning the rooftops, found the source. A figure stood on the edge of the building to the right, silhouetted against the grey sky. A young man, his features obscured by a deep hood, but the line of his jaw was sharp, his posture poised and unnervingly calm. As Lutz watched, the figure took a single, graceful step off the roof.
The trap had been set, the ritual had been sprung. Rudel stood frozen in the center of the glowing, inverted cross, his face a mask of confusion and dawning horror as the cursed energy sapped at his legendary strength. Above, the beautiful, hooded figure took a single, graceful step off the roof, descending like a raptor with silent, lethal intent. A long, needle-thin stiletto of smoky grey steel appeared in his hand, aimed directly for the nape of Rudel's exposed neck, this figure seemed to be condensing all of their might into the strike.
Time seemed to warp, stretching thin. Lutz's mind, operating with the cold, preternatural speed of his advancement, processed it all: the perfect trajectory of the fall, the absolute vulnerability of his companion, the certain death in the assassin's grip.
"Rudel! Down!" The shout ripped from Lutz's throat, sharp and commanding, cutting through the muffled silence of the alley.
It was the only warning he could give. For Rudel, a man whose instincts were forged in brawls and brute force, it was just enough. He didn't think; he obeyed the sheer urgency in Lutz's voice. He dropped into a clumsy, half-stumble, the cursed ground making his movements sluggish.
It saved his life.
The stiletto, meant to pierce his spine, instead sliced through the air where his neck had been. The Instigator—Jhin—landed cat-like directly in front of the staggering enforcer, a flicker of annoyance in his flat, serpentine eyes. Rudel, enraged by the near-miss and the unnatural weakness gripping him, roared and swung a massive, haymaker punch. It was slow, by his standards, but still carried enough force to shatter brick.
Jhin didn't block. He flowed. He leaned back, the fist passing inches from his face, the wind of it ruffling his dark curls. The motion was one of effortless, contemptuous evasion.
But in that moment of evasion, his focus was entirely on Rudel. His guard, for a split second, was open.
Lutz's hand had already moved. From within the folds of his greatcoat, a throwing knife was drawn, its weight and balance a known equation in his palm. He didn't aim to kill—the angle was wrong, the target too mobile. He aimed to disrupt.
His wrist snapped forward. The knife became a blur of spinning steel, crossing the short distance of the alley in the space of a heartbeat. Jhin, sensing the new threat at the last possible instant, twisted his body. The knife meant for his ribs instead grazed his upper arm, slicing through the dark fabric of his tunic and drawing a thin, bright line of blood.
Jhin hissed, a sound of pure, cold fury, his beautiful face contorting for a second before smoothing back into a mask of calm. He didn't even clutch the wound; he simply acknowledged it, his dead eyes now locking onto Lutz.
"A gnat," Jhin murmured, his voice a melodious insult. "I'll swat you next."
He returned his attention to Rudel, who was charging again, his movements growing more labored by the second. Jhin became a phantom. He didn't stand and fight; he danced. He sidestepped another ponderous swing, and as he moved, his stiletto flicked out twice—a shallow cut on Rudel's forearm, a deeper slash across his thigh. They were not killing blows. They were provocations. Needles of pain to fuel an inferno.
"Is this the best the Vipers have?" Jhin taunted, his voice weaving through the air, laced with a subtle, compelling power. "A lumbering ox, stumbling in the dirt. So easy to anger. So easy to break. Let the rage fill you, you brute. It's all you have left."
Rudel's breaths came in ragged, furious gasps. His eyes were wide, the confusion burned away by a blinding, red-hot anger. The curses on the ground and the taunts from this beautiful ghost were a poison in his veins, and he was succumbing. He was about to charge blindly again, to exhaust the last of his strength on a phantom.
'Just like with Karl... there's a strange energy to this guy's words, but its different, more subtle, those kids... where they influenced by this?' Lutz had an illuminating thought.
"Don't!" Lutz barked, his voice cutting through the psychic pressure Jhin was exerting. He took a step into the alley, his own presence a counterweight to the Instigator's influence. "He's baiting you, Rudel! He wants you angry. Your anger makes you slow. He's using it!"
The words, logical and cold, were a lifeline. Rudel hesitated, his chest heaving, the rational part of his brain fighting through the haze of rage and curses. He grunted, a sound of acknowledgment, and shifted his stance from a mindless charge to a more defensive, wary crouch.
Jhin's smile vanished. His dead eyes narrowed at Lutz, the first flicker of genuine interest replacing annoyance. "Clever gnat."
In that moment, the dynamic shifted. The simple trap had failed. The primary target was wounded and cursed, but no longer blindly compliant. And a new, unpredictable variable had drawn a line in the dirt.
Lutz didn't wait for the next move. With a single, fluid motion, he shrugged the heavy greatcoat from his shoulders, letting it fall to the filthy ground. The freedom of movement was instantaneous. His hands went to his belt, and with a twin whisper of steel, he drew the two fighting knives Henrik had sharpened for him. The blades gleamed dully in the alley's gloom.
He stood at the mouth of the alley, knives held in a low, ready guard, his body poised between the cursed Rudel and the deadly Jhin. He was no longer just a spectator or a support. He had declared himself a combatant.
The beautiful assassin tilted his head, assessing the new threat. The gnat had grown a stinger.
"Better," Jhin said, his voice a soft promise of violence. He raised his blood-tipped stiletto. "This will be more interesting."