The city of St. Millom, in the hard, clear light of day, was a different beast than the shadowy labyrinth Lutz usually navigated. Today, he wasn't "Yan" the phantom or even the fully-integrated Lutz Fischer; he was the specter of James Morgan, projected into the world of commerce and respectability.
His target: a physical body for The Northern Star Import & Export Co. The corporate shell he had crafted needed a heartbeat, a location where papers could be stamped, meetings held, and, most importantly, money could be legitimized. He'd spent the morning trudging through a dispiriting parade of possibilities. There had been a place that smelled pervasively of damp and cabbage, another that was little more than a glorified closet with a window, and a third whose previous tenant, a failed taxidermist, had left behind a lingering psychic aura of disappointment and sawdust.
He was beginning to feel the familiar creep of cynicism when the estate agent, a Mr. Lambert with a perpetually worried expression, unlocked the door to a unit on a street named Weaver's Lane. It wasn't in the opulent merchant quarter, but it was a stone's throw from it, a street of respectable, well-maintained buildings housing small shipping brokers, independent assessors, and firms that did quiet, steady business.
The moment he stepped inside, Lutz felt the shift. The air was still and dry, smelling of clean floorboards and sunlight. Light. That was the first thing he noticed. Large windows at the front flooded the space with a bright, optimistic glow, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air.
"This is the reception area," Mr. Lambert said, his voice losing some of its habitual anxiety as he gestured to a spacious, square room. "Good light, as you can see. Impresses clients right away."
Lutz gave a noncommittal grunt, but internally, he agreed. The light was a weapon against the gloom of his own nature. It made the place feel honest.
Beyond the reception was a larger, open-plan room. "The general office," Lambert continued. "Space for several desks. Your clerks, accountants, that sort of thing. Piping for gas lamps is already in."
Lutz walked through the space, his footsteps echoing on the bare wood. His mind's eye populated it. Not with ghosts or artifacts, but with desks, ledger books, the rhythmic clatter of typewriters. The hum of mundane industry.
Off the main room were two doors. The first opened into a handsomely proportioned office with a fireplace and a view of a small, tidy courtyard at the back of the building. "The boss's office, of course," Albright said, a note of reverence in his voice.
Lutz didn't correct him. He stepped inside. This would be his office. James Morgan's office. A stage within a stage. He could see a large desk positioned to take advantage of the light, a deep leather chair.
The second door led to a smaller room, windowless but clean, with built-in shelving. "A storage room, or a private archive, perhaps," Albright offered.
Lutz nodded slowly, his gaze sweeping over the empty space. A spare room. A blank canvas. Its potential was undefined, and for a mind like his, which thrived on utility and layered purpose, its very emptiness was both a question and an invitation.
He completed the circuit, ending back in the bright reception. The ambience of the place was its strongest selling point. It felt solid, respectable, and just anonymous enough. It whispered quiet competence. It was the perfect skin for his new venture.
He turned to the anxiously waiting Mr. Lambert. He didn't need to haggle, to play the part of the cautious noble. James Morgan was frivolous with his capital. He was a young man with a dream and a hurry.
"I'll take it," Lutz said, his voice cutting through the quiet with a finality that made Lambert blink.
"Sir? You… you don't wish to consider—?"
"The light is good," Lutz stated, as if that were the only metric that mattered in the world of commerce. "What's the initial term?"
Flustered and delighted, Albright stammered out the details. A six-month lease, paid in advance. Thirty Gold Hammers. It was a substantial sum, one that would be subtracted from the initial funds he had deposited for The Northern Star. But it was also a necessary investment.
Lutz produced a chequebook from an inner pocket—James Morgan's new chequebook, linked to the account holding the company's initial one hundred Hammer deposit. The pen scratched loudly in the silent room as he filled out the amount. Thirty Hammers. Transformed into a physical address and a promise of legitimacy. He handed the cheque over, and the way Lambert's fingers closed around it was like a religious gesture. The deal was sealed.
The next two days were a whirlwind of unglamorous, exhausting activity that was somehow more draining than a knife-fight in a dark night. This was the gritty reality of building a facade.
Day One was dedicated to Furnishing The Illusion. Lutz, armed with a notebook and a habit of spending swiftly, became a familiar figure in the furniture warehouses and office supply stores of St. Millom. He wasn't looking for opulence; he was looking for a very specific brand of respectable, middle-class functionality.
For the general office, he purchased four sturdy, identical oak desks. "For the accountants and clerks," he told the warehouse foreman, the lie feeling strangely comfortable. He bought four matching, swiveling chairs, a filing cabinet that stood as tall as a feysacian and looked impregnable, and a rack for coats and hats. For the reception area, he found a simpler desk for a receptionist he hadn't yet hired, and two comfortable but not overly plush chairs for waiting clients. He ordered a tasteful, brass-lettered sign that read "The Northern Star Import & Export Co." to be mounted on the outside door.
The biggest investment was for his own office. Here, the image mattered most. He selected a large, imposing desk of dark mahogany, its surface a vast expanse of polished wood that spoke of authority. The chair behind it was deep, buttoned leather, high-backed and throne-like. He bought a smaller, less comfortable chair for visitors, strategically placing them in a position of supplication. A bookshelf was filled not with books, but with empty, impressive-looking leather-bound volumes he found cheaply in a second-hand shop. They were for show, their blank pages a perfect metaphor for the company itself.
'I'm not cheap, just practical'.
Sure
As the furniture was delivered and arranged by a team of big men, the empty rooms began to transform. The echo faded, replaced by the solid thud of wood and the scent of polish and new fabric. It started to look real. Lutz stood in the middle of the general office, watching the desks being positioned in neat rows, and felt a flicker of something that wasn't entirely calculation. It was the satisfaction of creation, however false its foundations.
Day Two was Personnel. The facade needed people to give it breath and noise. He placed a discreet advertisement in the financial pages of a local newspaper, and by midday, a small queue had formed in the newly furnished reception area.
The first to be interviewed was a man named Jesse Maron, a weaselly-looking individual with slicked-back hair and brown eyes that darted towards the ledger books on Lutz's new desk with a little too much avarice. Lutz used his senses and his Superior Observation reading the man's micro-expressions with ease.
"My last position was with Volkov and Sons," Finch said, puffing out his chest slightly. "I handled all their overseas accounts."
Lutz didn't need to read his mind to smell the lie. He used a subtle application of Thought Misdirection, guiding the conversation towards the specific accounting practices of Volkov's firm. Finch's confidence wavered, his answers becoming vague. The man was a fraud, looking for a loose purse to pilfer.
"Thank you, Mr. Maron. We'll be in touch," Lutz said, his tone perfectly neutral, his Charm making the dismissal feel like a genuine promise. The man left, disappointed but not suspicious.
The next candidate was a woman, Eleanor Vance. She was in her late forties, dressed in a severe but impeccably clean black dress, her hair pulled into a tight bun. She sat with a ramrod-straight posture and her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her resume was meticulous, detailing twenty years with a now-defunct textile wholesaler.
"I believe in order, Mr. Morgan," she said, her voice crisp and without flourish. "Numbers do not lie, and ledgers should tell a story so clear a child could understand it."
Lutz asked her a complex question about asset depreciation. Her answer was immediate, precise, and cited specific clauses in the Feysacian commercial code. There was no guile in her, only a profound, almost religious devotion to arithmetic accuracy. She was the antithesis of everything he was. She was perfect.
"Can you start tomorrow, Ms. Vance?" he asked.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "I can start this afternoon, sir, if you require it."
He hired her on the spot as the head accountant. She was the bedrock upon which the financial legitimacy of The Northern Star would be built.
Next, he needed a general clerk. He hired a young, handsome man named Thomas, barely out of his teens, who was eager, nervous, and possessed of a seemingly endless capacity for tedious tasks like filing and stamping documents. He was a pair of hands and eyes, cheap and expendable, but his earnestness was a useful counterpoint to Ms. Vance's severe efficiency.
Finally, he needed a runner. A boy named Pip, maybe fourteen years old, with scuffed knees and a sharp, intelligent gaze. He knew the city's streets like the back of his hand.
"I need messages delivered, packages picked up," Lutz told him. "You need to be fast, and you need to be polite. Can you do that?"
"Quiet as a shadow, boss-man!" Pip said, with a gap-toothed grin. He was hired.
By the end of the second day, The Northern Star Import & Export Co. was no longer just a name on a contract and a stack of furniture. It had a pulse. The faint sound of Ms. Vance's pen scratching in a ledger, the rustle of Thomas organizing files, the occasional scuff of Pip's feet as he waited for an errand—it was the sound of a machine coming to life. Lutz had spent another twenty Hammers on salaries and initial expenses, leaving around 50 Hammers in Northern Star's account, but the transformation was worth it. The place felt alive, real.
Standing in the doorway of his private office, Lutz surveyed his creation. The sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust-free surfaces. He could hear the faint, busy sounds from the general office. In two days, Filip would likely have the prototypes ready. If they worked, they could be selling in a week or two. The plan was in motion.
His gaze then drifted across the hall, to the closed door of the spare room. He hadn't furnished it. It stood empty, a silent question mark in the midst of his carefully constructed reality. He hadn't known what to do with it. A storage room? A secondary archive? It felt like a waste.
And then, as he stood there, the hum of the nascent business around him, an idea began to form. A slow, genuine smile—one that had nothing to do with the James Morgan persona—touched his lips.