Marseille Harbor Labyrinth Mystery

Cold War

The coral began to melt, and Jean quickly pulled his hand back from the hovering iron transmutation needle. The Level 2 Potion energy had overreacted, transforming the protective coral barrier he had constructed into a sizzling chalk slurry.

Jean retracted the dark silver Potion, sealing the bottle with an alchemical stopper lined with an anti-corrosive membrane. He submerged the Potion into a bucket of pure brine in the corner of the lab.

“Too strong,” he hissed, stabilizing the melting coral with an injection of concentrated saltwater. The ship groaned but held steady. “Non-organic transmutation requires insane precision.”

He stared at the iron needle still suspended in the air, a perfect manifestation of controlled chaos. “I could turn steel into dust. I could bring an entire fleet to a standstill.”

But he couldn't use this Potion in a direct confrontation in the middle of the harbor. The force of its energy release would destroy the Triton and himself. He had to use it secretly, targeting the structural weaknesses of the system Le Requin had built.

“Le Requin is a salt statue now,” Jean muttered, wiping residual sludge from his hands. “But his network is still alive. They rely on dirty logistics. They rely on a supply chain that never fails.”

Jean retrieved the digital logistics map he had stolen from Anton. He marked the crucial points in the Vieux-Port still controlled by Le Requin’s minor factions: Nico’s Fuel Depot on the eastern edge, and Sal’s Cold Storage near the shipyard.

“A cold war,” Jean told himself. “I won’t shoot them. I’ll make them shoot themselves.”

Jean prepared four sterilized bottles of the Level 2 Potion. He put on his dark clothes, jumped off the Triton, and vanished into the predawn darkness.

***

Precisely at 4:00 AM, Nico, a massive man with an anchor tattooed on his neck, woke up to panicked shouts over his communications radio.

“Boss! Major trouble in the main tanks!”

Nico arrived at the Fuel Depot, his eyes wide. The scent that greeted him wasn't diesel, but a pungent, bile-like acid.

“What in the hell happened here?” Nico roared, kicking open the metal door.

One of his men, Pierre, stood beside a giant leaking tank. Instead of diesel, a disgusting, thick green fluid dripped from the pipe joints. The liquid was eating away at the concrete beneath it.

“I don’t know, Boss!” Pierre stammered, panicking. “I checked just five minutes ago, and the diesel was fine. Suddenly, this fluid started pouring out. It’s like… corrosive slime.”

Nico poked the fluid with the toe of his boot. It hissed.

“Slime?” Nico grabbed Pierre’s collar. “You think I’m an idiot? This is sabotage! Who knows we store all the fuel here?”

“Just us, Boss!” Pierre pleaded. “I swear, this isn’t human work. It’s magic! That liquid... it’s eating the tank!”

Nico looked up. The ten-centimeter-thick steel tank was now sizzling, its exterior turning into rust powder.

“Dirty magic,” Nico hissed. “The only one with dirty magic skills is the Old Shark! He must have sent his own people to screw us over!”

“But Le Requin is gone, Boss,” Pierre ventured, trying to remind him.

“To hell with gone!” Nico snapped. “He’s testing our loyalty! He wants us starved of fuel so we can’t move his cargo!”

“I already tried calling Sal’s Depot,” Pierre said. “They aren’t picking up. Maybe they did this?”

Nico punched the wall next to him. “Sal? That idiot? All he can handle is frozen meat! He doesn't have the brains to pull off a logistics attack like this!”

Nico grabbed the radio. “Listen up, all of you! Pull every ship into harbor! Nobody moves until we figure out who did this. And prepare yourselves. If Sal tries to take over our shipping routes, I’ll turn him into chum!”

***

While Nico began mobilizing his forces for an internal war, Jean Valéry was already at Sal’s Cold Storage.

Sal, a wiry man who always seemed to be sweating, stood in the middle of the icehouse, which now felt like hell.

The concrete floor of the warehouse, which should have been hard and cold, was now softening, as if the cement had been mixed with water. Steel shelves supporting tons of frozen meat were beginning to buckle and rust at a horrifying speed.

The Level 2 Transmutation Potion Jean had dripped into the warehouse’s drainage system was working faster than he anticipated.

“Damn it! The walls are melting!” Sal screamed. “The meat! The meat is falling!”

A subordinate named Rico (not the Rico who became a salt statue) looked at the floor. “Boss, why is the floor turning into mud? We didn’t flood, did we?”

“This isn’t mud!” Sal roared, kicking a bag of meat that had fallen to the floor and was starting to sink into the softening concrete. “This is acid! The concrete is turning into acid! Who the hell dared to touch my depot?!”

Rico pointed toward a collapsed pile of cargo. “Boss, that’s... the package of Level 1 Transmutation Potion we stole from Le Requin’s warehouse. Did it leak?”

Sal looked at it. “No! That Potion is safe in the vault! This isn't Level 1 Potion. This is worse!”

“Boss, I heard news from Nico,” Rico said timidly. “All his fuel turned into slime. He called it dirty magic.”

Sal’s face instantly changed. “Dirty magic? That bastard Nico! He knows I got that Level 1 Transmutation Potion from Le Requin. He thinks I’m trying to move up and replace Le Requin!”

“But why would he attack our cargo, Boss?” Rico asked.

“Because he wants us to kill each other!” Sal yelled, his eyes wild. “He wants us to panic! He wants us to think Le Requin did this, when really, he wants to be the new Shark Boss!”

Sal reached into his pocket and pulled out his pistol.

“Call Nico!” Sal commanded. “Don’t use the radio, use the secure channel! Tell him: I know what you did! And I’m going to make you pay now!”

***

In the Triton’s cabin, Jean Valéry watched the chaos unfold through the surveillance network he had hacked. He watched Nico mobilizing his forces with fuel-less trucks, and he watched Sal preparing his team in the slowly collapsing warehouse.

“You two are too focused on power,” Jean murmured, sipping a cup of black coffee. “You forget that power is only an illusion if your logistics fail.”

Jean’s encrypted phone rang. It was Anton, the traitor, still in Marseille.

“Valéry,” Anton’s voice was strained. “You’re insane. The entire port is in chaos. Nico and Sal are going to kill each other on the central pier in less than an hour.”

“That’s not my concern,” Jean replied, his voice calm.

“Of course, it’s your concern! Nico said he saw you near the Ice Depot before everything happened! He knows you made Le Requin disappear, and now he thinks you’re working for Sal!”

“Let them think what they want. The more they panic, the more information they’ll reveal,” Jean answered.

“No, you don’t understand the scale of this, Jean,” Anton urged. “They aren’t just going to fight. Nico is bringing what’s left of the Level 1 Potion he stole from Le Requin. He said he’s going to drop it on Sal. Public transmutation!”

Jean dropped his coffee cup. *Crack!*

“What?” Jean shot upright. “That Potion is only supposed to be used on non-organics! If Nico drops that on Sal, it will trigger a chain reaction throughout the pier. It will damage the Alchemical Nexus!”

“I don’t know, I’m just the spy!” Anton shouted. “They’re gathering at Pier D, Valéry. You have to stop this before they destroy the whole harbor! This isn't sabotage anymore, it's suicide!”

Jean stared at the map, at the meeting point of Nico and Sal. If they used that volatile Level 1 Potion in the middle of a brawl, the unstable burst of alchemical purification would destroy the foundations of the pier, and perhaps attract Neptune's attention permanently.

“Damn it,” Jean hissed. “Controlled chaos has spun out.”

“What are you going to do?” Anton asked.

Jean grabbed the remaining Level 2 Potion; the dark silver liquid felt cold in his hand.

“I’m going to stop them. But not by talking,” Jean said. “I’m going to give them a demonstration of power that makes them forget how to fight.”

Jean ran out of the cabin onto the Triton’s deck. He looked toward Pier D. The silhouettes of two large groups facing each other were already visible.

He couldn't just attack them with the Level 2 Potion. It would kill them all, and Jean preferred to avoid mass murder if he could help it.

Jean looked up at the sky, at the rising sun. The first orange light touched the dirty surface of the water.

He channeled the Level 2 Potion’s energy into himself, forcing extreme speed and perception.

“I have to change their environment,” Jean muttered. “I have to change what they stand on, what they breathe.”

Jean dove into the water, swimming fast toward Pier D. When he arrived beneath the pier, the sounds of shouting and threats were clearly audible.

“You think I’m stupid, Nico? You turned my warehouse into acid soup!” Sal yelled from above.

“I’m going to transmute you into salt, Sal! You’ll be an uglier block of salt than our missing boss!” Nico retorted, his voice thick with rage.

Jean had to act fast. Nico was reaching into his pocket, searching for the Level 1 Potion.

Jean touched the wooden pilings beneath the pier, the support columns holding up the entire logistical structure. He channeled the remaining Level 2 Potion.

Transmutation. Wood to…

Jean focused his intent, not to destroy, but to create terrifying beauty.

Transmutation. Wood into Black Sea Agate.

In an instant, the dirty pilings beneath him sizzled. The wood hardened, its structure shifting, transforming into beautiful, glittering black crystals that pulsed with a faint violet light underwater.

The pier above them began to shake violently.

“What was that?!” Sal screamed from above.

The wood, expanding as it turned into crystal, forced the pier planks to lift. The ground beneath their feet shook.

“It’s an earthquake!” Nico shouted.

Jean swam out, directly beneath the pier. He channeled the last of the Level 2 Potion into the sludge on the seafloor beneath them.

Transmutation. Septic sludge to…

Jean didn't have time to think about the final form. He just wanted the sludge to react massively.

Transmutation. Sludge to...

Suddenly, from the seafloor, a gigantic dark green gas bubble began to rise, smelling of pure sulfur and mercury. The bubble rose, pushing the small ships around it into the air.

Jean felt his entire energy reserve drain completely. He had to leave immediately.

The sulfur bubble burst on the water's surface. Not with a sound, but with a deadly odor and a thick green fog that enveloped the entire pier.

Jean swam away, hearing panicked shouts from the gangs above.

“Gas! Poison gas! I can’t see!”

“Sal, you caused this! I’ll kill you!”

Jean looked back. The thick fog obscured the pier, and within the mist, the dock pilings—now black sea agate crystals—loomed high, shining horribly under the light of dawn.

It was a perfect warning.

As Jean swam back to the Triton, he looked out at the open sea. The Neptune submarine, which had previously fired the Anti-Transmutation Potion, was turning back.

“They saw it,” Jean murmured. “They saw the chaos.”

Suddenly, a small projectile launched from the submarine. It wasn't aimed at Jean, or at the chaotic pier.

The projectile headed for the Triton.

Jean tried to muster his remaining energy, but he was completely exhausted. The Level 2 Potion had consumed every drop of his reserves.

The projectile hit the Triton’s hull with a soft, wet *thwack*.

It wasn't an explosion. It was an injection.

Jean looked at the Triton. A thick black fluid, the Anti-Transmutation Potion, began to spread across the hull of his salvage ship.

The vessel hissed, and the alchemical coral shield he had just stabilized began—