News of Kael's reappearance, and his bizarre new 'employment' at Bellweather's Curiosities & Tomes, spread through Ironhaven's undercurrents like a shockwave. Commander Stern, upon receiving Elara's terse, almost unbelievable report, flew into a rage that rattled the windows of the Central Precinct. He dispatched a heavily armed Watch squadron to Seraphina's shop with orders to apprehend Kael, "by any means necessary."
The squadron, led by a grim-faced Captain who had been present at the Rust Heap Purification, approached Bellweather's with extreme trepidation. They found the shop seemingly ordinary, Kael calmly discussing arcane metallurgy with a hyper-focused Seraphina over a faintly glowing, multi-faceted crystal. When the Captain announced Kael was under arrest, Kael simply looked at him, his grey eyes holding that unnerving, placid depth.
"Detainment at this juncture," Kael stated, his voice calm but resonant, "would interrupt the critical stabilization of a Class-7 reality-warping artifact. The resultant energetic backlash could potentially unravel the structural integrity of this city block. Perhaps a rescheduled appointment would be more… prudent?" He then turned back to the crystal, making a minute adjustment to a containment rune Seraphina had hastily drawn.
The Captain, remembering the plasma bolt that had vanished before Kael's feet and the glassy plain where an army had ceased to exist, felt a cold sweat break out on his brow. He looked at the glowing crystal, at Seraphina's wide, almost fanatical eyes, at Kael's utter, terrifying calm. His comm-link crackled with Stern's furious demands for an update.
"Commander," the Captain reported back, his voice strained, "target is… currently engaged in activities deemed critical to prevent… uh… localized catastrophic elemental de-cohesion. Requesting clarification on 'any means necessary' when faced with potential… block-level disintegration."
Stern's apoplectic shouting on the other end was audible even without the comm. But the Captain, faced with the immediate, implied threat of Kael's casual pronouncement, made a field decision. He ordered his squadron to establish a perimeter around the shop, "to contain any… unforeseen energetic discharges," and reported back to Stern that the target was 'under observation' and 'temporarily unapproachable due to extreme hazardous material handling.'
Stern was incandescent with rage but stymied. He couldn't risk a city block, especially not based on the word of a laborer who might be bluffing – or who might genuinely be capable of unmaking it. Kael, without raising his voice or making a single threatening gesture, had once again brought the City Watch to a standstill. The artifice of the mundane consultant was proving remarkably effective.
Word of Kael's new "job" also reached Jax. He was still reeling from the Rust Heap, his days a blur of cheap ale and existential dread. But this… this was Kael doing something Kael-like, yet utterly baffling. He had to see it. Morbid curiosity, and perhaps a desperate need to see if Kael was still recognizably the Stone-face he knew, drove him to Bellweather's shop.
He found the street cordoned off by nervous Watch guards. Using his Sprawl-honed stealth, he slipped past the perimeter, finding a grimy alleyway with a loose grate that offered a muffled view into the back of Seraphina's shop.
He saw Kael, calm as ever, surrounded by glowing, pulsing, vaguely menacing artifacts, discussing their properties with an animated Seraphina as if they were discussing different types of scrap metal. Jax watched, dumbfounded, as Kael nonchalantly neutralized a spitting, crackling orb with a gesture, then advised Seraphina on reinforcing its warding circle with powdered moonstone and three drops of basilisk tears – ingredients Jax vaguely recognized from wanted posters for black market alchemists.
"He's… he's cataloging her junk," Jax muttered to himself in disbelief. "The god who unmade an army is now a magical antique appraiser." The sheer, mind-bending absurdity of it almost made him laugh, a broken, hysterical sound that he quickly stifled. This was Kael. Terrifyingly powerful, utterly unpredictable, and now, apparently, gainfully employed in the most bizarre way possible.
A new figure entered Jax's limited view – Elara Vane, looking stressed but resolute, conferring with Seraphina. Jax recognized the Lieutenant. She was clearly in on… whatever this was. The knight, the scholar, and the god-like scrap sorter. It was a combination that made Jax's head hurt. He decided to keep watching. This was better than any street show the Sprawl had to offer, and infinitely more terrifying.
Not everyone in Ironhaven was merely observing with fear or curiosity. In a hidden laboratory deep within the Alchemists' Quarter, a district notorious for its volatile experiments and eccentric, often dangerous, inhabitants, Master Alchemist Vorlag Krell fumed. Vorlag was a man of immense ego and ambition, renowned for his groundbreaking (and often ethically dubious) work in transmuting rare elements and creating potent, if unstable, elixirs. He had long coveted certain artifacts rumored to be in Seraphina Bellweather's possession – artifacts she had always refused to sell or even allow him to study.
He had also heard the whispers from the Rust Heap. A massive energy release. Unexplained geological formations. And now, the source of that power, this 'Kael', was holed up in Bellweather's shop, surrounded by the very relics Vorlag craved.
"Insolence!" Vorlag seethed, pacing his lab, which was filled with bubbling retorts, crackling arcane machinery, and cages containing strangely mutated creatures. "That bookish little shrew, Bellweather, hoarding treasures she doesn't understand! And now this… this laborer… dabbling with forces beyond his ken! He probably triggered the Rust Heap incident through sheer incompetence!"
Vorlag, like many powerful but conventional magic-users, dismissed anything outside established Aetheric theory as charlatanism or dangerous instability. He couldn't conceive of Kael's true nature. He saw only an anomaly, an obstacle, and now, an opportunity. If Kael could be… removed… and Bellweather intimidated… those artifacts could finally be his.
"He controls immense energy, Master Krell," his trembling assistant, a young apprentice named Pip, ventured. "The reports from the Watch… they speak of…"
"Exaggerations! Hysteria!" Vorlag boomed, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical light. "Untrained power is merely raw chaos! It can be contained, redirected, harnessed! I have faced down rogue elementals and bound chaos demons! This 'Kael' is merely an unrefined energy source. And I, Vorlag Krell, am the master of refinement!"
He began to gather components – rare earth elements, solidified Aetheric crystals, vials of volatile reagents. He was concocting one of his more… aggressive… creations: a Null-Field Resonator, designed to disrupt and destabilize concentrated energy sources, theoretically capable of depowering even a potent Mage or artifact. He believed that if he could strip Kael of whatever anomalous energy he wielded, the man himself would be nothing.
"Pip!" Vorlag barked. "Prepare the Golem servitors! We are paying Miss Bellweather… and her new consultant… a visit. It is time for a practical demonstration of true alchemical mastery!" Pip scurried off, his face pale with a mixture of fear and excitement. Vorlag Krell was not known for subtle house calls.
Inside Bellweather's shop, Kael paused in his examination of a pulsating, shadow-wreathed amulet. He tilted his head slightly, his calm grey eyes focused on something beyond the shop walls.
"A localized convergence of aggressive intent is approaching," he stated, his voice even. "Aetheric signature: Alchemically unstable, moderate power level, exhibiting patterns of… ego-driven overconfidence."
Seraphina, who was taking notes on Kael's assessment of the amulet (a 'Void-Bound Heart Shard, useful for anchoring trans-dimensional entities, currently leaking entropic energies'), looked up, alarmed. "Aggressive intent? Who?"
Elara, who had been observing Kael's methodical work with a mixture of awe and apprehension, tensed. "The Alchemists' Quarter is in that direction. Vorlag Krell?"
Kael nodded. "Designation: Vorlag Krell. Probability of attempted forced acquisition of artifacts: High. Probability of collateral damage due to unstable alchemical deployment: Significant."
"Vorlag," Seraphina breathed, her face paling. "He's been after my collection for years. He's ruthless. And powerful in his own… chaotic way."
"The Watch perimeter should deter him," Elara said, though doubt creased her brow. Vorlag Krell was notoriously arrogant and dismissive of Watch authority when it interfered with his 'research'.
"The Watch perimeter," Kael corrected calmly, "is composed of individuals experiencing significant psychological stress and operational hesitancy due to recent events. Their deterrent capability against a determined, ego-driven subject like Vorlag Krell is… suboptimal."
As if on cue, a series of loud crashes and shouts erupted from the street outside. The Watch guards' panicked yells were followed by the heavy, grinding footsteps of something large and metallic, and the distinct, sharp crackle of alchemical energy discharges.
Elara swore under her breath, drawing her sidearm. "He wouldn't dare! Not with an active Watch cordon!"
"Dare, Lieutenant?" Kael remarked, his attention returning to the Void-Bound Heart Shard. "Subject Krell's psychological profile indicates a high propensity for daring, particularly when fueled by perceived intellectual superiority and covetousness. He is currently… demonstrating that propensity."
The front door of Bellweather's Curiosities & Tomes exploded inwards in a shower of splintered wood and acrid green smoke. Standing in the ruined doorway, flanked by two towering, steam-belching Alchemical Golems crafted from mismatched metal plates and glowing arcane conduits, was Master Alchemist Vorlag Krell. His eyes burned with a wild, manic energy, his robes were smudged with chemical stains, and he held a complex, humming device in his hands – the Null-Field Resonator.
"Bellweather!" Vorlag boomed, his voice echoing through the shop, his gaze sweeping over the artifacts with greedy delight. "Your days of hoarding these treasures are over! And you," his eyes, like chips of obsidian, fixed on Kael, "you meddling laborer! Your dabbling in forces you don't understand ends now! Prepare to be… unenlightened!"
He raised the Null-Field Resonator, its coils beginning to glow with an angry, unstable light. The Alchemical Golems stomped forward, their metallic fists raised, ready to smash and grab.
Seraphina cried out, shrinking back. Elara raised her sidearm, shouting warnings that Vorlag completely ignored.
Kael simply looked at Vorlag, then at the humming device, then at the advancing Golems. He didn't move. He didn't speak. But the air around him grew incredibly cold, and the faint, ambient light in the shop seemed to dim, sucked towards him as if he were a miniature black hole.
The artifacts on the shelves around him, the ones he had been examining and stabilizing, began to resonate. The Xylossian Dream Shard pulsed with a deep blue light. The Void-Bound Heart Shard thrummed with intensified shadow. The multi-faceted crystal he'd been holding glowed with an internal fire. Not chaotically, but in a strange, focused harmony, as if responding to a silent conductor.
Vorlag Krell, blinded by his arrogance and the anticipated triumph of acquiring Seraphina's collection, failed to notice these subtle, terrifying shifts. He was about to learn, in a very personal and catastrophic way, the difference between 'unrefined energy' and the quiet, absolute power of an entity that considered universes its workshop.
From his hiding spot in the alley, Jax watched, his heart pounding in his chest. The fragile peace was shattered. Kael was about to be tested again. And Jax had a horrifying, gut-wrenching feeling that 'unenlightened' was going to be the least of the alchemist's problems.