He stepped out into the amber wash of Belltaine's late afternoon, the city's breath thick with soot, perfume, and something acrid lingering in the damp air. The streets pulsed with familiar rhythm—carriages clattered over uneven cobbles, vendors barked the day's final offers, and the gas lamps began their slow flicker into life, casting dull golden halos over worn stone and wrought iron.
Impheil moved with unhurried ease, blending into the tide of people, his coat brushing against the current of motion, holding the small black case in hand. Another day in the city's bloodstream.
Then, a whisper beneath the skin.
His Spiritual Intuition warned him that he was being watched and pursued.
He didn't flinch, didn't break stride. Just casually adjusted his cuff, letting his gaze drift across the reflection in a shop window ahead.
A tall figure, cloaked and deliberate in step.
As his gaze lingered, the surface of his eyes shimmered faintly, almost imperceptibly—etched with fine, intricate symbols that danced like a cipher unfolding beneath glass.
A Spirit Warlock.
Impheil's smile was faint, dry.
A bit high up the ladder for simple tailing. And sloppy for his Sequence.
Sloppy enough to deserve a lesson.
He veered left, then right, down into a side alley where the air grew still and the city's noise dulled to a murmur. One hand drifted upward, pulling his glove taut with a little snap of leather. Then he waited, stepping into the shadowed edge between two brick walls.
Footsteps.
Three beats away.
Two.
One.
As the figure drew close, Impheil moved.
With the faintest flick of his hand, veiled beneath the swing of his coat, he performed an imperceptible act of theft
The pursuer staggered, mouth parting in a faint grunt of confusion, body swaying with the uncertainty of someone who'd just forgotten why they were there.
Impheil stepped forward and delivered a sharp blow to the temple.
Thud.
The man crumpled like wet parchment.
Impheil crouched over him, pressing two fingers to his neck. Still breathing
"Spirit Warlock," he muttered under his breath. "That high of a Sequence, and you got wiped like a lowly street rat. Embarrassing."
His eyes flicked over beneath the man's coat, confirming more signs—markings from the Church of Evernight, subtly stitched along the inner lining.
His mind brushed through the pursuer's thoughts, catching fragments as they unraveled.
Surveillance orders. His presence was noted, his pattern flagged. No clear motive. Just suspicion, proximity, perhaps a lingering scent of the unnatural.
They didn't know who he was.
But they were trying to find out.
"Tch. That's enough."
His fingers moved with precision, brushing past the Warlock's coat, searching with the practiced touch of someone who knew exactly where to look. Pockets, inner lining—there.
A small container—no, not a container. A sphere.
Palm-sized, matte black with faint, shifting reflections across its surface. Not solid. More like… rippling glass. Encased in a lattice of hexagonal silver that shimmered faintly, like something breathing beneath metal skin. Three curved prongs extended from the casing like antennae—or insect limbs—twitching subtly as if disturbed by his touch.
It pulsed.
Living. Sentient.
Impheil's eyes narrowed in interest. "Well now. What are you?"
The sphere reacted faintly to his voice, a slow ripple moving across its shell. His pupils shimmered with intricate symbols as he decrypted the artifact.
An artifact corresponding to Sequence 5 Constellations Master of the Hermit Pathway, with living characteristics… Great.
And it didn't like being touched.
"Too bad," Impheil murmured, as the first of his translucent parasites slid down the length of his wrist and latched onto the artifact's surface.
It twitched once in response. Then stilled.
He smiled.
"Now we're friends."
With the artifact secured, his attention turned back to the Warlock's unconscious body.
Can't leave him like this. Can't kill him either—not unless I want Evernight's Deacons combing the district for my spine.
His parasites took hold.
They crawled through the man's body, burrowing deep into him, getting hold of his Spirit Body.
Within moments, Impheil entered into his dreamscape.
A wide, open street in Belltaine in the evening. The real event, now suspended like a wax figure.
He strolled through the memory, reshaping its edges with casual ease, deceiving it, piece by piece. The Warlock's perspective was vague and unfocused
He altered the scene.
The target turned—a stranger with a rougher build and shorter hair, nothing like Impheil. In the haze of pursuit, a brief clash erupted: white-orange fire burst forth from the attacker's hand, crackling with pinpoint accuracy as it shattered a hastily raised barrier. The Warlock retaliated, summoning a glyph-marked chain that lashed out and caught the assailant mid-lunge, tearing through cloth and skin in a spray of blood. Reeling from the strike, the attacker surged forward one final time and drove a desperate punch into the Warlock's temple—then, darkness swallowed the memory whole.
Impheil stepped back, admiring the new narrative.
He adjusted the lighting, the color of the attacker's coat, the sound of boots on cobblestone. Repetition mattered. Detail mattered. Fabricated memories stuck better when they felt real.
Then he left the dreamscape.
The Warlock's breathing shifted. Muscles twitched. Consciousness crept closer.
Impheil stood motionless, calm and watchful in the gloom. The scent of damp stone and distant ash clung to the alley.
A minute passed.
Then, the Warlock stirred with a low groan, one hand rising to his temple. He blinked rapidly, disoriented, trying to make sense of the dull alley light and the ache blooming across his skull.
Impheil crouched beside him with easy precision, voice pitched low and edged with just enough concern. "Easy. Stay still. You took a nasty hit—some kind of fire. Nearly caved your skull in."
The Warlock winced, his breath catching. "...Where is he?"
"Gone," Impheil replied, letting a faint frustration bleed into his tone, like someone holding back irritation at failure. "Slipped into the drainage system near the smithy line. Melted right through the gate. Blood trail ran cold by the canal."
The Warlock swore under his breath. "White-orange flames. Precise strikes..."
Impheil gave a short, dry exhale. "Advanced technique. Definitely not some street-level rogue. Moved too clean for that." His words carried a subtle undercurrent.
The Warlock exhaled slowly, beginning to push himself upright. Impheil shifted slightly, not quite helping—just enough to suggest concern. "Hey," he said quietly. "I saw your badge earlier. Church of Evernight, right? Thought you looked like someone running surveillance."
The Warlock hesitated, blinking at him. "...Yes. Surveillance detail. Assigned to Belltaine's western sectors." He paused, then added, "Deacon Therrin Rusk."
Impheil nodded, feigning a faint note of recognition. "Sir Therrin, I'm stationed not far. Bishop Cael." The alias rolled off his tongue without pause, polished and perfectly forgettable. "Came across you mid-pursuit, figured you were tracking him."
Rusk grunted. "Matched a flagged profile. No direct identification. Seemed dangerous. I… must have lost the thread."
"Not your fault," Impheil replied, a practiced glint of reassurance woven into the words. "You got some solid hits in. If he's alive, he's bleeding all over the district."
Therrin nodded again, slower this time. "...I'll inform High-ranking Deacon Greswin. Report the event."
Impheil's eyes sharpened slightly, though his tone remained mild. "Make sure they get the full story. That fire—precise strikes, not brute force. He knew where to hit. And he knew how to run."
Rusk gave a final grimace of pain as he pulled himself to his feet. "Understood."
"You good to walk?" Impheil asked, stepping back with a half-turn, as if already watching for more pursuers.
Rusk steadied himself with a grunt. "I will manage."
"Good," Impheil murmured. "Get clear before the smell draws attention."
Therrin staggered slightly, then began moving—shoulders tight, one hand pressed to his side, eyes lit with a fire of duty and bruised pride. He didn't look back.
Impheil watched until the footsteps faded entirely, his expression unreadable.
Then he smiled—quiet, satisfied.
Therrin now carried his parasite. The artifact too. Both would feed him valuable information from the Church's objective and actions, being his eyes and ears. And, if needed, would change the tides in a pinch.
Impheil leaned against the alley wall, staring into the fog-washed street.
"Well, that could've gone worse."
He stepped back out onto the main road, merging once more with the ebb and flow of the city—though this time, with his smile gone and his thoughts sharper than ever.
His routes were burned. His disguises were compromised.
He clicked open his pocket watch with a sharp flick.
"Well," he said, voice low and sardonic, "another day, another forced relocation."
Impheil didn't rush.
He returned to his flat with the quiet certainty of someone who had long accepted that every safehouse had an expiration date. The streets were winding down for the evening, oil lamps casting long shadows against stone and soot. But his mind was already elsewhere—cataloguing steps, exits, windows, patterns of movement he'd memorized weeks ago.
The door clicked shut behind him.
He shrugged off his coat first, then the outer layer of his disguise, each motion smooth, practiced. The gloves—both the red pair and his previous set—were folded and tucked away into separate compartments of his bag. His boots followed, inspected carefully, but not for dirt—for markings, talismans, any spiritual hitchhikers that might've clung to the leather.
Then came the sweep.
Not with broom or cloth, but with intent. His hands moved swiftly over the room's contents, pulling anything even vaguely personal. Folded notes, disguise components, tools tucked behind panels, loose strands of hair caught in brushes or collars—all vanished into his pack or into the small incinerator in the corner.
No footprints, no fragments.
He clicked open his pocket watch again, its ticking like a tempo for ritualized departure. Every creak of the floorboard he had walked on was retraced. Every space he had occupied, accounted for.
By the time he stepped back, the apartment looked untouched. Like no one had lived there at all.
And soon, no one would believe anyone had.
Lastly, he knelt by the bed, lifting the wooden frame just enough to slip his palm beneath the floorboards.
From between his fingers, translucent worms slithered out—small, with twelve faint, glass-like rings coiled around their bodies. They writhed once, then vanished between the cracks, burrowing deep.
"A little gift," he murmured, voice low. "Let's see you divine me now."
He stepped back, exhaled once.
That was that.
He packed quickly—only essentials. The gloves, the case, a change of clothes, spare identities, a few documents, his notebook. Everything else could be replaced.
Fifteen minutes later, he walked out—not as his previous bearings, but as a young clerk with messy hair, round spectacles, and a faint stutter to his gait. A travel bag slung across one shoulder. Soft shoes. A different rhythm to his walk.
He didn't look back.
The next location was a boarding house on the eastern side of the city—modest, buried in a district half-forgotten since the war. The landlady barely looked up from her paper as she handed him the key, murmuring something about no noise past ten and breakfast costing extra.
The new apartment was just big enough to fit a narrow bed, a wardrobe, and a cramped desk. No kitchen. No excess. But it would do.
He lit the candle, set the case down beside it, and clicked open his watch again.
The flame flickered low on the candle stub, casting warped shadows against the boarding room's peeling walls. Impheil sat at the cramped desk, shoulders hunched, his pocket watch open and ticking beside him like it was counting down to something he hadn't quite named yet.
Friday night.
Still two days until the warehouse meeting, but it already felt like he was pushing the hourglass on its side.
His fingers drummed the wood absently, the rhythm aimless but steady—more a conduit for thought than impatience. His mind, however, worked with the sharp edge of a blade drawn across parchment. Not frantic. Just focused. Focused in that particular way it always was when the outlines of a larger picture began to reveal themselves.
Graham Constantine.
High official. Earl of the Fallen. A man who reeked of guarded power and meticulous pride. Not the kind to dabble in backdoor dealings lightly—which meant whatever he was involved in now wasn't trivial. If the Brokers had approached him of all people, then Graham had something they wanted. Or knew something they needed. And if he was entertaining them, even begrudgingly, then it was serious.
Then there was Edwin. Mr. Ashwood.
Impheil scoffed softly. A name made to be remembered just enough, but not for anything important. The Brokers were cautious like that. Names like keys—designed to fit only the doors they needed opened.
But what door were they trying to open now?
They weren't here just for business. They were hunting something.
And if they'd looped in a demigod bureaucrat from the Black Emperor pathway to do it? That narrowed the field.
Impheil leaned back, his gaze narrowing slightly as a half-buried memory flickered through his thoughts. The Trunsoest Brass Book. The incident that left too big of an impression.
He didn't have all the pieces yet, but the names involved were too sharp to ignore.
Impheil clicked his tongue, lips tugging into a thoughtful smirk.
"Of course it had to be this damned city."
But Impheil had dug. And what had he found?
The warehouse deal? Backup plan. Hell, maybe even the real plan. Graham had snubbed Edwin—stonewalled him with a polished sneer and bureaucratic weight—but Edwin hadn't pressed. He'd simply moved on. Down the list. Efficient. Cold. Practical.
Impheil respected that. He also hated it.
And somewhere between all the backroom games and velvet-lined threats, Edwin had set a location, a time, and possibly even a target. The Red Warehouse wasn't just a fallback—it was deliberate. Something would happen there, and Impheil had every intention of watching it unfold from the right angle.
He clicked his tongue, leaned back, and let his gaze drift toward the ceiling.
Come to think of it… I have been maneuvering just fine. No tails, no disruptions, nothing. Not until he visited the warehouse. That was the first break in the rhythm.
The first shadow behind the corner.
The Church hadn't been looking for him specifically. Not at first. That much was clear from the Spirit Warlock's memories. He'd seen the reports—vague language, flagged behavior, "unusual presence," nothing even close to a name. Impheil hadn't been a target.
I'm an anomaly, a connection, a clue.
Impheil's eyes widened, the tick of his pocket watch suddenly deafening in the stillness.
He wasn't the target.
He was a shadow caught in the edges of someone else's mess.The one thing investigators always chased when the trail went cold and they needed something to pull on. That meant…
"The Brokers," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "Or Graham."
Whoever it was, the Church was moving, quietly and deliberately. That Spirit Warlock hadn't been scouting for scraps. He was sifting through signs—hoping to find the string that unraveled the whole damn knot. And Impheil just happened to be the loose thread ready to twitch.
That made everything surrounding the warehouse deal ten times more volatile.
If the Church had even an inkling of what was happening, that deal might already be compromised. Everyone involved could be under surveillance. Graham's people, Edwin's people... Even the location itself could already be marked.
And if I walked into that as nonchalant as i was before? I'd be the first one they dragged out, bleeding or bound.
No.
He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
I'll tread more carefully now. This wasn't just about secrets anymore—it was about which hands were already trying to snatch them.
His gaze slid toward the case holding the gloves, still resting on the table. A quiet courtesy from a "Boss" who was probably less concerned with his well-being than his utility.
Impheil's eyes shimmered faintly, the symbols within them gliding into motion like a clockwork cipher—concentric rings of script and sigils turning in silent procession, casting flickers of meaning across his vision. His pupils narrowed slightly as the patterns settled and aligned.
The gloves were dark red—closer to the color of old blood than polished leather—sleek in make, and snug at the fingers. Reinforced ridges ran subtly along the knuckles, almost like bone plating hidden beneath the surface. The stitching shimmered faintly if caught at the wrong angle, forming delicate, cryptic loops that vanished as soon as the eye tried to follow them. In low light, they looked nearly black, but the moment flame or heat touched them, faint ember veins ran beneath the surface like molten threads awakening.
An artifact named "Grim Reminder", corresponding to a Sequence 5 Reaper of the Hunter Pathway…
The gloves housed an embedded instinct for Weakness Strike—wearing them subtly guided the eye, the angle of attack, the shape of motion. With them, the world briefly reduced itself to a lattice of fractures—flesh, bone, enchantment, even structure—waiting to be struck. Paired with Cull, each blow wasn't just an attack, but a precise execution. Naturally, both abilities demanded a heavy toll on one's spirituality, especially when combined. Beyond that, the gloves possessed a self-contained form of pyrokinesis; when invoked, their surface ignited with disciplined flame—white-orange tongues of fire curling around the knuckles like serpents eager to bite.
Of course, there were drawbacks. There always were.
Grim Reminder didn't just awaken precision—it summoned something else alongside it. After only a few minutes of use, a creeping sense of being watched began to coil behind the eyes. Not panic or fear, just paranoia.
And then there was the smell. The faint scent of smoke clung to him afterward—burnt copper, scorched cloth, or something harder to place. Not strong enough to choke a room, but enough to unsettle someone standing too close. Alongside that came a slow, persistent sweat—not the kind born of exertion, but a low, steady sheen that never truly dried. It didn't soak through or drip, but it lingered, always just enough to notice.
Those who ascended higher would bear the marks more lightly. The paranoia dulled into a low hum of foreboding. The scent became stranger, more like ozone or ash—unnatural, but less offensive. And the sweat, though still present, no longer clung like a warning.
He sighed.
If he was walking into a lion's den, he'd need more than a smile and quick hands.
He'd need leverage. He'd need to make sure that when things cracked open—and they would—he'd be standing somewhere no one thought to look.
And as for the generous hand behind the curtain—the devil in a bartender's coat, the one who left him notes and gloves and names like Rocket... well.
Impheil wasn't naïve enough to count him as a fallback.
The bastard was clearly watching, probably already knew half of what was going on, but he wasn't lifting a finger. Not unless Impheil brought something worth the attention.
He wouldn't gamble on that help—not unless he was already halfway to the grave.
No. This was on him.
He clicked open the notebook beside him and flipped through the last few pages. The scrawl of his observations caught the light—names, locations, loose threads that didn't yet connect.
He tapped the paper once with his pen.
Graham was hiding something. Edwin wanted it. The Church was circling like they could smell it.
And him?
He was somewhere in the middle, one eye on the prize and the other on the people who'd flay him for even thinking about it.
He chuckled under his breath, dry and sharp.
He picked up the gloves and turned them over in his hands.
Sunday was coming.
And Belltaine wasn't big enough for everyone to leave with what they wanted.