His first stop was practical. A stall, unassuming compared to its neighbors, displayed rows of glass containers filled with liquids of every hue and consistency. Some bubbled sluggishly, others swirled with internal storms, and a few were perfectly, ominously still. The vendor was a gaunt man with fingers stained a permanent indigo.
"I need 100 milliliters of pure water," Lutz said, his tone neutral.
The man gave him a long, appraising look, his eyes lingering on the quality of Lutz's charcoal grey suit—out of place here, but marking him as someone with means. Without a word, he turned and retrieved a large glass carboy from a shelf behind him. The water inside was so clear it was almost invisible, but it caught the grotto's light in a way that suggested its molecular structure was unnaturally perfect. It seemed to hold the light, rather than let it pass through.
With practiced ease, the man filled a 100ml vial using a glass funnel. "One Hammer and five Shields," he stated, his voice raspy.
Lutz's hand slipped into his pocket, his fingers finding the cool, familiar hilt of Creed. He didn't draw it; merely holding it was enough. He felt a subtle sensation of words waiting to be unlocked on his tongue.
"Make it one Hammer," Lutz said, his voice gaining a layer of effortless, persuasive instigation. "And maybe I'll come back for other things in the future. I'm setting up a permanent operation. It's good to have a reliable source for basics."
The vendor's eyes narrowed, then crinkled at the corners. A low chuckle escaped him. "You're more than you look, young man. A natural gift, or something more?" He pushed the vial across the counter. "One Hammer it is. Don't make me regret my generosity."
"A man's word is his currency," Lutz replied smoothly, laying down the single gold coin. The moment the transaction was complete, he consciously released his grip on Creed, the enhanced eloquence receding like a tide, leaving behind the familiar, cynical core of his own mind.
One down, he thought, pocketing the vial of water that felt colder than it should. And a reminder not to lean on Creed too heavily, its persuasive ability is for manipulating people towards evil, not for haggling, that might be resolved once I'm finally a Swindler, that vendor sensed something. In a place like this, standing out is as dangerous as being penniless.
He moved on, his eyes scanning the stalls for his next target. The formula for the Sequence 8: Swindler potion was burned into his memory. He had the complementary components: the Chestnut Balm, the Lapis Lazuli, the Tears and pure water. Now he needed the two main ingredients.
His search led him to a stall that was more a cacophony of tiny, skittering sounds than a visual display. Cages and glass terrariums lined the space, housing a menagerie of the bizarre and the unsettling. A salamander with chameleonic skin croaked a discordant tune. A jar of what looked like shifting, silvery sand would occasionally form itself into a screaming face before collapsing again. But the vendor's specialty seemed to be insects. Large, iridescent beetles with horned carapaces, moths with wings that depicted human eyes, and swarms of tiny, gnashing things that beat against their glass prisons.
Here it must be, Lutz thought, steeling himself. The air around this stall was thick with a psychic static that made his teeth ache.
The vendor was a rough-looking man with a leather apron covered in old stains and fresh chitin. He was feeding a piece of raw meat to a large, mantis-like creature that snipped it neatly in two with scythe-like forelimbs.
Lutz began, keeping his voice level. "I need a larva of a Soul‑Confusing Insect Swarm."
The man finished his task and wiped his hands on his apron, leaving smears of dark fluid. He looked Lutz up and down, his gaze lingering on the now noticeably slimmer shape of the coin purse at Lutz's hip.
"Soul-Confuser, eh? Nasty things. I won't sell the larvae individually," he grunted, jerking a thumb towards a large glass jar on a high shelf. "You want one, you buy the whole swarm."
Lutz followed his gesture. The jar was a seething mass of life. At the bottom, nestled in a fibrous substrate, were dozens of pale, pulsating larvae. Among them crawled the mature insects—creatures the size of his thumb, with bodies of a nauseating, shifting purple and too many legs. Their most disturbing feature was their heads: a single, large, compound eye that seemed to be made of fractured, swirling colors. Just looking at them made his vision swim slightly and his thoughts stutter.
"Seventy Hammers," the man said, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
Seventy. It was an outrageous price. It would leave him with nothing for the final ingredient. This was a test. Lutz's hand slipped back into his pocket, his fingers closing around Creed's hilt. The familiar surge of glib confidence returned, but he tempered it, layering it over his own sharp assessment of the situation.
"The whole swarm? Seventy?" Lutz repeated, a laugh in his voice that was both charming and dismissive. "The fact that you won't sell them individually tells me you're having trouble moving this particular article, aren't you? Who wants a whole jar of these things? An amateur could confound his own mind into pudding. You're stuck with them."
The vendor's eyes widened slightly. The blunt accuracy of the statement, delivered with such disarming charm, had clearly hit its mark.
"I'm not buying it for that price," Lutz continued, leaning forward slightly. "Make it fifty. And you'll gain a recurrent client, as well as a good word with other… discerning individuals I'm sure I'll meet." The promise was vague, but in the insular world of the Beyonder black market, reputation was a tangible currency.
The man scowled, crossing his massive arms. "Sixty Hammers. Only because I want them gone. Not a penny less. They're a pain to harvest."
Lutz felt the persuasive energy from Creed pulsing, urging him to press further. He could probably get it for fifty-five. But he also sensed the man's pride was at its limit. Pushing a man like this too far in a place like this was a good way to find a knife in your ribs on the way out.
"Fifty-seven," Lutz countered, his tone final, dropping the playful negotiation and leaving only a firm, business-like resolve. "A fair price for a problematic product. We both walk away satisfied."
The vendor stared at him for a long, hard moment. He glanced at the jar, then back at Lutz's unwavering gaze. He let out a sharp breath through his nose.
"Alright, deal. But don't push your luck, kid." He reached up, grabbed the jar, and thumped it down on the counter. The insects within skittered in agitation, their collective eye-stalks swiveling towards Lutz, and for a second, his sense of self wavered, a bizarre impulse to confess his entire plan to the vendor flashing through his mind before he crushed it.
Incredible, he thought, shaking his head to clear it. Just their passive influence is this strong.
He counted out fifty-seven Gold Hammers, the clink of each coin a small agony. His purse was now dangerously light with only 11 Hammers and some change left. He accepted the jar, and the vendor, almost as an afterthought, handed him a thick, black felt bag. "Keep 'em in this. Lessens the effect. You're welcome."
Lutz tucked the jar into the bag, and immediately the mental static faded to a faint buzz at the edge of his perception. He nodded his thanks and moved away from the stall, the weight of the swarm a heavy, living counterpoint to the dwindling weight of his coins.
He had just eleven Gold Hammers left. The real test of his skill, both as a Marauder and the budding Swindler he aimed to become, was about to begin. The glowing bazaar seemed to stretch before him, a labyrinth of wonders and dangers, and somewhere within it was the final key to his transformation.
The jar of seething insects, now muffled by the thick felt bag, felt unnaturally heavy in Lutz's grasp. Each faint skitter from within was a tiny, psychic nail dragging across his mind, a constant reminder of the fifty-seven Gold Hammers he'd just spent and the increasingly precarious state of his finances. Eleven Hammers left. The final ingredient loomed like a mountain.
'I really need to start making money, I'll met with Filip as soon as i become a Swindler and discuss several projects with him.'
He moved through the glowing lanes of the Winter Garden, his eyes scanning the stalls with renewed desperation, now filtered through the specific lens of the Swindler formula. He needed the Human-Faced Cage Grass. The name alone was unsettling. What did a plant have to do with the art of deception and swindling? The logic of the Beyonder pathways was often arcane, a symbolism that operated on a level deeper than mere reason.
His search led him to a part of the bazaar that felt more like a transplanted forest. Stalls here were canopied by living, glowing branches, and the air was rich with the scent of loam, exotic blossoms, and the sharp tang of magical fertilizers. This was clearly the domain of botany. He spotted a stall overflowing with pulsating fungi, another with flowers that sang in soft, crystalline harmonies, and finally, one that seemed more dedicated to practical, if bizarre, herbalism.
The vendor was a woman in her early thirties, with hair the color of dark earth tied back in a practical braid and hands that, while clean, showed the telltale scratches and faint stains of someone who worked directly with her wares. She was carefully repotting a shrub whose leaves slowly opened and closed like tiny, green mouths.
Lutz approached, setting the felt-covered jar down at his feet with deliberate care. "Good night," he began, keeping his tone respectful. "I'm looking for a specific ingredient. Do you have Human-Faced Cage Grass?"
The woman looked up, her eyes—a calm, mossy green—swept over him. There was a flicker of something in them: not suspicion, but a deep, ingrained caution.
"No," she said, her voice firm and final. She returned to her repotting. "Sorry."
The dismissal was like a door slamming shut. Lutz's heart sank. This was the most likely place in the entire Garden to find it.
No. There has to be a way. She didn't just say she'd never heard of it. She said 'no.' That implies knowledge.
He let his hand slip into his pocket, his fingers finding the familiar coolness of Creed's hilt. The subtle flow of confidence and eloquence warmed his blood.
"I see," Lutz said, his tone shifting from a customer's query to something more conspiratorial. He leaned slightly against her counter, his voice dropping. "Then, perhaps you know where I could find it? I'm willing to pay for the information."
She didn't look up from the mouth-leaf shrub. "And what would you need it for? And more importantly, how many."
"What I need it for is my business," Lutz replied, the words coming with an effortless, plausible vagueness thanks to Creed's influence. "But I only need one. If you're worried about me telling people about your harvest zones, I give you my word, I won't. Discretion is as valuable to me as the grass itself."
This finally made her pause. She set down her trowel and gave him her full attention. Her gaze was intense, probing. "You know what it is? What it does?"
"I only know the name, but i might be able to get an idea of what it does" Lutz said, expertly sidestepping a direct admission of ignorance.
"10 Hammers, and I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else" She said bluntly.
Lutz didn't haggle, he wouldn't push it after getting her to tell him the information, he handled the last of the funds he had brought with him to the Garden, being left with only 1 Gold Hammer.
As she stored the money, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It wasn't friendly. It was the look of a teacher about to explain a harsh lesson to a overconfident student.
"You'll find it in the Rotwood Fens," she said, her voice low. "A swamp to the south of the city, about two hours by carriage. It's a nasty place. The mud sucks at your soul as much as your boots."
Lutz nodded, committing the name to memory. "And the plant itself?"
"It looks like a small, isolated patch of dark-green grass, unnaturally vibrant. In the center grows a single, spherical plant, about the size of a closed fist. That's the 'cage.'" She mimed the shape with her hands. "It usually sits open, and inside is a... morphing organ. A lump of green mush that changes shape. It emits psychic waves, mimics the sounds of injured prey—it guides small insects and animals towards it. When they get close... snap." She clapped her hands together softly. "The cage closes. And it eats them."
Lutz listened, fascinated and repulsed. The Marauder in him appreciated the efficient, predatory trickery.
"But if a human comes close," the woman continued, her mossy eyes locking with his, "the organ changes. It morphs into a face. A human face. Sometimes it's a beautiful one, sometimes a familiar one, sometimes a terrified one begging for help. And it doesn't just use sight. It pushes thoughts into your mind. Whispers. Urgencies. A child's cry from deep in the swamp. The voice of a lover calling your name. It tries to lure you in, to make you step onto that patch of grass. That's why it's called the Human-Faced Cage Grass."
A cold knot tightened in Lutz's stomach. A plant that used psychological warfare. Of course. That was the connection to the Swindler pathway. It was about sophisticated deception, about manipulating perception and emotion to lead your target into a trap. The potion wouldn't just give him skills; it would incorporate the very essence of this predatory, psychic deceit.
And Lutz didn't know if he liked that.
"Humans can usually resist it," the woman added, a note of warning in her voice. "Usually. But if your will is weak, or if you're distracted, or if it happens to find a memory you're particularly vulnerable to..." She let the sentence hang. "The face it shows you... it's said to be a reflection of something you desire or fear. You might not like what you see. Anyway, to harvest it, just get close and sever the cage with a blade, the patch of grass doesn't matter, the organ is what you want".
Lutz absorbed this silently. The cost of the information was clear now. It wasn't just gold; it was a risk assessment.
"The Fens are Feysacian military land" She said. "Officially, no one goes there. Unofficially, the patrols are thin. But if you're caught, you're on your own. And watch for more than just the grass. The Fens have their own guardians."
"Thank you for the information," Lutz said, his voice grim. He picked up his jar of insects. His mission in the Winter Garden was over. He hadn't procured the final ingredient, but he had acquired the map to it. And a sobering understanding of the danger involved.
He turned and began the long walk back towards the entrance, the glowing beauty of the Garden now feeling ominous. The final step in becoming a Swindler wouldn't be a simple transaction in a market. It would be a trek into a haunted swamp to outwit a plant that preyed on the human mind. As he walked, a single thought echoed in his head, drowning out the skittering of the Soul-Confusers.
What face will it show me?