Chapter 16: The Missing Answer in Ruin

Before Qusheab’s eyes was a strange scene, the hall was partly ruined, yet partly untouched.

-Hatred, that’s what I’m seeing, whatever did this, it hated what it destroyed- Qusheab thought.

What particularly stood out to Qusheab was the sheer amount of claw marks around the cathead cauldron. The cauldron with the main brew was itself untouched.

-Good that the wards of that are stronger… but what desperate attacks. How long did whatever made these attack the cauldron?- Qusheab wondered.

Carefully picking her way through spilt pots, shattered pots, torn reagents and spoiled potions, Qusheab took stock of what was damaged and what was not.

-Fires and flame aspect untouched for the most part… Heart and Radiance… I can’t say I’m surprised that it would avoid these kind of things… does it hate vegetation?-

Qusheab recovered what she could and disposed of the rest.

-If I could just remember what the brew was, its at the core of this matter, I know it is!… I guess that is why our memories were damaged, someone didn’t want us to remember-

Taking the time to eat some preserved meat and have a cool drink, Qusheab tried to calm herself. Her efforts weren’t very fruitful as what kept raking across her brain what the selective yet rageful nature of the destruction. She kept trying to find a pattern, a connection.

She rubbed her forehead.

-This is a lot of trouble… if my sisters were here they could figure it out… I should check the rest of the cottage. Hmm, storehouse or the bedroom library?-

In the end, she chose to look at the storehouse first, she had a bad feeling about it. When she entered into the storehouse, nothing seemed amiss. The Dauftima pride had lost much, but the three sisters still had a large number of segmented stone jars. These jars were carved in the shape of various cat-related spirits, and each segment could be lifted off like a plate, furthermore, the space inside these segments was larger on the inside! The jars ranged in size from a fist to a boulder!

Just these jars would be enough to prompt the greedy to try to wipe the sisters out.

The storehouse was nothing more than a room for all of these jars.

-Everything seems fine… yet what is this uneasiness?- Qusheab thought.

She opened and jar, but everything seemed fine. After opening a few more jars and going through their segments, a foul expression was on her face.

-Gone! All the root-type reagents are gone! Whatever started all this, it doesn’t want us completing the brew we came here to make? Why?-

Everything else was left untouched… as far as Qusheab could tell.

-I don’t believe its only the root-reagents… there must be things I’ve forgotten about missing-

She quickly cleared up the storehouse, triple checked the protections on both the jars and the storehouse itself and fled to the bedroom, within which were many shelves and many books.

Again, everything looked fine, everything looked in order.

If Qusheab was fooled by such a thing, she would have died from magical mishap long ago. The path of controlling magic is fraught with dangers and those who simply accept the surface appearance of things? Such fools are among the first to die!

Qusheab flipped through all the books, making sure to take precautions against any hidden nastiness.

-Again so many pages concerning roots torn out, not just that, but… didn’t we once have a few tomes on mandragoras? If I can just figure out the pattern of the missing pages… whoever did this should have just destroyed all the books. Might not have been powerful enough to do it…-

Before Qusheab could think further, she was startled by a knock on the cottage door!