The clock in the bedroom ticked past 8 PM, each click a solid, final sound in the quiet house. Lutz had given Eliza her instructions: he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. The door to his room was locked.
He stood in the center of the room, illuminated by a single lamp. Laid out on the bed was a uniform of shadow and silence. He began to dress, each piece a deliberate step in the ritual of becoming the Marauder.
First, the clothes. Dark, tight-fitting wool trousers, a charcoal-grey tunic, and a supple black leather jerkin. No loose threads, no buckles that might clink. He smeared a faint layer of soot from the fireplace on his cheeks and the backs of his hands, breaking up the pale outline of his skin.
Then, the tools of his trade.
From his harness, the chest bandolier came first, He slotted seven throwing knives into their sheaths, the cool weight of the steel a familiar comfort against his ribs. Each knife was balanced, honed to a razor's edge.
Creed went into its custom spring sheath on the left of his hip. On his right hip, he secured his parrying knife.
He didn't consider Sangefaust, the ring of crystallized blood. The little ocular gems seemed to watch him from the bedside table. No, i don't know anything about it, too volatile. Consuming a whole Beyonder isn't a feature; it's a catastrophic event that can't possibly result in anything good. He left it there, a decision that felt both prudent and unnerving.
Henrik's Revolver, its silver and brass finish dulled with a light application of grease, found its place in a armpit holster. It was heavy, reliable, and loud—a tool of absolute last resort. He did not take the sawed-off shotgun. Its use meant the plan had already exploded into violence and failure.
Finally, he picked up Night's Melody. The small, cylindrical, flute-like whistle, crafted from the characteristic of the Midnight Poet from the ship he had killed, felt cool and strange in his hand. It was his most helpful tool in this operation.
He was ready. He doused the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and slipped out the window of his second-floor study. He moved across the night with a fluid, practiced ease, descended a drainpipe into the back garden, and melted into the shadows of Vesper Lane.
He became a phantom in the city's veins. He moved not through the gas-lit main thoroughfares, but through the connective tissue: alleys choked with refuse, over the slate roofs of tightly packed houses, through the silent courtyards of closed workshops. His abilities were at their peak now that his potion was completely digested. His senses mapped his path ten steps ahead, noting a loose tile, a sleeping dog, a sliver of light from a window. His body, enhanced by the potion, moved with an Agile silence that defied his size, his footsteps barely whispering against the stone. His Thief's Nose was a hum in the back of his skull, its total range currently of 15 meters. He attuned himself to the environment, watching off for recently locked door, a patrolling watchman's predictable route still lingering in the air.
He reached the quiet lane of Yevgeny Andariel's house without incident. The dark brick facade was even more imposing at night, a slab of darkness against the slightly lighter sky. The air was dead still. From his observation, he knew the old maid had left at six. Yevgeny was inside, likely in his study on the ground floor at the back.
Lutz circled to the alley at the side of the house. The drainpipe was there, solid and beckoning. He gave the area one last, long scan with all his senses.
There was a drunk man coming from the other side of the street, Lutz hid in the shadows behind a small column until the man went past him and left.
After that, nothing. No light from the neighboring houses, no sound but the distant hum of the city.
He approached the wall, his movements a study in efficient motion. He didn't jump; he simply began to climb, his fingers finding imperceptible holds in the mortar between the bricks, his boots resting on the slightest of ledges. He used the drainpipe not for primary support, but as a guide, his body pressed close to the wall, a patch of deeper shadow ascending silently.
In less than a minute, he was at the second-floor window. It was the old servant's entrance, just as he'd noted. He hung from one hand, his feet braced against the wall, and examined the latch. It was a simple iron hook, old but sturdy. From a small pouch in his belt, he withdrew two thin, flexible strips of polished steel, a trick Henrik had taught him. He slipped them between the frame and the sash, feeling for the hook. It was a delicate operation, requiring a sensitivity of touch that bordered on the supernatural. He felt the metal-on-metal contact, adjusted the pressure, and with a faint, almost inaudible scrape, he lifted the hook free.
He paused, listening intently. No sound from within. Slowly, carefully, he pushed the window open just wide enough to slip through. He swung his legs inside, landed in a crouch on a bare wooden floor, and immediately pulled the window closed behind him, leaving it unlatched for a quick escape.
He was in. A small, dusty landing at the top of a narrow servants' staircase. The air inside was cold and carried a strange, dry scent—like old paper, dust, and something else… something metallic and static, like the air before a lightning storm. The disruption Gordon had mentioned.
The house was silent, a tomb. But his Thief's Nose twitched. Beneath the dust and the strange ozone smell, he caught the recent scent of Yevgeny—a mix of expensive soap and something cold, like wet stone. And something else… the lingering aroma of the old maid's potato soup. His senses painted an invisible map of occupancy.
He drew Creed. The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, a wave of warmth and heightened perception flowed through him. The darkness seemed to sharpen, his hearing became more acute, and a confident, predatory focus settled over his mind. The lustful feeling and gnawing hunger followed.
He began to move, a ghost descending the stairs. Each step was placed with agonizing care, his weight distributed to avoid the faintest creak. He reached the bottom, finding himself in a dark hallway. To his left was the main staircase leading down to the ground floor. To his right, a closed door. Straight ahead, the hallway led towards the front of the house.
The study is at the back, he recalled from his observations. But a man like Yevgeny wouldn't keep a disruptive artifact in his study. He'd hide it.
His eyes, enhanced by Creed and his own potion, scanned the hallway. It was sparsely decorated. A single landscape painting, a console table. But his sight caught it—a section of the floorboard near the console table was ever so slightly less worn, the dust pattern subtly different. A trapdoor? A hidden compartment?
He moved towards it, his senses screaming at him to be cautious. This was too easy. As he knelt, he saw it—a hair-thin strand of something, almost invisible, stretched taut an inch above the floorboard, connected to a tiny, bell-like mechanism tucked into the shadows under the table. A crude but effective alarm.
A man who sets traps is a man with secrets, Lutz thought. He carefully stepped over the wire.
He focused on the console table itself. It was heavy, mahogany. He ran his fingers along the underside, feeling for anything unusual. Nothing. Then he examined the painting. It was a generic scene of mountains. He lifted it carefully from the wall. Behind it, set into the plaster, was a small, dark iron safe.
There you are.
It was a formidable-looking thing, with a complex combination lock.
But Lutz wasn't a safecracker; he was a Marauder. His talent wasn't in deciphering codes, yet.
It was in taking things. He pressed his ear against the cold metal, his precise fingers allowing him to feel the infinitesimal vibrations of the internal mechanism as he slowly turned the dial. It was a painstaking process, listening for the faint, tell-tale clicks of the tumblers falling into place.
'Come on, Come on, i don't have too much time, that guy's gonna be back any moment now'.
Minutes ticked by in the absolute silence of the house. The static, disruptive feeling in the air seemed to grow stronger, gnawing at the edges of his concentration. It felt like a low-grade headache building behind his eyes.
Click.
The final tumbler fell. He let out a slow breath and gripped the handle. He turned it. The safe door swung open silently.
Inside, on a velvet-lined shelf, lay the item.
It was smaller than he'd expected, about the size of his palm. It was carved from a deep grey stone shot through with veins of black, and it depicted a grotesque, multi-limbed figure coiled around itself. The moment he saw it, the disruptive feeling intensified tenfold. A wave of profound unease washed over him, a sense of vertigo and paranoid dread. The shadows in the hallway seemed to writhe and deepen.
And from the ground floor, he heard a door open.
The sound downstairs was like a gunshot in the absolute silence. Every instinct screamed at Lutz to run, to leap from the window immediately. But the fully digested Marauder didn't operate on panic.
His mind became a crystal-clear lens. No sudden movements. Noise carries. He doesn't know you're here. The objective is complete. The exit is safe.
With a speed that was both frantic and utterly silent, he closed the heavy iron door of the safe, the soft thud muffled by the velvet lining. He didn't bother relocking it; the time spent would be a greater risk than the discovery of a tampered-with safe. He replaced the painting over the hide, his Agile Hands making the movement smooth and sure. He was a ghost, erasing his presence.
He rose from his crouch, his body coiled like a spring. The disruptive aura from the seal in his pocket was a physical weight now, a cold stone of dread in his soul, making the shadows in the hallway seem to pulse and beckon with malicious intent. He ignored it. He had to.
Below, he heard heavy, deliberate footsteps. Yevgeny was moving around his study. There was a clink of glass, the sound of a decanter being set down. He wasn't coming upstairs. Not yet.
Lutz didn't wait to find out. He moved back down the hallway, his steps feather-light on the worn boards. He avoided the tripwire with unconscious ease now, his body remembering the obstacle. The climb back up the narrow servant's stairs felt infinitely longer than the descent. Every creak of the old wood, every rustle of his clothing, seemed magnified by the oppressive silence and the seal's psychic static.
He reached the small landing and the open window. He didn't look back. He swung a leg over the sill, then the other, lowering himself until he hung by his fingertips before dropping the remaining few feet into the alley below. He landed in a deep crouch, the impact absorbed by his legs, the sound a mere whisper of displaced air.
I'm out
He didn't sprint. A running man was suspicious. A walking man was just a man. He moved away from Yevgeny's house at a brisk, purposeful walk, sticking to the deepest shadows, his dark clothes making him one with the night. Only when he had put two blocks between himself and the house did he allow himself to process what had just happened.
He didn't take anything else. The thought surfaced, clean and clear amidst the adrenaline comedown. He had seen a few small items of value in that safe—a gold watch, a stack of bonds. The old Lutz, the one from Indaw Harbor, would have taken them without a second thought. They were there, they were value, they were his by right of conquest.
But something stopped him. Yevgeny might be a weird, asocial man, but that doesn't make him evil. He hasn't wronged me. This seal is a means to an end, a key to the Garden. The vow he had made in the ashes of the Harbor Vipers held firm. He would not be that kind of Marauder anymore. He would only take from those who deserved it, or take what was absolutely necessary for his survival and his goal. Tonight, it was the latter.
The journey back to Vesper Lane was a mirror of the journey out—a silent, shadowy traversal of the city's backstage. His senses remained on high alert, but the immediate danger had passed. The oppressive feeling of the seal began to recede the farther he got from Yevgeny's house, leaving behind only a lingering sense of unease, like a bad dream slowly fading.
He reached Number 17 and, like the ghost he was, scaled the drainpipe and slipped back through the window of his study. He stood for a moment in the dark, familiar room, listening. The house was silent. Eliza was asleep. James Morgan's life was undisturbed.
The decompression began. He methodically stripped off his gear, the process a reverse of the earlier ritual. The throwing knives were wiped clean and returned to their case. The parrying knife was oiled and sheathed. Henrik's Revolver was unloaded, cleaned, and hidden away. Creed was the last to be put aside, the loss of its enhancing influence leaving him feeling suddenly heavier, more grounded, and ravenously hungry.
He held the carved stone seal in his hand. Even here, in the safety of his home, it pulsed with that low-grade, spiritual dissonance. It felt wrong. He couldn't leave it in his room, or even in his study.
He crept down to the basement, unlocking the heavy door. In the stark, empty space, he retrieved a small, heavy box he had purchased 2 days ago—a lead-lined container meant for storing volatile alchemical reagents. He placed the seal inside and closed the lid. The moment the lead shield sealed, the disruptive aura diminished. The silence in the basement felt pure and clean for the first time.
First thing tomorrow, i get this thing out of my house and I take it to Gordon, he thought. And I get my invitation.
Back in his room, he washed the soot from his face and hands, the warm water feeling like a baptism back into his civilian identity. The hunger from Creed was a gnawing void in his stomach. He padded down to the kitchen and, by the dim light of the moon through the window, carved thick slices from a loaf of bread coupled with slices of cheese and sausage, eating standing over the sink, his body finally allowing itself to feel the fatigue.
When he finally lay in his bed, the cool sheets bore welcome sensation.
It was a better feeling than any amount of loot from the Baron's treasury. It was the feeling of control. Of purpose. As sleep pulled him under, his last conscious thought was not of Yevgeny, or the seal, or even the Winter Garden.
I'm getting better.