“The incidents collectively known as the Slayings of Danna, which depicted two separate incidents centuries apart, were man-made disasters that took place in the then-city of Danna, formerly capital of Junora, nowadays part of the Lichdom of Ptolodecca. There was little left of the city itself nowadays as people considered the place cursed after two such incidents and refused to live there, but the incidents themselves were well-recorded.

As if by eerie coincidence given the polar opposite ways the two incidents happened, both of them left the city practically denuded of every living thing, yet left the buildings and other items untouched. A ghost town was all that was left behind to lament the people that used to live there after each incident.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainswrought, Dean of the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 682 FP.

“What do we do, Aunt?” asked Eilonwy, clearly somewhat shaken by the display of overwhelming power that she had just felt. While none of them got a look at what happened, they felt the effects regardless, even if limited to a great extent by their defenses. The young elf shuddered as she imagined what the ritual would have done to the people of the city when even they – all skilled and powerful mages – could barely defend against it.

“We should find out more about what just happened,” noted Aideen after some thought. Some part of her wanted to tell her grand-nieces and nephew to run as clearly whatever invoked the ritual and now held the accumulated power were well above what they could handle, but she also knew that they wouldn’t leave without her, so she came to a compromise instead. “I want the three of you to search the city’s outskirts, especially the corners. Maybe there would still be some survivors there who could use your help. Stay together, however. Put your safety first above all else.”

“What will you and Kino be doing, Aunt?” asked Rhys with some worry in his voice. The three siblings likely had a good guess about what Aideen planned to do, just that they wished to hear it from her own mouth.

“Me and Kino will check on which crazy lunatic did this,” said Aideen bluntly. There was no hiding it anyway, so she might as well come clean about her intention. “I want you three in a safe place in case it comes to blows. Whoever pulled this shit off has garnered absurd amounts of power that I think only Grandpa Aarin could match. You’re not their match, and while neither Kino nor I have to worry about dying, we can’t fight while protecting you three at the same time.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“We understand, Aunt. We’ll keep ourselves safe,” said Áine in acquiescence to what Aideen said. The three of them were young and adventurous, but they also knew all too well that if Aideen talked with such a serious tone, she meant it, and they knew better than to go against her words. “Come on, Rhys, Eilo. The north-western corner is the closest from here, we should check in that direction first.”

“I hate not being able to fight alongside you, Aunt, but I understand. Stay safe,” said Eilonwy before she turned and left, following after her older siblings. Like Aideen warned them, none of the three held back, and Eilonwy directly brought out her bone constructs, all eleven of them, to increase the force available to the three siblings’ perusal.

“You ready?” Aideen asked as she turned to Kino. The therian girl had been looking at the Royal Palace like there was a deadly enemy there all the while, and she only turned to look at Aideen at the mention of her name.

“Yes,” said Kino with some nervousness. “I do not know why, but whatever it is that’s formed in the Royal Palace gives me the creeps for some reason, Miss Aideen. I feel like it’s some sort of predator staring down at me like I was its prey, even though whoever or whatever is out there probably never even noticed us this far away.”

“I know what you mean. It’s… uncomfortable to even be in its vicinity, and that’s despite my Mortality affinity. Your Void affinity is more anathema to it so you should be feeling it more than I do. Eilo’s probably spared the brunt of this because she’s less sensitive compared to us,” said Aideen with a shake of her head. “Either way, this bodes for trouble. Shall we check what happened to the people in the inn first?”

“I already have a good guess as to what happened to them, but we should confirm it I guess,” said Kino with a sigh. The two of them exchanged nods then slipped back to the room they occupied in the inn. There they found that the wooden beds and straw mattresses they slept on had turned into dust, as had any other wooden furniture in the room, including the curtains and bedsheets made of cotton and linen.

“Yeah, I can guess what we will find after looking at this sight,” said Aideen with a wistful sigh as they left the now bare, doorless room and went downstairs. Sure enough, they discovered the innkeeper and her family’s remains, or rather, their bare skeletons, some of them amidst a small pile of dust. There was little else in the inn, as only things made out of soil, stone, and metal survived the life siphoning ritual from earlier.

It was fortunate that they stayed in an inn mostly built out of stone and mud rather than wood, as otherwise the building would have crumbled and fallen apart on them, as several other buildings in the vicinity had already done.

The stables offered more of the same sight, the skeletons of horses and other beasts of burden all that was left in the pile of dust that was the wooden structure. As they got closer towards the center of the city, other similar sights greeted them, with some skeletons even left trapped inside the metal armor worn by the city guards here and there.

While the sight was rather different, it still reminded Aideen uncomfortably of the time when Grandpa Aarin had similarly massacred the inhabitants of this very city, hundreds of years ago.