The air in Baron Gunther Vogler's office was thick with a silence that felt like a physical weight. It was not the quiet of peace, but the oppressive hush of a beast cornered in its own den. The usual, almost imperceptible hum of his Beyonder presence, the sense of a mind constantly finding and exploiting flaws and laws, was subdued, replaced by a simmering, dangerous stillness. Maps and ledgers were spread across his desk, but his eyes were fixed on a single point in the middle distance, seeing not the present crisis, but the intricate architecture of his own impending ruin.
The door opened without a knock. Only one person had that privilege. Karl entered, his usual predatory grace taut with a coiled tension. The warmth in his coal-like eyes was banked, replaced by a cold, analytical fury.
"They're picking us apart, Gunther," Karl said, dispensing with any title. The use of the baron's name signaled the gravity of the moment. "It started with the small fry. The dockhands, the clerks. Annoying, but manageable. But today..." He let the word hang, his jaw tightening. "Today, they took the two watchmen from Whisper Jetty. Jim and Mike. Arrested them in the middle of their patrol. The information was perfect. Names, badge numbers, the location of the drop."
He began to pace, a caged tiger. "This isn't a leak. This is an autopsy. Someone is dissecting our operation from the outside and handing the Church each organ, neatly labeled. The timing, the precision... they're watching us. Now that we're all holed up in here, they have a static target. They're counting our coughs and noting who scratches their nose."
He stopped and faced the Baron, and for the first time in decades, Gunther Vogler saw a flicker of it in his eyes—not fear, never fear, not since that day, but something akin to it: a profound, alien worry. The kind that comes from facing an enemy you cannot see, cannot fight, and cannot reason with, the hunter couldn't see its prey and it didn't like that.
"Brother," Karl's voice was low, stripped of its usual sardonic edge. "We need to take action immediately, or we'll be cornered in this fucking warehouse. What can we do?"
The Baron did not move. His flint-like eyes shifted from the middle distance to settle on Karl. "Calm down," he said, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seemed to absorb the anxiety in the room. "Panic is a flaw in logic. It makes you predictable."
He steepled his fingers. "They are using a scalpel. We will respond with a tourniquet. We cannot stop the bleeding if we do not know where the cut is." He leaned forward, his presence expanding to fill the room. "We have one asset they do not fully comprehend. Fischer."
Karl's eyebrows rose slightly. "Fischer?"
"He is smart. Resourceful. And, thanks to you, he has proven his combat effectiveness," the Baron stated, as if reviewing the specs of a new tool. "The Church is hunting for a phantom. Very well. We will send them a ghost of our own. Fischer's primary assignment, effective immediately, is counter-intelligence. He is to use his... peculiar talents... to find out who is gathering this information and how. He is to disrupt their operations. If they are using street urchins, he is to find them, intimidate them, turn them. If they have observers, he is to identify and eliminate them."
It was a masterstroke of cruel irony, one that would have made the Baron smile under different circumstances. He was tasking the source of the leak with plugging it. Lutz would now be forced into a position where he had to appear to be hunting himself, all while continuing his clandestine war against the very men giving him orders. It would tie his hands, complicate his messaging, and potentially expose him if he couldn't perform the delicate balancing act.
"Secondly," the Baron continued, his gaze boring into Karl. "While Fischer works the outside, you will turn your attention inward. I want a quiet, thorough review. Everyone. Starting with the newest members. This Peter boy. All the men who joined after the Gray Sharks were broken. A snitch is still a possibility we cannot ignore. Apply pressure. Find the crack, if it exists."
"Lastly, you and the stronger men will defend our core assets, do not let whoever this ghost is get near them and keep the church at bay as well."
Karl gave a grim nod. The internal purge would be brutal and would further poison the atmosphere of fear, but it was necessary.
Finally, the Baron posed the question that had been hanging in the air since Lutz's name was mentioned. "Fischer himself. Could it be him?"
Karl didn't hesitate. He shook his head. "No. I don't think so." He met his brother's gaze. "On the Ocean Snake's Bane, he had a clear choice. The Captain and I were locked in combat. He could have fled. Taken the opportunity to vanish in the chaos. Instead, he saved my life. He put a hole through a Sequence 7 Beyonder to do it. That's not the act of a man playing a long game against us. That's the act of a man invested in the survival of this organization." He paused. "And since the Church's pressure began, he's been as frustrated as anyone. Complaining about lost income, about the increased patrols. It doesn't feel like an act."
The Baron absorbed this, his expression unreadable. Karl's assessment was logical, grounded in observed action. He gave a slow, final nod. "Very well. See it done."
With a last, shared look of grim understanding, Karl turned and left, the door closing with a soft, definitive click.
Alone again, the Baron did not return to his ledgers. The carefully constructed wall of his composure did not crack, but it grew transparent for a moment, allowing a glimpse of the man behind the title. The crisis, the unseen enemy, the shrinking of his empire—it pulled at a thread buried deep in the tapestry of his past.
His eyes lost their focus, seeing not the grain of the wood on his desk, but the vast highlands of Feysac, thirty-five years gone. He saw a manor house, grand, sturdy and proud, built of grey stone, nestled in a green, rolling valley. The Vogler family state.
35 Years ago
The grandfather clock in the hall, a monolith of dark, ornately carved oak, wheezed twice, a sound like a man with dust in his lungs, before reluctantly striking the hour. Each chime was a little off, a little flat, a secret flaw in the heart of the house that only its inhabitants knew.
Gunther Vogler, fifteen years old and already bearing the sharp, assessing gaze of one who notices such things, paused his reading by the window. The weak, late-afternoon Feysacian sun cast long, melancholic shadows across the rug, its once-vibrant pattern of hunting hounds and stags faded to muted ghosts. He marked his place in the heavy tome—A Comprehensive Treatise on Feysac Commercial Law, Vol. III—with a silk ribbon, his movements precise, almost fastidious.
From the hallway, he could hear the familiar, comforting sounds of his home. The soft, rhythmic scrape of a polishing cloth against silver from the dining room, where old man Hemmel, the butler, was performing his daily sacrament. The distant, cheerful clatter of pans from the kitchens, where Cook was doubtless preparing a meal that would be perfectly adequate, if somewhat uninspired. And, cleaving through it all, the bright, piping voice of his little brother.
"...and then the hawk, it dove so fast, like a stone from the sky! And the rabbit didn't even see it coming! It was the best thing ever, Gunther!"
Karl, a whirlwind of five-year-old energy, burst into the drawing-room, his cheeks flushed, a small wooden sword clutched in his hand. He skidded to a halt on the polished floorboards, his small boots squeaking.
"A poignant allegory for the nature of unchecked ambition, Karl," Gunther said, his voice dry, but a faint smile touching his lips. He closed the law book and set it aside. "The rabbit, content with its clover, failed to observe the wider strategic landscape. It paid the price."
Karl blinked, his small nose scrunching. "It was just a bird getting lunch."
"Everything is 'just' something else, until you learn to see the structures beneath," Gunther replied, reaching out and ruffling his brother's already unruly mop of dark hair. "Did you finish your lessons with Mother?"
"Yes! We did sums. I'm better than you were," Karl declared, puffing out his chest.
"I have no doubt. You have a ruthless, mathematical mind. Now, go and see if you can persuade the Cook to part with a piece of yesterday's seed cake before dinner. Use that Vogler charm."
Karl needed no further encouragement, dashing from the room with the same explosive energy with which he had entered. Gunther's smile lingered for a moment before fading as he turned his gaze back to the window. His view was of the manor's grounds. The lawn was still neatly trimmed, the rose bushes pruned, but if one looked closely—and Gunther always did—the edges were fraying. The hedges needed a more rigorous shaping; a few of the flagstones on the path were cracked, their mossy seams a testament to deferred maintenance. It was a portrait of dignity under gentle, persistent siege.
He was pulled from his observations by the sound of his parents' voices approaching from his father's study. The door was thick, but Gunther had always had sharp ears.
"…cannot simply ignore the summons, dear." His mother's voice, Elinalise, was a low, melodic strain, but today it was tuned to a key of anxiety.
"I do not ignore it. I strategize." His father, Talos Vogler, sounded tired, the words dragged from a deep well of fatigue. "Baron Eckhardt is not sending an invitation to a hunting party. It is a summons to a dissection. He wishes to examine our entrails and determine how much longer we can twitch."
"Your flair for the dramatic does not change the facts. The debt is… significant. The income from the northern tracts is not what it was. We must have a solution."
"We have a solution," Talos said, his voice dropping, becoming more intense. "It is not a solution that involves grovelling at Eckhardt's table while he offers me a pittance for the remaining timber rights."
"It is a dangerous solution. An unseen solution. How can we build a future on something we dare not speak of?"
"We built a past on things we took for granted. Look where that has led us."