[color=00aeef]Optional Reading Concluded

A sword was violently jiggled around in an attempt to force the blade between a door and its' frame. Lillian had given up on trying to find the proper tools for the job and had become quite reasonably desperate to get her tools back. The sword was however proving ineffective and the distressed woman had had enough at that point. 

"To hell with this, time to wreck the gaff." With a quick look to the door of the ballroom to ensure no one was sneaking up behind her, she took a step back, lifted a booted foot, and kicked at the door near the latch with all her might. The door burst open as the small latch gave way and came partially off it's hinges. The door slammed into the oil lantern within, breaking it, and spilling a lanterns worth of oil all over her discarded clothes. It hardly mattered, there was no time to change anyway, she simply wanted her tools. 

Another glance to the door, then Lillian reached past the broken door and grabbed her kit. She quickly belted it on and fetched one of her specimen pistols. Once armed with a sword and gun she was feeling more confident, more so after she switched the pistol to her dominant hand and held the sword in her off hand. A swordsman she was not, but she had plenty of experience with her special weapon.

There was no time to search the whole house, and less time to fetch the authorities. Or rather she did not know how much time she did or did not have so haste was default. For all she knew she was already too late, but that wasn't about to stop her. She needed to figure out where in the house the killers could have gone. 

Taking a deep breath Lillian filtered all the facts she knew about the case through her head. The only piece of information she knew for certain, is the killers had a heavy chest that most likely would have been very difficult to move. Meaning they would have dragged it quite a bit, and had to put it down for rests. With the weight of the chest both of those likelyhoods meant there would be evidence if she simply looked for it. 

Entering the hall once more she better took in her surroundings to see what she had to work with. The floor was carpeted, at least on the second story, and the stairs down where halfway between the ballroom and the master bedroom. Lillian walked to the stairs, stopping a few meters from it, and bent low to the ground. She looked down towards the master bedroom, and tilted her head back and forth until she saw what she had expected to see. Very subtle drag marks in the carpet left behind when the killers forced the fibers of the carpeted floor to all go in one direction. It was difficult to see unless you were looking for it, but once you did it was extremely noticeable, especially when compared to the other end of the hall which had undisturbed carpet.

The drag marks stopped at the stairs, and a quick inspection of a few of the steps revealed fresh gouges and scrapes. The stairs lead right into the foyer, however it was clear the killers had not used it -not that Lillian expected they would-. The first floor was not carpeted, however it was clear which direction the murderers had gone as the fools had smashed the chest into an archway and took a sizeable chunk out. Lillian even spotted the piece of wood that had been removed underneath a table. 

She was able to follow more subtle clues until she found herself in the kitchen where the trail unfortunately went cold. The floor was tiled, so no scratches or drag-marks to follow, and the kitchen in any household was always a high traffic area so it was difficult to spot any fresh marks in a sea of worn-wood, scratches, gouges, and stains. 

There were multiple directions to go, though she was able to narrow down two as one was where she had just entered from, and the other was a door that lead outside and was quite clearly still secured up tight. That left three directions, none of which made much sense for the killers to go. Down to the cellar, into the dinning room, or into a service hall for the staff. 

A nagging sensation at the back of her mind was drawing her to the cellar. She appalled operating on instinct however and so focused her mind on reasons why the cellar made sense. She quickly had an idea as to why, and put her sword down. Fishing on her her journals out of a pouch she placed it on the counter and flipped through it with one hand till she found a map she had been working on that detailed the sewers and underground water ways of the city. It was incomplete, but there was enough done to show there was in fact at least one waterway that went under the manor. It was not unlikely to think there might be an entrance to that path via the cellar. The book also had several notes, one of extreme interest was a reminder she had written for herself that certain paths could only be explored at low tide when the tunnels were empty. A quick look at a clock on the wall revealed that the tide would have gone out enough that any one who didn't have an issue getting their knees wet could traverse the tunnels safely. 

Lillian snapped the book shut, stuffed it into a pouch, fetched her sword, and took off down into the cellar.

As far as cellars went it was fairly normal for the size of the manor and the wealth of its deceased owner. Something that immediately stuck out was a tun barrel in the corner that took up far too much room. There was no way such a barrel could have been carried down, and another quick look around revealed no exits to the outside to allow for easy delivery of an healthy amount of drink. 

Lillian walked up to the barrel, placed an ear against it, and gave a gentle tap. She was unsurprised to hear a hollow thud. Lillian walked to the front of the barrel, leaned her sword against the wall, and grabbed hold of the spigot; turning it like a door knob. There was an audible click, and she found she could pull the front open like a door. She listened a moment and heard the voices of several men echoing from much farther away than one would expect given the size of the barrel. She opened it enough to see inside and found an empty interior, and a large opening in the brick foundation that lead to a tunnel. 

Lillian retrieved her sword and slowly venture in towards the voices.

The tunnel she ventured down smelled of damp, and the brick work was made of strange haphazard pieces. As far as Lillian could tell the tunnel was formed using left over bricks from the construction of the manor. The steps that lead downward were formed straight out of a hard clay, with large obvious gouges from what ever tool was used for form it, and a noticeable trail of deformed clay obviously compressed by the chest being dragged down the stairs. 

The voices grew louder to the point Lillian was confident whoever it was was just at the bottom. Her breathing picked up, and the grip on her weapons tightened. She was armed, and she had the element of surprise, the only thing to worry about was whether or not she would be able to potentially kill another human being, even if they were a murderer. Part of her screamed no at the thought, but the more logical side of her made it clear that if she was unwilling to use force, then she might as well be marching to her grave. 

Deep breath. 

Lillian rushed down the last few steps, weapons at the ready. "Don't move!" she screamed as she entered into the halo of lantern light that illuminated three men and a large cedar chest atop a worn carpet. All three men were suitably surprised, with one who had been sitting on the chest falling over off it. Of the trio, she recognized but one, and it was the face of the man she had expected to find behind everything. It was the neighbor whose house she had broken into a few weeks prior, who had a secret room for practicing the occult, and a bevy of stolen art works. He was also invited to the part, and one of the few people who would have even known about it. 

Lillian slowly stepped to the side, keeping her weapons poised to strike, and trying to position herself so there was no easy way for any of the three to get the jump on her. "Now, all three of you are going to march back up those steps, o-one of you will tie the other two to some chairs, and then I will tie you to a chair. At that point I will be fetching the authorities." The slight tremble in her voice gave her away and when of the men reached for a pistol that was resting atop the chest. Lillian reacted quickly and fired her pistol, launching a storm of small pins into the man's hand. The human pin cushion screamed out in pain and managed a series of curse words and gender specific insults. Lillian ignored him and dropped the now empty gun so she could grab her next one, but as she let go her neighbor leapt forwards, spurred to action with the misguided confidence of someone who over estimated their odds. Trained swordsman or not, it took very little to stave off an unarmed foe with a blade; a quick flick of her wrist introduced a large slash to her attackers face and drove him back. "Would anyone else like to try that? Or has my tied to a chair plan perhaps become more appealing?" Her words dripped with self-assurance, but it was a well played farce; Lillian was terrified and desperately hoping none of the men could see her struggling to pull out her next pistol. When her hand finally managed to get itself around the grip of her pistol she attempted to yank it out of her pouch quickly, but it became snagged on a strap. Her neighbor noticed this and took the opportunity to turn and run; his fallen comrade made for his pistol again but with his uninjured hand while the remaining man stood stunned, looking at the fleeing neighbor as if he wasn't sure if he should run too. 

Just as the pin cushion of a man got his hand on his piece Lillian managed to get her own pistol free and immediately fired a shot at the man's hand. Her weapon now empty the only other standing man took off down the tunnel after the neighbor. Lillian dropped her pistol and rushed over to the chest, grabbing the one that laid on top and took off after the fleeing pair, ignoring the blubbering fool on the ground with both hands full of pins. She had managed to maintain control of the situation without having to kill anyone, which pleased her, but the situation had changed drastically and Lillian was convinced her only options then were to kill or allow the pair to escape. Neither seemed like good options, and the surprising weight of a proper pistol in her hand felt very fitting considering the seriousness of the situation. 

Even in more reasonable boots, Lillian was having a great amount of troubles keeping up with the fleeing men and they quickly fell out of her line of sight. There was barely any light so far into the tunnel, and Lillian felt like she should give up the chase. Just as she slowed to a stop however she hear a strange sound; like something being pulled out of a wall followed, by a strangled gasp, and a large thud. A moment later there was a scream of surprise and another large thud. Just up ahead was an opening and a short staircase that lead into the drain tunnel proper. At the bottom of the stairs was her neighbor and his thug, both in a crumpled mess, and both very unconscious. She carefully made her way down the steps and made a small hop to get over both bodies quickly. She then gave each a few jabs in the side with her foot, and even gave a small quick to the nether regions of her neighbor. When there was no reaction of any kind she felt satisfied enough they were out cold to put down her weapons. A short length of rope was fetched from one of her pouches and cut in half so she could hog tie the pair, an action which gave her an odd sensation of nostalgia for the simple days of being a farmers daughter in Ireland. 

It wasn't quite as dark in the tunnel where she was as light from the outside was reflecting it's way down provided just enough illumination for her to see the glistening wounds on each of the men's heads. She quickly checked the pair's pulses to ensure they were simply unconscious, which they were, before she returned to the stairs to figure out what happened. She didn't need much light to spot a rusty lantern hanging from another rust lantern, connected by a length of wire. It was clear the dangling lantern used to be attached to the wall on the other side of the opening, easily verified by the holes in the wall for mounting nails. The wire would have been roughly neck height for the average man, which would have given anyone exiting into the tunnel a nasty surprise. The other trap was a bit harder to find in the low light, but Lillian did eventually find a second length of wire at the bottom of the stairs attached to either side a set of rails. The wire was in two pieces, broken when one of the fleeing men's ankles got caught on it. While inspecting the tripping hazard, Lillian was surprised to find a sapphire necklace on the ground just under the pair of rusting lanterns. She picked it up and noticed immediately something was written on it, but there wasn't quite enough light to read it. 

After double checking her knots Lillian returned to the chest and the lantern. The pinned man was still there, quietly sobbing, and using his  teeth to pull the pins out one at a time. He had managed to get a good chunk of them out. Lillian did not want to have to deal with a conscious criminal, so took advantage of the back the man was facing away from her. She snuck up as best she could, a task made easier by the man being rather distracted, hoisted her stolen pistol into the air, and brought the butt of the gun down hard on the mans skull between the spinal Axis and the Superior Nuchal Line. The man crumpled forwards and Lillian had to act quick to stop him falling on his hands and making the damage worse. She then uncaringly pulled all the pins out as quick as she could and precured the man's belt to hog time him as well. 

Thugs taken care of, and now with a light source, Lillian pulled the sapphire necklace back out and examined it. Written on the back in what was easy to determine to be lipstick were the words 'You're Welcome.' Lillian was not entirely certain who was responsible, though she had a pretty good idea. She pocketed the necklace, intent on keeping it for herself, and turned her attention to the cedar chest. The criminals had been caught, but her curiosity was flaring up quiet fiercely; what could be in the chest worth killing over. Her mind immediately went to objects of wealth, as that seemed to be what the rich often killed over. 

The chest was locked tight with four sperate locks, each of which was deftly dealt with by Lillian thanks to the reclamation of her kit. She threw the lid open and was rather confused and surprised to find the entire chest seemed to be filled with rather coarse salt, or at least it appeared to be salt. Lillian leaned forwards and took a large whiff; the was the unmistakable smell of salt to be sure, but there was a stranger smell as well that she could not quite figure out. 

Fetching and donning a pair of gloves from one of her pouches Lillian began to sift through the salt. It didn't take her long before she found something. At first she couldn't be sure what she was looking at so began to take large handfuls of salt out of the chest and dump it on the floor. A few minutes later she had revealed the naked body of a woman with the multihorned head of a bull, and a matching set of gentiles. Lillian's mouth fell agape, in utter shock at what she was seeing. She stood and moved backwards till she pressed against the wall, using it to keep her grounded. She was not, for one moment, fooled by what she was seeing. There was not a doubt in her mind that the creature was a farce, a fabrication meant to look like some occult figure akin to the statue she found in her neighbors home. Fake or not was irrelevant, it was the mutilation of a persons body to form such a monstrosity that had shaken her so. In the name of science and medicine she could accept, and even encourage, all forms of alterations that some might consider desecration. But the woman was not deformed to aid humanity, she was deformed to appease some religious zealot and have her body kept in a chest close by like some kind of trophy. 

It was many minutes before Lillian found the will to move. An examination of the body revealed she had been correct, it was a fake; all be it a rather good one. The extra parts had been attached very methodically then blended in with waxes and make-up. There was perhaps a time when it might have looked convincing to even someone who knew what to look for, but that time passed long ago. The natural discoloration of the decaying skin contrasted very noticeably with what had been done to blend the disparate parts together. Lillian was able to determine both the woman's body and the bulls had been fully and properly embalmed, which made her question the purpose of the salt. The only reasonable conclusion was it was included by whoever made the farce to try and hide the trickery as long as possible. Anyone able to properly embalm someone and convincingly graft different parts onto a corpse like some kind of real-life Frankenstein would have known the couldn't fool someone forever. 

Lillian carefully closed the lid on the chest and left the tunnels. She found her way back to the foyer of the manor, and with the help of her many tools, managed to bust open the front doors. It did not take long to find an officer as they often patrolled the more wealthy parts of town. An army of soldiers lead by a constable showed up twenty minutes later. 

Lillian lead the officers around the house and explained the events that transpired with very few details altered. She left out the thief, and the part about her running around naked. Instead she explained she had simply broken in operating on a hunch; it was a blessing sometimes when her reputation proceeded her as she did not need to elaborate on that particular part of the story. The time it took for the authorities to arrive had given her plenty of time to hide her oil stained clothes, and put the master bedroom back into some semblance of order. 

After she informed them of the underground tunnel and explained there must have been some mode of escape at the end it was searched by a few officers. They reported back that they found a boat and four more unconscious and tied up men. Every one of the officers was impressed such a petite woman was able to take on seven men and come out on top. She did not correct them that she had nothing to do with the four at the boat as she did not see what good that would do, and was not entirely certain what had happened herself. She figured she might as well take the credit, having her reputation expand to include being a woman not to trifle with had it's advantages.

On her recommendation, only the constable looked into the chest. He had a similar reaction to Lillian, though it was because unlike her he was unable to recognize it for what it was. When he finally clamed down enough for Lillian to get a word in she pointed out the obvious flaws, which the constable, thankfully, accepted right away. Whether or not it was because her evidence was compelling, or because any evidence would have worked in the face of a demon was unclear. Either way the constable thanked Lillian for her work, and then thanked her again for making sure only he saw what was in the chest. It went unspoken but she was sure it was because he feared what would happen if rumors had the chance to spread. He was grateful enough that he allowed Lillian to assist with the autopsy at her request, which was a rarity indeed. The autopsy revealed the bull head, which had four horns, was completely natural, and that both bodies had been decaying for a few years.

Lillian would spend the next four months of her life trying to track down the identity of the woman in the chest, and the person or persons responsible for her desecration. To everyone's surprise but her own, Lillian did in fact find the answer to both of those questions. After a four month long search she found herself in Castle Combe, Wiltshire, a small town in Britain. The man responsible was the town's mortician, whose brother owned a cow farm. The pair of them had come up with the plan together, and were both hung a few weeks later for their crimes. Lillian refused to attend, though the constable who had seen what was in the chest -and whom Lillian had kept in contact with- made a point to make his way to Britain so he could see the brothers hang with his own eyes. Lillian mused it was some kind of closure, or perhaps a desperate attempt to gather more proof what he saw in the chest was a ruse. 

Upon her return to Prague Lillian took a special interest in the occult, and any other magical practices, feeling it was a dark part of society that needed to be kept an eye on. [/color]