Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

At 8 a.m. on Saturday, the citywide curfew in Tobesk City had been lifted, turning what should have been an ordinary Thunder Moon Saturday into an exceptionally bustling one.

People who had been cooped up at home all day poured out onto the streets, the cries of vendors and newsboys proclaiming big news were louder than ever.

The sound of horse hooves and carriage wheels on the streets was pleasant to the ear, and the hurried mixing of footsteps filled the city with energy.

A rising mist enveloped the city, the chimneys on the outskirts spewed black smoke into the sky, but none of this dampened people's good spirits. The actions of City Hall and the True God Church the day before had indeed terrified the citizens who didn't know the truth, and news of the hundreds who perished overnight cast a shadow over everyone's hearts.

Fortunately, everything had returned to normal, and Tobesk was once again shrouded in mist and sunlight. Although the weather was not great today, people's moods were exceptionally good.

On the bustling Queen Mary's Street to the west of the city, the glimmer of early morning light sprinkled on the streets, the stream of pedestrians didn't disturb the peace of the three-story standalone house by the street. Perhaps this family was still using sleep to get through this unusual Saturday.

Dressed in black coats and donning black hats, Shard and Dr. Schneider appeared at the street corner. The two men, both hurried and carrying black briefcases, didn't attract any attention amidst the lively crowd.

Passing pedestrians shoulder to shoulder and carriages rolling by, the doctor and the detective, one ahead and one behind, stopped at the entrance of 17 Queen Mary's Street. Dr. Schneider stepped up onto the sheltered steps while Shard stood behind him, his back to the front door, surveilling the street.

Click—a sound was heard as the lock hidden by the blue-eyed doctor turned, and the door was opened.

The doctor pushed the door open just enough to enter first, briefcase in hand. Shard, on alert, with his briefcase in his right hand and his left hand in his coat pocket, looked around and then turned to step up the stairs, slipping into the doorway.

Click—

The door was locked from the inside. As the morning sunlight slanted across the steps, the pedestrians on Queen Mary's Street didn't notice what had just happened.

Upon entering number 17, the two men didn't exchange words, quietly putting on shoe covers, gloves, and masks in the entryway, before one after the other, they entered the living room.

A pudgy maid wearing an apron came toward them holding a tray, her surprised gaze falling on the two strangers:

"You..."

"Sleep."

The doctor said softly, as Shard quickly took the tray from the maid's hands and placed it on a table nearby. Dr. Schneider carried the sleeping maid to a window and threw her into the alley beside the house.

They then found the other two servants on the first floor, put them to sleep as well, and threw them all out the side window into the alley.

Without lingering on the first floor, the men with briefcases ascended the stairs to the second floor.

There were six rooms along the second-floor corridor. The doctor headed for the second room on the left, and after making sure Shard was following, he opened the door.

The young man who was packing his luggage at the desk looked up in astonishment:

"Who are you?"

"Her divination wasn't wrong after all, and neither was the intelligence sold to me by the old man. He hired a Circle Sorcerer to protect himself."

The doctor's muffled monotone voice emanated from behind the mask.

"What do you want to do to my employer?"

"Leave this place—your employer is connected to the Lord of the Blood Feast cult. Correspondence Circle Mage from Zaras Literary Academy, if you don't want trouble, leave immediately."

"How do you know... Never mind, it's irrelevant to me. What a stroke of misfortune to encounter this mess, no wonder the hiring fee was so high. Damn, I hope the Academy doesn't summon me for questioning."

The young man quickly closed his luggage, brushed past the masked men, and left without a backward glance.

Shard and Dr. Schneider continued without speaking to each other, not bothering to search the second floor but heading straight to the third. Shard used the Silence Charm obtained from Iluna, then kicked open the room by the staircase.

Upon entering the room, Shard and the doctor fired their guns at the three men inside, who fell silent and riddled with bullets without a word.

"He hired thugs to protect himself; they are not worth pitying in death."

Dr. Schneider lowered his gun, and the smoke from the discharge rose. His voice sounded very dull from behind the mask.

Exiting the room along with Shard, they approached the door to the master bedroom on the third floor.

After knocking and hearing a rough man's cursing from inside, the doctor kicked in the bedroom door and they entered together:

"Whoever moves gets shot dead."

The two men aimed their guns at the four-poster bed.

The curtains of the room were tightly drawn, making it eerily dim. The air was filled with incense and a strange odor that was discernible even through the masks. The floor was carpeted thickly, clothes belonging to both men and women entangled on the carpet, a police belt, and a lady's garter lay draped over one another.

Behind the bed's curtains, which rustled as Shard, who was behind, turned on the wall gaslight, the figures of a middle-aged, chubby man and a shapely woman could be seen through the veil.

The doctor, with a gun in his right hand, abruptly ripped aside the curtain at the bedside. The woman let out a scream and dove under the covers, while the middle-aged man started shouting, only to be silenced by the doctor's gun barrel against his head. He looked terrified at the intruders who had barged in.

"Riddlevitch Field Police Chief, Mr. Anthony Worgrave?"
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The doctor took out Shard's credentials with a gloved hand, flashed them briefly, then pulled a black-and-white photograph from a pocket, glanced at it, and tossed it onto the bed—it was a close-up, surreptitiously taken photo of the police chief.

"MI6? The money's in the safe next door, don't shoot, I am..."

"You don't need to answer."

The doctor's gun barrel quivered, and without regard to the screaming lover of the police chief on the bed, he said to Shard behind him:

"Go search the next room."

"Okay."

Shard turned and left the room. Seconds later, sounds like someone was tearing down a wall came from the neighboring room.

Boots striking the floor, Shard quickly returned. In his left hand, he carried a sack full of banknotes, and in his right, he cradled a plaster statue with ruby eyes.

"Found it, in the safe."

"Woman, you have three minutes to get dressed and leave this house, or I can't guarantee what will happen."

The doctor's muffled voice emanated from behind the mask. The woman, who had been terrified into paralysis, scrambled to her feet, grabbing clothes off the carpet to leave the room, her panicked footsteps disappearing at the stairwell.

The doctor's gun hand was steady, and the bare-chested middle-aged man had the gun barrel pointed at his head, hands raised high, not daring to move, his brown eyes constantly sizing up the two masked strangers:

"Listen, gentlemen, I can give you money, I can give you...."

"Shut up! First, you're going to die because you deserve it."

The doctor's thumb slowly cocked the hammer. The middle-aged man shook his head in despair, but when he opened his mouth, he found he could no longer make a sound. Collaborating with "Blood of Mercury," he fully understood what kind of people were before him.

"Second, because you killed my client."

As Shard spoke, he walked to the window, pulled back the curtain, and opened the bedroom window.

Daylight entered the room, making the stark white skin of the half-naked, portly middle-aged man seem to reflect the light. The mild summer breeze that followed did nothing to reassure Anthony Worgrave, with a gun trained on him.

"Third, do you know how much time and effort we have spent looking for this thing?"

The doctor viciously struck the police chief's face with the butt of the gun. As the middle-aged man lay on the bed, groaning in pain, the doctor dragged him to the window.

"You misbegotten wretch, brought misfortune upon me, lie down here!"

Pressing the middle-aged man's head onto the windowsill, the doctor took one of the statue's eyes from Shard. After confirming he was wearing three layers of special protective gloves borrowed from Priest Augustus, he smashed the glass that looked like a ruby against the windowsill, immediately, a bright red substance seeped out from the shattered glass.

It appeared gelatinous, yet also partially liquid.

Shard opened his briefcase, and with the bottles he had prepared beforehand, he began to collect the liquid. The doctor observed the hue of the blood-red liquid in the sunlight, then, rather brusquely, dabbed some of it with his gloved hand and smeared it into the middle-aged man's mouth.

The police chief of Tobesk City's Riddlevitch Field immediately started convulsing, an abnormal blue hue spreading from his mouth throughout his body.

"It's the 'Forged Philosopher's Stone.' The symptoms of poisoning match those given by the Academy."

Only then did the doctor relax.

"There's some liquid left on the windowsill that can't be collected completely."

Shard said, holding up a half-full vial, to which the doctor glanced at the red gel and droplets on the windowsill:

"There's no need to collect it all; we need to show the True God Church that we are not associated with the cult, just after this Relic."

Releasing the convulsing, poisoned police chief, the doctor opened his own briefcase and took out a small bottle of brown liquid. This was the "Heart of Fire," a Magic Potion—or rather, Strong Oil—obtained from Priest Augustus.

Shard crouched on the floor, placing the plaster figure's other "ruby" eye and the half-full vial into his briefcase.

With a click, they secured the briefcase, and both men stood, facing the sunlight streaming in from the window.

Shard, with one hand, lifted the not-yet-dead middle-aged man onto the windowsill, canceled the Silence Charm, and shot him in the head.

Bang—

As cries of horror rose and fell in the street below, he grabbed handfuls of banknotes from the sack and tossed them out. The wind carried the fluttering paper further, and the cascade of falling money made the shouting in the streets even louder.

The doctor smashed the bottle of Strong Oil on the floor, and they walked out with their briefcases. As the door slammed shut, the doctor reached back from his shoulder, flung a vicious fire that roared into flame with a loud boom, black smoke billowed out the window into the sky, and chaos quickly spread through the entire block.