The Dregs didn't just stink—they breathed. Every alley oozed the reek of rusted metal, stale piss, and something sharper, like burnt wires frying in oil. Kael's boots stuck to the sludge underfoot, each step peeling away with a wet shluck that made his teeth ache. He kept one hand pressed to his ribs, where the Shard's rot squirmed under his skin like worms. Gutter trotted beside him, her crystal fur dulled to the color of gutter mud. She'd started limping halfway through the Bone Market, but when he'd tried to leave her behind, she'd nipped his wrist hard enough to draw blood. Stubborn mutt.
They passed a shanty made from drone carcasses, its walls vibrating with the hum of illegal Oblivion coils. A kid—couldn't have been older than eight—scrambled out, clutching a dented soup can. His left arm was sheathed in jagged Shard-growths that sparked and hissed. Kael looked away. Last week, he'd seen a girl with a similar graft seize and melt into a puddle of black slurry. The Dregs chewed you up, but sometimes it spit you back wrong.
Gutter growled, low and rumbling. Up ahead, a flickering neon sign buzzed like an angry hornet: MAMA V'S REMEDIES. The clinic was a gutted cargo container, its walls streaked with oily rain. Kael's hand drifted to the toxin vial in his pocket—Mira's shopping list. Antiseptic coils. Neural suppressors. Live spores (clean). As if anything here was clean.
The door creaked open on broken hinges. Inside, the air tasted like copper and overcooked meat. A woman in a blood-stained smock knelt over a table, her hands moving quick and sure. The kid on the table couldn't have been more than ten. His chest was split open, ribs pried apart like a cracked egg. Where his heart should've been, a shard of Oblivion crystal pulsed, its edges fused to raw flesh.
"Hold still, sprat," the surgeon crooned. Her voice was smoke and gravel. "Gotta sync the resonance."
The boy whimpered, his fingers clawing at the metal table. Around them, other children sat chained to pipes—a girl with a geode wedged into her eye socket, a twin whose spine had been replaced with a barbed Shard tendril. Their faces were blank, like someone had scooped out their souls and left the shells.
Gutter's snarl split the air. The surgeon looked up, her goggles reflecting the sickly green light of the Shard graft. "Well, ain't you a pair," she said, wiping her hands on a rag that might've been white once. "Looking for a tune-up? I'll trade you a lung for that mutt's pelt."
Kael's venom stirred, hot and acidic in his veins. "Who's buying them?"
The woman laughed, a sound like glass breaking. "Who ain't? Inquisition pays top cred for fighters. Rest go to the Bazaar. Fancy folk like 'em decorative." She jerked her chin at the geode-eyed girl. "That one's got three bids already."
The girl stared through him, her remaining eye wide and empty.
Kael's hand moved before he'd decided. A whip of venom lashed out, melting the surgeon's bone saw mid-swing. She screamed, clutching her hand as Gutter lunged, her teeth sinking into the woman's wrist with a wet crunch.
"Run," Kael barked at the kids.
They didn't move.
The surgeon staggered back, blood dripping between her fingers. "You think you're saving 'em? They're dead already. Just meat for the grinder."
Kael hurled a spore vial at the wall. The explosion wasn't loud, but the green fire spread fast, eating through the drone-metal walls. The children finally scattered, their chains clattering like ghosts.
...
The ambush came in the old transit tunnels, where the air was thick enough to chew. Kael heard it first—a wet, gurgling breath that didn't match the drip of sludge. Then the smell hit: rotting flowers and gangrene.
"Don't… look…"
The voice was human. The thing it came from wasn't.
It oozed out of the shadows, a mass of melted flesh and jagged Shard shards. Eight human eyes bulged from its torso, each plucked from a different face. One still had smudged eyeliner.
"Kill me," it begged, the words bubbling through a lipless mouth. "Please."
Gutter lunged, but the thing's tendrils lashed out, Shard spikes glinting. Kael yanked her back, his venom surging. The creature recoiled, its eyes rolling wildly.
"They… promised ascension," it gurgled. A tendril tapped the Inquisition brand seared into its chest—a phoenix wrapped in chains. "Lied. Lied."
Kael's toxins shifted, crafting a counteragent. Neurotoxin for the limbs. Acid for the core. But the eyes…
"Who did this?"
The thing convulsed. "The… Choir."
It lunged. Kael's venom struck true, dissolving its core, but not before a spike grazed his thigh. The wound burned, wrong—a fever that wasn't his own.
Back in the refinery's guts, Mira didn't look up from her microscope. "You're late."
"Inquisition's making Mimics," Kael spat, tossing her the Shard spike.
She palmed it, her shard-eye flickering. "Not Mimics. Trials." Her voice tightened. "This Shard's a catalyst. Forces corruption to metastasize. They're not hunting Progenitors—they're farming them."
Gutter whined, nosing Kael's leg. The wound had festered, veins branching black.
Mira moved to his side, her scalpel gleaming. "The Choir's not just enforcers. They're gardeners. Plant a nightmare, reap a Shard."
Kael hissed as she dug out the infection. "Why?"
"Control." She held up the spike, its core pulsing like a rotten heart. "Every Progenitor born here roots their power deeper. And you—" She flicked the shard. "—are a weed. They'll pluck you."