Zobek Port, the Black Market.
In the dim, cramped slums, dilapidated buildings were stacked together in dense clusters. Beyond the main road, the gaps between structures were so narrow that a person had to turn sideways to squeeze through.
Gray houses had been thrown up haphazardly, their hollow windows staring at the sky like the misshapen eyes of some grotesque giant.
The relentless rain that had pounded the city for days had finally stopped. Cracks split open in the oppressive cloud cover, and rare sunlight spilled down across the earth.
Like a beast too long caged suddenly breaking free, the black market's streets surged with several times their usual crowd in an instant.
Shady figures of every skin tone and race crawled out from their dark corners, flooding toward the illicit stalls lining the roads like a tide.
At that moment, Orum was walking alone along the slum's filthy, waterlogged paths, glancing curiously at the bizarre stalls around him and the vendors bellowing their wares at the top of their lungs.
"Toad knob stew! Rich and savory, nourishes the yin and strengthens the yang! Only 3 copper coins a bowl!"
On one side of the street, a stout, thick-necked human vendor was working hard to drum up business. In the large iron pot propped before him, a nauseating green sludge churned and bubbled, countless pockets of gas bursting at the surface and casting off an eerie glow.
A powerful, fishy stench rolled outward, assaulting the nose of every passerby. Strangely, though, the revolting smell somehow stimulated the salivary glands, involuntarily stirring the appetite of anyone who walked past.
Still, Orum had absolutely no intention of touching this particular "clean and hygienic" delicacy. Even with the poison resistance granted by his bugbear shaman's magical liver, the sheer appearance of it was enough to make swallowing impossible.
"Secondhand swords, going cheap! All personally used by adventurers, in excellent condition! Prices negotiable!"
Not far from the toad stew stall, a grimy dwarf with wild, matted gray hair was hollering at the top of his lungs.
Spread across a tattered cloth before him lay more than a dozen swords and pieces of armor, but what drew the eye most was the large quantity of blood staining every single piece, fresh enough to gleam a vivid crimson in the sunlight.
The blood soaking those blades and pieces of gear looked suspiciously recent, and it was hard not to wonder whether the weapons had simply been stripped from some unfortunate adventurer moments ago.
"Hey, these weapons of yours," Orum stepped up to the stall and asked without any hesitation, "you didn't just kill someone and rob them, did you?"
"Heh heh, what a sense of humor you have, friend! We're honest merchants running a legitimate business!" The gray dwarf grinned, flashing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and denied it with zero conviction.
Then, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone, he leaned in toward Orum.
"The way I see it, a person of your bearing must be someone of considerable means. If the stock I have on display isn't quite to your liking, just say the word and I'll go and source something fresher."
As he spoke, the dwarf's hand drifted toward the knife handle at his lower back, and his eyes, more white than iris, swept back and forth across the other passersby like a viper's, as though he might lunge at someone and commit a crime at any moment.
"You're doing made-to-order, on the spot?!" Orum was utterly stunned by the dwarf's sheer audacity.
He had long heard that Zobek Port was a lawless place plagued by chaos, but he hadn't imagined it had sunk to quite this level. This was open, brazen robbery and murder.
The dwarf's mystery shop.
"Generous offer, but I'm not in the market for equipment right now."
Under the dwarf's disappointed gaze, Orum waved him off and moved on to the next stall.
"Young man, I can tell you have extraordinary bones and rare natural talent. This combat technique manual was meant for you. Today, I'm selling it to you alone for 20 silver coins! Opportunity like this won't come twice!"
"Give me a break. Could it be any more obvious?" Just hearing the pitch was enough to leave Orum speechless.
In the kingdom's markets, combat technique manuals were anything but scarce. If anything, they were flooding the shelves, because at least nine out of ten were cheap, shoddily produced fakes.
Training with a fabricated, low-quality manual, even for a hundred years, would never produce a genuine technique. It was nothing but wasted effort.
A truly valuable combat manual could only be produced by a martial master who had practiced the corresponding technique to the level of mastery or beyond. Such masters had to pour their heart and intent into the work, making it a precious inheritance capable of guiding those who came after.
Reading one of these authentic manuals could meaningfully accelerate a practitioner's comprehension of the technique, while an ordinary copied volume offered no such benefit.
The copy of "Combat Scroll: Path of the Military Blade" that Orum carried was exactly that kind of rare, authentic manual.
Watching the crowd gathering before the fraud's stall grow larger by the minute, with what seemed like a genuine number of adventurers drawn in by the "20 silver coin" price tag, Orum couldn't help but shake his head.
Were there really that many fools out there? People were actually buying it.
What he didn't expect was that this still wasn't the most outrageous stall in sight.
What came next was even more staggering.
A booming voice, as if amplified through a horn, carried toward him from up ahead.
"Healing potions, massive sale! Swiftness tonics, rock-bottom prices! Hill giant elixir, selling at a loss! One gold coin a bottle! Everything one gold coin! No cheating, double your money back if it's fake! Buy today or the price goes up tomorrow!"
The stall ahead was packed with hundreds of potion vials of every shape and size: blood-red healing potions, silver-white oil of speed, brownish-yellow hill giant elixir...
At first glance, each one looked virtually identical to the premium potions sold in legitimate magical apothecaries, but a closer look revealed subtle differences in their coloring.
Staring at the shameless vendor before him, Orum could scarcely believe his eyes.
"A hill giant elixir that costs 300 gold coins in a magic potion shop, and you're selling it for one gold?"
"Is this a liquidation sale that ends in broken bones?"
Watching the black market vendors displaying their talents in endless variety, each more inventive than the last, Orum found himself developing a genuine sense of respect for Zobek's black market in his heart.
Every single one of them was a sales genius.
At that moment, a commotion not far ahead caught Orum's attention.
A sharp metallic crack split the air as a middle-aged man with a tall frame and viper-cold eyes slammed a dagger into the wooden table of a nearby stall, the blade burying itself deep into the surface.
"My coin purse was stolen right in front of your damned stall!" The man's voice was thick with fury and killing intent. "You deliberately struck up a conversation with me to distract me, and now you have the nerve to act like you don't know anything?!"
"I run an honest business. Why would I bother stealing your few measly coins? Go find your pickpocket somewhere else.
Don't interfere with my trade." The stall owner, a gaunt-faced elder with gray-white hair, replied in a voice cold enough to cut, without a trace of willingness to back down.
Noticing that the stall owner's gaze fell on the dagger without a flicker of fear, the sharp-eyed man grew even more furious, his face twisting into something savage. "Old man, hand over the thief right now! You two are definitely working together!"
"Give me back my money, or I swear I'll skin you alive today!"
At that very instant, Orum watched as the stall owner's wizened, bony arm suddenly seized the thick, spiked club resting at the edge of the table.
A dull, thunderous crack exploded through the air, followed immediately by the crisp, clean sound of shattering bone.
The sharp-eyed man's body was flung backward like a kite with its string cut, tracing a bloody arc through the air. Crimson blood bloomed outward like flower petals, spattering the ground and walls on all sides.
"Since you don't know when to quit, die!" The lean, elderly stall owner let out a bestial roar, advancing with the blood-soaked club in hand. He glanced down and confirmed the man had stopped breathing, then hawked a thick gob of spit onto the corpse.
What followed was a succession of blows, each landing with the revolting sound of flesh and blood scattering, until the sharp-eyed man's face had been beaten into an unrecognizable mass of pulp.
Noticing the growing crowd of onlookers gathering around him, the stall owner cursed loudly about the bad luck of it all, packed up his stall, then slipped into the labyrinthine alleyways of the slum with the agility of an old rat, his silhouette swallowed by the street corner in moments.
Less than half a minute after he disappeared, another vendor moved swiftly to claim the blood-soaked spot in the busy stretch of road and began hawking skewered roast rat.
The passersby showed no trace of panic or horror at the blood-drenched corpse. If anything, they looked excited, descending on the body like starving wolves, stripping it of anything useful — clothing, odds and ends, a leather purse, a belt — until nothing of value remained.
Two minutes later, the atmosphere turned suddenly quiet.
Several figures in black hooded cloaks appeared at the far end of the street. Like the prow of a great ship parting water, they divided the crowd, dragged away the stripped, faceless corpse, and left behind nothing but a dark smear of blood mixed into the filth of the road.
A street murder and all the chaos it brought ended just as quietly as it had begun. The onlookers had long since returned to their respective normal lives, as if they had done nothing more than watch a clown put on a mediocre performance by the roadside.
Having witnessed the entire thing, Orum gained yet another deep appreciation for the dangers of Zobek's black market. Violent killers lurked around every corner — it was just as wicked as Dorian's bandit gang had been.
Felix had been right. To walk through the black market, one had to carry a weapon, or risk being torn apart by the wolves.
Fortunately, strapped to Orum's back at that very moment was a halberd wrapped tightly in thick purple satin embroidered with golden thread.
This was the flamesforged weapon that the golden dwarf smith, Master Thorin, had poured everything into crafting for him.
The halberd was two meters long and weighed 390 kilograms. Its head was composed of three sections: on one side, a broad axe blade for chopping, curved to maximize force and cutting efficiency; on the other, a sharp hooked spike for sweeping strikes capable of punching through enemy armor, or of dragging a rider clean off a mount; and at the center, a long triangular pyramidal spear tip serving as the primary method of attack, capable of punching through vital points with ease, designed for kills in a single strike.
Beyond the halberd itself, Master Thorin had also used the remaining precious flamesforged material to craft a set of supplementary weapons for Orum: a single-handed longsword as black as midnight and sharp enough to cleave iron, along with a small, sturdy arm shield.
In open terrain or out in the field, the devastatingly powerful flamesforged halberd was without question the superior choice, capable of unleashing catastrophic, overwhelming force.
But in the tight confines of a dungeon, a cave, or an enclosed room, the halberd's length became a liability. In those situations, the sword-and-shield combination offered far greater advantage: unhindered by walls or low ceilings, while still providing sufficient offense and defense.
Earlier, when the Ice Hawks Company's carriage had arrived at Zobek's black market, Felix had laid out a plan and divided them into separate groups.
Felix had received word that the black market happened to be holding an auction that day, with a number of rare treasures among the lots. Intending to investigate the auction floor personally, he brought the seasoned priest Ronald along as his assistant.
Melina needed to purchase a complete professional rogue's toolkit suited for dungeon exploration. Given that her mental state was still somewhat unstable, the vice-captain Raygore was assigned to accompany her to prevent any accidents.
Orum had volunteered to spend some time exploring freely on his own and received Felix's approval.
Watching Orum's lone figure recede into the distance, Melina couldn't quite suppress her concern.
"Is it really alright for Orum to be exploring a dangerous place like this alone? What if something goes wrong?"
Felix's eyes followed Orum's retreating back as well, though his gaze settled on the flamesforged halberd strapped behind him, wrapped in heavy silk and radiating a quiet, barely contained killing aura.
Felix shook his head slightly and murmured in a reassuring tone.
"Melina, you don't need to worry about him. Orum is very possibly the most dangerous person on our team."
"You remember the moves he used when he stopped you the day you two met, don't you?"
"The danger should be afraid of him."
---
After a full hour and a half of wandering.
Orum had covered the better part of the black market's hidden corners, taking in countless bizarre contraband goods and a colorful assortment of suspicious characters.
At last, he came to a stop before a mysterious street stall radiating a faint, strange magical luminescence.
On a worn strip of linen, the stall's owner had laid out more than a hundred different types of spellcasting components in neat rows: translucent crystals in various hues, diamond dust, bat eyeballs, mistletoe branches, a shard of tortoiseshell, a jar of locust hindlegs...
Casting a complex spell required at least two of three "spell components": verbal, somatic, and material.
The verbal component functioned like an incantation, specific words or sounds spoken aloud that formed part of an ancient magical language, guiding the flow of magical energy. If one's mouth was sealed or affected by a Silence effect, it would interfere with casting, and a deaf caster also had a chance of failing to complete the verbal component.
The somatic component consisted of specific gestures or movements made with the hands or body, precise actions tied directly to the spell's effect, such as pointing at a target to cast Lightning Bolt. Any spell with a somatic component required the caster to have at least one hand free.
The material component referred to certain physical substances or objects required during casting. They could be common, like a feather for Feather Fall, or rare, like a diamond for Raise Dead. Unless a spell's description explicitly stated that the material was consumed, these components could be reused.
For this reason, many casters used component pouches or spellcasting focuses to substitute for most material components, with the exception of those with a specified monetary value.
There was also a simpler approach: using a spellcasting implement, or arcane focus, to bypass the requirement for spell components entirely.
The ceremonial longsword that Felix carried with him was one such special focus, useful both for close combat and as a spellcasting aid — an all-around weapon of offense and defense.
To make casting Summon Familiar easier, Orum had also acquired a small, low-tier arcane focus: a necklace centered on a crystal core. It was easy to wear around the neck at all times, unobtrusive and always at hand.
In most circumstances, spellcasting materials remained indispensable for any caster. Whether researching new theories of magic or conducting actual magical experiments, a mage's studies and training consumed large quantities of different components on a continuous basis.
After searching through the stall's seemingly well-stocked selection, Orum found no materials related to necromancy.
That was hardly surprising. Necromancers, much like cultists, were a group the kingdom's government aggressively hunted down. There was no chance anyone would conduct that kind of trade openly in broad daylight.
The vendor running this spellcasting component stall was a typical tiefling: skin the vivid red of flame, a pair of jet-black demonic horns rising from his head, with sharp, prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks lending his features a look of calculating severity.
That face, naturally radiating a crafty, wily energy from birth, reminded Orum of Ferrak, the bandit he'd encountered before who had also been a tiefling.
"Hey, none of the materials on your stall are what I'm looking for. Got anything else in the back?" Orum asked, keeping his tone casual.
"Oh? Does our esteemed guest have something more specific in mind?"
At Orum's words, the tiefling stall owner looked up immediately. Those amber eyes of his, burning like twin flames, gleamed with sharp, calculating light.
He swept a blade-keen gaze over Orum from head to toe, as if sizing up the identity and strength of the young man standing before him.
A moment later, a fawning smile broke across the tiefling's face and he bowed his head respectfully.
"Esteemed sir, please, just tell me what you need. I am Zak, and I keep a wide and varied private stock. I am certain I can satisfy your requirements."
"I'm looking for..." Orum leaned in slightly, dropping his voice low enough that only the two of them could hear: "Black coral branch, wailing skull, wight skin, or ghoul leg bone. Any one of those will do."
Thud.
Zak's eyes went wide.
He knew exactly what those four materials were.
Every single one of them was a spellcasting component for necromancy.
Zak looked again at the young man before him, handsome-featured and well-built, a long polearm strapped to his back. The expression in his eyes grew almost impossibly complicated.
He never would have thought that a young adventurer with such an open, upright face could also harbor an interest in becoming a necromancer.
"Ah, I see. So our esteemed guest is indeed a valued customer with... those particular inclinations." Zak lowered his voice and let a smile spread across his face, professional and devilish in equal measure. "The rare goods you require are in my private storehouse. Please, follow me."
With that, Zak gave a slightly exaggerated merchant's bow, then turned and headed deeper into the alley.
Before leaving, Zak exchanged a glance with the neighboring stall owner, a human trader obviously running an equally illegal operation who had clearly known Zak for some time. The man immediately understood without a word being said and moved to keep watch over Zak's stall in his absence.
Following the tiefling Zak into the deep, narrow alley, they turned through more twists and corners than Orum could count before finally arriving in front of a somewhat larger building.
Zak pushed the door open and stepped inside. Orum followed close behind.
The moment Orum crossed the threshold, the door was slammed shut and bolted by someone behind him.
Orum's eyes swept the room with a cool, measured calm. Eight adult tiefling males occupied every corner of the space.
At that moment, all of them had the raw, feral gleam of predators in their eyes, and every one of them held a blade in hand, the edges glinting in the candlelight with a cold, metallic sheen.
A thick, heavy smell of blood saturated the entire room, as though violence and slaughter had been carried out here regularly. These tieflings were no innocent men.
"Esteemed guest, now please be cooperative. Put down all your weapons, then hand over your coin purse and any other valuables."
Zak had now completely shed the fawning merchant's mask he'd worn before, and in its place was the predatory, menacing face that came with his hellish bloodline.
"If you can see fit to cooperate, we can all end this with a little dignity."
He backed up slowly to a safe distance, drew a gleaming curved blade from behind his waist, then dragged his tongue slowly along the flat of the steel. A grotesquely exaggerated, twisted grin spread across his face.
"Otherwise, you leave here in a body bag."
Yet the young man caught inside the trap showed absolutely none of the shock, despair, or panic a normal person would display.
On the contrary, the corners of his mouth curved slightly upward, as if he was smiling.
"So the old saying about the black market is true after all. Walk in with a coin purse, walk out soaked in blood."
Orum swept a calm gaze over the eight armed tiefling killers surrounding him and the now fully unmasked Zak standing directly ahead, and let out a quiet, unhurried sigh.
I came here willing to deal with you as an ordinary customer, on equal terms. I didn't expect to be repaid with betrayal and a knife at my back.
Fine. No more pretending. Cards on the table.
Orum's right hand reached slowly behind him, and his fingers wrapped firmly around the jet-black hilt of the flamesforged halberd.
That single, simple motion was enough to make the air inside the room crackle with murderous intent.
"He's going for his weapon! Everyone, move! Kill him!" Seeing the boy's movement, Zak's pupils jolted and he let out a furious shout.
In an instant, eight battle-hardened tiefling killers surged toward Orum at the center like starving wolves closing in for the kill.
In the very same instant that all eight tieflings raised their blades and lunged.
Orum unhurriedly unbound the thick purple satin embroidered with golden thread, raised the black halberd, and the full length of it surged forward like a coiled dragon about to strike. His legs settled into a low, ready stance.
In his mind, he spoke the words quietly.
"Blade Dance."
It was as if the entire world lost its sound and color.
In that instant, everything within his field of vision seemed to fall into an eerie, total stillness.
The passage of time appeared to slow, even the motes of dust drifting in the air seemingly frozen mid-flight.
Countless shadows of the halberd materialized out of nowhere throughout the entire room, filling the space like a chorus of death-god's scythes in full sweep, overwhelming and everywhere at once.
The shadows were dense, dizzying in their sheer number, and each one carried within it the terrifying power to cleave mountains and shatter stone.
In that moment, those eight tiefling killers who had charged with such ferocious momentum became nothing more than insects blundering into death's own domain. Their figures were swallowed instantly by the tidal flood of halberd shadows.
Their heads, their chests, their arms, their torsos, their thighs... every part of every body, the instant it came into contact with one of those shadows, proved as fragile as rotted wood, and was effortlessly cut apart into countless pieces.
The slaughter was over before it had truly begun.
When the halberd shadows dissolved and stillness returned to the room, all eight killers who had been alive and surging forward moments before had been reduced to scattered fragments of flesh and blood.
In the wreckage of that hall, carnage spread across every inch of the floor, the scene more reminiscent of hell than anywhere on earth.
Zak's courage had shattered entirely. His body lost all its strength at once, and he crumpled to the ground as if his bones had dissolved, legs shaking violently as he scrambled backward, releasing sounds from his throat that were barely human.
"A demon... a demon!"
How could a young man that age kill eight of his tiefling brothers in a single instant?!
He had to be some terrible demon wearing human skin!
"Ahhhh!"
With a horrified, piercing shriek, Zak felt an iron grip close around his neck, and the next moment his entire body was lifted effortlessly into the air.
"Do you have the goods or not? Hand them over."
Orum's voice was cold enough to freeze the soul, like ten-thousand-year ice from the furthest pole, locking Zak's entire being in place.
At the same time, Orum's hand began to gradually tighten its grip. The groan of neck bones on the verge of snapping tore straight through Zak's skull, and the shadow of death closing in nearly drove him out of his mind on the spot.
"Yes! Yes, I do!"
In the last moment before his neck would have been crushed, Zak strained every last bit of strength he had left, forcing a thin thread of voice up through a throat that felt nearly flat.
Orum released him abruptly. Zak dropped like a sack of grain, hitting the blood-soaked floor with a heavy thud, both hands flying to his nearly destroyed throat as he gulped down great heaving breaths of precious air.
But before he could fully recover, a boot drove hard into his ribs, and the force launched him skidding several meters across the floor.
"Stop stalling." There was a clear note of impatience in Orum's voice.
"Yes, yes, right away!"
Zak forced himself upright through the agony screaming through his entire body, scrambling on all fours toward a hidden corner in the depths of the room. Ignoring his injuries, he tore through crates and shelves in a frantic, manic search.
Two minutes later, Zak returned to stand before Orum, both hands trembling as he held out a small black wooden box.
He presented it with the reverence of a pilgrim offering tribute to a god, terrified that any imperfection in his manner might provoke the fearsome killing god before him once more.
Orum opened the box. Inside, resting quietly, was a strange piece of coral roughly the size of an adult's middle finger joint.
The black coral branch was about seven to eight centimeters long, its entire length a deep, lightless black, yet its surface caught the light with a cold, moonlit silver sheen.
The surface of the branch was covered with raised veins like blood vessels and structural patterns that resembled the texture of bone.
When Orum reached out and touched it, an icy chill spread instantly from his fingertips through his entire body, as if he were running his hand along the skeletal remains of an ancient corpse.
The branch also gave off a deeply peculiar odor, somewhere between the damp coldness of grave soil and the moldering stench of rotted wood. Breathing it for too long left a dry, tight feeling in the throat.
"This is the real thing, a genuine black coral branch." After a careful examination, Orum's expression settled into satisfaction. "Matches every characteristic Skull Sis described, exactly."
With that, Orum sealed the black coral branch carefully inside a specially made iron container designed to block any emanating aura, then tucked it away in his pocket.
He then turned back to Zak and extended his hand. Under the man's gaze, wide with dread and hopelessness, Orum gripped him by the neck and gave a single, clean twist.
A crisp crack sounded. Zak's body hit the floor.
They were still within human society, after all. Walking around with too much obvious blood on his clothes would inevitably draw unwanted attention and trouble.
That was precisely the reasoning behind his approach during the Blade Dance moments before: Orum had made a deliberate choice to detonate all eight tieflings at a distance. Even with their bodies torn completely apart, the blood spatter had never reached his clothing.
With Zak dead, Orum turned and walked out of the building without a backward glance.
He had no interest in dealing with the bodies of Zak and the other tieflings, nor in picking through the scattered loot.
Lingering too long in this part of the slums, with so many eyes around, was an invitation for larger problems.
Just as Orum was thinking of browsing a little longer, picking up a few interesting trinkets, and then heading back to meet with his teammates, a nondescript stall at the far end of the road caught his eye.
The stall's owner was a gaunt, elderly woman who appeared somewhat dazed or simpleminded, though no one was giving her any trouble. In the black market, the older someone was, the more dangerous they tended to be.
This stall had none of the blood-crusted weapons and armor, none of the mystery-meat street food, none of the dubious magical items. It had only one thing: a rusted black iron cage.
Locked inside the cage was a pale-skinned, brown-haired young woman with not a stitch of clothing on her.
Her gaze was blank and hollow, and she showed no awareness whatsoever of her own state, simply crouching in the corner of the cage in a posture that seemed somehow suppressed and withdrawn.
"A slave sale?"
Orum looked on with curiosity.
In this era, keeping slaves was extremely common practice among wealthy nobles and merchants, and the prices differed considerably by race. The rarest and most prized elven slaves, once fully trained, could fetch prices in the tens of thousands of gold coins at auction.
Carrying a full thousand gold coins on his person at that moment, Orum could reasonably consider himself a man of modest means.
Purchasing a few young and attractive dragonborn maids to warm his bed and enjoy a life of feudal indulgence wasn't entirely out of the question.
First, though, he would need to acquire a place of his own. The small room at the Oak Inn was already a little cramped; it clearly wouldn't fit that many people.
While Orum was thinking this through in earnest, his pupils suddenly gave the tiniest tremor.
He had the abrupt, jarring sensation that this brown-haired girl in the cage, youthful-faced with just a hint of baby fat still in her cheeks, was someone he had seen before.
"An... na?"
Orum breathed the name aloud from somewhere in his memory, staring in disbelief at the young woman being kept like livestock.
It was unmistakably the female cleric from the Shield of the Mountains.
But hadn't their party been wiped out?
How was she here?
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~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones