"Your report changes the calculus," Noire said, her gaze sharpening. "This 'Henrik Moss' is not a mere gangster. He is a Marauder. A Beyonder. His actions demonstrate a level of strategic foresight and personal daring that goes far beyond a simple turf war. Leading a Church Captain into a confrontation with a Sequence 6 Rose Bishop to eliminate a personal threat... that is not the act of a subordinate in a rival gang. That is the act of a principal. A lone wolf, or perhaps the very architect of this entire campaign."
Krieg leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the pieces clicking together with a cold, unsettling clarity. "So the intelligence isn't from a rival organization. It's from him. Moss. The Harbor Butcher. He's not just a Viper; he's systematically dismantling the Vipers from the inside, using us as his wrecking ball."
"It is the most parsimonious explanation," Noire confirmed. "He provides the map, and we provide the demolition. He has used the Church of Steam with an efficiency that is, I must admit, grudgingly impressive."
"And now?" Krieg asked, looking up at her. "What's the current status of the Vipers?"
"They have contracted," Noire stated. "Violently. Our last raids, based on the most recent intelligence, targeted their financial and legal core. The response has been a full retreat. All remaining Viper assets and personnel have been pulled back to their main warehouse in the Salt-Weep district. They have battened down the hatches. Presumably, it is a final, desperate attempt to safeguard the last of their strength, to force us into a costly frontal assault on a fortified position."
Krieg was silent for a long moment, his mind working, trying to find the flaw, the hidden angle in the seemingly straightforward narrative. The Vipers were cornered. It made sense. And yet...
'It's too neat,' he thought, the lawyer-trained part of his mind, honed by years of investigation, raising a silent alarm. 'A criminal empire doesn't collapse this cleanly. There's always a scramble, a betrayal, a desperate gambit. This retreat... it feels coordinated. Purposeful. Almost like they're following a script.'
He couldn't articulate it precisely. It was a feeling, an instinct born of seeing too many desperate men make too many stupid decisions. This didn't feel like desperation. It felt like staging.
"Deacon," he began, his voice cautious. "This retreat... does it feel right to you? They've lost everything outside those walls. They have to know we're coming. Why make their last stand in a place we can so easily surround? Why not scatter? Go to ground? It feels less like a last stand and more like... a presentation."
Noire considered this, her head tilting. "A valid observation, Captain. Perhaps it is simply the arrogance of a man who believes his fortress impregnable. Or the foolish sentiment of a leader unwilling to abandon his seat of power. Or..." she paused, her obscure purple eyes gleaming in the lamplight, "...it is a trap. They may believe they can bloody our noses so severely at the gates that we will be forced to withdraw."
"A possibility," Krieg conceded, though the unsettled feeling in his gut remained. He lacked the specific data to challenge her operational logic. It was, on paper, sound.
"Regardless of their reasoning," Noire continued, her tone returning to its business-like precision, "the outcome is the same. The viper has been driven back to its nest. It is time to burn it out." She looked him up and down, assessing his physical state with a dispassionate eye. "You need to regain your strength, Captain. The final assault will require every asset. Your experience, and your... particular skillset... will be crucial."
She wasn't asking. She was stating a fact.
"When you are ready," she declared, "we will launch a coordinated strike on the warehouse. We will cleanse this city of the Vipers' corruption once and for all. We will take Baron Vogler and his inner circle, and we will dismantle their organization down to the last nail."
She turned to leave, but paused at the door, delivering her final, cold command. "And once the Vipers are ash, we will turn our attention to this 'phantom.' This 'Architect.' He has been useful. But he has also made the fatal error of believing he can manipulate the Church of Steam and remain in the shadows. We will be watching. When he moves to claim his spoils, we will be there. He will find that the hand that guides the scalpel does not appreciate becoming part of the dissection."
The door closed behind her, leaving Krieg alone in the humming silence. He slowly pushed himself to his feet, his body protesting, but his mind was already elsewhere. He walked to a small washbasin and splashed cold water on his face, the shock helping to clear the last cobwebs of spiritual fatigue.
He stared at his reflection in the small metal mirror. Tired eyes, a face etched with the strain of metaphysical debt, but a mind that was once again sharp, analytical.
'The Vipers are the obvious target,' he thought, the pieces of the puzzle still not fitting to his satisfaction. 'But Moss... Henrik Moss... the Harbor Butcher... he's the real mystery. He's playing a game I don't fully understand. Why destroy your own gang? A power grab? Revenge? And what does he want that requires him to use the Church to do his dirty work?'
He began a series of slow, deliberate stretches, pushing his recovering body, forcing blood back into sluggish muscles. Reverie Noire was right. He needed to be ready. The final assault on the warehouse was inevitable. It was the logical, necessary conclusion to their campaign.
But as he moved, a single, persistent thought echoed in his mind: when they stormed those barricaded doors, they wouldn't just be walking into a viper's nest. They would be walking onto a stage, and the playwright was still hidden in the wings, waiting for his cue. And Krieg had a sinking feeling that the Church, for all its power and precision, was still just a player in someone else's grand, and likely bloody, final act.
The sixth day bled into its final hours. The warehouse was a held breath, a tense silence broken only by the scuff of boots and the nervous click of weapons being checked and re-checked. Lutz moved through the gloom, a ghost conducting a final inspection of his theater. His mind was a cold, clear engine, processing variables, running simulations. The emotional weight of what was to come, the annihilation of the only home he'd known in this world—was a data point, acknowledged and filed away. It had no bearing on the sequence of operations.
His first order of business was the final placement of the Degeneration Charms Traps. He had five. Their placement was a tactical equation.
Main Entrance: The primary breach point. He would position the first charm just inside the doorway, wedged between the heavy timber of the doorframe and a stacked crate, its activation face aimed out towards the street. The second he would place ten feet further in, behind a barrel, covering the initial funnel point where assaulters would be most densely packed. A two-stage welcome.
Back Alley Entrance, the less obvious point of entry. He would fix it to the underside of a wooden stairwell, invisible from both outside and inside until it was too late. This was for flankers and for any clever enough Church operative—or a lunatic from the shadows—who thought to avoid the main fray.
Side Storage Room, a potential secondary breach point or a fallback position for the Vipers. He decided high on a shelf, behind a cracked jug, its area of effect covering the entire doorway.
And the last one. This one he would keep. His final argument. Once he was inside the Baron's office and had accessed the hidden compartment, he would seal the doorway behind him with it. Anyone trying to follow him in, or interrupt his Sacred Taking, would be met with instant, horrifying decay.
Satisfied with the position of the traps, he retreated to his corner for the final equipment check. He laid out his harness on the cot. It was no longer a collection of items; it was a unified system, a testament to Henrik's craftsmanship and his own relentless preparation.
He started from the core and worked outwards.
The Harness: He ran his hands over the oil-tanned leather, checking every stitch, every buckle. The spring-loaded sheath for Creed was tested half-a-dozen times, the draw silent and impossibly fast. The quick-release for the heavy parrying knife was similarly flawless. The bandolier for the seven throwing knives was adjusted so each hilt sat at a slightly different angle, allowing his Agile Hands to select and throw any one of them without looking. The pouches of his belt were his utility closet.
Pouch 1: Umbra and Night's Melody. The ring was cool to the touch, positioned and easy to access. He slipped it onto his finger, feeling the screaming and whispers inside his head, he took it off immediately. It was his primary tool for divination and avoiding mental attacks, though at the expense of his psyche. On the other hand, the whistle, Night's Melody was a specialized tool for crowd control, it had a dozen different applications with its melody of slumber, melody of tranquility and melody of slowness.
Pouch 2: Ammunition. Revolver rounds and shotgun shells, separated for easy access. He counted them mentally, though he knew the number by heart, 18 Revolver rounds plus 6 charged and 8 Shotgun shells plus 2 charged.
Pouch 3 & 4: The Dust-Bombs. These were his cruel invention, his chaos-makers. He examined the four carefully sealed small cloth pouches, each no larger than a lemon.
Two Briarflame Mixes: A milled powder mix of everything itchy, and a secret, alchemical catalyst. Upon shattering, it would create a thick, choking cloud that burned the eyes, nose, and lungs, causing temporary blindness and disorientation, a good impact on the skin could inflict significant damage, but its main strength was that it overwhelmed the target with a thousand types of pain and inconveniences.
Two Follyglue Mixes: The same previous mix, but instead of a burning abrasive, these minuscule spherical specks would absorb even the slightest moisture it came across, growing in size and staining the surroundings with a thick, viscous, toxic substance, if a big amount were to hit the target, their movements could become slightly impeded, but its true purpose was the intoxication of the target wich would rapidly being to see all types of symptoms.
Pouch 5: The Trump Cards against the attacker in the shadows. The two Low-level Sun Charms. They hummed with a faint, warm energy, a stark contrast to the cold malevolence of Creed and Umbra. He didn't need them to destroy anyone; he only needed a burst of purifying, searing light to scorch the shadows the cultist clung to, to blind him for a few critical seconds. Time was the currency here.
Finally, the firearms. Henrik's revolver, clean and precise, went into its hip holster. The sawed-off shotgun, its barrels brutally short and compact, was slung across his back, the strap perfectly tensioned for a quick, over-the-shoulder draw. It was not a weapon for aimed fire; it was a key for making new doors in walls or for absolute change of the target's anatomy with a single, deafening roar.
He stood, the full weight of the harness settling onto his shoulders. It was heavy, perhaps sixteen kilograms in total, but his enhanced physique distributed the load. He was a walking arsenal, a node of concentrated violence.
With his testing done, he took it off, satisfied.
The final preparation was the most destructive, and the most necessary for his clean escape. Arson.
Throughout the seventh day, under the guise of "checking for structural weaknesses" and "storing flammables safely," he would discreetly prepare the warehouse for immolation. It was a simple, brutal process. He would take rags and soak them in lamp oil, then tuck them into dry, hidden spaces: behind loose wall panels, inside unused ventilation shafts, under piles of dry straw in empty horse stalls. He would dribble trails of oil along beams in the rafters. In his own room, he would create a larger pile of tinder—old journals, spare clothes, the straw from his mattress—and place a slow-burning candle at its heart, shielded from view, its wick calculated to burn down in approximately thirty minutes after he lit it.
The fire served a triple purpose:
Ultimate Diversion, a roaring inferno would be the perfect backdrop for his escape. It would draw every eye, create panic, and provide cover in the form of smoke and collapsing structure.
Evidence Destruction, he could not take everything. His spare clothes, his cot, any personal items that didn't fit into his two pre-packed bags—all of it had to be annihilated. He knew from his limited divination studies that a skilled Beyonder could pull traces of his identity from a discarded button or a strand of hair. Fire was a purifying force. It would reduce the phantom's nest to ash, leaving no spiritual residue to track.
Strategic Denial, the fire would consume the warehouse, the Vipers, and any Church or Aurora Order operatives too slow to escape. It was the period at the end of his sentence.
He looked at the two heavy leather bags waiting in the ground. One contained his remaining funds, 29 Hammers, 2 of Henrik's journals, his best set of clothes, and the isolating lead box, that was all he would take with him from this life. It still had plenty of room left. The other was empty, reserved for the contents of the Baron's treasury.
He stood in the center of his room, fully armed, his plan a perfect, crystalline structure in his mind. Every variable had been considered. Every tool had its purpose. The traps were set. The weapons were ready. The fire was prepped.
He was not a man hoping for a chance to survive. He was a force of physics waiting for the catalyst. The Church, the Vipers, the Aurora Order—they were all just reactants he was about to combine in his carefully prepared crucible.
The only thing left to do was to light the fuse and stand back. He grabbed a piece of paper and started scribbling something on it.