“Well, that is not a great way to die.” when faced with a pile of hardened melted flesh that reeked of a foul smell, Agent Hall covered his mouth and nose and said: “What the hell did this?”

“The melted flesh smells of poison, consistent with the residual poison used in the attack on the plant.” Pei knelt down on one knee and poked a metal needle into the pile of melted flesh, then sighed and said: “Looks like someone trying to deliver a message. Makes sense to me, because the forces that invaded the plant did try their best to conceal everything that was happening inside the plant to avoid facing reinforcements. But looks like this individual made it here to deliver the message but just not in time to be saved.”

“My first intuition was that this was the effect of a lycan pushing himself to the limit by literally burning their blood and spirit to temporarily block off the effects of poisons, curses and even sealing wounds to stop major wounds from bleeding. But if one is not in a good condition, then this will burn you alive, or in this case melt your entire body.” Alexander shook his head: “It’s not some high end trick, but it's not something one should try lightly. I tried it once, and my muscles became pudding and it took me three months to recover.”

“I see. So that’s where the explosive residual energy came from.” Pei nodded and stood straight up with Alexander’s help: “But anything weird about it?”

“Did you sense a curse from it?” Alexander ignored the weird looks Agent Manzene, Agent Hall and and Agent Jill gave him, the reason was quite simple: as a lycan working for the Division, his presence was not a common occurrence to anyone.

“Yes, but I just thought it was the - the blood boiling thing you just mentioned?” Pei looked at Alexander with her left eyebrow raised: “Was it not the case?”

“No. The trick does share some similarities with curses, but not like that, and it shouldn’t have burnt the entire body down like this.” Alexander said: “Now, I’m no expert with curses - but I kinda feel like this curse was meant - specifically for lycans. And it’s definitely not one of the common ones that are designed against lycans.”

“It’s definitely quite uncommon. I can’t tell anything obvious from the residual energy, and it could very well be because of the residual energy from this blood burning trick, but - ” Pei thought for a moment and said: “But at least from the initial sense of it, it’s new to me as well. But I am going to need a full energy signature to have a full conclusion.”

“Understood. Thank you.” Alexander let out a long exhale and said: “I’ll let my pack know that there might be a new curse against us and watch out for it, especially when dealing with people that are under the employments of Lucias Vyn and her cohorts. And … can we trouble you to figure out wards and cures for this curse when we are able to find some better samples?”

“Of course - just let me know.” Pei smiled: “Now, what’s the other thing you would like me to look at?”

“Please follow me.” Alexander moved past the melted flesh on the ground and walked down a flight of stairs leading to the cellars of the half collapsed room. Agents Hall, Jill and Manzene followed, and the minute they came into the staircase they encountered a smell consisting of sweat, medicinal herbs, charcoal and metal, and the air seemed to have grown thicker, making it harder for them to breathe.

The cellar was more spacious than all of the rooms in the house above combined, and it had an incomplete set of tools to prime and complete the finishing touches of weapons. In the corner of the room lay a giant metal bucket, inside which were many weapons that seemed to be either unfinished or ruined. There were also some agents in this cellar, and they were picking these weapons out one by one, labelling them, placing them in special cloths with shining linings and sealing them using specialized enchanted ribbons and wax.

“These are not semi finished products, these are products that are almost done, but somehow got ruined at the last moment.” Alexander showed Pei and her agents the weapons and said: “Now, lycans don’t typically use weapons like swords and pikes like some of the ones we have here, and I know that vampires aren’t very fond of swords either. So - these are not for the lycans and vampires only, it could be something meant for the general forces in the bigger alliance - but ...”

“But they don’t feel like weapons.” Pei frowned as she took a close look at a mace with spikes on its head, and with a grip that also had some small metal bumps on it, which would make it quite nasty to actually wield: “These are not enchanted like they’re weapons - they’re more like - ”

“Just some random magical tool?” Alexander asked: “That’s what I got from them.”

“I was going to say they feel like - like keys or lock picks, array breakers, even.” Pei said: “And apparently quite an intricate magical key, yet with these crude materials.”

“Iron?” Agent Manzene asked.

“Yes, iron.” Pei nodded at the agent handling the mace, signaling to him that he could wrap it and take it away: “Did you cleanse these weapons?”

“We sure did.” Alexander said: “You were busy over there, so I had to call in a disciple of Master Nameless to help us. He spent four hours here cleansing the cursed malice and dark energy of this cellar, and you just missed him.”

“Did he spend a lot of time on these weapons?” Pei asked.

“Seemed to be so. But he did not say what made these weapons the way they were. I didn’t have the heart to ask because he almost passed out.” Alexander asked: “What’s wrong?”

“We found some iron blocks coated in the Ointment of Mother and Child over there. And looks like we just found the place for the finishing touches. But it's strange that these are not actually weapons.”