As Edrick's shoes crushed the cinders in the alley behind the church, the flames from Blackbeard's dock illuminated the glass dome of the Cathedral of Luminous Pragis. The police and patrolmen's attention was drawn to the fire, and private fire brigades from all over the city rushed to the scene. For the time being, no one could estimate the extent of the damage to the Cathedral of Luminous Pragis.
The Triangular Holy Emblem, made of 720 diamond-shaped pieces of glass, shone coldly under the canopy, like the eyes of a deity suspended in midair.
He crouched in the shadow of a stone-carved drain beast, pulling out a hook claw made from scrap iron from his patched work pants. This tool was originally used by dock workers to lift cargo, but tonight it would be used to climb the walls of the saints.
Edrick knew little about magic or supernatural forces, but from his observations of this world so far, magic here was not yet advanced enough to be as convenient as the automatic alarm systems of modern society. Griff had said that scamps often slipped into the homes of the upper class through chimneys to steal, and they were very familiar with the alarm systems of various houses.
As the hoofbeats of the Third Patrol faded around the corner of Rose Street, Edrick's claws had already hooked into the cast-iron patterns of the second-floor drainpipe. As he climbed, he deliberately brushed his shoulders against every brick joint, coating his cheap, coarse cloth with the distinctive grayish-blue mortar of the church's exterior walls. By morning, when the craftsmen came to repair it, they would assume it was the work of a vagrant.
As he flipped through the stained-glass window inspection hatch, the blinding light made him squint. There were no candles, no statues—only countless prism-shaped chandeliers refracting the gas flames into geometric showers of light, carving an equilateral triangle maze on the floor tiles of the nave.
"How the hell much did this cost?"Edrick, who had seen many magnificent churches in Prague in his previous life, couldn't help but feel emotional. Even with modern construction technology, it would take a huge amount of resources to build a church like this.
After feeling emotional, Edrick moved along the iron frame of the stained glass window, carefully avoiding the dancing spots of light on the ground with the soles of his boots. The projection of the Triangular Holy Emblem carried the smell of burning coal ash, leaving a fluorescent mark on anyone who was exposed to it that would not fade for three hours.
The brass door lock of the sacristy glowed coldly before his eyes. Its triple-layered triangular patterns were as precise as a clock mechanism. Even the most cunning thief couldn't break such a lock, and Edrick was no exception.
Edrick stared at the lock for three seconds, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a black-bearded gang's anchor-shaped copper badge, which he inserted into the lock. He then violently twisted the badge until it snapped, leaving a piece of copper in the lock.
However, Edrick remained unfazed; this was all part of his plan. He then turned his attention to the door hinge, using a screwdriver and wrench to remove it—a common trick used by porters when unloading cargo.
The entire door now hung crookedly in the frame, revealing a gap wide enough for a palm.
"It's quicker to break a lock than to repair it," he muttered in dockyard slang, squeezing sideways into the sacristy, his ribs scraping against the brass carvings and drawing blood.
Edrick looked at the bloodstains and carefully wiped the brass carvings clean with his clothes, because with the Pureblood Order existing in the church, there might be some kind of magic that cursed the owner through blood.
This was also what Griff had told Edrick: when stealing, never leave any blood behind.
Upon entering the sacristy, he caught the scent of preservative potion. Seven silver-plated skeletons hung from the dome, their arms spread wide and heads arranged in a triangular formation, with copper wires winding between their ribs, connected to alarm bells.
The security here was supposed to be tight, but even a low-level thief like Edrick was able to sneak in. You could say it was negligence, but there were also many hidden alarm devices.
On the one hand, no one would dare to steal from the cathedral of the Stellaxis diocese, and on the other hand, the truly precious items were not kept here. The items on display were just flashy replicas.
For example, the monstrance, chalice, and paten on the altar are all made of pure silver, and each could fetch several gold pounds. However, for the wealthy Church, such items are insignificant. Perhaps the value of the censer alone is worth at least three years' income for the Croft family, yet it is not as valuable as the brass door lock.
These items are normally displayed to the public during the day, so even if they were stolen, they could simply be replaced with new ones. The truly valuable relics are kept in a strictly guarded underground vault.
Moreover, ordinary thieves would not dare to enter the church to steal. On the one hand, ignorant believers believed that God was watching over everything, and on the other hand, the church's patrols would undoubtedly intervene immediately. If they were to investigate, it would be impossible for any fence in Stellaxis to escape the patrols' inspection.
He just didn't expect that today, a thief even worse than a pagan would arrive—a pagan deity!
Edrick didn't plan to take everything here, but only chose things that were easy to carry and easy to sell, such as silver holy plates, golden Triangular Holy Emblems, and the silver incense burner.
Even Old Hawk at the Morning Light General Store wouldn't dare to take these stolen goods. But if he smashed them into pieces and melted them down, who would know if the silver and gold came from a toilet bowl or a dinner plate? Though this would undoubtedly reduce the value of the items, it should still fetch a few dozen pounds.
With this money, not only would the Croft family's immediate crisis be resolved, but Edrick would also have funds for his activities in the short term. Considering Lady Gray's suggestion, he planned to go to university to study true supernatural powers.
Edrick wasn't really planning to switch careers and become a thief; he just didn't mind improving his life a bit while seeking revenge.
In fact, he still didn't understand why Scamps had targeted the Croft family. If it was just for Hannah and Miryam, it seemed like too much trouble. Human trafficking was worth a lot of money, but there were many families going bankrupt every day in Stellaxis, so why did they have to target the Croft family?
After packing the loot, Edrick quietly used fishing line to cut one of the copper wires connected to the alarm bell. When the wire snapped, the shark tooth flew to the ground, but it didn't trigger the alarm because Edrick had already stepped on the knot where the wire was connected to the alarm network. After the wire broke,he slowly released his foot, and the bell remained silent.
In fact, Edrick had gone to great lengths for nothing. He had already bypassed the alarm network when he entered the house. His actions were purely to frame the Blackbeard Gang, as shark teeth tied with fishing line were commonly used by dock prostitutes as tokens for their clients, and the Blackbeard Gang members were their regular customers.
Edrick also pretended to kick the shark tooth under the cabinet, making it seem like it had been flung there by the copper wire.
As Edrick poured the last drop of rum onto the silver-plated skeleton, the liquid trickled down the ribs and into the floorboards. He thought to himself that the priests would smell the distinctive fermented sugarcane aroma of Caribbean contraband tomorrow… Hmm? The liquid was seeping in?
Edrick discovered that the alcohol had seeped through the floorboards into the ground below. He stomped his feet on the floor and immediately realized that the space beneath was hollow.
Beneath the sacristy was another chamber. Such secret spaces typically hid unspeakable secrets, which naturally piqued Edrick's curiosity. He desperately wanted to explore the space below. Following the tropes of novels, the sacristy must have a hidden mechanism to open the door, and once activated, it would lead to the underground chamber where the treasure lay.
However, after searching the sacred artifact chamber thoroughly, he couldn't find any mechanism to open the floor.
Damn it, it seems like obtaining the treasures won't be that easy. Today isn't the best day to waste too much time here. After all, this was his first time being a thief, and Edrick felt a bit uneasy. He decided to quickly handle the important matters first and come back later to investigate the mechanism.
"Oh, right, there's this." Finally, Edrick squeezed some tar commonly found at the docks from his pocket and smeared it on the soles of his shoes, leaving a few footprints.
Having prepared everything, Edrick looked at his handiwork. He knew it was a bit too obvious, but it didn't matter. Whether people could figure out it was a frame-up or not wouldn't affect the plan, because the ones with the strongest motive to frame the Blackbeard Gang were the Soot Street Scamps.
As Edrick left the reliquary, the glow from the lantern in the porch slid like a snake across the colored window projections.
His back pressed against the shadow of the silver-plated skeleton, he listened to the creaking sound of leather boots grinding against the mosaic floor tiles—the night watch monks' prayers mingled with the scent of tequila drifting in, the scriptures stumbling over the words "the Eucharist is immortal" with a drunken slur.
Edrick quickly left the porch and hid in a confessional.
The silhouettes of three monks swayed outside the door, the one on the far left's copper bell belt caught on the crooked door panel. Edrick held his breath, watching the monk tap the deformed door hinge with his lantern, rust falling onto the carved wood where he had just wiped away blood.
"It's time to let the stonemason take a look at Saint Michael's hip bone." The Cathedral of Luminous Pragis had stood for half a century without a single incident of intrusion or theft. They never imagined that such a daring thief could be lurking here.
As the monks' footsteps faded beneath the choir loft's vaulted ceiling, Edrick realized his palms were drenched in cold sweat. These night watchmen were part of the Watchpost of the Luminous Covenant, though their patrols were confined to the church's interior.
Memories of being killed by the patrolmen earlier flooded back. These church enforcers were powerful, and Edrick had no idea what kind of rigorous training they had undergone. Compared to them, the scamps' enforcers were like docile kittens.
The three night watch monks had already blocked Edrick's path. Now, Edrick had two options: wait for them to finish their shift and leave, or find another way out.
Edrick crept along the iron frame of the stained-glass window, feeling his way toward the maintenance hatch. The soles of his boots avoided the flickering triangular light spots on the ground. Edrick didn't see any lamps or candles here, but these triangular light spots seemed to move across the floor like living creatures. His instincts told him these projection-like things were best left untouched.
Fortunately, there weren't many of them, and they moved slowly, making them easier to avoid.
As Edrick's boot heels crushed the moss between the bricks, a salty, musty dampness suddenly filled his nostrils. As a dockworker who had spent ten years hauling cargo at the Fog Harbor, he was familiar with this smell, a mix of rust and barnacles, characteristic of buildings whose foundations were submerged in saltwater.
Though the Cathedral of Luminous Pragis stood on a high ridge, the foundation at its northern corner was noticeably two feet lower than the rest of the structure. This was a common practice during land reclamation to balance tidal pressure.
Edrick had once heard the foreman, Old Drake, curse this "putting a toilet seat on a fish's belly" idea while moving the foundation stones of the dock warehouse.
The coolness of the walls seeped through his palms, and a dull vibration crept up his fingers toward his elbows—not the resonance of machine gears, but the muffled thud of a wooden pier post being struck by a cargo ship during a rainstorm.
This vibration meant that there was definitely an iron pipe network connected to the tides within five feet underground. Many large buildings shared their drainage systems with the dock's underground channels, and if they could find the entrance, they could go directly to the dock.
Edrick crouched down, pressing his ears against the ground to trace the pipeline's path. He noticed that the uneven anti-slip grooves on the base of the candlestick embedded against the wall contained tiny fragments of oyster shells. This crude method used by dock laborers to embed shell fragments into wooden beams for friction now appeared on the silver-plated sacred vessel.
"Even the divine candlestick has the calluses of the dock," he muttered, mimicking his father's curse, as his fingertips scraped away the plaster from the wall. He hesitated, unsure whether to steal the candlestick as well.
Just then, he heard a terrifying sound, like the screams of countless tortured souls. The sound grew closer and farther away, eventually drowning out the rumble of the tides.
Edrick was no stranger to this eerie feeling. He had experienced it last night at the textile factory.
In this city filled with suffering and wraiths, it was not surprising to hear such screams anywhere, but it should not have been heard in this sacred church.