Marcus descended the stairs slowly. Gracefully. Triumphantly. No one in the crowd of party-goers seemed to take note of his arrival.

Disappointed, Marcus weaved between the people and trees as he made his way to the central fountain. Staring into the gently lapping, blue tinted water, he considered what to do next—he honestly hadn’t had anything resembling a plan. He knew no one, and by observation, it didn’t seem like the other guests were particularly inclined to get up to anything truly spectacular or wild.

Perhaps he didn’t belong here—and not just because he hadn’t been invited.

“You’re new.”

Turning around, Marcus caught sight of a fairly tall, young, inky black haired woman in a long dark cloak and a stylized, feathered raven mask. She had exceptionally pale skin, and her violet eyes—she had violet eyes!—peered at him from beneath dark, heavy lids. He wondered how she pulled that off.

“You weren’t here any of the previous times.”

Oh no! Had he been caught already?

Taking on a thick, nonsensical accent, Marcus greeted her. “Well, it is my pleasure to be here now, especially with such a charming young lady…”

The woman rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, staring into the fountain. “Oh, don’t flatter me. I’m far too old for that.”

Old?

“Can you keep a secret?” Marcus asked on a whim.

“I can, but that doesn’t mean that I will.”

Chuckling, Marcus flicked a piece of lint off of his deep purple suit sleeve. “I’m not even supposed to be here. I was explicitly not invited.”

His companion huffed and uncrossed her arms. “I wonder what your real business here is, then.” She glanced away. “And what led to you coming here this time.”

“Boredom, I guess.”

Flicking her gaze back up to meet his eyes, she appraised him critically. “Yeah, I can understand that.” She paused, glancing around at the other guests. “These days, it often feels like it’s my only personal motivation. Other than duty, that is.”

“Ah, to be rich and desensitized to the pleasures of life,” Marcus moaned dramatically, “woe be upon us.”

The raven masked woman snorted. “Oh how terrible.” She paused, looking back at him. “You seem familiar…”

Marcus was immediately deeply offended. He was familiar? No, he was one of a kind! First Augustus, and now this young lady? It was extremely troubling—he would have to reevaluate his current persona!

A sudden disturbance caused him to look towards the main entrance. There was a palpable change in the crowd—a wave of sudden attention spread throughout the ranks of the party goers. His companion rolled her eyes and sighed. “Salieri is here,” she explained. “Watch, he’s going to call an inane toast to the prosperity of the city while stroking his own ego—while also naively pretending like he doesn’t realize we all know exactly who he is.”

The crowd parted, and a tall, broad man in lavish fur robes and a green and gold snake mask strode forward. Swiping a glass of sparkling wine from a passing tray, he pumped his hand to the sky.

“To my fellow exiles!” he announced in a booming voice, “and their sons and daughters as well!” He paused as wine splashed to his feet. “Would you care to join a faceless exile in a toast to the continued prosperity of this great city and its leadership?” Cheers erupted from the crowd, and he waited for them to die down. “Then I say, as a humble member of your esteemed ranks… Drink!”

Marcus snorted while looking for something to drink himself—before realizing that he couldn’t with his full-face mask. Salieri had done exactly what his companion had said he would—was the man really that predictable?

The hero took a moment to study the senator and crime boss as the large man downed his bubbling glass. Salieri’s very presence seemed to fill up the whole room, exuding a dense and lively atmosphere of excitement.

“Come.”

Marcus obliged the young woman’s command, trailing her off towards the nearest staircase. “I can’t stand playing pleasantries with that man,” she admitted. “I figured I could get something to eat while you look on longingly, wishing you had chosen a different mask.”

Marcus grinned. He was growing to like her, whoever she was.

He just hoped she didn’t turn out to be evil.

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“So what do you do, mister…?”

They reached the staircase and Marcus joined her at her side. “Richard Stroker, professional masseuse,” he replied—it was the alias he had put down on the casino ledger. “But you can just call me Dick.”

She snorted. “I see.”

Reaching the top of the staircase, the pair ambled over to an unoccupied table. Marcus waited for his companion to take her seat before he took his own across from her. He rested his cane on the railing.

“So, mister… Stroker.” she stared at him intently. “Do you consider yourself a man of principle?”

Narrowing his eyes, Marcus leaned forward. “Yes.”

The dark haired lady sighed. “You said you were bored.” Marcus nodded. “Is it principle that keeps you going?”

Leaning back, he rubbed his chin in thought. He hadn’t expected this sort of conversation. “Mostly, yeah.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “But I’ve grown to appreciate life for the challenges. When giving up isn’t an option, the best thing you can do is the opposite.” He leaned forward again. “Push yourself. Take on the impossible. Achieve things a younger you would have never even dreamed of.”

Resting her head on her hand, his companion sighed. “And what then? You push yourself, and you break limits, and then what? Does it just go on forever?”

Marcus gave her a pained grin. “No. You die. That’s it. The end.”

At least, for most people, that’s how it went. For Marcus, the situation was a bit different.

The masked woman averted her eyes and spoke weakly. “Yes, that’s typically how it goes.”

Scrutinizing her expression, Marcus steepled his fingers. She didn’t seem particularly satisfied with his answer. “You don’t buy it.”

She flicked her eyes back up. “I—”

With a thunderous crash, the wide skylights above shattered all at once. A hailstorm of broken glass rained down upon the crowd below, and Marcus leapt to his feet. A woman’s voice boomed down from above.

“Marcus Vinecelli!” Hey, that was him! “Show yourself, and no one gets hurt.”

His companion had risen to her feet as well, and she was staring at him with a mixture of surprise and recognition. “It’s you,” she declared, “how could I not realize?” Wait, what? She knew him? So far he had no idea who this lady was. “What the fuck did you do this time?”

Befuddled, Marcus elected to ignore her for the moment. The guests below were just beginning to overcome their initial surprise, the initial silence now rapidly filling with excited chattering.

“Or what?” A reedy voice shouted up at the rooftop. “And who the fuck is Vinecelli?”

“Fail to produce him, and you’ll all find out why we call ourselves the Undertakers,” the unseen speaker called down, ignoring the man’s second question. Marcus guessed that the proclamation sounded better in her head. “Last chance.”

“Well?” His companion asked. She was leaning over the railing as well. “What’s your plan now?”

Instead of answering her, Marcus called up to the rooftop himself. “Consider my curiosity aroused,” he shouted, “I must admit I’m rather anxious to see what your plan is for handling a crowd of the most powerful people in the entire city.”

Marcus could only assume that the core elite of the riverways possessed not only money but many powerful marks as well. The two generally went hand in hand after all.

“Fine then. Your choice.”

A small golden disk tumbled down from above. The mark—epic, judging by its color—landed in the central fountain with a wet plop. Several seconds of tense silence stretched.

A cacophony of overlapping screams heralded an eruption of dozens of monsters from the fountain. Marcus watched with wide eyes as a miniature kraken flailed from within the too small pool of water. Wrapping a tentacle around the reedy voiced man, it dragged him into its spiny maw.

Grinning with childlike delight, Marcus leaned further over the railing. Half a dozen men and women had clustered around Marco Salieri, and the crime boss raised a curled fist to the air. At his command, dozens of violet portals bloomed all around the casino, and monsters of his own poured out.

Peering into one of the larger portals, Marcus caught glimpses of a strangely colored, misty alien world, before the portal closed behind the fat, fleshy worm that had crawled out. The worm moved shockingly quickly, squirming towards the beached kraken and messily burrowing into the larger creature’s flesh.

“Enjoying the spectacle, I see.”

Leaning back, Marcus returned his attention to his companion. “What can I say,” he said, “I think you’ll find that a small disruption here and there does wonders to reduce the boredom.”

Flicking a stray lock of hair to the side, she crossed her arms. “You really are incorrigible.”

Instead of responding, Marcus took up his cane and whacked a warty, naked gecko man who was climbing up the column below on the head. The humanoid abomination yelped and fell backwards onto a refreshment table below, knocking over the artfully arranged piles of finger sandwiches.

Shrugging, Marcus stepped back from the railing and readjusted his grip on the cane. “Listen Lady, when you’ve lived as long as I have, you take what enjoyment you can get.”

His raven masked companion scoffed. “Sure, tell me about it.” She paused, taking a moment to survey the chaos. “Do you have any idea why they’re after you?”

Grinning, Marcus stretched and began walking off towards the nearest staircase to the third floor. “Nope! Not at all!”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had gotten away from the attackers earlier with the mark from the briefcase, after all.

He was almost to the staircase when a raptor like beast twice as tall as a man landed on the balcony between him and the young woman. The horned avian flapped its leathery wings and snapped its beak. Hissing, it began to advance, hooked talons raised menacingly.

Turning to face it, the hero spread his own arms and hissed back. The raptor paused, before backing up, retreating towards the strange dark haired woman. Satisfied, Marcus turned back around and began leisurely ascending the stairs.

He made it halfway up before another threat reared its hideous head. Not bothering to even acknowledge the six flippered, fish headed monster that had blocked his ascent, Marcus fired a thread up to the next railing and yanked himself up.

While the spectacle below was certainly entertaining—two different groups of survivors had rallied on opposite sides of the fountain—Marcus wanted to reach the roof without too much further delay.

Clambering over the railing, Marcus took a moment to flex the strain out of his hand and wrist—he still wasn’t quite used to supporting himself with the threads—and to gather his wits.

Standing up, he barely had time to catch sight of a swirl of white robes lashing towards him from the corner of his vision before the world turned silent and all motion slowed to a complete stop.