The roar of the revolver was still echoing in Lutz's ears, a stark, definitive period at the end of the Vice-Captain's haunting poem. The sudden silence where the man's voice had been was almost as jarring as the gunshot. Lutz took a single, sharp breath, the maddening whispers of Umbra still scraping at the edges of his mind. He ripped the ring from his finger, the psychic assault receding to a dull, manageable throb, and shoved it back into its pouch. He had no attention to spare for the ghosts in his head; the battle raging around him demanded all of it.
His eyes, gray-blue and cold as the sea beneath them, swept the deck in a swift, tactical assessment. The tide had turned. With the Midnight Poet's debilitating magic silenced, the remaining Vipers had rallied. The sailors, their morale brittle without the supernatural support, were being pushed back, cornered, and cut down by the Vipers' brutal efficiency. The cacophony was now dominated by the Vipers' triumphant shouts and the desperate, dying cries of the merchant crew. The deck was a slaughterhouse, slick with blood and littered with the fallen.
His gaze then snapped to the true heart of the conflict: Karl's duel.
It was a dance of fire and frost, a spectacle of terrifying power. Karl had abandoned pure ranged attacks, recognizing the frost spirit's impeccable defense. He had closed the distance, and the result was a breathtaking display of a Beyonder's full capabilities. His movements were a blur, even to Lutz's Marauder-enhanced eyes. He wasn't just fast; he was efficient, every dodge, every pivot, every strike calibrated to perfection. In his hand, he wielded a shortsword that glowed with a white-hot inner fire, leaving searing afterimages in the air.
He was fighting both the Captain and the spirit simultaneously. The Captain, for all his size, was no sluggish brute. He met Karl's assault with ferocity, his own enhanced physique as a beyonder of the same sequence, although not at the level of Karl's, allowing him to parry the fiery blade with gauntleted fists that sparked and sizzled on contact. But the true danger was the glacial scythe. It whistled through the air, a semi-sentient extension of the Captain's will, forcing Karl into constant, hair-raising evasions. He'd duck under a sweep that froze the railing behind him into a brittle sculpture, only to roll away from a thrust from the Captain that cratered the deck where he'd just been.
The offense of a Pyromaniac was undeniable. Karl was a storm of controlled combustion. He'd feint high with his sword, and as the spirit moved to block, a burst of concussive flame would erupt from his free hand at point-blank range, forcing the Captain to recoil. He was a predator, slowly, methodically wearing down his prey.
Lutz saw his moment. He holstered the revolver, the warm metal a comforting weight under his arm. There was no time to retrieve his scattered throwing knives. He sprinted to the mast, wrenching Creed free with a grunt, the rose-tinted blade seeming to pulse with eagerness. He snatched his broad knife from the deck where it had fallen. Armed once more, he began to circle the periphery of the duel, his feet silent on the bloody planks, a shark seeking an opening.
It was then that Karl found his. The frost spirit overextended on a powerful, sweeping scythe blow. Karl didn't just dodge; he used the motion, flowing under the arc of frozen death and coming up inside the spirit's guard. The Captain, momentarily unprotected, tried to raise an arm to block. Karl's fire-infused shortsword slashed down, shearing through the heavy blue coat and the flesh beneath. A deep gash opened on the Captain's chest, and the smell of seared meat joined the scents of blood and gunpowder.
The Captain roared, not in pain, but in pure, incandescent rage. He stumbled back, his frosty eyes wide with fury. He looked at the bloody wound, then at his own crimson-smeared hand. A terrible, ritualistic calm descended upon him.
"Enough of this," he growled, his voice a low rumble of impending doom.
He ignored Karl completely, adopting a praying pose, his bloody hands clasped together. He began to recite something in a low, guttural chant. The language was ancient, the words themselves feeling heavy—Hermes, the language of the gods and of nature.
Karl, sensing a shift, saw what he believed was a fatal opening. The Captain was defenseless, lost in his prayer. With a triumphant snarl, Karl lunged, his fiery sword aimed for the man's exposed throat.
It was a trap.
The air itself seemed to curdle. From the bloody handprints the Captain had left on the deck, a second spirit materialized. It was not a figure of ice, but a swirling, malevolent cloud of grave dust and ancient soil. Within the cloud, two weathered, stone-like hands formed, fingers like broken tombstones. As Karl committed to his lunge, the ground beneath his feet did not freeze; it liquefied. The solid oak planks turned into a patch of clinging, sucking quicksand, trapping his boots and ankles in an instant. He was caught, immobilized up to his knees, his forward momentum violently arrested.
His eyes widened in shock. The frost spirit, now unimpeded, swung its scythe in a deadly, horizontal arc aimed at his neck. Trapped, Karl could only bring his shortsword up in a desperate, cross-body block. The impact was colossal. The sound was not of metal on metal, but of fire meeting absolute zero. Steam exploded outwards in a scalding cloud. The force of the blow shattered the flame infusion on Karl's blade, the fire dying instantly, and sent a jolt of paralyzing cold through his arm. The scythe's edge bit deep into his shoulder, not a clean cut, but a brutal, tearing wound that instantly froze the flesh around it, the pain so intense it was a silent scream behind his eyes.
He was helpless. Weapon broken, one arm useless, trapped in the earth. He looked up, his vision blurring, to see the Captain. The man had finished his prayer. His eyes were pools of utter darkness, and in his hands, he now held a spectral weapon—a ethereal hammer formed from condensed grave-earth and despair. He raised it high, ready to bring it down and pulverize Karl's skull.
He never finished the swing.
Lutz had not been idle. While the Captain chanted and the second spirit rose, he had been moving, not towards the fight, but through it, using the chaos as cover. He had circled wide, coming up from behind the Captain, his approach masked by the elemental fury and the Captain's own ritualistic focus.
He saw Karl trapped. He saw the killing blow aimed at his head. There was no time for thought, only for action. The principles were irrelevant now. There was only instinct, and the power thrumming in his hand.
He gripped Creed, and for the first time that night, he focused everything into the stiletto. The world narrowed to the space between the Captain's shoulder blades.
Kill Shot.
He drove Creed forward. There was no resistance. The rose-tinted blade, channeling an impossible concentration of force, entered the Captain's back and, in a horrific, silent implosion of matter, pulverized a fist-sized cavity through his torso, obliterating spine, heart, and lung in a single, catastrophic moment. The spectral hammer dissolved into motes of dust. The Captain's eyes, wide with interrupted triumph, went blank. He took a half-step forward, a puppet with its strings cut, and then collapsed face-first onto the deck, a gaping, ruinous hole where his chest had been.
The effect on the spirits was instantaneous. The frost spirit, its scythe raised for another blow, let out a silent, psychic shriek of anguish and dissolved into a cloud of glittering, melting ice crystals. The earthen spirit, the cloud of dust and stone, simply slumped back into the deck, the planks solidifying instantly and trapping Karl's legs even more firmly, but no longer threatening to swallow him whole.
Silence descended on the aft deck, broken only by the moans of the wounded and the crackle of the few remaining fires.
Karl, panting, wrenched his gaze from the Captain's corpse to Lutz. He saw the young man standing there, chest heaving, Creed dripping onto the deck, his expression unreadable.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other, the master and the weapon that had just saved his life.
Then, Karl gave a slow, pained nod. His voice, when it came, was rough, stripped of its usual calculating hum, raw with pain and something that might have been respect.
"You did… a good job, Fischer."
It was no effusive praise, no promotion. It was a simple, professional acknowledgment from one killer to another. In the economy of the Vipers, in the brutal calculus of survival, it was worth more than any medal. Lutz had not just completed the mission; he had proven, beyond any doubt, that he was no longer just a promising asset. He was a power in his own right. And as he stood over the corpse of the Captain, the last echoes of the battle fading around him, Lutz knew that the balance of power between him and Karl had just irrevocably shifted.
The fierce, chaotic energy of battle bled away, leaving behind a hollow, grim silence punctuated by the moans of the wounded and the relentless lap of waves against the scarred hulls of the two ships. The fight was over. The Vipers moved through the carnage with the practiced efficiency of butchers, ensuring the fallen sailors were truly dead and roughly patching their own wounds. The air was thick with the coppery stench of blood and the acidic tang of gunpowder, overlaying the crisp, clean scent of the sea.
Karl had slumped against the broken railing, his face pale beneath the grime and soot. One of the men was clumsily trying to staunch the deep, frozen gash on his shoulder, the flesh around it an ugly, mottled purple. His fiery intensity was banked, replaced by a weary, pain-glazed focus. He issued low, terse orders, his voice raspy, directing the cleanup and the securing of the Ocean Snake's Bane.
Lutz stood for a moment, the adrenaline receding and leaving a cold, hollow feeling in its wake. The weight of Creed in his hand felt different now—heavier, stained with a different kind of death. His eyes scanned the deck and found the slender form of the Vice-Captain, lying in a pool of his own blood, the dreamy eyes now vacant and staring at the starless sky. The small, leather-bound journal lay nearby, its pages stained crimson.
He walked over, his movements deliberate. Kneeling, he ignored the journal for a moment and focused on the body. His Thief's nose hummed, a faint, intuitive pull emanating from the man's chest. With a grimace, he used the tip of his broad knife to cut through the tunic. There, nestled just over the heart, a Beyonder characteristic had begun to form. It was a crystal, but unlike any he had seen before. It was shaped like a delicate, unfurled flower, its petals the deep, translucent shade of a midnight sky, shot through with faint, shimmering veins that looked like captured starlight. The Midnight Poet's Characteristic. It was beautiful, in a haunting, tragic way. He carefully pried it loose, the crystal cool against his palm, and stored it in a small, padded pouch on his belt. Another secret, another piece of power added to his hidden hoard.
As he stood, the sounds of the Vipers' "victory" took on a uglier tone. A few of the men, their bloodlust not yet cooled, had cornered a group of the civilian sailors—the cook, a young cabin girl, and two older riggers—who had emerged from below decks, their faces masks of terror.
"Pretty quiet now, ain't ya?" one Viper sneered, grabbing the cook by the collar. "How 'bout you lot make yourselves useful?"
Another leered at the cabin girl. "Might be a bit of sport left in this night."
Lutz felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. He saw the Captain's words—"We will do whatever is needed"—about to be enacted in the most base, pointless way. This wasn't completing the mission. This was indulging in cruelty. It was the kind of chaos that got people killed, that created loose ends, that violated his own, newly-forged principles. And this fall, into mindless savagery, was not worth the fleeting pleasure these men sought.
He moved before he even consciously decided to, his presence suddenly a solid, imposing force between the Vipers and their victims.
"Enough," Lutz said, his voice flat and hard, cutting through the tense air. He didn't shout, but the command in it was undeniable.
The Vipers turned, their expressions shifting from predatory glee to surprise and then to wary resentment. They saw Lutz Fischer, the Baron's rising star, the one who had just helped Karl bring down a Beyonder captain. He was spattered with blood, Creed still naked in his hand. He looked every inch the killer he was.
"The job isn't tormenting commoners," Lutz continued, his gaze sweeping over them, cold and dismissive. "The job is in the hold. The cargo. The schematics. That's what we came for. That's what the Baron wants. Focus on the job, or I'll take care of you as a liability." He let the threat hang, his eyes lingering on each man until they looked away, muttering curses but backing down. The civilians huddled together, trembling, their wide eyes fixed on Lutz with a mixture of terror and bewildered gratitude.
Satisfied the immediate threat was neutralized, Lutz turned his back on them, his Thief's Nose—the intuitive pull of his Marauder senses—already tugging him elsewhere. It led him away from the main deck, towards the Captain's quarters at the stern.
The room was a testament to the man's dual nature. Maps and navigational charts were neatly rolled on a desk, but beside them lay a heavy, leather-bound journal with a lock. Lutz's Agile Hands made short work of it. A quick scan of the pages revealed it was no simple log. It was filled with notes on mystical knowledge, phases of the moon, rituals and detailed observations on spiritual phenomena. It was the journal of a practitioner, a man deeply involved in the world of Beyonders. This was a prize far beyond coin.
His senses, however, were pulled toward a heavy, iron-banded safe bolted to the floor in the corner. It was a formidable piece of craftsmanship, but it was just a lock. He knelt, his world narrowing to the feel of the mechanism under his fingertips. He listened, he felt, his mind a perfect conduit for the conversation between his tools and the tumblers. It took longer than a simple door, a full three minutes of intense concentration, but finally, with a series of satisfying, heavy clunks, the door swung open.
Inside, stacked neatly, were stacks of Gold Hammers. Thirty of them. Without hesitation, he transferred them to his own pack. Beside the coins were documents—ship manifests, letters of credit, and a separate, sealed folder marked with a symbol he didn't recognize. All of it went into his pack. Information was a currency he was learning to value above all others.
Emerging from the cabin, he saw the Vipers were now hard at work, hauling crates from the merchantman's hold onto the deck of the Viper's Fang. He saw the specialized machinery parts, the tubes of brass and polished steel, and the long, flat cases that presumably held the confidential schematics Karl had mentioned.
Then he remembered Karl's offhand comment back in his room. "A locked case for a Beyonder client."
He closed his eyes, shutting out the grunts of the men and the creak of ropes, and focused entirely on his Thief's nose. He cast his senses out like a net, searching for that unique, potent "value" that signified something beyond the mundane. The machinery parts hummed with a faint, industrial worth. The coins in his pack glowed warmly. But there was something else. Something fainter, almost completely muffled, like a shout heard through a thick wall. It came from below. From the very bottom of the ship, near the bilges.
Intrigued, he slipped away from the main activity, descending into the bowels of the Ocean Snake's Bane. The air grew thick and damp, smelling of tar, rot, and stagnant water. He followed the faint, muffled signal to a seemingly forgotten storage nook, hidden behind barrels of salt pork. There, shoved into the shadows, was a small, unassuming chest made of a dark, heavily lacquered wood. It had no visible lock.
But as he reached for it, his senses screamed a warning. It wasn't that the chest had no value; it was that the value was being suppressed. An invisible, seamless barrier of energy surrounded it, dampening its spiritual signature to near nothingness.
Cautiously, he examined it. There were no runes, no triggers he could see. It was a pure, formless ward. He drew Creed, but hesitated. Forcing it might trigger a backlash. Instead, he placed his hands on the lid, feeling the strange, staticky resistance. He focused his will, not as a thief, but as a Beyonder, pushing against the enchantment with his own spiritual pressure. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, with a sound like a soap bubble popping in a distant room, the barrier simply… dissolved.
The moment it vanished, the chest's true nature erupted in his perception. It blazed in his mind's eye, a bonfire of immense, concentrated value. The "muffled shout" was now a clear, clarion call. The seal was gone.
"Some kind of seal or isolation?" Lutz muttered to himself, his heart beginning to pound with a mix of trepidation and sharp, acquisitive hunger.
He reached out, his fingers now meeting only cool, unadorned wood. He took a breath, and lifted the lid.