Re: The Village Ruins
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.