"Janus... I like that. My thanks. But now we have another issue. You and I share the same face, and if I inevitably stir chaos, you will also be affected. Is there anything you'd like to ask of me? Or would you want to join me? or would you return after we secure enough funds?"
You stand in the dim light of the warehouse, your question echoing in the dusty silence. Louie—the true Louie—looks at his new hands, then back at you. He is processing not just your words, but the entirety of his impossible situation.
He considers your offer, his gaze distant for a moment as he replays the apocalyptic timeline you seared into his soul. The fall of kingdoms, the rise of heroes, the endless tide of war.
"Return?"
He asks, his voice laced with a bitter irony.
"Return to what? To a life of shame in a world that is about to burn? No. That life is over. That Louie de Braisechant is dead."
He gestures to you.
"You slew him."
Then he gestures to himself.
"And you gave birth to this."
He takes a step closer, his eyes intense.
"You see the entire board, Janus. The kings, the queens, the monsters in the dark. I see only one thing: the vision of Asranid ships putting the torch to the shores of Aquitania. My home."
His jaw tightens, the old fire of his house re-igniting in his chest, now tempered with the cold steel of your revelations.
"You speak of stirring chaos"
Louie continues, a slow, dangerous smile touching his lips for the first time.
"Good. This world needs it. As for our faces..."
He glances at your shared features, then back to your eyes.
"Let them be confused. Let them whisper of a man who can be in two places at once. One of us will be the thunder. The other, the lightning that follows. One will be the deed, the other the rumor."
He closes the distance between you, extending a hand. It is not the handshake of a supplicant, but of an equal. An ally.
"I will not be your follower, Janus. But I will be your sword. Point me at the enemies of Francia, and I will bleed them. Your war is for the world. My war is for my home. Let us see them both won."
He has made his choice. He will join you, not as a subordinate, but as a partner in the coming storm. Your immediate reality crashes back in. You are two men, one in simple robes, the other naked as the day he was made. You have no money, no weapons, and no food. You are in a locked warehouse in a city on the brink of war, with a shared face and a plan to defy the future. Louie's hand remains extended between you.
You reach out, and your hand clasps his. The sensation is profoundly strange. It is the same hand, the same grip, the same calloused texture you have grown accustomed to over the past three weeks. A pact is sealed between two identical men in the dim light of a forgotten warehouse.
Thunder and lightning. Deed and rumor.
As you stand there, your focus sharpens, and you perceive the new reality of the man before you. The forbidden alchemy you invoked did more than just create a body; it forged a weapon.
[Louie de Braisechant - Status]
TPV: 180 (Silver-Tier)
Attributes:
STR 45
AGI 45
CON 30
INT 20
WIS 20
CHA 20
Path: Martial Practitioner (Undeclared School)
Analysis: The homunculus body is a masterpiece of raw physical potential. Its Strength and Agility are extraordinary, far surpassing the limits of the original body. However, its connection to the aether is muted, the vessel more suited for the internal arts of a warrior than the external projection of a mage. He is a blank slate of Silver-Tier power, waiting for a discipline to be imprinted upon him. You release his hand, the pact made.
"Stay here, Lock the door behind me. Open for no one but me."
Louie nods, his expression grim and determined. He is a man with a purpose, but he is also naked and vulnerable. He moves to the heavy oak door as you slide the bolt and step outside.
[About 06:00 PM on Day 22]
The cold evening air of Dijon is a shock after the charged atmosphere of the warehouse. The sun is setting, casting long, bruised-purple shadows across the city. The forges still burn, their orange glow painting the undersides of the smoke clouds that hang over the city. Your mission is mundane, but critical. And with a Wealth Level of 2 (Impoverished), it is a challenge.
You navigate the winding streets to the poorest section of the merchant's quarter, a place of secondhand stalls and rag-pickers. Here, you find a man selling the discarded clothes of soldiers and laborers from a rickety cart. After a few minutes of grim haggling, you part with the very last of your coin. In exchange, you receive a bundle of rough-spun, mismatched clothes: a pair of worn leather breeches, a faded linen tunic several sizes too large, and a pair of scuffed, hard-soled boots. It is the attire of a common thug or a destitute sellsword.
You return to the warehouse and give the coded knock. The heavy bolt slides back, and the door creaks open. You hand the bundle to Louie. He takes the clothes without a word and dresses quickly. The ill-fitting garments hang loosely on his powerful frame, a stark contrast to the nobleman's silks he once wore.
The transformation is complete. Gone is the disgraced scion. In his place stands a grim-faced stranger with the build of a pit fighter and the eyes of a man who has seen the end of the world. You now stand together in the gloom, two identical men dressed in rags. You have a partner, a purpose, and a prophecy of fire. You have no money, no weapons, and a single, shared face that will soon be known to the most powerful man in the duchy. The war is coming. You are ready to begin.
The warehouse is cold and silent. The last sliver of daylight dies behind the grimy windows, plunging the space into near-total darkness. Louie stands before you, a shadow dressed in rags, his powerful frame a stark contrast to the destitute clothing. You ask the question, your voice a low murmur in the gloom.
"Back to the question about meeting Duke Charles. Do you know why I chose him?"
Louie is silent for a long moment, the only sound the rustle of his ill-fitting tunic. When he speaks, his voice is a low, dangerous thing, stripped of all its former youthful petulance.
"Yes," he says. "I think I do."
He takes a step, pacing slowly in the dark.
"You showed me the future, Janus. A tapestry of fire and blood. And every thread of war, every single one, begins here. In this city. With this man."
His pacing stops. He turns to face you, a silhouette against the faint moonlight.
"Duke Charles is the fool who strikes the first match. His ambition is the reason the Kaiser will be forced to move his legions. His unsanctioned war is the reason King Philippe will be forced to look east, leaving my home... leaving Aquitania... exposed to the Asranid fleets."
His voice drops, filled with a cold, personal venom.
"You choose him because he is not just a piece on the board. He is the hand that pushes the first domino. To control the outcome, you must first control the catalyst."
He understood perfectly and he continues, his tone shifting back to grim pragmatism.
"The paths are the same, but our situation has changed. We are two men with one face, and we have nothing."
He dismisses the first option immediately.
"The Path of Service is for men who have time. We do not. We would be swallowed by the army, separated, and our chance would be lost."
He considers the second.
"The Path of the Petitioner... to approach the Chamberlain, we need something he cannot refuse. What do we offer? A prophecy of a war that hasn't happened yet? They'll think us madmen or spies and clap us in irons. We have no proof. No leverage."
He turns fully to you, and even in the darkness, you can feel the intensity of his gaze.
"That leaves one path. The Path of Noise."
A slow, wolfish grin spreads across his face, the first genuine expression of confidence you have seen from him.
"The Lion's Cage. The fighting pits. You have given me a body forged for violence. Let me use it. Let me be the thunder. I will go there, and I will not just win. I will create a myth. I will break every opponent so completely that the Captain of the Duke's Guard will have no choice but to bring the monster from the cage to his master's attention."
He holds up his new, calloused hands.
"This is the 'deed' we spoke of. This is how we earn our audience. This is how we get our first stake of gold to fund our war."
He has laid out the plan, a direct and brutal path to power. He has chosen his role. Now he looks to you, the lightning that follows.
"I will be the brute they see. The question is, what will you, the mind, do with the opening I create?"
You respond coldly.
"A crown is not a shield, nor a throne a fortress. Yet the King Philippe IV hides behind both, letting others bleed while he sits safe in gilded halls protected by his bloated legions. The king ignored the pleas from the Duchess. That is the true trigger in my opinion."
The darkness of the warehouse feels heavy, like a shroud. Louie, a silhouette in his beggar's rags, stiffens at your words. For a heartbeat, a flicker of old programming—the ingrained loyalty of a Francian noble—surfaces. You can almost feel the phantom recoil, the instinct to decry the treason. But it passes in an instant, washed away by the cold reality you have shown him. He is silent for a long time, the only sound is his own breathing in the cold air. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet, stripped of all emotion save a deep, chilling bitterness.
"Treason... A month ago, I would have called you out for that. My father, even in his disgrace, never once spoke ill of the Crown."
He takes a slow, deliberate step out of the shadows, his face half-illuminated by the pale moonlight filtering through a grimy window. His expression is hard as granite.
"But my father was stripped of his titles and left to die because he refused to march his men south while Asranid slavers burned our coasts. He chose his comfort over his King's distant priorities."
He looks you dead in the eye, his gaze boring into yours.
"And you're telling me that King Philippe, in his gilded palace in Paris, will make that same choice? He will watch the whole of Aquitania burn to contain one ambitious Duke?"
He doesn't need an answer. He saw it in your vision. The truth of it settles over him, not with a crash, but with the cold, final weight of a tombstone. It validates his father's ruin. It vindicates his family's shame.
"So that's it," he whispers, the realization dawning. "That is the true trigger. Not the Duke's ambition, but the King's cowardice."
He lets out a short, sharp breath—not a laugh, but the sound of something breaking.
"So we back the wolf because the shepherd has abandoned the flock."
He nods slowly, the last vestiges of his old world view crumbling into dust.
"You are right. I don't like it. But it's the truth. Charles is strong because he has to be. His lands border the Reich and the Abyss. The King is weak because he can afford to be."
The plan is no longer just about gaining an audience. It has a new, terrifying clarity. A grander purpose.
"Then the Path of Noise is more important than ever,"
Louie states, his voice now a low, steady growl of conviction.
"I will not just make a name for us. I will forge a weapon that a man like Duke Charles will feel he cannot afford to be without. I will prove that strength lies here, in his city, not in Paris."
He clenches his fists, the knuckles white in the gloom.
"Tomorrow, I will go to the Lion's Cage. Give me your orders for the day, Janus. While I play the monster, what will the mind be doing?"
You let out a quiet breath, fingers steepled as though weighing crowns against coins.
"Hmm... If you or we eventually enter the Duke's service, money isn't really an issue anymore. My plan to meet Duke Charles would likely not be realized anytime soon so this is more of a long term thing. Therefore, I currently have no idea what I want to do or should be doing. Do you have any suggestions?"
You stand in the oppressive dark, the weight of a hundred possible futures pressing down on you. You have the grand strategy—a plan to unmake one king and forge another—but the immediate, dirty work of the next twelve hours is a blank page. You, the mind, are momentarily stalled. Louie, the sword, senses your hesitation. He doesn't mock it. He doesn't question it. He accepts it as his turn to contribute to the plan.
"You see the great storm on the horizon, Janus," he says, his voice a low, steady rumble in the dark.
"I see the gutter we're standing in. Let me tell you what I see from down here."
He begins to pace again, a caged wolf planning its escape.
"My part is simple. Brutal. I am the thunder. I will walk into the Lion's Cage tomorrow and make a noise so loud the Duke himself will hear the echoes. But while all eyes are on the thunder, the lightning must strike."
He stops and turns to you, his silhouette a solid block of darkness.
"You have no obvious role tomorrow. That is not a weakness. It is your greatest weapon. While I am the center of attention, you are invisible. A ghost with my face, free to move through the city. So, you have choices."
He holds up one finger.
"First: Be the Eyes. While I am in the Cage, you should be in the city. Go to the taverns where the Duke's men-at-arms drink. Go to the market squares where the merchants gossip. Listen. You know the future, but you don't know the now. What is the true morale of the army? Who are the officers they praise? Who do they curse? What are the names of the powerful men and women who truly run this city for the Duke? When we finally stand before Charles, you will not just speak of a war to come; you will speak with authority on the state of his city today. That is power."
He holds up a second finger.
"Second: Be the Voice. I will be the deed, but you can be the rumor. While I am breaking bones, you can be shaping the story. Find a crowded alehouse. You have my face, my name. Let someone 'recognize' you. Let them see the weeping duelist from Bordeaux. But you are not that man. You are quiet. Grim. When they ask what a disgraced son of Aquitania is doing in Dijon, you say one thing: 'The King has abandoned the South. I seek a master who has not.' Then you leave. You plant a seed. By the time I win in the Cage, I am not just a skilled brute. I am a political statement. A weapon with a purpose. Our purpose."
He holds up a third finger, his voice dropping lower.
"Third: Be the Mind. The Lion's Cage is not just a pit; it is a court. The sponsor, the Captain of the Guard, will be there. His lieutenants will be there. Wealthy merchants and minor nobles will be placing bets. While I am focused on survival, you can be outside the ring, studying them. Who is the Captain? What is his temperament? Who does he speak to? Who holds his ear? You can learn the entire power dynamic of the Duke's inner circle by watching how they behave at a blood sport. You can map our enemy's court before we have even stepped inside it."
He lets his hand fall, the three options hanging in the silent air between you.
"I am the hammer, Janus. I will be ready to strike at dawn. You are the strategist. You must decide where the true battle is being fought tomorrow. Will it be in the streets, in the minds of the people, or in the politics of the Cage itself?"
You ponder to yourself aloud, finger on your chin.
"This Duke is no fool, he knows the word on the street, he probably has the most spies out between the King, the Duchess, the Sea-Lion, and him. The second plan seems viable, but it should be executed after you finish the fight. The third plan is good, but we would need to fork out entry fees. Our problem right now is money then. We are in a state of war, there will surely be merchants that price gouge. And there will be people who will be very interested in seeing those merchants suffer. I have a certain fondness for making people want to kick me and then making them get hurt for kicking me."
A slow, dangerous smile touches your lips, a mirror of the one Louie wore just moments before. The thought is not spoken, but it fills the space between you, a shared understanding of elegant, calculated violence. Louie watches you, his head tilted. He sees the shift in your posture, the predatory gleam in your eyes. He is the hammer, but he recognizes the intricate design of a trap when he sees it.
"You're right," he says, his voice a low growl.
"The Duke is no fool. His spies are everywhere. A rumor planted by a beggar is just a rumor. But a rumor backed by a public display of power... that has weight."
He crosses his powerful arms over his chest, considering your fondness for provocation.
"You want to bait a trap. To make someone powerful and hated lash out, and then break their fist when they swing at you. I understand. It's a faster way to get a stake than fighting in the Cage."
He starts pacing again, the strategist in him taking over, turning your abstract idea into a concrete plan of attack.
"There is a man," Louie says, his voice dropping.
"A grain merchant named Guillaume Bassot. They call him 'the Gout-Ridden' behind his back. He has the Duke's charter to supply the army, which means he can do whatever he wants to the common folk. He hoards grain to drive up prices. His own guards are fat while people in the outer districts go hungry. He is a leech, and he is deeply, deeply hated."
He stops and looks at you, a plan forming in his eyes.
"He operates from a large, fortified stall near the South Gate market. He employs a crew of thugs he calls 'The Cudgels' to protect his goods and break the legs of anyone who complains. They are all mouth and muscle, Copper-Tier bullies who think their master's charter makes them untouchable."
He lays out the scenario, brutal and simple.
"Tomorrow morning, the market will be crowded. You go there. You look like what you are: a hungry man with nothing. You try to take a single loaf of bread. Not with stealth, but openly. Defiantly. The Cudgels will see it as a public challenge to their authority. They will try to make an example of you. They will try to beat you to death in the street."
He points a finger at you, his eyes glinting in the dark.
"And you will let them. You will show the whole market how a single, starving man can dismantle Guillaume's entire crew of thugs without throwing a single punch. You will humiliate them. You will make them a laughingstock. And when they are down, you take their coin purses. Publicly. No one will lift a finger to help them. They might even cheer."
He steps back, the plan laid bare. "It solves our money problem. It gives us the entry fee for the Cage, decent clothes, and a hot meal. And it begins the rumor. Not just of a powerful fighter, but of a man who stands for the common folk against the corrupt. That is a story Duke Charles's spies will find far more interesting."
He looks at you, his expression deadly serious.
"I will be in the crowd, a shadow. If the City Watch appears, or if one of them is stronger than he looks, I will intervene. But this is your play, Janus. The lightning strikes first. Are you ready to call it down?"
The dark warehouse seems to hold its breath. A faint grin, a predator's smile, touches your lips. It's a disquieting expression to see on the face Louie now recognizes as his own. You place a hand over your heart in a gesture of mock sincerity, the mischief in your eyes glittering in the gloom.
"You warm the cockles of my heart." you say, the tone laced with a pleasant, dangerous surprise.
Louie doesn't smile back, but a look of grim understanding passes over his features. He gives a single, sharp nod. The pact is sealed. The thunder has its purpose; the lightning has its target.