Chapter 3: The Gathering of Masks
The rain had not yet started, but Trier smelled of it. A damp tension clung to the stones, and fog curled up from the gutters like unseen serpents. Lucien Carter walked through the dim streets with measured steps, one hand tucked in his coat pocket and the other resting casually on the brim of his hat.
The letter from Vincent Wood had been short—directions to an old chapel near the cemetery on the city's western fringe, and a time: ten minutes before midnight. No signature, no crest. Just words and ink, and yet Lucien knew that hidden within them lay an invitation to the kind of world most dared not speak of in daylight.
He arrived early.
The chapel was no longer used for worship. Its wooden doors bore signs of rot, and ivy crawled greedily up the stone walls. The bell tower had collapsed years ago, leaving behind broken beams that jutted skyward like skeletal fingers. Yet candlelight flickered inside.
Lucien pushed open the door.
The interior was dark except for the flames—seven candles arranged in a circle at the center of the room. Around them stood five figures, all wearing masks.
A long-nosed plague doctor. A porcelain doll. A raven. A cracked jester. And Vincent Wood, wearing an expressionless iron mask.
He turned as Lucien stepped in. "Welcome, Mr. Carter. Or should I say… Seeker?"
Lucien's expression remained neutral. "Names are irrelevant, I've found. Only intent matters."
A low chuckle rippled through the circle. Vincent gestured to the center. "Stand with us. Tonight, you will see something real."
Lucien stepped forward cautiously, his mind analyzing every movement, every glance, every potential escape route. He did not fully trust these people—why would he? Trust was currency, and giving it away too freely meant forfeiting control. He stood slightly apart from the circle, careful not to be boxed in.
They began the chant.
It was not a language he knew fluently, but he recognized its roots—ancient Hermitian, twisted by centuries of oral tradition and blasphemous additions. His Spectator mind parsed it even as his body shivered.
The flame in the center began to rise, flickering higher until it spun like a vortex. Whispers filled the air—not from the circle, but from the shadows. A pressure pressed against Lucien's temples, like an unseen finger testing his thoughts.
Then something emerged.
Not a figure, but a… presence. A faint shimmer in the air, like oil spreading on water. The candlelight bent around it.
Vincent knelt. "O shadow of forgotten knowledge, we offer you memory and will. Grant us vision."
The others followed suit.
Lucien watched.
He watched because he saw something they didn't.
The shimmer was responding—but not to Vincent. It was watching him.
For a brief moment, Lucien felt a tendril of thought brush against his own. It wasn't hostile. Curious, perhaps.
Spectator instinct kicked in. He didn't resist. He allowed it to see.
And in return, it showed him something—a flash of a name, carved in stone, surrounded by fog.
Roselle.
Then the presence vanished.
The candles sputtered and died. Silence followed.
Vincent stood slowly. "We have touched a thread. Only a thread. But enough."
Lucien said nothing. He knew better. Whatever had responded wasn't the entity Vincent was expecting.
And it had noticed him.
The gathering dispersed quietly. No names exchanged. No addresses given.
One of them, the woman behind the porcelain mask, hesitated near the exit. She glanced at Lucien, her voice soft beneath her mask. "You're different."
Lucien didn't stop, but he did glance sideways. "Everyone here is different in some way."
"I meant during the ritual," she continued. "You didn't flinch. Most do."
He paused, then gave a slight nod. "It wasn't unexpected."
She extended a gloved hand, perhaps more out of courtesy than formality. "Call me Elise. I work at the university archives. If you ever need access to materials… I could help."
Lucien eyed the hand for a moment before shaking it briefly. "Lucien. I appreciate the offer."
There was a pause. Neither of them spoke more, but Elise gave a faint nod and stepped back into the mist.
Lucien didn't turn to watch her go.
Days passed.
Lucien spent hours poring through the diary he'd purchased at the market, cross-referencing it with newspapers and whispered rumors from the Red Apple Inn. The phrase "laughing fog" appeared again in a recent article—an outbreak of madness in a factory district where the workers claimed to hear laughter in the mist.
Coincidence? He didn't think so.
He visited the area discreetly. The buildings were abandoned now, cordoned off by the police. But the residual atmosphere… it was heavy. Twisted. He felt the weight of something beyond.
More than that, he felt watched.
He left quickly.
That night, he dreamed.
Not a normal dream, but one where he stood in the center of a vast, fog-shrouded theater. Rows upon rows of faceless figures clapped in silence.
And in the front row sat a man with a monocle, watching.
Klein.
Lucien awoke with a sharp breath.
So Klein had already begun his transformation.
The story had truly started.
And he had a part to play.
At dawn, Lucien returned to the university. Despite his misgivings, he sought out Elise.
She greeted him in the archives with a cautious but calm smile.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," she said.
"I usually don't," Lucien replied. "But you mentioned something interesting."
She passed him a folded piece of parchment. "A restricted ledger. It mentions a 'Sequence of Spectacle'... tied to a noble family long erased from records."
Lucien took it carefully, scanning the faded lines with quiet focus.
"If you're misleading me," he said after a moment, "it won't end well."
"I'm not," she replied without offense. "But I didn't expect you to take my word for it either."
That earned her a brief glance of acknowledgment.
The document detailed old donations to unknown organizations—one marked with a symbol he recognized from the diary.
A path. One others had buried.
One he could dig up.
By the end of the week, Lucien stood at the edge of a graveyard where the ledger said the noble family had once buried its dead.
There were no markers.
No tombstones.
Only empty space where memory should have been.
But Lucien Carter was not like others.
He kneeled, pressed a gloved hand to the soil, and whispered a name he had seen in a forgotten line of text:
Algernon Wraithmoor.
The wind shifted.
The fog grew colder.
And beneath his fingers, something moved.
To be continued...