novelraw Chapter 133: BLOOD AND CRAFT (2)
Chapter 133: BLOOD AND CRAFT (2)
[Basement]
Eight people.
Six beastfolk of a different type than Kira — different ears, different proportions, but the same immediate recognition of what Alex and Raven were in front of the unconscious guard.
One human woman.
One young boy — fifteen years old at most — with the eyes of someone who had been in an enclosed space for too long.
Alex looked at the boy.
*Too long in an enclosed space without knowing who you were before you were there.*
He filed it away.
"We’re getting you out," he said quietly to the group.
"Silently. There are more guards upstairs."
One of the beastfolk — the oldest, with the posture of someone who had become the group’s de facto leader without anyone asking him to — looked at Alex.
"Who are you?"
"People who would rather you not be here."
"Why?"
Alex looked at him.
"Because."
The beastfolk evaluated that.
"Enough."
---
[Second floor — Same moment]
Soren in the north room.
The physical safe: opened with a tool that wasn’t magic — simply the right tool for that kind of lock, which Soren carried in his inner pocket.
The level 50 rune lock: more time.
More delicate than the entrance one.
Soren worked with precision.
His scars glowing faintly with the active energy.
The rune gave way.
The safe opened.
Documents. Twelve folders with names, amounts, dates.
He took them all.
He placed a blank piece of paper in their place.
Soren had a sense of humor.
---
[Level One — 8:47 PM]
The basement group moving in a line — Raven ahead, Alex closing.
The oldest beastfolk in the center guiding the others.
The young boy behind Alex, following him with the attention of someone who had decided that this was the person to trust.
First corridor — clear.
Second corridor — one of the rotation guards.
Raven saw him before he saw them.
Signal to the group: stop.
The guard passed without looking into the side corridor.
They continued.
---
[Back entrance — 8:52 PM]
The group outside.
Soren waiting — he had come out thirty seconds earlier.
He looked at the group of eight with the expression of someone recalculating several aspects of the mission simultaneously.
"The contract was for the documents," he said.
"The documents are here," said Alex.
"There are also eight people who shouldn’t be here."
"Correct."
Soren looked at them.
Then he looked at the documents under his arm.
"There’s a place in the north district," he said finally.
"The Trade Guild has a transit house for exactly this situation." A pause.
"It wasn’t in the original contract."
"Does the Guild have a problem with that?"
"The Guild hired me because Oross was damaging their network of beastfolk contacts." Soren considered. "They probably don’t have a problem."
"Probably."
"Ninety‑five percent."
The oldest beastfolk watched the two of them with the attention of someone evaluating whether the discussion would have a favorable outcome.
"Are you taking us?" he asked.
Alex looked at Soren.
Soren looked at the group.
"This way."
---
[Guild Transit House — 9:15 PM]
The transit house manager was a small man with the expression of someone who had seen too much to be surprised by anything.
He looked at the group of eight.
He looked at Soren.
"Oross?"
"The debt documents will disappear tomorrow when the Guild processes them." Soren put the folders on the table.
"These people have fifteen days to relocate before Oross understands that the papers are gone."
The manager looked at the folders.
"How many of these are from the Guild?"
Soren pointed to four names.
The manager nodded.
"The other four are the Guild’s problem too, because existing as Oross’s problem already makes them part of our network."
Soren took the receipt that the manager extended to him.
"The Guild will pay."
The manager processed them one by one.
The young boy was last.
The manager looked at him.
"Family?"
The boy shook his head.
"Name?"
The boy said it quietly.
It was the first time Alex had heard him have a name.
---
[Exterior — 9:30 PM]
The three of them on the street.
Soren counting the Guild’s payment — which the manager had processed — more than the original contract, the adjustment for the recovered people included.
"The Guild is efficient," he said.
"Do they always pay the extra?" asked Alex.
"When the extra makes commercial sense for them." Soren put away the payment.
"Eight debt‑free beastfolk who owe a favor to the northern Trade Guild — that has value."
"Is everything a transaction?"
Soren looked at him.
"The work is. What you do with the work doesn’t have to be." A pause.
"You two didn’t do this for a transaction."
Alex didn’t answer.
Neither did Raven.
"That also has value," said Soren. "Different value."
---
They walked back to the artisan district.
Halfway there, Soren stopped in front of an open space — a small plaza, no traffic at that hour.
"Now for the real exchange I came to complete." He looked at Alex.
"Blood magic without the Fragment active. What you did with the guard was combat technique. This is something else."
Alex looked at him.
"Here?"
"The plaza has natural energy drainage — anything we practice disperses without accumulating." Soren extended his hand.
A thread of reddish energy appeared between his fingers.
"Your blood magic works in a straight line. Aggressive. That works for Blood Weapon."
The thread bent — curved, soft, following the contour of the air instead of cutting through it.
"This works for everything else."
Alex looked at the thread.
"How?"
"Blood has a natural flow. You don’t go toward it — you find it and follow it." Soren looked at him.
"Extend your energy. Without a target. Without direction. Just extend it."
Alex extended his hand.
[Blood Weapon — no defined target]
It came out in a straight line as always — the path of least resistance that his training had established.
"That," said Soren, "is what you shouldn’t do."
"Helpful."
"Again. This time, don’t think about where it’s going. Think about what’s around it."
Alex tried again.
It came out in a straight line.
"Again."
Raven from the side, observing.
"You need to let go of control before you can take a different kind of control. It’s counterintuitive."
"How did you learn it?"
"Badly. For months." Raven extended her own energy — reddish as always but with the curvature Soren described, following the perimeter of the plaza instead of cutting across it. "Then it became instinctive."
Alex watched Raven’s energy move.
He tried again.
It came out in a straight line.
Soren didn’t say anything. He waited.
He tried again.
This time... for one second, half a second, the energy hesitated before choosing a direction.
"There," said Soren. "That was different."
"It didn’t go anywhere."
"It doesn’t matter where it went. What matters is that it didn’t choose a direction immediately." He came closer. "Again, from that state."
---
They worked for an hour.
It wasn’t dramatic progress.
By the end of the hour, Alex could hold the energy without direction for three seconds before his combat training forced it into straight‑line mode.
Three seconds.
"What good are three seconds?" he asked.
"For nothing yet." Soren packed up his tools.
"For everything eventually." He looked at Raven.
"How long did it take you to reach ten seconds?"
"Four months."
"And after ten seconds?"
"The applications became obvious on their own." Raven looked at Alex.
"Fragment 3 and base blood magic enhance each other when the base is refined enough. Things I couldn’t do with one or the other, I can do with both together."
Alex processed that.
"Could Fragment 1 do the same?"
"Fragment 1 and blood magic share a root," said Soren.
"From what Raven told me about the original Harvester, he operated in soul flow, life flow, death flow — they’re flow systems. Blood magic is too." He packed up the last of his things.
"What you practice here and what the Fragment gives you are conversations about the same subject in different languages. Eventually, they translate."
Alex looked at his hands.
The energy already withdrawn — without direction, without target.
Just potential.
"How long is ’eventually’?"
"It depends on how much you practice." Soren stood up.
"And on how much you trust the flow instead of forcing it."
"Is that magic advice or general advice?"
Soren looked at him.
"Both."
---
[Veltharr — The Broken Rock — 11:00 PM]
The team was asleep when they returned.
Or pretending to sleep.
Alex sat on the edge of his bed in silence.
Grim from the corner: **"How did it go?"**
"The mission went well." Alex looked at his hands. "The other thing is taking longer."
**"Did you learn anything?"**
"That for months I’ve been forcing Blood Weapon in a straight line when I could be doing something else." A pause. "And that three seconds is nothing, but it’s also a beginning."
**"The beginning is enough for now."**
"Soren said the same thing."
**"He’s wise for a human."**
Alex lay back.
The ceiling of The Broken Rock.
Corruption stable at 76%.
Fragment 4 and Fragment 1 in their parallel conversations.
And three seconds of directionless energy that tomorrow he would try to turn into four.
**"Sleep,"** said Grim.
"Yeah."