Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMPH82DKS08B0K8A75BZDPA

The Veil Market bustled with activity — stalls overflowing with enchanted baubles, reclusive casters hawking their wares, and shadowy figures skulking in the alleyways. The air thrummed with an undercurrent of illicit energy. Detective Harlow Quinn stepped gingerly over cracked flagstones, her salt-and-pepper hair cropped close to her head. Her sharp, glacier-brown eyes swept over the crowd, taking in each detail with eerie precision. "Quinn!" a voice called out, drawing the detective's gaze upward. Detective Bridget Vance, her partner for this underground assignment, waved her over to a stall Shattered Bone Arts. "Over here, it's important." Quinn approached the stall and stopped dead in her tracks when Vance held up a small bone token that pulsed with an unsettling crimson glow. 'Blood-marked,' she thought to herself. 'Again.' "What do you make of this, Quinn? It's another one." Vance had a healthy stack of the marked tokens piled on the counter, along with an assortment of Shade-made wares - shades of black glass, obsidian jewels, and fragmented bones. Quinn leaned over the counter and studied the tokens, her slender fingers tapping the scarred wooden edge. "It aligns with my suspicion. Centre of activity seems to be a few blocks south near Shoreditch - flesh markets pops up like weeds." Next to her, Vance nodded, her red hair pulled back in a sloppy bun. She fishes out an envelope. "Noted, I've a few snitches in the area. That's the intel." While Vance was distracted, Quinn's eyes flashed back to the stall, noticing her relic on the display. She grabbedaton her speed and lifted it before anyone noticed her. The relic, a blood-stained Veil compass, pondered with crimson gleaming. She put it back to its place on the counter to hide her theft while waiting for Vance to notice. Quinn raised an eyebrow at the compass. "That's a Veil Compass, isn't it? I've only read about them. What's its provenance?" The stall keep brandished it in the air. "Ah yes, Miss Quinn. A true rarity it is. Taken from a Shade Diamond artisan himself. Forged from solid jade and imbued with protective sigils to deter demons. Can feel energy proper to track hidden dimension gateways." Quinn gave it a quick appraising once-over. "It doesn't look that old. Mind provenance? No SED or CLO stamp amid the Alodia War." The swordsman looked up. "Ah yes, warmonger piece o' function. Much perfection in my products, Miss Quinn. Shall buy if you want-" suddenly, he saw the police badge. "Uh, unneeded. Those are artifacts." "As expected." Detective Quinn nods terse to stall keep before turning back to estar for leaving. "Confirmed, we proceed?" Vance give a nod, a distrustful glare at the vendor for a moment before turning her attention back to Quinn. She fished out the other pieces of intel from the envelope and handed it to Quinn. "Those tokens connect directly back to the occult black market - logic suggests unrecorded crimes afoot. I'll dig into that tip. For now, a Magi Appeaser is a good guise to sneak past security."