Once the two women were out of sight, Liam and Kael searched for anything still in one piece. Nothing of interest stuck out to either of them in the dining room. From there, they traipsed over the charred body and into the kitchen. Both of them grimaced at the size of the room.

“This is bigger than my entire apartment…” Liam muttered.

“Yeah, well, that’s probably even bigger than my room at our headquarters,” Kael retorted.

Finding nothing useful in the kitchen, they moved on through the next doorway into a sitting room adjacent to the dining room. Unsurprisingly, all of the furniture had been reduced to a handful of ash heaps. Even so, they scanned the room for anything worthwhile before moving on to the main hall again. After a half-hour or so without finding anything, Kael stepped around the back of the crumbling heap of ash that once comprised a grand staircase. Immediately, his eyes lit up and he called out to Liam.

“Hey, I think I found something!”

Setting down a piece of broken pottery that briefly caught his interest due to a strange design, Liam proceeded toward the back of the stairway. As soon as he reached Kael, the man pointed at a barely visible corner of metal in the ground. Brows furrowed in curiosity, Liam began brushing away debris with his foot. The two of them made quick work of the rubble until they revealed a double trap door which obviously used to remain hidden below the now charred tiling.

Without further ado, each of them grabbed a handle of the two doors and hoisted them open. The hinges groaned in response until the ones connected to Liam’s side snapped from the tension. Briefly, he stumbled a few steps backward with the metal door still in hand. He sighed and dropped it. As it clanged against the ground, Liam stepped back to the opening they revealed. Kael glanced at him with an amused grin before returning his attention to the stone stairwell in the rectangular opening which likely led to some sort of basement.

“Smells musty, don’t it?” Kael noted.

“A little,” Liam agreed while descending the first few steps. Kael shrugged and followed.

Once fully below ground, Liam snapped his fingers. A small spark shimmered into existence and ignited a small red-orange flame on his fingertip; a useful trick he figured out by accident during one of his evenings out with the Direwolves. It only generated about as much light as a candle, but it worked.

“That’s a useful skill,” Kael said.

“Maybe, but I originally got it thinking it would be useful for combat,” Liam replied.

“Oh. Uh… well, at least you can use it for something, then.”

“Yeah…”

Moments later, they reached a wooden doorway locked with a rusty padlock. Without hesitation, Liam lifted a leg and smashed down on it with the heel of his boot, instantly shattering the weakened metal. The door creaked open to reveal a cellar no larger than the average bedroom. A fist-sized chunk of glowing yellow stone sat in a fixture jutting out from the far wall. It illuminated the room with an eerie glow. Mold coated the stone walls and a thin layer of stagnant water covered the floor. The musty stench caused both of them to shrivel their nostrils in disgust. Two stone tables stood against the wall to the right, the closer one measuring at least twice the length of the further one. All kinds of strange and unfamiliar items topped the nearest table, but the glass-topped display case resting atop the second table caught Liam’s attention more. Sloshing through the stagnant layer of water, the two men approached it.

“A bow?” Liam muttered to himself. Below the glass, a black bow with a single green stripe running along the face of the upper and lower limbs rested within a perfectly shaped indentation coated with maroon fabric. A quiver full of black arrows with black and yellow fletching lay below it and a small glass case beside it held the bowstring.

“This… this is an Everyew bow…” Kael muttered, his tone laced with amazement.

“And that is?”

Raising his brows in surprise, Kael looked at Liam like he was crazy and asked, “You’ve never heard of Everyew?”

“Nah. I don’t get out much.”

“Uh, okay, I guess. Basically, it’s a tree that went extinct long ago, but sometimes items are found that were made from its wood.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, like this. Never dies. Never rots. Bows made from it are especially coveted.”

“Then what’s it doing hidden in a cellar like this?” Liam wondered aloud.

“Who knows? Anyway, I assume it belongs to our clients family, so we’d probably end up with a blood curse if we took it. May as well give it to her. How’s about you grab it while I look at the stuff on the other table?”

Blood curse? The hell is that? Liam thought. Setting aside the worrisome topic, for the time being, he answered, “No problem.”

Within moments, the bow rested in his palm. Turning it over in his hand, he couldn’t believe how perfect its weight distribution felt. While admiring it, Kael muttered, “Holy shit… This is scary stuff right here…”

“What?”

“This stuff right here.” Kael pointed at a pouch he just opened. “This here is definitely viper needle.” He pointed at another pouch. “This one has hell-pit grass in it. Some of these I don’t recognize, but this level of poison is complete overkill. People used to use this stuff to kill dragons back in the day…”

“None of it rotted?”

“No. Pretty sure the pouches and containers have preservation enchantments or something, but I’m no expert on that kinda stuff. I’ll ask Cairnech about it later.”

“What about the other things on the table?” Liam asked.

“I’m not an almanac, man. This other stuff is beyond me… except this one.” Kael picked up a small crystal orb. A purple haze floated within. “Pretty sure this stuff turns different colors when danger is nearby or something. The boss used to have one when I first joined until it got stolen.”

“Sounds useful,” Liam said, though he glanced at his shadow. Most likely, Scath would do just as good a job at scouting out danger, if not better.

“We’ll just have to grab whatever looks important for now, I suppose.”

Pursing his lips, Liam thought, I should have removed those weapons from my inventory beforehand. Despite his regret, he grabbed what he could carry, including the bow, the quiver, and the bowstring. Kael grabbed the largest wooden box that had not deteriorated and stuffed as many of the pouches as possible into it. However, he purposely left out the poisonous herbs from before. He did grab several of the items on the table, though. As soon as he felt content with his work, he nodded and wandered back toward the stairway. Liam nearly followed, but then looked back at the glowing stone.

“One moment,” he said as he turned around and pulled it from the sconce-like prong.

“Oh, good idea. Those are worth quite a bit,” Kael said before beginning his ascent.

Once more, Liam began following, but his eyes landed on the two bowling-ball sized pouches on the table. He briefly glanced at the stairwell. Kael’s feet were already out of sight. Shrugging, he tossed one into his inventory and the other in his travel pack before heading upstairs again.

* * * * *

During Liam and Kael’s basement excursion, Nora followed a distraught Iloryn up a stairway to an area of the upper floors that somehow avoided a most of the damage. The elven woman rounded a corner of a hallway decorated with an ornate rug as well as several paintings and shelves of pottery and slowly approach a doorway at the other end. Although not completely sure of their location, Nora assumed the door led to a room at the rear end of the mansion.

When Iloryn reached the door, she halted for several unbearably long seconds. Honestly, Nora almost thought the woman fell under a petrification curse until she finally reached for the handle. The door slowly opened. In fact, Nora figured this was the slowest she had ever seen a person open a door.

Eventually, the woman walked through into what, most likely, served as a large bedroom until a few hours ago. Nora grimaced upon seeing half the room collapsed, exposing it to the elements. Down below, in a twisted heap of debris, the remains of an extraordinarily large bed smoldered on the dirt. Iloryn simply stood on the edge of the remaining floor, staring blankly at it.

At first, Nora hesitated to approach her since the floor groaned beneath her weight with each step. However, she knew she could not just wait there all day. After all, this was basically the reason she asked Liam if they could come down to the city. Some part of her knew the situation would end up like this. After carefully treading close enough to her, Nora called out, “Iloryn.”

No response.

“Hey, Iloryn.”

Grimacing, she observed Iloryn’s pale and vacant face. The elven woman’s jade eyes lacked the excited shine like when she cast bets on the fights between mercenaries. Following her lusterless gaze, Nora eyed the debris. A single charred hand poked out from the rubble. The afternoon sun shone down upon it, casting a strange shadow as though it was waving a final goodbye. Although she had no idea who it belonged to, she knew it was probably one of Iloryn’s family members. Returning her attention to the elf, Nora said her name once more, but to no avail. Then, she waved a hand in front of the woman’s eyes. Finally, Iloryn blinked a few times as though waking from a terrible dream and gazed at Nora.

A sigh of relief slipped from Nora’s lips and she said, “I totally thought you were going to fall off or something.”

“No…” Iloryn’s eyes briefly glanced at the rubble. “It’s just… hard to believe, I suppose.”

Nora glanced around awkwardly. Although she didn’t know what to say, exactly, she stiffly said, “Uh, well, I don’t know if it helps, but I sort of lost my family a long time ago. I mean, it was a different thing, but I don’t have family, er, I didn’t… I mean… uh... I have no idea what I’m trying to say.”

Iloryn’s lips curved into a half-amused grin, though a trace of sadness remained in her eyes. Then, the grin faded. A single tear slipped down her cheek.

“Ah, sorry,” Nora muttered, thinking she made a mistake.

“No, it’s not your fault,” Iloryn said, slowly shaking her head. “I appreciate the attempt at making me feel better.”

Lowering her gaze, Nora mumbled, “I’m not sure that’s what I was trying to do, but I felt like I needed to say something.”

“Well, thanks. It helps… I think.”

“So… uh… now what?”

“We can go now,” Iloryn said, though a foreboding darkness flickered in her gaze.

“What about a burial or something?” Nora asked.

“We can do that at a later date. Now that I know their fates, your lives are my priority.”

So they weren’t until now? Nora thought. However, it didn’t bother her much since she didn’t care that much about the others aside from Liam all that much anyway.

Spinning lightly on her toes, Iloryn strode back through the bedroom door and muttered, “Let’s find your companions and leave this place.”