The plan wasn't perfect.
Kael didn't trust perfect plans. They always relied on too many things going right — and in his experience, nothing ever did.
Instead, he trusted bait.
The smaller vial of the Shaper's blood sat in a leather pouch against his chest, wrapped in cloth thick enough to muffle its faint, pulsing glow. It was the kind of lure the Shaper's agents couldn't ignore.
The trick would be making them think they had a clear path to it.
He and Ryn chose the marketplace near the river — not the busy central square, but one of the side markets where stalls pressed close together and narrow lanes formed natural choke points. If the agents came, there'd be nowhere to surround them without stepping into plain sight.
Ryn was perched on the roof of a spice merchant's shop, crossbow balanced on her knee. Kael moved through the crowd below, playing the part of a hunter trying to sell scraps from a mid-tier beast. His hood was low, his knife hidden under the folds of his coat.
Every step made the vial feel heavier. Not in weight — in presence. As though it knew what it was here for.
The first sign came half an hour in.
A man at a fish stall glanced toward Kael, then quickly away — but his eyes were wrong. Focused. Intent.
Ten minutes later, a woman in a faded cloak drifted past, her hand brushing his coat as though by accident. Kael caught the faintest scent of the docks' salt rot on her.
"Two," he murmured under his breath.
Ryn's voice crackled in his ear-piece, a thin line of copper wire running from his collar to hers. "Three more, west side. Moving in pairs."
Kael's pulse slowed, not sped. They were here. Now it was about control.
He angled toward the choke point — a narrow lane between a weaver's stall and a stack of barrels. The crowd was thinner here, fewer witnesses, but still enough to make any open fight a risk.
One of the watchers stepped into the lane ahead of him. Another blocked the far end. The three from the west slipped in behind.
Kael stopped walking. "Took you long enough," he said.
The lead man's voice was flat. "Hand over the blood."
Kael shook his head. "You want it? Take it."
The lane went still for a heartbeat — then exploded.
The first attacker lunged with a short, curved blade. Kael sidestepped, grabbing the man's arm and twisting hard, feeling the joint pop before shoving him into the barrels.
A crossbow bolt whistled down from above — Ryn's shot taking another in the shoulder. The man stumbled, but didn't cry out, wrenching the bolt free and charging again.
Kael drew his knife, catching the blade of a third attacker and driving his boot into the man's knee.
The fight compressed into brutal, close-quarters strikes. Steel rang against steel, the smell of sweat and fish mixing with the sharper tang of fresh blood.
Then the civilians screamed.
Kael's head snapped up just in time to see the real threat — not the cloaked agents, but the beasts behind them.
Two shapes crashed into the lane from the far end — shaped creatures, their hides a patchwork of fur and armored plates. One had the broad, flat head of a crocodile and the hooked talons of a raptor. The other moved like a wolf but with twisted, insect-like limbs ending in chitin claws.
Both pulsed faintly in rhythm with the vial's glow.
"Ryn!" Kael barked.
"On it!"
A bolt thudded into the wolf-creature's thorax, slowing it for half a heartbeat before it barreled on. The crocodile-thing lunged for Kael, jaws snapping. He threw himself sideways, rolling under its bulk and driving his knife into the softer flesh of its belly.
The blade bit deep — but not deep enough. The beast twisted, tail smashing into his ribs and throwing him against the wall.
Pain flared. Stonehide took the worst of it, but the impact still rattled his bones.
The agents used the chaos to press forward. One got close enough to grab for his coat — fingers brushing the pouch with the vial. Kael slammed an elbow into the man's jaw, then caught him by the throat and shoved him into the wolf-creature's path.
The beast didn't hesitate. It struck, claws tearing through the man as if he weren't even there.
Kael pushed off the wall, knife ready, and met the crocodile-thing head-on. Its jaws closed on empty air as he ducked low, stabbing up into the joint of its foreleg. The beast roared, trying to pull away, but Kael held on, carving deeper until hot blood poured over his hand.
[C-Rank (Low) | GP: 135 + 25 = 160]
The rush came even in the middle of the fight, strength flooding his muscles, his stance solidifying.
Above, Ryn had reloaded and was firing again, her bolts punching into the wolf-thing's limbs to slow it. "Kael, we've got more incoming!"
He risked a glance past the fight — and saw two more shapes forcing their way through the crowd beyond the lane's entrance.
"Then we finish fast!"
The crocodile-beast lunged again, but this time Kael met it with a full-force charge, Stonehide turning his body into a battering ram. The impact knocked the creature onto its side. Before it could right itself, Kael drove his knife into its eye, burying the blade to the hilt.
It convulsed once, then went still.
The wolf-creature was still moving, though slower now, bleeding from three of Ryn's bolts. Kael sprinted toward it, catching its next swipe on his forearm and shoving hard to throw it off balance. He slashed across its throat — once, twice — until the glow in its eyes dimmed and its legs folded.
The lane was littered with bodies now — human and beast.
The remaining agents didn't press the fight. One barked something Kael didn't catch, and they melted back into the crowd, leaving the shaped creatures behind.
Kael stood in the sudden stillness, chest heaving. The vial was still in his coat.
Ryn dropped from the roof, landing lightly beside him. Her eyes swept the carnage. "They weren't here to kill you."
"No," Kael said grimly. "They were here to test me. To see if I'd use it."
Her gaze flicked to the pouch on his chest. "And?"
"I didn't."
They moved fast, slipping away before the Guild could arrive. The city's bells had already begun to ring, warning of another beast incursion.
By the time they reached the tannery safehouse, Kael's adrenaline had faded enough for the ache in his ribs to settle in. He dropped into a chair, unwrapping the pouch just far enough to look at the vial.
The glow was stronger. Brighter. Almost eager.
Ryn watched him. "We can't keep carrying that around. It's pulling them to us."
Kael nodded slowly. "Then maybe it's time we stopped running from it… and started using it to hunt them."