It was around that moment that Alette came to a stop, at Clarice's side. The mage was focused, having inscribed a chalk circle on the nearest wall. Her feet were still drifting off the ground, as she watched a light traveling steadily around the edge of the circle, her eyes narrowed.

"Nothing yet?" Alette questioned, tilting her head.

"Can't you tell? It's going to take a little bit... haaah, and this bloody scent is so distracting, you know? I'm going to lay a curse on whoever's responsible for all this, it's so unpleasant."

Rather then dismay at the deaths themselves, the mage seemed more annoyed at how unpleasant the fort was given it was filled with corpses.

With the barracks lacking any further information, Fanilly took the piece of paper with her as she lead her knights back to the surface. It offered little information that they didn't already know at the time, but at least it was something. It confirmed why the Boars were hiding there, but not how they had learned about this in the first place or how they'd infiltrated the for-

Wait, there was something on the back?

Turning the paper over in her hands, Fanilly examined it again. Those were... stones? It was a sketch of a pair of stones, ones that looked oddly familiar. Perfectly smooth, standing erect...

"Ah! There!"

The scrying circle had come alight, the light changing shape and growing larger until it resembled a clear pool of water. From within, a grassy clearing with a pair of white stones standing erect could be seen.

"They were going here!" declared Clarice, "... Wherever here is. I don't recognize it at all."

But Fanilly did.

Immediately the Knight-Captain approached, glancing between the paper and the scrying circle.

"That's Cae Mayl," she said as she approached, "They must have been meeting there! But... why?"

Cae Mayl was the first shrine to Mayon in all of Thaln. The white standing stones were accompanied by a clear pool of water from deep within the earth. While it was a holy site, the deep pool was also dangerous given how far down it went.

Fanilly had been there once before, years ago.

Regardless, it was their best lead.

Meanwhile, Bors let out a chuckle. It sounded something like a roll of thunder across the sky during a storm.

"You would be surprised," he commented, cheerfully, "My daughter hasn't a scrap of giant's blood, but she is my daughter all the same."

He glanced out over the horizon before continuing, still keeping watch for any potential enemies.

"And she enjoys this view just as much as you do."

[hr]

"Hmmm..."

Abigail knelt beside the body, frowning slightly.

"These wounds weren't made by a blade," she commented, "Ah, so elegant... but terrible, too."

She ran her fingertips over the injuries as she spoke.

"Extremely precise and swift, and inflicted by magic... a curse? Perhaps Clarice should take a look, she [i]loves[/i] curses~!" she observed as she continued examining the injuries, "... They cut the veins leading to the heart."

The precision, and the use of magic, implied that whoever had been responsible for the captain's death and the death of this soldier was not among those driven mad. Additionally, the fact the journal had been defaced implied an attempt to throw someone off the trail.

It wasn't impossible whoever did this was tied to the boars. But just what had gone wrong to trigger the massacre?

The fact that the perpetrator could use curses, and potentially had possession of such an inherently wicked object, could have been the answer.

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