The fire did not roar at first; it whispered. It was the sound of hungry orange tongues licking the dry, oiled wood of the clock shop's front door. But in the silence of Cherwood's midnight, that whisper was a death sentence. Within minutes, the heat began to shatter the glass display cases, sending shards of crystal flying like shrapnel through the air. The rhythmic ticking of a hundred clocks was replaced by the chaotic, discordant chiming of mechanisms melting in the furnace.
Victor stood at the threshold of the cellar, the iron-bound chest gripped tightly under one arm. His grey greatcoat was buttoned to his throat, but he could already feel the blistering heat radiating through the floorboards. In his other hand, he held one of his steel carving knives, the blade reflecting the dancing flames like a sliver of ice.
"Move, Egmont! Unless you want to be part of the ash!" Victor's voice was a low, commanding rasp.
Mr. Egmont was paralyzed, staring up at the ceiling where smoke was beginning to coil in thick, black serpents. All his life's work—the delicate gears, the ancestral grandfather clocks, the quiet sanctuary of his trade—was being devoured by the greed of the Black Nails.
"My tools... the hairsprings..." Egmont whimpered, his voice small and broken.
Victor didn't offer comfort. He grabbed the old man by the collar of his singed coat and hauled him toward the cellar's rear exit—a narrow, filth-clogged tunnel that led to the city's drainage system. "Tools can be bought. If we're still here when the roof collapses, the Nails won't even need to use their knives."
As they scrambled into the tunnel, the shop above exploded into a localized inferno. The smell of burning lacquer and wood-oil was suffocating. Victor moved with a predatory focus, his Hunter senses mapping the darkness even as the smoke tried to blind him. He could hear the shouts of the gang members outside—the heavy thud of boots on the pavement and the crackle of burning timbers.
"The dandy! He's in there with the old man! Watch the back!" a voice roared—likely the scarred leader of the squad.
Victor stopped. He pushed Egmont further into the tunnel. "Stay quiet. Crawl toward the smell of salt. That's the river. Don't stop for anything."
"What are you doing?" Egmont hissed, his eyes wide with terror.
"I'm ensuring the hunters become the distracted," Victor replied.
He didn't follow the old man immediately. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small iron key he had confiscated from the thief nights ago. He wedged it into a gap in the drainage grate, then took a piece of his own tattered, soot-stained Intis coat and tied it to the iron bars. It was a "track"—a false lead. To the gang members, it would look like a piece of clothing snagged during a frantic escape.
Then, Victor didn't head for the river. He climbed a rusted maintenance ladder that led to a side alley, thirty yards away from the burning shop.
He emerged into the freezing rain, gasping as the cold air hit his scorched throat. The contrast was a physical blow, but the Hunter potion in his blood flared, using the temperature shock to sharpen his mind. He sat in the shadows of a coal bin, watching his former sanctuary burn.
Three gang members were standing at the mouth of the alley, their lead-weighted canes ready. They were watching the front of the shop, waiting for prey that was already behind them.
Poverty taught me to scavenge, Victor thought, his fingers tightening on the iron-bound chest. The Rebirth taught me to adapt. And the Sludge taught me that everyone... has a blind spot.
He didn't attack. He wasn't strong enough to take on three armed men in a direct brawl. Instead, he used his elocution in a different way. He picked up a heavy brick and hurled it at a stack of empty crates across the street.
CRASH.
"There! By the apothecary!" the thugs shouted, their discipline shattered by the adrenaline of the fire. They sprinted away, following the noise.
Victor slipped across the street, moving through the yellow fog like a ghost. He reached the entrance of the drainage tunnel he had sent Egmont into, but he didn't go in. He stayed on the street level, tracking the old man's progress by the sound of scuttling through the grates.
He was protecting his investment. If Egmont died, the reference to the "Leaky Cask" died with him.
The journey toward the East Borough docks was a descent back into hell. As they moved away from the "respectable" district of Cherwood, the air became thicker with the smell of sewage and desperate lives. Victor followed the river-line, his grey greatcoat now sodden and heavy, his boots caked in a mixture of soot and river-mud.
By the time they reached the "Leaky Cask," a rotting tavern built on stilts over the Tussock, the dawn was beginning to break—a dismal, bruised purple light that revealed the true extent of Victor's ruin.
He looked at his hands. They were raw, the skin peeling from the heat of the fire. His face was gaunt, his blue eyes hollowed out by exhaustion and the relentless demand of the Hunter potion for fuel. He hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. His ribs, though healed, ached with every breath.
He found Egmont shivering behind a pile of fish-crates near the tavern's rear dock. The old man looked like a broken toy.
"You... you really did it," Egmont breathed, staring at the iron-bound chest Victor still carried. "You saved the box."
"I saved the inheritance," Victor corrected him, his voice barely a whisper. "Now. The name."
Egmont reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, brass token—a watch-gear with a notch filed into the side. "Take this to the barkeep inside. Ask for 'Barnaby.' Tell him the clock stopped at midnight. He'll give you work as a runner for the smuggling routes. It's dangerous, boy. More dangerous than polishing brass."
"I was never meant for polishing brass," Victor said.
He handed the iron-bound chest to Egmont. This was the final negotiation. The old man looked at the chest, then at Victor. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook—the diary of the Fourth Epoch general he had mentioned.
"Keep it," Egmont said, his voice trembling. "The Nails will be looking for the chest. If I have the chest, they'll follow me. If you have the diary, at least the knowledge survives. It's written in a cipher I couldn't crack. Maybe your 'Sauron' blood can make sense of it."
Victor took the diary. He didn't thank the man. In the East Borough, thanks were a sign of weakness. He simply turned and walked away, his steps heavy and dragging.
He was back to being a scavenger. He had no home. No job. His only possessions were a heavy, wet greatcoat, a set of carving knives, a mysterious diary, and a bronze medal.
The hunger hit him then—a visceral, soul-crushing wave of starvation. The Hunter potion was no longer just asking for food; it was screaming for it. His vision blurred. The world began to spin in a sickening kaleidoscope of grey and orange.
He staggered into a narrow, deserted alleyway behind the "Leaky Cask." He slumped against the damp brick wall, the cold mud soaking into his trousers. He felt his consciousness flickering like a dying candle.
Is this it? he thought, his hand clutching the bronze medal in his pocket. Did I survive the fire just to die in the mud?
The medal began to glow.
This wasn't the dull warmth of the previous nights. This was a fierce, white-hot heat that seemed to sear through his greatcoat. Victor tried to pull his hand away, but his fingers were frozen around the metal.
Suddenly, the sound of the river, the smell of the rot, and the biting cold of the rain vanished.
A thick, grey fog surged from the medal, swallowing the alleyway, the tavern, and the city of Backlund itself. Victor felt a terrifying sensation of weightlessness, as if his soul were being pulled through a keyhole.
He tried to scream, but he had no breath. He tried to fight, but he had no body.
There was only the fog. And in the distance, the sound of a thousand ticking clocks, all striking midnight at once.
Thump-hum. Thump-hum.
The resonance was absolute. The scavenger had found something in the dark, and now, the dark was coming to claim him.
Victor Sauron, the homeless ghost of East Borough, felt himself being pulled upward, toward a high-backed chair at a long table, where a man in a top hat sat waiting behind a veil of mystery.
Sequence 9 digested, a voice echoed in his mind.
He blacked out just as the first pillars of a majestic, ancient palace emerged from the mist.