A meal of hard bread and cheese was consumed without tasting it. Fuel, not pleasure.
'Its been a while since i ate inside this shithole, being a wanted man sure isn't fun' Lutz thought self-deprecatingly
The moment he was done, Lutz cleared the small table, his movements economical and precise. The time for reconnaissance was over. Now was the time for action.
From the chest in his room, he retrieved the tools of a scholar: high-quality parchment, a selection of inks, and a set of fine-nibbed pens. He laid them out with the reverence of a scribe illuminating a holy text. This document was his first arrow, and its fletching had to be perfect. He had already memorized the standard format of an Intisian customs manifest from his time helping Brenner. The trick was not to create a perfect replica, but a believable one. It had to look like a genuine document that had been clumsily altered by a criminal hand, a rival gang trying to incriminate the Vipers. Not a forgery planted by a third party.
His hands were steady as he mixed the ink, achieving the exact shade of bureaucratic blue-black. He began to write, his script a flawless imitation of the tight, efficient hand of a low-level customs official thanks to his dexterous fingers. He listed mundane items: "Bales of Southern Cotton," "Crates of Loenish Machine Parts." Then, nestled in the middle, the target: "Crate 7A: Assorted Religious Artifacts & Curios (Value: 500 Hammers)."
His breath caught. This was the heart of the lie. He dipped his pen again and, with a subtly different pressure—mimicking a hand that was rushed or nervous—he altered the destination. The original, intended for a reputable auction house in the merchant quarter, was scratched out with a line that was just a little too heavy, a little too desperate. Beside it, in a script that leaned just a fraction more towards the vulgar, he wrote the address of a known Viper front: a ramshackle warehouse in the Salt-Weep district that officially belonged to "Finch & Sons Salvage."
He leaned back, scrutinizing his work. It was good. Too good, perhaps. He took the document and carefully aged it, rubbing a faint dust of ground coffee and ash into the parchment, smudging a corner as if it had been handled by dozens of harried dockworkers. He folded it and creased it along lines that suggested it had been in a pocket or a ledger for weeks. The final touch was a single, perfect waterdrop stain in one corner, blurring nothing important but adding to the aura of authentic neglect. It was no longer a fresh forgery; it was a piece of evidence.
Satisfied, he prepared his skin. He started with the base: the rough trousers and a simple shirt. Then, the first layer of disguise. He chose the short, brown wig, combing it into a nondescript style. He added a pair of plain spectacles with clear glass lenses. The effect was instantaneous. The sharp-featured intensity of Lutz Fischer softened into the harried look of a junior clerk or a shop assistant. He completed the look with the dark green workman's coat. He was now someone invisible.
He left his room with his bag, moving with the hunched, hurried gait of a man with too much to do and too little time. His destination was the affluent district surrounding the Chevalier Church, but he wouldn't go directly. Paranoia was his compass. Halfway there, he ducked into a public lavatory. In the grimy silence, he shed the first disguise. The spectacles and green coat went into his bag. The brown wig was replaced by the longer, black one. He swapped the workman's trousers for the slightly better ones and donned the heavy, hooded duffel coat. He rubbed a little dirt from the floor onto his knuckles and the cuff of his coat. He was no longer a clerk; he was a laborer, perhaps a dockworker who'd come inland on an errand. The same man, in the same city, now wore a completely different story.
The area around the Chevalier Church was a world apart from the Salt-Weep. The air was cleaner, the sounds more orderly: the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages, the civilized murmur of well-dressed citizens, the distant, rhythmic chuffing of the Church's own steam generators. The church itself was a formidable edifice of granite and brass, its spires adorned with rotating, gear-like motifs that caught the light. It exuded an aura of unshakable power and cold efficiency.
Lutz kept his head down, his hands shoved in the pockets of the duffel coat, his posture that of a man intimidated by his surroundings. He walked a slow, wide circle around the church's perimeter, his eyes missing nothing. He noted the positions of the guards, the frequency of patrols, the arrival and departure of steam-wagons. And then he saw it, his true objective: the "Lyceum of Applied Sciences," a luxurious library and reading room that stood just a block away from the church. It was the kind of place where officers and clerks would spend their breaks, away from the grim realities of their work but still within the shadow of their power.
He entered the Lyceum, the warmth and silence enveloping him. The air smelled of old paper, leather, and polish. He moved like a ghost among the towering shelves, his gaze sweeping the reading tables. And there they were. Clusters of men and women in the distinct, grey-trimmed attire of the Church of Steam. They weren't the high-ranking investigators like Krieg; these were the cogs in the machine, the lieutenants and clerks who handled the mountains of paperwork that kept the empire of steam running.
For nearly an hour, Lutz became a part of the furniture. He pretended to browse volumes on agricultural yields and Loenish trade law, all the while listening. His ears, sharpened by his abilities and years of survival, filtered the whispers.
"...and the Deacon wants the quarterly reports by tomorrow. It's impossible..."
"...audit on the Bansy shipping line. The Baron's name came up again..."
"...heard Captain Krieg is in the infirmary. Something bad happened last night..."
The last whisper sent a jolt of ice through his veins, but his face remained a placid mask. So, Krieg was alive, but out of commission. The information was a double-edged sword: it bought him time, but it also confirmed the Church had been directly engaged. The pressure would be immense.
His eyes finally settled on his target. A man in his late twenties, with thinning hair and wire-rimmed spectacles, seated at a table piled high with folders and ledgers. He worked with a frantic, almost desperate diligence, his pen scratching across paper, his shoulders permanently hunched with stress. This was the type—conscientious, overworked, and desperate to prove his worth. The perfect, unwitting delivery system.
'Now that's exactly the kind of sucker I am looking for'
Lutz waited for his moment. He saw the clerk gather a stack of books to return to the shelves. This was it. Lutz selected a heavy, leather-bound tome on Feysac mineral rights and moved, timing his path to intersect with the clerk's.
The collision was a masterpiece of controlled chaos. Lutz made sure he was the one who appeared most at fault, stumbling just so. The stack of books in the clerk's arms went flying, scattering across the polished floor with a series of loud, embarrassing thwacks.
"Oh! Gods, I'm so sorry mister!" Lutz's voice was a pitch higher, layered with a servile panic that was utterly alien to his own. He dropped to his knees, his movements a flurry of useless assistance. "Please, let me help, sir! A thousand apologies!"
The clerk was flustered, his face reddening. "No, no, it's quite alright—just, just leave them!" he stammered, embarrassed by the scene and eager to end it.
But Lutz was already gathering books, his hands a blur. In that moment of shared chaos, as the clerk was distracted by his own humiliation and the scattered pages, Lutz performed the crucial act. His fingers, possessing the supernatural dexterity of a Marauder, slipped the folded customs manifest from his sleeve and tucked it neatly between the pages of a thick ledger on trade compliance that the clerk had been using. The movement was less than a second, a phantom touch.
He then pressed a few of the rescued books back into the clerk's arms. "There you are, sir. Again, my deepest apologies. I wasn't looking where I was going."
The clerk, mortified and wanting only to escape, muttered a thanks and hurried back to his table, clutching the stack of books, the forged manifest now nestled invisibly within his own papers.
Lutz stood, brushing off his knees, his face a mask of contrite embarrassment. He offered a final, shallow bow to the room at large, then scurried away towards the exit, the picture of a clumsy laborer who had overstayed his welcome in a place of refinement.
Outside, the cool air felt like a baptism. He didn't stop, didn't look back. He walked for three blocks, then ducked into another alley to shed the black wig and the duffel coat, becoming the brown-wigged clerk once more. His heart was finally slowing from its frantic gallop.
The first arrow was loosed. It was now sailing through the intricate channels of the Church's bureaucracy, a tiny, poisoned sliver that would, he hoped, fester and spread, slowly directing the gaze of a giant onto the nest of vipers he called home. He had stolen a moment, a clerk's attention, and now he had given them a lie to believe. The war of whispers had begun.
The persona of the clumsy laborer and the contrite clerk were shed in a stinking alley two blocks from the water. The wigs and coats were stuffed into his bag, leaving Lutz in his own clothes, the ones that smelled of salt and faintly of the Viper's warehouse. He rubbed a hand through his ash-blonde hair, mussing it, and then deliberately splashed a bit of stagnant water from a puddle onto his tunic and face. He needed to smell of the sea and cheap drink, to look like just another dockhand blowing off steam.
His destination was "The Salty Mermaid," a tavern known for its potent, questionable ale, its willingness to ignore brawls, and its status as a neutral clearing house for information. Sailors fresh off months at sea spent their pay there, fences arranged meetings in shadowy booths, and Church informants, their faces as plain as their intentions, nursed single drinks while their ears did the real work.
He pushed through the heavy, scarred door and was immediately hit by a wall of sound and smell. The air was thick with the reek of unwashed bodies, brine, pipe smoke, and the tang of spilled beer. A sailor was murdering a bawdy sea shanty in the corner, accompanied by the thumping of heavy tankards on wood. The floor was sticky underfoot.
Lutz's eyes, accustomed to dim light, scanned the room with practiced ease. He wasn't looking for a friend; he was looking for a tool. He found him near the hearth, sitting alone at a small table: a man named Jenkins. A weasel-faced informant who sold tidbits to the Harbor Master, rival gangs, and, most reliably, to the Church. He was known. It was why Lutz had chosen him.
Lutz didn't approach directly. He first went to the bar, slapping down a few coppers. "An ale. The usual," he grunted, adopting the flat, tired tone of the docks. The bartender, a mountain of a man with a cleaver scar across his brow, slid a foaming, sloshing mug towards him without a word.
Mug in hand, Lutz shuffled to an empty table adjacent to Jenkins's, turning his chair slightly so his back was mostly to the man but his profile was visible. He took a long, slow drink, letting the foul liquid sit in his mouth before swallowing. He then began the performance.
He slumped forward, elbows on the table, cradling the mug as if it were the only solid thing in the world. He started to mutter to himself, just loud enough to be overheard by a keen ear nearby.
"...shoulda been my share," he slurred, the words blending together. "A full Hammer, they said. For the heavy liftin'... bloody liars."
He took another gulp, sloshing some on the table. He shook his head, a picture of drunken, self-pitying resentment.
"All that work... unloadin' in the dead of night... and for what? A few lousy shields." He banged the mug down, the thud lost in the general cacophony. "Gunther's boys... struttin' around like kings afterward. Saw 'em, I did. Took the shiny stuff for themselves, the bastards."
This was the hook. He let it hang, taking another drink, letting the informant's curiosity simmer. He could feel Jenkins's attention, a subtle shift in the atmosphere at the neighboring table. The man hadn't moved, but he was listening now.
Lutz leaned back, staring into the dregs of his ale as if they held the secrets of the universe. His voice dropped, becoming more conspiratorial, as if sharing a great, bitter secret with the empty air.
"Sparkly bits," he mumbled, the words thick with false inebriation. "In a little box, it was. Weren't no machine parts, I'll tell ya that. Glowed, it did. Like a piece of the moon fell in the sea... and Gunther's lads, they snatched it up quick, they did. Before the proper Church boys even showed up to count the spoons."
He let out a wet, bitter laugh. "Saw it with me own eyes. Carried it right off that Intisian tub and into the Salt-Weep. Right under everybody's noses."
This was the core of the lie, perfectly tailored. "Sparkly bits" was a crude, believable description for a mystical artifact. "Glowed like the moon" was a poetic touch a drunk might use, subtly echoing the dream-like quality of the Heart. Mentioning the Church's arrival cemented the timeline and the source of the ship. And "Gunther's boys" was dockyard slang for the Vipers, a detail that gave the story authentic grit.
He finished his ale in one long, noisy gulp and slammed the mug down, the sound making Jenkins flinch slightly.
"Bah! To the depths with all of 'em!" Lutz announced to no one, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. He made a show of staggering, bumping into his own table and sending the empty mug clattering to the floor. He didn't look at Jenkins. He didn't make eye contact with anyone.
He weaved a path towards the door, his movements an exaggerated parody of drunkenness, calculated to draw the eye but discourage interaction. He was a spectacle, not a source. As he pushed back out into the twilight, he kept the stumbling gait for a dozen paces, until he turned the first corner.
Then, the drunk vanished. His posture straightened. His eyes, which had been glazed and unfocused, sharpened into chips of flint. He moved into the shadows of the nearest alley, melting into the darkness, his senses stretched to their limit, listening for the sound of pursuit, for a shout, for anything.
Inside The Salty Mermaid, Jenkins the informant finally moved. He finished his own drink in a thoughtful sip, his eyes fixed on the door where the drunken dockhand had disappeared. He placed a few coins on his table and stood, his movements brisk and purposeful. He had a story to sell, a good one, full of specific, tantalizing details. Sparkly bits. A glowing moon-box. Gunther's boys. The Church would pay well for that. The second arrow was loosed, this one tipped with the crude, compelling poison of a dockyard rumor. The net around the Vipers tightened by another, almost invisible, thread.