The second day dawned not with hope, but with purpose. Lutz awoke before the sun, the phantom architecture of his harness and the cold grammar of Hermes the last things to fade from his mind. There was no lingering in bed. He moved through the morning rituals with an automaton's efficiency: chewing on hardtack and dried meat, washing his face with cold water and his teeth with cheap toothpaste, checking each of his weapons for the tenth time.
Today's work was escalation. The first day had been about planting seeds—a single document, a drunken rumor, a bloody token. Today was about cultivating a field of suspicion. He needed to make the Church believe the Vipers were under a coordinated, multi-pronged assault from a hidden rival, one savvy enough to use the Church as its bludgeon.
He packed his bag with care, selecting two wigs—the short brown and the longer black—and the corresponding sets of clothes. He added the spectacles with clear glass, a worker's cap, and the coarse duffel coat. His arsenal of identities. Then came the papers.
He sat at his small table and began to write. These were not forgeries of official documents. These were intelligence reports, or rather, clever facsimiles of them. Using his knowledge gained from both his time with the Vipers and his work with Brenner, he compiled lists. But he was careful. He didn't list the Vipers' top lieutenants or their most secure smuggling routes. That would be too obvious, too insider.
Instead, he listed the periphery. A dockworker at Pier 3 known to look the other way for a extra Shield. A minor customs clerk with a gambling debt who occasionally "lost" a manifest. The owner of a chandlery in the Salt-Weep who acted as a passive drop point for messages. These were the capillaries of the Viper's operation, not its heart. Knowing them was useful, but not devastating. It was the kind of intelligence a rival gang could have pieced together through weeks of low-level surveillance and bribery.
He wrote in different hands. One note was in a tight, cramped script, as if written by a clerk trying to save paper. Another was in a broader, looser hand, with ink blots, suggesting haste. He made small errors—a misspelled street name, an incorrect first name for a contact—the kind of mistakes a competitor would make. The papers were not signed. They were simply... information, raw and anonymous.
Satisfied, he slipped out of the warehouse as the sky was turning from black to a deep, bruised grey. He became the brown-wigged clerk first, his posture hunched, his pace hurried. His destination was the cluster of churches and municipal buildings in the Chevalier district, but he wouldn't go to the main offices. He targeted the small, iron collection boxes bolted to the outer walls of lesser chapels and administrative annexes. These boxes, meant for charitable donations or citizen complaints, were perfect—anonymous, unguarded, and regularly emptied by low-level functionaries.
At the first box, attached to a minor chapel dedicated to the God of Steam and Machinery, he paused, pretending to fumble for a coin. With a surreptitious glance, he slid one of the folded intelligence reports through the slot. It vanished with a soft whisper. One thread laid.
'That's a first of many'
He changed his disguise in a deserted alley, becoming the black-wigged laborer. He moved to a different part of the district, to a collection box outside a Steam Church-affiliated almshouse. The same ritual: a feigned search for a coin, a swift, unseen delivery. Another thread.
But this was too slow, too limited to his own physical reach. He needed volume. He needed to create the impression of a widespread intelligence leak.
He found his tools near a public fountain where street urchins gathered to drink and scavenge. He picked two, not from the same group, separating them by a block. The transactions were identical to the first: a glimpse of his obscured face from the shadows of an alley, the press of a folded note and two copper pennies into a small, grimy hand.
"The man with the blue ring on the church steps," he whispered to the first, describing a specific, easily identifiable cleric. "Put this in his hand. Say 'for the poor.' Then run."
To the second. "The woman with the red scarf at the almshouse door. This goes to her. Say 'a blessing.' Don't look back."
The children, eyes wide at the easy money, darted off like startled fish. Lutz didn't wait to see them succeed. He was already moving, changing back into his first disguise, putting distance between himself and the acts. He was a puppeteer pulling invisible strings, sending his paper ghosts flitting through the city to whisper lies into the ears of the mighty.
From a distance, he observed one of the deliveries. He saw the young boy approach the cleric with the blue ring, saw the man's initial confusion, then the dawning curiosity as he took the proffered note. The boy vanished before a question could be formed. The cleric unfolded the paper, his brows furrowing as he read the list of names and locations. He didn't look alarmed; he looked intrigued. He pocketed the note and hurried inside. The information was now in the system.
Lutz felt a cold satisfaction. Each note was a grain of sand, insignificant on its own. But together, they would form a beachhead of suspicion in the mind of the Church. They would see a pattern of harassment against the Vipers, a systematic effort to expose their lower-level operations. It would fit the narrative of a gang war, pushing them to intervene more aggressively before this "rival" could destabilize the harbor further.
He completed his circuit, dropping two more notes himself and employing two more urchins. By the time he was done, six separate pieces of corrupted intelligence were worming their way through the Church's bureaucratic intestines. He changed back into his own clothes in a final, reeking alley and began the cautious journey back to the warehouse.
As he walked, he saw the first signs of the Church's reaction. The patrols seemed more frequent, their eyes sharper. A steam-wagon was parked near a tavern known to be a Viper informant hangout, though no one was being arrested yet. It was the quiet, gathering pressure before the storm. They were verifying the information, cross-referencing it, building their case.
He slipped back into the viper's nest. The tension inside was palpable, a live wire humming in the air. Men spoke in lower tones.
Lutz went to his room and bolted the door. He unloaded the wigs and clothes, storing them away. The second day was done. He had flooded the zone with misinformation, painting a target on the Vipers' back that grew larger and more detailed with every passing hour. He had not thrown a single punch, fired a single shot, but he had advanced his war more effectively than any street brawl ever could. The Church was now his active, if unwitting, ally. All that was left was to wait for them to break down the door.
The cheap newsprint felt gritty between his fingers. Back in the relative safety of his room, Lutz unfolded the Indaw Gazette he'd snatched from a bin. His eyes, scanning the dense columns of text, snagged on a small, unassuming article tucked away on the second page, nestled between shipping forecasts and notices of public steamworks maintenance.
"Strange Package at Church Offices"
The Trade Compliance Office of the Church of Steam reported receiving an anonymous parcel yesterday evening. Sources describe the contents as "unusual and suggestive," though officials declined to provide specifics. The package, which bore no return address, is believed to be connected to ongoing compliance investigations in the docklands. A Church spokesperson stated, "We follow all leads in our mission to maintain orderly commerce."
A slow, cold grin spread across Lutz's face, a predator's baring of teeth devoid of any warmth. It was working. The bloody token, wrapped in the enemy's cloth, had landed. It was a tiny splash in the pond of the city's news, but in the clandestine world he operated in, it was a thunderclap. The Church wasn't just investigating; they were being fed, and they were hungry for more.
The grin faded as quickly as it appeared. Satisfaction was a luxury that led to complacency. The first phase—anonymous tipping—was yielding results. But to make the noose perfect, he needed more. He knew a great deal about the Vipers, but his knowledge had gaps. He knew the major players, the core territories, the big scores. But the true lifeblood of any criminal organization wasn't its bosses; it was its capillaries—the minor dockworkers who looked the other way for a coin, the clerks who misfiled manifests, the network of informants and low-level smugglers that formed an invisible web of complicity. These were the threads he could pull to make the whole tapestry unravel.
He came out of his room, the newspaper discarded. The warehouse was stirring to life, but the energy was wrong. The usual coarse banter was muted, replaced by terse, quiet conversations. Men checked their weapons with a new, grim purpose.
He didn't join any group. His work today was solitary. He needed to tail the Vipers themselves.
His first target was a wiry, nervous man called "Jumpy" Jorgen, who handled small-time collections from shopkeepers in the district. Jorgen was a talker, especially when he was scared, and the increased Church presence had him jumping at his own shadow. Perfect.
Lutz gave him a five-minute head start, then slipped out. He didn't follow directly. He used the city itself, moving parallel along rooftops where possible, then dropping down to street level, adopting the shuffling gait and hunched posture of the brown-wigged clerk. He watched as Jorgen made his rounds. But Lutz wasn't watching Jorgen; he was watching who Jorgen watched. He saw the dockworker who gave Jorgen a almost imperceptible nod from a doorway—a signal that the coast was clear. He noted the baker's wife who slipped a small, folded note into Jorgen's hand with his change. These were the unseen connections, the nervous system of the extortion racket.
He tracked Jorgen to a small, grimy tavern, The Leaky Bucket. From a shadowed alcove across the street, Lutz watched through the fly-specked window. Jorgen didn't drink. He met with a man in a Harbor Master's uniform. No money changed hands. Instead, the Harbor Master passed Jorgen a small, flat object—a shipping schedule, Lutz guessed. The transaction took less than thirty seconds. Lutz committed the Harbor Master's face to memory: a man with a bulbous nose and a missing front tooth. Another thread for his web.
Abandoning Jorgen, Lutz shifted his focus. He changed his disguise in a stinking public lavatory, emerging as the black-wigged laborer. His new target was a brutish enforcer named Rikard, a man who specialized in "convincing" reluctant merchants. Rikard was heading towards the docks, his hulking form easy to track.
Lutz followed at a distance, blending with the crowds of stevedores and fishermen. Rikard didn't go to the main wharves. He veered off towards a dilapidated pier, known as "Whisper Jetty," that was supposedly condemned. Lutz hung back, finding cover behind a stack of rotting fish crates, the stench overwhelming.
He saw Rikard meet with two men who didn't look like sailors. They wore city watch uniforms, but their posture was sloppy, their eyes shifty. Rikard passed them a heavy-looking cloth sack. One of the watchmen laughed, hefting the sack. A bribe. In return, one of them handed Rikard a small, sealed tube—likely information on patrol routes or upcoming raids. Lutz felt a fresh surge of cold triumph. He had just uncovered a corruption link directly into the city watch. This was gold. He memorized the watchmen's faces and badge numbers as best he could from the distance.
His final tail of the day was the most dangerous. He spotted Peter, the lanky, talkative new viper, being sent on an errand by Gerhart. Peter was to deliver a message to a fence in the Gallowsmarket. This was a prime opportunity. Peter, in his naivety, might lead him to contacts even Lutz didn't know about.
He followed Peter, staying far back, using crowds and market stalls as cover. Peter, oblivious, whistled a tune as he walked, his head on a swivel, playing the part of the important messenger. He led Lutz to a small, cluttered stall in the Gallowsmarket that sold "antiquities"—a front for a fence named Old Man Hank. Lutz knew Hank. He was a Viper associate, but cautious and discreet.
But Peter didn't go to Hank. He walked right past his stall and stopped at a different one, a few doors down, that sold exotic birds in brass cages. He exchanged a few words with the bird-seller, a sharp-faced woman with tattoos coiling up her neck. A folded note passed from Peter's hand to hers. Then Peter turned and left, mission accomplished.
Lutz stood frozen for a moment, the significance crashing down on him. The bird-seller. She wasn't on any list he knew. She was a new drop point, a fresh link. This was critical intelligence.
He didn't follow Peter back. The harvest was complete. He melted away from the market, his mind whirring, cataloging the new data: the nodding dockworker, the baker's wife, the corrupt Harbor Master, the two watchmen, the bird-seller fence. A web of complicity and fear.
Returning to the warehouse as noon came, Lutz felt the weight of the morning's work. He was no longer just a saboteur planting lies from the outside. He was now a surgeon, having dissected the living body of the Viper's operation and identified its most vulnerable nerves. He had the names, the faces, the routes. The Church had their anonymous tips. Now, Lutz had the corroborating evidence, the fine details that would make those tips irrefutable.
He sat on his cot, exhausted from walking, the sounds of the anxious Vipers a dull murmur through the floorboards. He had turned the Vipers inside out, and they didn't even know it.