Chapter 40: A Simpler Problem
The true black market wasn't a place; it was a person. The coded taps led Azazel to a perfumer's shop in a quiet, well-kept district that smelled of lavender and mint. A bell tinkled as he entered. The elderly woman behind the counter didn't look up from grinding herbs.
"Closed for a private blending," she said, her voice like dry leaves.
"I was told you appreciate unique biological specimens," Azazel replied, his tone neutral. "No guild tags."
She looked up then, her eyes sharp and assessing. She gestured to a curtained-off back room.
The transaction was swift and professional. The Crimson Drake claw, two fangs, a palm-sized scale, and a vial of its thick, fiery blood were laid out on a velvet cloth. The woman examined them with the detached expertise of a master jeweler, using strange lenses and a faintly glowing crystal.
"A genuine juvenile Drake. Recently slain. Impressive," she murmured, not asking how. She named a figure in platinum coins that was triple what the guild would have offered after their cut, and in a currency far less traceable.
Azazel countered. They settled on a sum that made his storage cube significantly heavier with polished, unmarked platinum ingots and a handful of rare gemstones accepted as currency in certain circles. The bloody raptor parts—fangs, claws, a few intact organs—were sold as a bulk lot for a tidy sum in gold. He also purchased a few useful items: a small case of high-quality, unmarked healing salves, a coil of whisper-thin, mythril-laced wire stronger than steel, and a map of the region with subtle, unofficial markings denoting "hazardous" and "unpatrolled" zones.
Leaving the shop, he felt the satisfying weight of a clean, profitable deal. On his walk back to the inn through the pre-dawn grey, he took a longer route, observing the city's underbelly waking up. He saw a grimy shop selling "reclaimed" adventuring gear, a dimly-lit eatery serving suspiciously cheap stew to figures with hoods drawn low, and a boarded-up tavern with a symbol scratched into the door that matched one from the information hub. It was a parallel city, thriving in the cracks of the official one. He admired the ecosystem—it was familiar, a system of supply, demand, and discreet enforcement he understood intrinsically.
He slipped back into the inn as the first true light touched the windows. Reginleif was already awake, sipping water and studying her own, more official map.
"You smell like expensive perfume and cheap intrigue," she noted without looking up.
"Productive night," he said, placing two of the unmarked healing salves on the table next to her. "Upgrade."
She took them, pocketing one and opening the other to sniff the contents. Her eyebrows raised in approval. "Much better. What's the plan?"
"We've drawn eyes at the guild. Too much, too fast. We need a… consolidating quest. Something straightforward, physically demanding, far from the dungeon's spotlight. Let the Drake story cool off while we look like reliable, hardworking adventurers."
She nodded. "Ogres, then. The board had a new posting before I left last night. A surge in the northern foothills. Brutal, simple, and a long way from any weeping citadels."
"Perfect."
---
The guild hall was buzzing, but the energy around them had changed. Where yesterday there were stares of disbelief and awe, today there were calculating looks, speculative whispers. The story had solidified: the unpredictable Iron-ranks who got impossibly lucky. It was a narrative Azazel could work with.
They accepted the ogre extermination quest from the dog-eared receptionist, who now looked at them with a mixture of professional respect and personal trepidation. "Are you… sure? Just the two of you? Ogres are—"
"We're sure," Reginleif said, her voice politely final.
They traveled north for a day and a half, leaving the fortified plains of Korvath for rolling, forested hills. The villages here were poorer, palisaded with sharpened logs instead of stone. The fear was palpable. They gathered reports: a band of six, maybe seven ogres. One larger, wearing a necklace of skulls—the chieftain. They'd smashed a mill, carried off livestock, and had been seen dragging a screaming farmer into the thick woods to the east.
Following the trail of destruction was not difficult. Ogres were not subtle. They found the camp in a stony clearing at the head of a narrow valley. It stank of rot, excrement, and burnt meat. Six hulking figures, each eight feet tall and thick with gristly muscle the color of mud, lounged around a fire pit where the remains of a cow turned on a spit. A seventh, half again as large, sat on a rough stone throne, the skull necklace clacking against his barrel chest. Makeshift shelters of torn-down trees leaned against the cliffs. The ground was littered with gnawed bones.
"No traps. No minions. Just brute force and low cunning," Reginleif observed from their perch on a rocky outcrop. "A simpler problem."
"Still a problem," Azazel said, his eyes scanning the terrain. "We can't let them swarm us. We break their cohesion first." He pointed to a choke point at the valley's entrance, where two large boulders narrowed the path. "You draw them through there. I'll shape the field."
Reginleif nodded. "Harrier and Hammer. Simple."
She slipped away, a blur of green and brown. Moments later, a shrill whistle cut through the ogres' grunting. A Piercing Feather wind blade shot from the trees, scoring a deep gash across the back of the ogre nearest the valley entrance.
The monster bellowed in pain and rage, spinning around. It saw Reginleif, standing in the open path, beckoning with one dagger before turning and darting back towards the boulder choke point.
With roars that shook the trees, the entire camp lurched into motion, charging after the insolent little prey. The chieftain heaved himself to his feet with a ground-shaking bellow, urging them on.
Azazel watched from above, a cold focus settling over him. As the first two ogres squeezed between the boulders, he acted.
Black Ice.
He didn't target the ogres. He targeted the ground under them and the rock behind them. A sheet of glistening, darkness-tinged ice flash-froze the path, while a slick, vertical wall of ice sealed the gap between one boulder and the cliff face behind the second ogre.
The lead ogre's massive feet hit the ice. Its charge became a chaotic, flailing slide, its comrade piling into it from behind. They were now a tangled, roaring mass of limbs, trapped in a frozen alley.
The following ogres bottlenecked, confused. The chieftain shoved through, his immense strength cracking the ice wall, but it slowed him.
This was Reginleif's signal. She stopped retreating. She turned, and with a sharp, cutting gesture, unleashed not a single blade, but a Pressure Web—a net of concentrated wind that settled over the two lead, tangled ogres. It didn't cut, but it pressed, slowing their frantic movements to a grueling slog, as if they were fighting in deep water.
Azazel dropped from the outcrop, landing silently behind the struggling pile-up. His spear was in his hands. This wasn't the time for shadowy spectacle. This was butchery.
While the ogres in the rear shoved and roared, and the two in front fought the viscous air, Azazel went to work. He darted in, a shadow at their feet. The dwarven spear, channeling nothing but his own augmented strength and its inherent sharpness, plunged into the back of a knee. A brutal twist, a severed tendon. The ogre collapsed with a shriek. A reverse thrust found the other's kidney. He moved with a terrifying, economical precision, turning giants into bleeding, crippled liabilities.
By the time the chieftain shattered the ice wall completely, two of his kin were down, bleeding out on the frozen ground. A third, trying to climb over the chaos, was met by Reginleif leaping from the boulder, her body a spinning drill of wind-amplified force. Her moonstone dagger pierced its eye and found its brain. It toppled like a felled tree.
The remaining three ogres and the enraged chieftain now faced them in the clearing, but the momentum was gone, replaced by wary fury.
The fight descended into brutal, direct combat. Azazel met the chieftain's club-swing with a Black Ice barrier that shattered on impact but slowed the blow enough for him to dodge. He used Voidfool not to kill, but to disorient, blinking from one side of the brute to the other, leaving shallow cuts that bled freely in the cold air.
Reginleif was a storm of green and steel between the other two, her movements a blur. She couldn't hamstring them as easily, but she didn't need to. A Gust Step put her behind one as it swung. Her Kinetic Amplification surged into a kick to the back of its knee, not to cut, but to shatter the joint with concussive force. As it fell, a Pressure Knife sliced its hamstring for good measure.
It was hard, punishing work. An ogre's fist grazed Azazel's shoulder, sending a numbing shock down his arm. Reginleif took a glancing blow from a tree branch club that would have broken her ribs if not for a hastily-erected Wind Lens that dispersed half the force.
But they were faster, smarter, and worked as one. Azazel would freeze an ogre's foot to the ground for a crucial second. Reginleif would exploit the opening with a crippling strike. He would draw the chieftain's rage, and she would harry its flanks with deep, bleeding cuts.
Finally, only the chieftain remained, bleeding from a dozen wounds, its breath coming in ragged, thunderous gasps. It swung its club in a wild, exhausted arc. Azazel didn't dodge. He dropped low, letting it pass over him, and surged upward inside its guard, his spear aimed for its heart.
At the same moment, Reginleif Gust Stepped up onto its swinging arm, ran its length, and plunged her dagger into the side of its thick neck.
The ogre chieftain stiffened, a final bellow dying in its throat. It looked down at the spear in its chest, then at the woman on its shoulder, before its eyes glazed over. It fell, the impact a final, definitive tremor.
Silence returned to the valley, broken only by the crackle of the forgotten fire and their own heavy breathing.
"See?" Azazel grunted, pulling his spear free with a wet sound. "Simpler."
"Not easy," Reginleif corrected, wiping her blade clean. "But straightforward. No ancient intelligence. No corrupted magic. Just mass and anger."
They spent the next hour ensuring the camp was clear and swiftly harvesting the most valuable parts: ogre hide strips (tough for armor), the chieftain's skull necklace (a grisly trophy that would prove completion), and a few large, yellowed teeth.
As they left the blood-soaked clearing, the late afternoon sun cutting through the valley, Azazel felt a grim sense of satisfaction. The Drake had been a world-shaking event. This was work. Hard, dirty, profitable work. It grounded him. It was a reminder that for all the inverted trees and reality-cutting beams, this world still ran on basic principles: find a problem, apply efficient force, get paid.
They had restored a measure of peace to the hills, their reputation would inch towards "reliable" instead of "anomalous," and their pockets were heavier. It was, as far as days in Noctyra went, a good one.
End of chapter 40