After the officers left, Lutz got up and composed himself, Eliza turned to make breakfast for the both of them, it was unknown what was on her mind.
The shared, silent breakfast was a heavy, wordless epilogue to the night's events. They sat across from each other at the dining table, the very space they had scrubbed clean of blood hours before. The only sounds were the clink of cutlery on porcelain and the distant, normalizing hum of the city coming to life. The air was thick with unspoken questions and the ghost of violence. Halfway through the meal, Lutz looked up from his plate, his eyes meeting Eliza's for a brief, charged moment.
"Thank you, and I'm sorry you went through that" he said, the words simple, stark, and laden with a meaning that went far beyond gratitude for the food or the cleanup.
Eliza merely nodded, her eyes dropping back to her plate. No other words were exchanged.
After eating, Lutz descended once more into the basement. The air down there was cool and still, carrying the faint, metallic scent of his workshop tools and the darker, coppery undertone of death. Yevgeny's corpse lay where he had left it, a stark, human-shaped shadow in the corner. The urgency of the morning's concealment was gone, replaced by a grim, methodological purpose.
He knelt beside the body, his Intuition of value humming softly, a subconscious pull towards items of worth. He systematically went through the dead man's pockets. The clothes were of good quality, sturdy and practical, but held no hidden compartments or mystical embroidery. In a trouser pocket, he found a set of keys—three of them, shiny and well-made, likely for his home. There was a luxurious, golden pocket watch, its hands frozen at some inconsequential hour from the night before. A small fold of paper money amounted to a few silver shields. No identification. No personal effects.
'I guess I'll have to pay another visit to his house' Lutz thought, pocketing the keys. The cold weight of them felt like a new set of responsibilities.
'I should investigate the situation and find out who he really is. Why he had that Seal. How did he find out I took it?' The mystery was a loose thread, and loose threads had a way of unraveling everything.
'I could also use the opportunity to loot a bit' he added with a touch of his Marauder's pragmatism. 'I don't think he'll be needing his stuff anymore.'
Leaving the corpse in the dark, he ascended to the main floor. The bright, garish yellow of his James Morgan suit felt absurd now, a clown's costume after a funeral. He changed back into his more subdued charcoal grey suit, the uniform of a man on serious business.
His next task was procurement. He needed to render the body in the basement into something that could be discreetly disposed of. The formula from The Verdant Crucible was clear, a brutal piece of alchemy that required no mystical ingredients, just potent, mundane chemicals. He needed concentrated sulfuric acid, or the ingredients to make it, and a strong solution of hydrogen peroxide.
He spent the next few hours moving through the city, a study in discreet acquisition. He didn't go to a single supplier. That would be remembered. Instead, he visited three different establishments in three different districts, playing a different minor role each time.
At a supplier of industrial cleaning agents near the docks, he presented himself as a representative of a textile factory, purchasing a carboy of high-concentration sulfuric acid for "cleaning industrial machinery." The clerk, a man with burned fingertips, didn't bat an eye.
In a pharmacy in the commercial district, he became a university researcher from a fictional department of "Applied Material Sciences," procuring several bottles of 30% hydrogen peroxide solution for "oxidation reaction experiments." The pharmacist was more curious, but Lutz's confident, slightly bored explanation and his respectable attire quelled any suspicion.
His final stop was a glassware shop, where he bought a large, thick-walled, stoppered glass vessel, specifically designed for handling corrosive materials. It was an essential piece of safety equipment; the reaction he was about to initiate was violently exothermic.
After acquiring the chemicals, one final, crucial purchase remained. The acid would dissolve the corpse, but it would also dissolve the basement floor, and likely the container he mixed it in if he chose poorly. He needed a vessel that was both large enough and utterly inert.
His search led him to a dusty, cluttered shop in a lane dedicated to pottery and stoneware, a place that smelled of damp clay and kiln-fire. He bypassed the delicate vases and decorative urns, his eyes scanning for something purely functional. He found it in the back: a heavy, thick-walled stoneware crock, glazed on the inside with a dark, vitreous finish. It was unadorned and ugly, standing nearly to his knee, with a capacity large enough for the grim task ahead.
The potter, an old man with clay under his fingernails, looked up from his wheel. "Brewing pickles?" he asked, noting the crock's traditional use.
"Something like that," Lutz replied, his tone neutral. "A particularly... strong batch. I need something the vinegar won't eat through."
The potter nodded sagely. "The glaze on this one? Fired hot enough to seal glass into the clay. Vinegar, alcohol, even stronger stuff won't touch it. You could probably store acid in it, not that I'd recommend it." He chuckled at his own joke.
Lutz didn't smile. "It will do." He paid the man a few silver shields—and carried the heavy, cumbersome crock back to a waiting carriage he had stopped. Now, he had a cauldron fit for his alchemy of disappearance.
The total cost, spread across the three transactions, came to 2 Gold Hammers, 7 Silver Shields, and 4 Copper Pfennige.
He returned to 17 Vesper Lane just before 11 AM. The house was quiet. On the kitchen table, he found a simple lunch waiting for him: a plate of steak, some hard-boiled eggs, and a slice of bread. Eliza was nowhere to be seen.
'No wonder,' he thought, a pang of something akin to guilt touching him. 'We were woken in the middle of the night and had to work non-stop for hours to mend the damages. She must be exhausted. I'll also take a nap after eating.'
He ate alone in the silent kitchen, the food tasting like ash. His mind was not on the meal, but on the man in the basement. Yevgeny Andariel. Who was he? A member of a hidden faction? His sinister abilities suggested a pathway Lutz wasn't familiar with, of course, it wasn't like he was familiar with many to begin with.
The way he had found Lutz was the most pressing mystery. Was there some form of divination at play that he had failed to account for? Maybe he tracked the course of the seal and found out it was here at some point?
Finishing his meal, he mechanically washed his plate and brushed his teeth, the mundane actions a strange contrast to the horrors of the night and the grim task that awaited him later. The exhaustion, held at bay by adrenaline and fear, was now crashing down on him like a physical weight. His eyes felt gritty, his limbs leaden.
He climbed the stairs to his bedroom, the house feeling like a giant, silent tomb. He didn't even bother changing. He lay down on his bed, still in his trousers and shirt, and was swallowed by a deep, dreamless sleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow.
He slept for hours, a complete and utter shutdown of body and mind. When he finally stirred, the light outside his window had softened into the long, golden rays of late afternoon. He checked his pocket watch. It was just past 9 PM. He had slept through the entire day. The nap had done little to ease the mental fatigue, but it had cleared the fog of sheer physical exhaustion. The house was still quiet, Eliza likely still recovering her own rest. The temporary peace was a fragile thing, and he knew it.
He changed into simple trousers and a shirt. There was no putting it off any longer. The problem in the basement demanded a solution.
Descending the stairs felt like walking into a tomb. The air grew cooler, and the faint, metallic scent of his workshop was now underpinned by something else—a sweet, cloying note of spoilage that made his stomach clench. The gas lamp he lit cast a jaundiced glow, pushing back the shadows just enough to reveal the shape in the corner, now covered with a stained canvas drop cloth. It was a pathetic attempt at dignity.
He pulled on the thick rubber gloves he'd bought with the alchemical equipment, the smell of the material strong and artificial. He approached the covered form and, steeling himself, pulled the canvas back. Yevgeny's face was waxy and pale in the low light. Lutz forced his gaze away, focusing on the task. He worked quickly, using a knife to cut away the blood-stiffened tunic and trousers. He tried not to register the texture, the pallor, the brutal reality of what he was doing.
The heavy stoneware crock stood nearby, its dark, glazed interior seeming to swallow the light. Maneuvering the dead weight was a grisly, undignified struggle. He had to lift, drag, and contort the stiffening limbs to fit the body into the vessel. It was a tight fit, the form folded in on itself in a grotesque parody of a sleeping child.
Next came the chemicals. He uncorked the carboy of sulfuric acid, the acrid smell pricking at his eyes even from a distance. With great care, he poured the clear, oily liquid into the crock, splashing it over the body, ensuring it pooled in the cavity of the chest and soaked the clothing. The sound it made was a soft, hissing sizzle, like fat in a hot pan. Then, the hydrogen peroxide. He added it slowly, the solution fizzing violently as it made contact. The two chemicals, now mingling, began their work in earnest. The hissing grew louder, more aggressive. A low, heatless steam began to rise from the crock, carrying a truly foul odor—the stench of dissolving hair, skin, and fabric, a horrific alchemy of corruption.
Using a wooden stirring rod—he would burn it later—he prodded the body, pushing a stubborn arm further down into the bubbling, darkening soup. The rod came away slightly softened, its end blackened. The process was underway. It was both terrifying and profoundly mundane.
He pulled off the rubber gloves, his hands sweating inside them. There was nothing more to do here but wait. He left the basement, closing the door firmly on the hissing, steaming crock and its grisly contents. The image was burned into his mind, a new addition to his gallery of horrors.
Upstairs, in the relative sanity of his study, he forced his mind to the next problem. Yevgeny's house.
He mentally replayed the days he'd spent surveilling the elegant black-bricked house. 'As far as I remember, there's only a maid that comes in to clean during the day, unlike Eliza who's a stay-in.' That was a critical advantage.
'Apart from that, Yevgeny had just been killed the night before.' His death was his own secret. The authorities didn't know. His associates, if he had any, almost certainly didn't know yet. This was a window of opportunity, fragile and closing fast. 'Whoever he was affiliated with should not be in his house, at least not yet.'
The plan solidified in his mind. He would go tonight. Under the cover of darkness, while the city slept and the memory of the Church of Steam's visit was still fresh enough to make him feel doubly cautious.
As full darkness fell, he changed again, shedding the soft home clothes for the uniform of his other life. Dark, sturdy trousers, a black wool sweater, leather boots and a black coat. Then came the harness. He strapped it on with practiced ease. The weight of it was a comfort. He checked Creed, now clean of blood, and tucked it into its designated sheath, he did the same for the rest of his gear, except for the shotgun, he wouldn't need it. Finally, he grabbed a large, empty leather bag, its purpose grimly self-evident.
A glance at his pocket watch showed 10:30 PM. The city would be quieting down, the respectable folks tucked in their beds, the nightfolk just beginning their own hours.
The walk to Yevgeny's neighborhood was a study in heightened senses. Every distant footstep, every slamming shutter, made him pause, his hand drifting toward a weapon. He stuck to the less-traveled routes, his instincts keeping him to the shadows. The city at night was a different entity, more familiar to the part of him that had been the Harbor Rat.
Finally, he saw it. The elegant black-bricked house, just as he remembered from his days of casing it. It stood silent and dark, a monument to a life now abruptly ended. No light showed in the windows. The street was deserted.
He waited for a long five minutes, watching, listening. Nothing. The only sound was the whisper of a light wind and the frantic beating of his own heart.
Taking a final, steadying breath, he stepped out of the shadows and approached the main door. The set of keys felt cold in his gloved hand. He selected the most likely one, inserted it into the lock, and turned.
The click was deafening in the stillness.
He pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it softly behind him.