"It will be all right, Kadelyn." Liadan said, though she did not believe it herself. She began working on pulling up a carrot.

Kady dug around a carrot with her bare hands until she could easily pull it out. Even then, she landed on her rear when she did so. She wiped the treasure off on her tunic and carried it over to Nelek. "Here, Papa."

Nelek accepted the carrot.

"Thank you, Kadey." He said, admiring the carrot. Indeed, carrots had never looked so good.

"You're welcome, Papa." Kadelyn plopped down and snuggled against him.

Nelek hugged her. "Why don't you take the first bite?"

"Is for you, Papa," she whispered.

Liadan managed to pull up three more carrots. "One for each of us." She said, handing out the vegetables. "Dessert will be... more carrots."

Aron accepted his. "I think we'd be well served to move on after eating these. We don't want to run in to the raiders."

Liadan nodded.

"And Ais should be reunited with Nelek as soon as possible. The real Nelek, not that fake one..." Liadan thought about what could happen if the fake Nelek got to Aislyn first. Aislyn and Nelek had been very... passionate... And Ais had been lonely for a long time. The thought made Liadan feel almost sick enough to not finish her carrot.

Aron nodded his agreement. "Not getting there in time could prove unfortunate if not dangerous."

Liadan ate her entire carrot- including the greens.

"All right, let's go. I want Nelek to be there a week ago." Liadan reached for Kadelyn.

Aron got to his feet. He went over to help Nelek up. "Time to go."

Nelek was feeling sick himself. He leaned against Aron.

The young man crouched behind some bushes, eying the manor. There were no signs of life in the manor, but he knew he had sensed something a couple days ago. He hoped that whoever had been disturbing the relics was gone, but he knew to assume that would be unwise.

Finally he straightened to his full four-feet-nine-inches, gripped his walking stick and approached the manor. It was very quiet, it felt empty yet Bai still sensed that it had been recently disturbed. When he reached the door he wrapped his hand in a corner of his cloak, lifted the latch and used his stick to push the door open.

Bai could see footprints marring the thick layers of dust. He was not a tracker, could not tell how tall or heavy the people making the prints were, but he could tell that there were several people making tracks. And that they had gone inside and left. Perhaps they were all gone.

Bai held his stick defensively as he went inside. He was careful not to touch anything as he followed the tracks in the dust. Whenever something needed to be moved out of his way, such as a door, he pushed it with his walking stick. Eventually he was led to stairs going down into a cellar.

"Of course." Bai muttered softly. "It's dark and probably only one way out so of course I have to go down there."

He leaned his stick against the wall, dug into his pack until he found his tinder box and a candle. He lit it, picked up his stick and went down the stairs.

He could feel magic resin in the air gently blowing on the hair on his arms. but when he reached the cellar he could tell it was gone. There was a large clean space on the floor, clearly something had been taken from here. Whatever magic objects had been down here were gone.

Bai paced around the cellar, tapping his forehead with his stick, muttering and swearing. Finally he ground out "Damnit!" And went back upstairs. He stomped from room to room, still muttering to himself.

"Not going to find anything this way. You know you're just wasting your time. Whatever got your attention was in that cellar and now it's gone, and not sure what it is but your old cousin probably had something nice and dangerous down there and his stupid widow probably had no clue. You know what you have to do so quit stalling and letting it get further... No telling who is doing with whatever was down there and you're letting... whatever the **** it is and what it does."

Bai went to the door. He wanted to just walk outside and leave. Forget all about this and go back home.

"But that's not happening." Bai sat on the floor and took off his boots and socks. His toes curled tightly, then uncurled slowly. He gritted his teeth, pressed his bare feet to the floor and used his stick to lever himself up. He stiffened and pressed his free hand to the door jamb.

It hit like a ton of bricks. Echoes from generations of Lowells, magic, music, laughter, tears, pain, violence, anguish, screams- ****- people have been murdered here! Bai knew that Kegan and the boy he adopted were murdered, why he was so reluctant to touch anything, but why was he sensing a familial link? That made no sense, everyone in the Lowell family had died off leaving him behind, yet he felt something...

Bai withdrew his hand. He walked barefooted around the manor picking up echoes. It had been several men who had taken the magical objects, but all Bai could make out about them was that they were not magic users.

Finally Bai put his boots back on. There was a village nearby, maybe he could find out more there.

Bai had not been prepared for what he would find in the village. It had been razed to the ground. Clearly a great many people had been killed here. Bai shoved his free hand deep into his pocket as he picked his way through the village to the only standing building.

It was a shop of some sort- perhaps a dress shop? He could tell that someone had been tortured in the shop, judging by the amount of stains on the table Bai guessed the poor victim had been tortured to death. It had a ritualized feel with how the table and mirror had been arranged. Possibly involved dark magic. Bai hoped that these people did not have the magical objects from his cousin's house. But the objects disappearing the same time that this happened was too much of a coincidence- where else could they have gone?

Bai felt sick and left the shop.

A medium-sized fellow walking with a staff came into view, looking around from under a rather shapeless broad-brimmed hat. His boots were dusty and his gait suggested he'd been walking for quite some time.

He paused at seeing movement, standing leaning on the staff.

"Hello?"

Bai gripped his staff.

"Hello. Who are you?" Not the most cordial greeting, but he was not feeling very friendly.

The human smiled, broadly.

"Why, I'm Dyfrig. Who are you? And what happened here?"

He sounded a lot more friendly than this fellow who was gripping his staff like he was contemplating fighting with it.

"I'm The Flame." Bai lowered his staff. It did not seem that this man was involved in the attack. "I'm trying to figure out what happened here too. Nearly every building has been destroyed, everything useful taken. A lot of people were killed here but the bodies have been buried."

"It certainly looks a bit of a mess," said Dyfrig.

"Are there any survivors? Or anyone else living nearby?"

If this place had been trashed, he might as well move on. Nothing here for him. And he'd had enough of travelling for a while.

"I haven't seen any, but for the dead to have been buried there must have been some survivors." Bai could sense the evil of these attackers, they would not have had the decency to bury the dead. "I don't think they hung around. I think there's a keep not far from here they might have gone to."

"Than I think I shall head in that direction. Coming?" said Dyfrig.

It would be the quickest way to find out what happened, and hopefully track down what was taken from his cousin's house. Bai nodded. He kicks the ground with his toes as if the shake the dust from his feet.

"The Keep is north of here, if we follow this road out we'll probably hit a road north to the Keep." Bai says.

"Very well. Let's go. This place is... depressing."

Dyfrig led the way towards the north road.

Bai thought depressing was an understatement. He walked swiftly towards the road.