The scent of fear always thickened the deeper one went into the Bazár Zverí ( The Baazar of Beasts) —iron, sweat, and desperation, seasoned with the tang of dying spells.

Dr. Imara Thalia Vex stalked through it like a surgeon through a battlefield, all sharp lines and flicking robes, her boots silent on the stone floor. Behind her trailed an orc—her most recent failure—his shoulders hunched, skin gray-green and clammy. He didn’t speak. He hadn’t since the ghoul vivisection.

Imara arrived at the Exchange Booth, jaw set.

The merchant looked up, hesitated, and swallowed visibly. “Ah, Dr. Vex... another return?”

“Yes,” she said, voice clipped. “He fainted. Again. Midway through an arterial split. Unacceptable.” She gestured curtly to the orc, who winced like a beaten dog.

The merchant scratched at his neck. “Well, uh... refunds on sentients come with conditions, you see, especially after—”

With a lazy flick of her wrist, Imara whispered a guttural phrase.

From the shadows behind her bloomed a wraith—gaunt, feminine, shrieking without breath. A banshee in agony, her hollow eyes locked onto the merchant’s. The air turned cold and damp as grave dirt.

The merchant immediately flung up his hands. “Double! Double your original price, madam! Please—please send her back!”

Imara rolled her eyes but clicked her fingers. The wraith dissipated with a final keening sob, leaving behind silence—and a wet patch at the merchant’s feet.

She held out her hand. “Gold.”

The bag of 1000 gold coins were shoved into her palm with trembling fingers.

“Now,” she said coolly, slipping them into her robes, “show me someone competent. I’m sick of coming down to this decrepit place underneath the city. Make this worth my time. I want someone strong who doesn’t scream at the sight of an exposed vertebrae.”

“Of course! Right this way. Fresh inventory just arrived—very fine stock! No riff-raff, I swear it!”

Imara walked in silence, her fingers still tingling with death energy. The merchant led her down a narrow, dim-lit aisle lined with iron-barred cages. She passed a Siren, muzzled in a tank, a sleep-chained minotaur, a dryad half-rooted in her own hair. None caught her interest. Too wild. Too pathetic. Too… soft.

The air in the auction vaults hung heavy with mildew and regret, thickened by the faint scent of blood and burned incense. The cries of chained beasts echoed from shadowed cages, muffled by bone-mesh bars and rune-etched stone. Dr. Imara Thalia Vex strode past the flickering lanterns, her cloak whispered like the breath of a crypt. The hem trailed the faintest smear of blood across the flagstones—one final gift from the trembling orc who she had returned moments ago.

And then—
She stopped.

Her eyes were drawn to the iron-barred cage at the end of the aisle. The tag nailed above it read:

Specimen 27A — Nosferata, Unclassified. Former Royalty. Caution: Light-Retained Bindings.
Status: Malnourished. Responsive to high-level psychic probes. Price: Negotiable.*

The cage was double-fortified, ringed with silver runes. Inside, slumped like a disgraced monarch on her stone bench, sat a woman.

No—a vampire.

Tall, towering even in repose. Jet-black hair clung to her gaunt cheeks. Her alabaster skin glowed faintly beneath the flickering torches, but her lips were a haunting blue, bloodless. Chains cuffed her wrists and ankles, glowing faintly with sunlight enchantments. Her eyes were closed, but even unconscious, she radiated danger.

A torn silk slip clung to her body, pale as moonlit ash, stretched taut over limbs too long for the space she was given. She sat unmoving, statuesque, bound by sun-forged shackles that hissed where they touched her flesh.

Imara drew closer and ran a hand over a blood-covered placard, the dried remains of an unfortunate keeper revealing more information on the beast within:

Celeste Virelith
Vampire Queen — Former Ruler of the Ebon Court
Apprehended during siege of Seraph Hollow.
Condition: Starved, magically restrained.
Bids begin at 2000 gold.

Imara clicked her tongue thoughtfully.

“...A queen,” she murmured. “No wonder she hasn’t withered to bones. She must be quite powerful despite her weakened state. Magic like that doesn’t rot easily.”

She tapped the cage with her knuckle. No response.

“Tell me,” she said to the merchant, “Does she bite?”

“Only if you let her drink,” the man said, nervous again. “We’ve kept her too weak to rise. You could cut her and she wouldn’t flinch.”

Imara’s green-blue eyes narrowed. “But can she watch someone be cut?”

The merchant blinked. “Pardon?”

Imara smiled faintly. “We’ll see.”