The rain in Backlund was not a cleansing force; it was a liquid soot that smeared the sins of the city across its weary face.
Victor lay facedown in a narrow alley of the East Borough, his cheek pressed against a cobblestone that felt as cold as a dead man's heart. His world was a chaotic symphony of rhythmic dripping, the distant rumble of steam carriages, and the agonizing, white-hot throb in his chest. Every time he tried to draw a breath, the acrid yellow smog—the "Backlund Special"—scraped against his throat like a rusty file.
He groaned, a sound that was more of a wet rattle than a human voice. With a strength he didn't know he possessed, he rolled onto his back. The effort made his vision swim with dark spots, and for a moment, the gray sky above seemed to collapse toward him.
I should be dead, he thought, his mind a fractured mirror of memories.
He remembered the rusted blade sinking into his ribs. He remembered the laughter of the three men—organ harvesters, the lowest of the low—who had cornered him in this very alley. They had wanted his coat, his boots, and whatever organs were still healthy enough to sell to the underground clinics. But most of all, they had wanted the life of Victor Sauron, the third-born failure of a house that had forgotten its own glory.
He reached up, his trembling fingers brushing against the front of his coat. The fabric was ruined. His high-collared Intis coat, a masterpiece of dark silk and silver embroidery that had once shimmered in the ballrooms of Trier, was now a tattered, blood-soaked rag. He felt the hole where the knife had entered. Beneath the fabric, his skin was intact, but it felt... wrong. It felt like a colony of ants was stitching his flesh together from the inside, a sickening, itchy sensation that made him want to scream.
The Hunter potion, he realized, the memory of the bitter, metallic liquid he had swallowed in desperation returning to him. It's keeping me alive. But at what cost?
He forced himself to sit up, his back leaning against the damp brick wall. He was Victor, a man from a world of silicon and glass, now trapped in this Victorian nightmare. He had no money. He had no friends. He had no identity. In the eyes of Backlund, he was just another "fell-dandy"—a nobleman who had hit the bottom and was now waiting for the river to take him.
"Hunger," he croaked, the word feeling like a dry stone in his mouth.
It was a primitive, all-consuming hunger. The potion was using up his body's last reserves to repair the damage to his heart and lungs. If he didn't eat soon, the very thing saving him would become the thing that consumed him. He searched his pockets with frantic, clumsy movements. His gold watch? Gone. His silver coins? Gone. His signet ring? Gone.
The thugs had stripped him of everything they thought was valuable. They had only left him his life because they thought he was already a corpse.
Except for one thing.
He felt a small, circular weight in a hidden pocket near his waist—a pocket so subtle that even a professional thief might miss it. He pulled it out. It was a bronze medal, tarnished and dull, featuring a stylized relief of a roaring bonfire. To anyone else, it was a piece of junk. To the Sauron family, it was a cursed relic of the Fourth Epoch.
Victor stared at it. For a second, he thought he saw a faint, red ember glow in the center of the bronze fire, but it might have just been the delirium of blood loss. He tucked it back quickly. In East Borough, even bronze was worth a man's life if he looked weak enough.
He stood up, his legs shaking like a newborn calf's. He had to move. If he stayed here, the cold dampness of the alley would seep into his bones, and he wouldn't wake up again.
He stumbled out of the alley and into the main street of East Borough. The sight was a visceral assault. Rows upon rows of cramped tenements leaned against each other like rotting teeth. The air was a thick, gray soup of coal dust and human misery. Men with hollow eyes stood in lines for jobs that didn't exist, and children with faces blackened by soot begged for a single copper pence.
Victor tightened his grip on his ruined coat, trying to hide the bloodstain. With his Anakin-like visage—sharp, aristocratic, and now terrifyingly gaunt—he drew glances. Not glances of pity, but glances of calculation. In this place, a man who looked like he came from money was a walking prize.
He needed food. He needed it now.
He spotted a small, grease-stained stall at the corner. A sign hung crookedly: "Meat Pies - 1/2 Pence. No Questions."
The smell was offensive—rancid fat and excessive pepper meant to hide the rot—but to Victor, it was more intoxicating than the finest wine in Trier. He approached the stall. The vendor, a man with a face like a scarred bulldog and a heavy iron ladle in his hand, looked him up and down.
"Got the coin, dandy? Or are you here to beg?" the vendor barked, his voice a gravelly rasp.
Victor didn't have the coin. But he had something else. He had the eyes of a man who had seen the bottom and decided he didn't like the view. He channeled the cold, analytical part of his mind—the part that understood the 'social ecosystem' of a gutter.
"I don't beg," Victor said, his voice steady despite the rattling in his chest. "But I see you're having a problem with the two men at the end of the street. The ones in the green caps. They've been watching your till for the last twenty minutes, haven't they?"
The vendor froze. He glanced toward the two men—enforcers for a local gang—who were indeed loitering with a predatory intent.
"What's it to you?" the vendor hissed, his hand tightening on the ladle.
"They're waiting for the clock to strike twelve. That's when the patrol changes at the pumping station. You'll be alone for exactly five minutes," Victor said, leaning slightly closer. His blue eyes flashed with an intensity that made the vendor blink. "Give me two pies. In exchange, I'll walk over there and tell them that the 'Old Man' from the docks is interested in this stall. I'll make them think you're under a protection that doesn't exist. They won't risk a turf war for a few grease pies."
It was a bluff. A desperate, paper-thin lie. Victor didn't know an 'Old Man' from the docks. But he knew the psychology of a bully. A bully doesn't attack unless he's sure there's no consequence.
The vendor looked at the gang members, then at Victor's ruined but clearly expensive coat, and then at his terrifyingly calm eyes. He made a snap decision. He wrapped two steaming pies in a scrap of old newspaper and shoved them toward Victor.
"Tell 'em," the vendor grunted. "And if you're lying, don't come back this way."
Victor took the pies. The heat of them burned his palms, but it felt like a blessing. He walked toward the two men in green caps. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but he kept his posture straight, his gaze fixed on them. He didn't look like a beggar; he looked like a messenger for someone far more dangerous.
He didn't even stop. As he passed them, he leaned in and whispered just loud enough for both to hear: "The docks have eyes on this corner. Don't be the ones who trigger a sweep."
He kept walking. He didn't look back. He turned a corner, entered another narrow alley, and collapsed against a pile of damp crates.
He ate.
The pies were disgusting. The meat was gristle and mystery, and the crust was like cardboard. But as the calories hit his system, he felt the Hunter potion roar to life. The itch in his chest intensified as his cells began to feast on the nutrients, repairing the last of the internal damage. His vision cleared. The shaking in his hands subsided.
I survived, Victor thought, a low, bitter laugh escaping his lips. I used my tongue to hunt my first meal. I didn't need a blade. I needed a lie.
He stayed in the shadows for a long time, watching the way the light changed—not that the sun ever truly penetrated the smog. He realized that his noble lineage, his handsome face, and his expensive coat were now his greatest liabilities. If he wanted to live, he had to disappear.
He spent the next few hours wandering the deeper parts of East Borough. He found a communal tap where the water tasted of rust and lead, and he washed the blood from his face. He used a jagged piece of glass he found in the mud to cut off the loose threads of his coat, making it look less like a luxury item and more like a piece of found junk. He smeared soot into the silver embroidery.
By nightfall, he reached a row of dilapidated boarding houses near the river. The smell was a nauseating mix of salt, sewage, and cheap gin. He found a sign that read: "Bed for the Night - 2 Pence. Shared."
He didn't have two pence. But he saw a man—a drunk laborer—fumbling with his key at the door. The man dropped it into the mud, swearing loudly.
Victor stepped forward. He didn't steal it. He picked it up and handed it back with a polite, distant smile.
"Rough night, friend?" Victor asked.
The drunk looked at him, his eyes bleary. "Bloody... bloody fog. Can't see me own feet."
"I'm looking for a place to stay. I've got a bit of skill with... organization. If you can cover my entry, I'll make sure no one rolls you for your boots while you sleep," Victor said.
The drunk laughed, a wet, hacking sound. "You? You look like you've been rolled yourself, lad. But fine. Better than sleeping alone with the rats."
Victor entered the boarding house. It was a hall filled with twenty men sleeping on straw pallets. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and the sound of a dozen different snores. It was a hellhole.
But as Victor lay down on his straw pallet, his hand clutched around the bronze medal in his pocket, he felt a sense of grim accomplishment. He had no money, no home, and he was surrounded by the lowest rungs of society.
He closed his eyes. He didn't dream of the gray fog. He didn't dream of gods. He dreamed of the way the grease from the meat pie had tasted.