The sun’s rays beamed brightly down upon the back of Lysias’ crouched form, weighing heavily upon his shoulders as his eyes slowly swept over a large pile of rain-soaked rubble and fire scarred debris. Bits and pieces of charred, shattered rocks and massive mounds of black and grey ash were all that remained of whatever hovel had had its foundations and walls strewn about the hilly countryside in such a chaotic manner during the moment of its destruction.

The baying of the nearby hounds, bred and trained to hunt for all manner of things of an arcane nature, forced the expeditionary leader to twist his head towards the sound of the excited dogs, but Lysias soon lost interest in the noisy four legged creatures as his attention returned back towards the still smoldering pile of stone and wood debris.

“Can you not smell it?” Inquired the voice of Prince Nikolaos from somewhere behind him as his eyes caught sight of something jutting out of the sea of black and grey ash and stones. “He was here. The storm that had swept over this land must have been born out of whatever foul Fae trickery that Sorcerous Bastard had woven into the air as he stood at this very spot.”

Lysias rolled his eyes at the elven prince’s words, shaking his head after having heard such a wild and fairytale-esque description.

“I see that your since of smell has gotten a lot better,” Lysias started as he managed to pluck the object in question out of the mound of rubble. Only to discover that it was little more than a shattered piece of bone. “That’s quite impressive for someone without a nose.”

A fierce growl rumbled out of the Prince Nikolaos’ throat as he knelt beside Lysias, allowing for his superior to see the glorious reward that he had been so “graciously” gifted by his Dark Elven opposite for failing to defend the ancient walled city of Argonyl.

“It doesn’t matter what I have or don’t have, Lysias.” Nikolaos said in retort as he spat upon the pile of rubble, not at all interested in the shards of bone that had just now crumbled within the expeditionary leaders open palm. “Ever since that accursed storm first started to drench this entire backwater of a kingdom with its poisonous waters I felt the pain that I had experienced in losing my arm.”

Nikolaos turned towards the expeditionary leader with a stout look upon his disfigured and shattered features.

Though Lysias felt that the man beside him was someone who would always wear such an expression upon his face no matter how jovial he might be feeling at any particular moment.

“And what of your face?” Lysias jokingly asked as a slight smile grew upon his face. “What causes you to feel the left half of your face that you lost to the Ogres who tortured you?”

The elven prince said nothing as what little remained of his lips twitched into what looked to Lysias as something akin to a frown.

Lysias could only shrug his shoulders as he turned his attention back towards the palm of his hand, pushing and pulling at the shards of bone with his fingers.

Initially, there wasn’t much for Lysias to find anything that would pique his interest within the collection of slivers of bone but that all changed when he flipped over one of the more larger shards.

‘Teeth marks?’ Lysias quietly mouthed to himself as he picked up the peculiar sliver of bone with his other hand and held it up into the air so that he could get a better look at the oddity that he had found.

Spinning the peculiar oddity against the backdrop of the sun’s brilliant rays, Lysias couldn’t help but shift the sliver of bone over towards Prince Nikolaos and cover the disfigured elven prince’s face with the fragile shard of bone.

“Care for a snack?”

Prince Nikolaos’ face twisted itself into a fierce, hideous scowl of disgust as the disgraced elven royalty let out a disgusted scuff of air.

Yet the elven prince had little time to respond to the expeditionary leader’s choice words as the baying of the nearby hounds shattered the once peaceful air around them.

“We’ve found something!” Cried out on the beasts’ masters as the voices’ owner waved one of his arms in the air in order to catch the attention of the two of them.

“It seems that our four-legged friends have found something of interest.” Lysias remarked as he turned towards the beasts and their masters.

“Now then, shall we go see for ourselves as to what has made all of this fuss?”

Nikolaos’ twisted expression remained steady upon his hideous and deformed features as he watched the expeditionary leader rise back onto his feet and head towards the ever increasing excitement of the hounds as their baying became fiercer with each passing second.

The elven prince remained silent as the distance between the two men grew increasingly distant, his sole remaining fist clenching tightly in the palm of his hand whilst his last remaining eye shot a gaze of murderous resentment towards the free-spirited expeditionary leader.