The moment the "Imprisonment" decree reached its temporal limit, the invisible walls containing the Rose Bishop vanished. What slumped to the cobblestones was no longer a monstrous blob, but a horrifically wounded man. Sett's form had reverted, his dark robes now shredded and soaked through, clinging to a body riddled with weeping, cylindrical wounds. Dark blood pooled rapidly beneath him, steaming in the cool night air. The androgynous beauty of his features was contorted by pain and a profound, venomous fury.
His mind, however, was coldly calculating, cutting through the agony. No more. This battle is a net loss. The assessment was swift and merciless. The Judge's prohibitions were a perfect counter. "Shadows are prohibited" had neutered his primary means of movement and ambush. "Imprison" had made his fluid flesh a cage. To continue was to let the Judge whittle him down until there was nothing left but a stain on the stones. His power was distributed across the 2 domains of shadow and flesh; the Judge's laws, by targeting either of those very concepts, were systematically dismantling him.
Retreat. Now. The decision was absolute. He had underestimated the local Church's enforcer. He would not make that mistake again.
With a guttural effort that tore at the wounds in his torso, Sett forced himself to his feet. He did not attack. He turned and fled, a stumbling, bloody run towards the deeper darkness at the far end of the alley, away from Krieg. It was an admission of defeat, a humiliating posture for a Rose Bishop, but survival was the only dogma that mattered.
Captain Krieg, observing the ragged retreat, did not let the opportunity pass. The law demanded consequence. His voice, though strained from the spiritual weight of his decrees, was still firm.
"Flog."
The invisible whip of force materialized once more and lashed out, catching Sett squarely across the back. The sound was a sickening crack, like a butcher cleaving meat. Sett cried out, a raw sound of fresh agony, as his robes and the flesh beneath them split open. He was thrown forward by the impact, skidding through his own blood trail, but his momentum carried him onward, driven by pure desperation.
And then, he crossed an unseen boundary. The lingering aura of Krieg's first proclamation—"Shadows are prohibited here"—had a finite range. The moment Sett passed beyond it, the shadows at the alley's end, once inert and flat, surged forward to meet him like loyal hounds. They wrapped around his broken form, not as a barrier, but as a medium. His body lost its solidity, dissolving, merging with the darkness itself. One moment he was a stumbling, bleeding man; the next, he was a ripple in the gloom, and then he was simply gone. Only the heavy scent of blood and roses, and the slick, dark trail on the cobblestones, remained as evidence he had ever been there.
Krieg did not pursue. He stood his ground, his breathing slightly elevated, the brass scale still held ready in his right hand. The seafarer's compass in his left. His sharp green eyes scanned the now-silent alley, confirming the threat had truly withdrawn. The immediate battle was over. He had won.
His thoughts, however, were not on victory. They clicked into a cold, analytical post-combat assessment.
'The target is a Rose Bishop, Sequence 6. Confirmed abilities: somatic transmutation into amorphous flesh-and-blood construct; sacrificial dismemberment for potent blood curses; generation of mindless flesh puppets; shadow-merging for mobility and stealth'
'Primary vulnerability: spirit body is acutely susceptible to spiritual attacks, specifically banishment and spatial locking. Conclusion: a high-threat target, but manageable within the confines of Church authority and with the correct pathway countermeasures.'
Then, his focus shifted. The variable. "Henrik Moss."
His gaze swept the perimeter of the ruined street, the blasted cobblestones, the pockmarked walls. The scholar was nowhere to be seen. Of course he wasn't. His flight had been instantaneous and decisive. The timing was too perfect. He hadn't just run; he had used the confrontation as a strategic diversion, calculating that two Mid-sequence Beyonders would be too occupied with each other to bother with a mere "translator."
The Marauder's instinct, Krieg thought, a fresh wave of cold certainty washing over him. Acquisition of opportunity. He acquired his life by sacrificing our engagement. The Thief's nature, embodied.
The pieces locked into place with finality. The "Harbor Butcher's" acquisitive spiritual residue. The "Marauder" pathway. The "translator" with a Listener's ring and the reflexes of a seasoned operative. They were all the same man. Henrik Moss was Lutz Fischer, and he was the key node in this entire web of chaos. Apprehending him was no longer just an option; it was the most efficient path to restoring order.
It was then that the cost of enforcing that order finally came due.
The power of the Judge's scale was not limitless. Every proclamation, every manipulation of fundamental laws, created a spiritual backlash, a "Karmic Debt" that was temporarily held in abeyance by the artifact. The scale did not prevent the cost; it merely delayed it, allowing for the swift execution of justice. Now, with the immediate threat gone and his focus turning to the next, the accumulated debt of the night's decrees—slammed into his spirit body all at once.
It was not pain. It was negation.
A silent, metaphysical hammer blow struck him at the core of his being. His vision whited out. The sound of the world—the hiss of the corrosive residue, the distant hum of the city—was snuffed into absolute silence. His connection to his own body, to the spiritual body that fueled his powers, was temporarily severed.
The brass scale fell from his nerveless fingers, clattering on the stone. His legs buckled. Captain Signeil Krieg, collapsed onto the cobblestones like a marionette with its strings cut, his consciousness extinguished.
He did not feel the cold of the stones. He did not hear the alarmed shouts that eventually came from the end of the street. The first patrol of Church of Steam officers, drawn by the sounds of explosive conflict and the bizarre, localized phenomena, found him there minutes later. They saw the devastated battlefield, the acid-scarred walls, the pools of unknown blood, and their Captain lying motionless in the midst of it all.
They secured the area with trained efficiency, their faces grim. They carefully retrieved the fallen brass scale, sealing it in a lead-lined box, and gently lifted Krieg's unconscious form. The hunt for the Harbor Butcher and the investigation into the forbidden sect would continue, but for now, the Church's sharpest weapon in Indaw Harbor was out of the fight. The field was now clear for the Thief and the Bishop to continue their deadly dance.
The bolt slid home with a solid thud, sealing him inside the fragile silence of his room. For a long minute, Lutz just stood there, back pressed against the door, listening to the wild drumbeat of his own heart. The phantom scents of the street—acid, blood, and that cloying, rotten-rose perfume—clung to him, a toxic reminder of how close he'd come to becoming just another stain on the cobblestones.
He shoved away from the door, stripping off the clothes and kicking them into a corner. Right now, he needed answers, not panic. Philosophy was a luxury for those with time. He had neither.
He cleared a space on the small table, pushing aside knives and guns to make room for a different kind of tool. From a hidden pouch, he retrieved a silver, ruby pendulum. Slipping Umbra onto his finger was like stepping into a roaring river of whispers—the city's hidden fears and desires. He gritted his teeth, forcing the noise down, channeling the ring's power into a single, sharp point of focus. He held the pendulum steady, its tip hovering over a blank spot on the wood.
"Has my attacker been defeated?" he whispered, and repeated 7 times.
The pendulum hung motionless for a breath, then began a slow, unwavering counter-clockwise circle. No.
A cold knot tightened in his gut. "Was Krieg killed?" He repeated.
Again, the negative swing. No.
So both monsters still breathed. The reprieve was temporary. "Are they significantly wounded?"
The pendulum's motion shifted, snapping into a decisive clockwise movement. Yes.
He let out a sharp breath. There it was. A window. Not an open door, but a crack. A week, maybe less, while both predators licked their wounds.
Time to stop running. Time to make them run into each other.
The plan began to form not as a list, but as a narrative, a story he would write with actions instead of words. His goal was simple, brutal, and comprehensive. He wouldn't just kill the Baron and Karl. He would rob them first. He would take their money, their secrets, their power, and then, as a final transaction, their lives. He would steal his own freedom right out from under their dead noses.
He found a scrap of paper and began to sketch in romanian, his hand moving with a hybrid certainty—Andrei's logic providing the structure, Lutz's cunning supplying the audacity.
The first couple days would be for listening and lying, as well as completing his projects. He needed to link the Ocean Snake's bane plunder to the Vipers, to point that the stolen Dream-eating rat heart was in the baron's hands. Then, he'd craft two perfect, poisonous truths. One for the Church, a terrified tip from a fictional informant about a forbidden ritual the Baron would perform to transcend his form, involving the heart and outside sects. The other for the Rose Bishop, a cleverly forged instigation to push him to hunt him, taunting him with the names of the artifacts he had made from the remainings of his cult companions as well as the heart.
On the third day, the "Informant," pale and shaking, would deliver the first letter to Brenner through a paid street urchin, aside from the "Baron's ritual" he would inform the church of the Viper's providers, informants, throughout the week, the church would slowly dismantle the Vipers forcing them all to retreat into the Warehouse.
With the bait set, he'd visit the Whispering Market. He needed specific tools: The artifact he had commissioned to Lorelei with the Midnight Poet's characteristic, it should be able to induce sleep in a decent area, aside from that, a corrosive acid that could eat through a lock in seconds, he knew how to make it thanks to his alchemy studies, but he lacked the materials, he could finally use the ingredients he got from the crazy doctor's house, but he lacked a few others. He'd also finalize the design for his new harness—the one that would let him carry his entire arsenal not like a walking armory, but like a second skin.
On the sixth night, a small, strategic fire in a remote warehouse corner would provide the spark. Just enough to trigger a lockdown, to herd the Vipers into their den and put everyone on a razor's edge.
Then, on the seventh night, the story would reach its climax.
The Church, led by a wounded but duty-bound Krieg, would breach the front doors, acting on the tip about the ritual. The Rose Bishop, drawn by the promise of the heart and terminating his target, would slink in through the shadows. And the Vipers, already on edge, would find themselves caught in a three-way war.
In the resulting chaos—the shouts, the sleep-inducing artifact, the hiss of corrosive blood—Lutz would move.
While Karl and the Baron were distracted by Krieg or the Rose Bishop, he'd bypass the lock on his office and empty it of every coin, Beyonder characteristic and journal. While the man was fighting for his life, Lutz would be eating through the lock of his hidden treasury with acid, stuffing his pockets with everything that glittered and held value. He wouldn't confront the Baron.
As the warehouse descended into absolute pandemonium, he'd shed the Viper's Hide, revealing the common clothes beneath. A smoke pellet would cover his escape not through the main fight, but out a forgotten coal chute or a high window. He would vanish into the alleys, not heading home, but to a pre-rented room in a different district, by then, he hoped the could have made another identity, new documents.
Lutz set the pencil down. The plan was terrifying in its scope, a house of cards built on a foundation of luck and precise timing. But it was the only path that didn't end with him as a victim. He was turning his enemies into unwitting accomplices in their own destruction.
It was a masterpiece that incorporated all of the principles he had devised.
What is left unseen and unguarded is mine to take. He would take advantage of every overlook, of every missed detail, he would fill in the gaps.
Know your prey, not just its lair.At this point Lutz was very familiar with the Viper's and the Church's way of doing things, and the final battlefield would be his home-ground, this damned Warehouse.
A marauder takes because they must, not because they need. It was risky to, on top of orchestrating a 3-way war between different factions, steal and come out as a winner, he didn't need to do it, he could flee after doing it and start somewhere else, but this was something he must do.
The take is never worth the fall.This wasn't just for the sake of taking, this plan was his only way of stealing back his freedom, if he failed to take care of a single one of these 3 factions, he would not be left alone, it had to be done this way, there would be no other opportunity.
Your exit is your first step, not your last. He would throughly plan his escape after the operation was set in motion, he knew this place like the palm of his hand, he would not fail.
He looked at the gear piled on the table. It was no longer just a collection of weapons. It was his toolkit for liberation. The window was open. For the next week, Lutz Fischer would be the busiest man in Indaw Harbor, a ghost preparing his own resurrection through fire, theft, and blood. He had a treasury to loot, a Baron to destroy, and a new life to steal.