Limits

Back at the Limestone Village, I checked the entrance of the village and indeed the corpse of that old hag was there. This meant she must've died. I threw couple of daggers at her just in case and they penetrated her head cleanly. I was now sure she was dead.

I checked her body for any possessions as well as the whip weapon of hers. I found the whip no problem and took a detailed look at it. The handle was made from leather and so was the lashing part of the whip. The end was very thin and the entire whip was studded with metal barbs excluding the handle. I didn't know how to use a whip and therefore I simply threw it into my bag.

Another thing I found on her was a book. The book was called "Soft Fish Technique". When I skimmed through it, I found that it was a technique that would make your moves soft but unpredictable. This technique suited me a bit. The more unpredictable I was the better for my Art of Hidden Weapons. Yet the softness didn't really apply to me much. I could use it in one way or another but not at the moment. This meant I would have to modify this book as well.

I didn't have time to do that now, this would have to wait till later. I also found another strange thing on the old woman's body. It was some sort of medallion. It depicted an eye with a dagger that was replacing the iris. I didn't know what this is supposed to represent but I took it anyway. She wouldn't need it anymore.

I said to Shelly "Let's go and check out the village. We will need more supplies for the future and this village should have some things". Shelly nodded its head and followed after me. Inside the village, we went to the shops and houses of the people that used to live there. I was mainly looking for stuff like bottles, vials and perhaps tools I could use on my travels. This village didn't have medic and so we couldn't find any vials but we found some bottles that could be used to store the medicine or poison.

We took any money and light valuables like gems and such from the houses when we found them. There wasn't much we found. The village was not very wealthy. We moved on towards a large house which I assumed was the mansion of the village chief. My guess was that the old woman was the village chief but I could be wrong and the village chief could be dead, laying there in his or her mansion. There was also the possibility that he or she might have ran away.

When we arrived at the mansion, we saw a similar image compared to the rest of the village. There were corpses lying on the ground everywhere. When we entered the mansion, we saw corpses of guards and servants alike laying there with blood stains all over the place. I said to Shelly "Check the mansion for anything useful. Take the right wing while I take the left". Shelly nodded its head and sped off towards the right wing. I took a walk towards the left wing of the mansion.

On the way, I checked every room. Sometimes I would find more bodies and some valuables while sometimes nothing at all. When I arrived at the last room, I guessed that the master bedroom must've been in the other wing. I went back towards the central parts of the mansion with the intention to wait for Shelly.

I've waited for 10 minutes and still couldn't see Shelly coming. I shouted "Shelly! Where are you?". I wanted another minute or two and couldn't see or hear Shelly coming. I got worried and thought 'Something must've happened' and ran straight for the right wing of the mansion. I searched all the rooms on my way but Shelly was not in any of them.

I ran more frantically towards the further parts of the wing. When I arrived at the master bedroom, I shouted again "Shelly! Where are you". After a while I could hear some sounds coming from the walls and then Shelly broke through one of the walls and appeared in front of me. I was surprised that the wall was made out of wood instead of bricks. I said to Shelly "Where the hell were you, I was scared that something might've happened to you!". Shelly came closer and rubbed its head on my leg showing affection but at the same time it looked excited about something.

Shelly showed me to follow it and we went together through the wall. Behind the wall was a narrow corridor that led downstairs. We went down the stairs for quite a long time and finally arrived in a large room that was decorated with weird lights. When I looked in greater details, there were some vials and other tools as well as liquids and strange materials on shelves.

I noticed a large table in the room. The large table was bloodied and there were some remains on it. I walked over to the table and looked at the remains in greater details. I noticed that the remains belonged to one of the furry deer that requested help from us. I thought 'This must be the place where someone experimented on those animals. It could've been that old hag otherwise someone might have survived if it was not her'. I was worried because the poison would not get inside this room as it was hidden, most probably below the ground.

I searched the area and found many weird things there. There were large vials with animal remains in them. I also found large apparatus that looked very strange. It had two poles at the sides and in the middle was a spherical glass container of some sort. It was big enough to contain a human being inside.

I searched more and found some notes as well as something that resambled a notebook. I took all the empty vials as well as the notes and the notebook and decided to destroy everything else. If the person was still alive, he or she might come back here to retrieve all the stuff but what he or she would find would be destroyed room with all notes gone.

I turned around towards Shelly and asked "How did you find this room?" to which Shelly signaled to follow it outside. When we were back in the room that we came from, Shelly showed me the fireplace. I looked at it and said "Did you go through the chimney?" to which Shelly shook its head and pointed at one of the sculptures on the fireplace.

I examined the sculpture and then pushed it down. When I did that, I could hear some kind of mechanism and a hidden door opened not far away. I said to Shelly "How did you figure it out?" to that, Shelly pointed towards the top of the fireplace where there were some valuables and then all became clear to me. I said "So you were trying to get the valuables from the top of the fireplace and by luck you pulled down this leaver?".

Shelly nodded its head but still looked a bit smug about it. I said to Shelly "That is good because now we can destroy this place. Follow me, we shall get things ready". We went outside to make some torches and burn this place down. Because the village was quite well equipped, we quickly gathered all the necessary materials for torches and went back to destroy the underground room.

Back at the underground room, I set fire to everything I could and broke all the tools. I then said to Shelly "Alright, we will do the same to the village outside and then we will leave. It is time to collect our rewards" Shelly nodded its head and we got out of the underground room that was now burning. We set fire to the rest of the village and left, never to look back again.