Location: The Estate of Lady Vespera, Sector 1 (The High Spire).
Time: 19:00.
The death of a God is a lucrative business opportunity.
Lady Vespera's estate, once a pristine monument to eternal youth, was now rotting in fast-forward. The ivy that climbed the marble columns had turned brown and brittle, shedding leaves like dead skin flakes. The "perfect" statues in the garden—captured in moments of impossible grace—were cracking, their internal structures unable to cope with the sudden, violent reintroduction of linear time.
Yet, the driveway was choked with steam-carriages. Polished brass, mahogany, and chrome gleamed under the gaslights. The exhaust from a hundred coal-burning engines created a low-hanging fog that smelled of money and soot.
The vultures had arrived.
Dante Silvergrin stepped out of a rented cab. It was a rickety thing, drawn by two clockwork horses that needed oiling. Silas had paid the driver with a jar of preserved eyeballs, assuring him they were "fresh."
Dante smoothed the lapels of a tuxedo he had scavenged from a dead aristocrat three weeks ago. It was a fine cut, midnight blue silk, but it smelled faintly of mothballs and the ozone tang of the Void.
"I feel ridiculous," Silas muttered, adjusting a bow tie that was hopelessly crooked. He was wearing a suit that was two sizes too big, and in his hand, he clutched a large, empty canvas sack that had 'WARNING: BIO-HAZARD' printed on the side in fading red block letters.
"You look distinguished," Dante lied, his voice buzzing softly through the silver jaw. "Just don't mention the sack unless someone asks. Tell them it's for laundry."
"It's for the loot," Silas whispered loudly, clutching the burlap like a security blanket. "You said we were here to shop. I need that centrifuge, Dante. My current one wobbles when I spin blood samples. It makes the homunculi dizzy. Do you want dizzy homunculi? Because that's how you get three-armed babies."
"We are here to observe," Dante corrected, scanning the perimeter. "And to see if Vespera left anything dangerous behind. Prime is scanning for Axiom resonance."
"Negative," Prime's voice echoed in Dante's mind, cool and detached. "The ambient mana in this sector is chaotic. The breakdown of the Stasis Field has created a vacuum. I detect only greed, cheap perfume, and the faint signature of unstable isotopes."
Dante walked toward the massive double doors. A security checkpoint had been set up. Two large men in the black-and-gold livery of the Auction House—The Gilded Gavel—stood with crossed halberds. The blades hummed with electric currents.
"Invitation?" one grunt grunted, not looking up from his clipboard.
Dante didn't have an invitation, but he had a reputation.
He looked at the guard. The Silvergrin shifted, the liquid metal pulling back to reveal the void of his mouth in a smile that was entirely too wide, too sharp, and too cold for a human face.
He raised his right hand. The glove had been removed to reveal the Gentleman's Ripper.
The prosthetic was a work of art and horror. Brass gears clicked softly, the pale, vat-grown muscle fibers twitched beneath the metal casing like trapped snakes. The silver claws glinted in the gaslight, reflecting the guard's terrified face.
"I am the executor of the estate," Dante said softly. "By right of conquest."
The guard looked at the mechanical arm. He looked at the silver jaw. He looked at the pale, dead eyes that seemed to absorb the light around them.
The color drained from the guard's face. He had heard the rumors. The Pale King. The man who ate the Stasis Witch.
"R-right this way, My Lord," the guard stammered, uncrossing the halberds so fast he almost dropped his weapon. "The VIP box is... wherever you want it to be. Please don't eat me."
Dante walked through. Silas followed, winking at the terrified guard.
"He's grumpy before he's had his uranium," Silas whispered conspiratorially. "Low blood sugar. Very messy."
The Grand Ballroom
The auction was already underway.
The room was a cavern of opulence, packed with the elite of New Babel. Aristocrats in masks of peacock feathers, Industrial Barons with steam-venting top hats, and cloaked figures that smelled of sulfur—representatives of the Alchemical Orthodoxy.
They sat on velvet chairs, holding numbered paddles, bidding on the scraps of a life.
"Item #44," the Auctioneer boomed from the podium. He was a small man with a megaphone chemically grafted to his throat, amplifying his voice into a booming bass. "A set of diamond-dust vanity mirrors. Guaranteed to show your reflection ten years younger. Do I hear five hundred gears?"
"Six hundred!" shouted a woman with blue skin—a diplomat from the Chimera Queen's court.
"Seven hundred!" countered a man made entirely of polished brass, his voice ringing like a bell.
Dante and Silas stood at the back, in the shadows of a rotting tapestry depicting the First Alchemist.
"They are fighting over garbage," Prime noted disdainfully. "Those mirrors are leaking mana. The enchantment is destabilizing. They will explode in approximately three months, filling the owner's face with glass shrapnel."
"Let them buy the bombs," Dante thought back.
He scanned the room. His eyes locked on a figure in the front row.
A man in crimson robes, wearing a heavy iron collar inscribed with the symbol of the Alchemical Orthodoxy—a circle containing a flame. He was flanked by two "Purifiers"—knights in heavy, lead-lined hazmat armor wielding flamethrowers connected to tanks on their backs.
"Inquisitor Kael," Silas hissed, spotting him too. He shrank behind his bio-hazard sack. "Head of the Heresy Division. He burns unregistered alchemists for fun. We should leave, Dante. He smells entropy like a shark smells blood."
"He's not here for me," Dante said, watching the Inquisitor with calculated calm. "He's waiting for something."
"And the next item," the Auctioneer announced, sweating profusely. "Item #50. The private research journal of Lady Vespera. Recovered from her personal safe."
The room went silent. The air grew heavy.
Two porters wheeled out a glass case. Inside lay a leather-bound book. The cover was frosted over, cold radiating from it even through the glass.
"Title: The Architecture of Eternity," the Auctioneer read. "Contains her theories on Time dilation, the location of the Blind Spot, and... notes on the weaknesses of the other six Aspirants."
The mood in the room changed instantly. It went from greedy to murderous.
Every faction in the room wanted that book. Information was the ultimate weapon in the War for the Throne.
"Bidding starts at fifty thousand Gears," the Auctioneer squeaked.
"One hundred thousand," Inquisitor Kael said. He didn't raise his paddle. He didn't need to. His voice was like grinding stones. "In the name of the Orthodoxy. This is prohibited knowledge. It will be confiscated and burned."
"One hundred and fifty!" shouted a representative of the Gold Sovereign, a man in a gold-thread suit. "Lord Aurum sends his regards. Knowledge is currency."
"Two hundred!" screamed the Blue-Skinned woman.
Dante felt a tug in his chest. A resonance. Prime was interested.
"That book contains data on the Origin," Prime stated. "We need it. It is the reference text I require to calibrate the Axiom of Intellect. It is not optional."
"We have zero money, Prime," Dante reminded him.
"Then we use the currency of violence," Prime suggested.
"No," Dante said. "Too many witnesses, let's use leverage."
Dante stepped out of the shadows.
He didn't shout. He didn't raise a paddle. He simply walked down the center aisle.
The sound of his boots on the marble floor was heavy, rhythmic, and terrifyingly calm. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The crowd parted. They saw the silver mask. They felt the temperature drop as his entropy leaked into the room, chilling the sweat on their necks.
"The Pale King," someone whispered. "It's him."
Dante stopped in front of the stage. He ignored the Auctioneer. He turned to face the crowd.
He looked at the Gold Sovereign's representative. He looked at the Blue Woman. Finally, he looked at Inquisitor Kael.
"This book," Dante said, his voice amplified by the acoustics of the room and the strange resonance of his jaw. "Is incomplete."
The silence was absolute.
"I was there," Dante lied smoothly. "When she wrote the final chapter. I was there when she burned the real index to hide her failure."
Inquisitor Kael stood up. His crimson robes swirled around him. "You are an Abomination. The Glitch. You dare interrupt Holy Business?"
"And you are outbid," Dante said.
He reached into his pocket. He didn't pull out money. He pulled out the grey crystal he had given Silas earlier—the solidified piece of Vespera's time-shield, even though less potent since Silas had taken what he needed from it.
He tossed it onto the stage.
It clattered, spinning on the wood. As it spun, it emitted a pulse of time-magic. The wooden podium rotted, turned to dust, then reformed into a sapling, then aged back into polished wood—all in a cycle of three seconds.
"Crystallized Time," Dante announced. "A raw sample of the Aspirant's soul. Condensed temporal mana. Worth... what? A million gears to the right researcher?"
The Auctioneer's eyes bulged. "I... I..."
"I bid this crystal," Dante said. "For the book. And for the centrifuge in the back lot."
"He wants the centrifuge?" Silas whispered to himself, delighted. "He remembered!"
Inquisitor Kael stepped out of his row. The flamethrower knights raised their weapons. The pilot lights hissed, glowing blue-white.
"You cannot buy heresy with heresy!" Kael roared. "That crystal is contraband. Seize him! Burn the rot out of him!"
The two knights triggered their weapons. WHOOSH.
Dante didn't flinch. He sighed.
"Silas," Dante called out calmly. "Hold my sack."
He turned to the knights.
"Combat Mode," Dante whispered.
"Gentleman's Ripper: Engaged," Prime confirmed.
The servos in Dante's right arm whined. The forearm plating slid open with a metallic shhh-clack.
Dante reached into his bandolier with his left hand, grabbed a glass vial of Liquid Nitrogen, and slammed it into the arm's injection port.
KA-CHUNK.
"Reagent Loaded: Cryo-Stasis," Prime announced.
The silver claws of his hand instantly frosted over. A cloud of freezing fog vented from the exhaust ports on his elbow.
The first knight fired. A stream of Sanctified Phosphorus—liquid fire—arced toward Dante.
Dante raised his right hand. He didn't block, he swiped.
He slashed the air. The claws, supercooled by the nitrogen and accelerated by the hydraulic pistons, cut the air pressure itself.
The flame was met with a wall of absolute cold. The thermal shock was instantaneous. The liquid fire didn't just go out, it froze mid-air.
Red shards of frozen chemical propellant clattered to the floor like rubies, shattering on impact.
The crowd gasped.
Dante lunged. He moved faster than a human should, powered by the uranium in his gut.
He grabbed the Knight's flamethrower barrel with his mechanical hand. The metal groaned.
"Chill," Dante deadpanned.
He squeezed.
The Gentleman's Ripper crushed the reinforced steel barrel like a soda can. The nitrogen from his arm transferred into the weapon. The cold traveled down the fuel line.
The fuel tank on the knight's back flash-froze. The metal became brittle.
CRACK.
The tank shattered. The knight was encased in a block of instant ice, frozen in a pose of attack.
The second knight hesitated, his finger hovering over the trigger.
Dante turned to him, the Silvergrin glistening in the freezing mist.
"Do you want to be a snowman too?" Dante asked.
The knight dropped his weapon and ran.
Dante turned back to Inquisitor Kael. The Inquisitor was pale, his hand hovering over a rune-etched pistol at his belt.
"The bid stands," Dante said calmly, brushing frost off his sleeve. "The crystal for the book. And the centrifuge."
He looked at the Auctioneer.
"Going once?"
"Sold!" the Auctioneer screamed, terrified. "Sold to the... the Gentleman with Claws!"
Dante walked up the steps. He picked up the book. He didn't open it. He slid it into his coat.
He turned to Silas, who was already sprinting toward the loading dock to claim his prize.
"Pleasure doing business," Dante said to the room of stunned aristocrats.
He walked out.
As he passed the Inquisitor, Kael hissed. "This isn't over, Silvergrin. The Orthodoxy does not forget. You walk a path of damnation."
Dante stopped. He leaned in close to the Inquisitor, letting the cold radiation of his arm wash over the man.
"Good," Dante whispered. "Then you'll remember not to get in my way."
The Loading Dock
Ten minutes later.
Silas was pushing a handcart containing a massive, chrome centrifuge and a very ugly, moth-eaten Persian rug.
Dante walked beside him, reading the book under the light of the gaslamps.
"Is it worth it?" Silas asked, panting. "We just made an enemy of the Church. And I think I saw the Chimera Queen's envoy taking notes on your fighting style."
"It's worth it," Dante said, closing the book. His face was grim.
"It's not just research notes, Silas. It's a map."
"A map to what? The Second Axiom?"
"No," Dante said, looking at the smog-choked sky toward Sector 2—The War District. The red glow of its furnaces was visible even from here.
"A map to the Red Baron's Vault. Vespera was planning to rob him. She did all the recon."
Dante tapped the leather cover with his metal finger. Tap. Tap.
"We don't need to plan a heist, Silas. The Queen of Stasis already planned it for us. We just have to execute it."
Silas grinned, the light reflecting in his glasses.
"Well then," Silas said, patting the cold chrome of the centrifuge. "Let's go steal a war."
After that event, it was decided to postpone the auction.