At the base of the stairway was a small room no larger than five cubic metres. Its walls were made of a small silver metal that seemed to exhibit similar properties to void stone.
At its centre was a simple wooden crate.
"This is it." Rosaly spoke, her voice hollow.
Zadius made his way towards the crate and threw the lid to the side. Looking inside, he saw a large, grey, metallic sphere around one foot in diameter with a red metal ring floating around it.
The ring was laden with several runic arrays whereas the sphere itself was perfectly smoothened.
"Pandora is a high definition, scanning and recording device. Although it's a prototype, its main function is to be used as a live feed surveying device." Rosaly explained.
"There's already broadcasting technology available to the public. What's so special about this?" Zadius questioned.
"The tech you're talking about is old and slow. Yes, it can broadcast but only over a distance of a few kilometres and it requires a lot of time to prepare." Rosaly explained, her eyes set on her creation.
"Pandora will be much faster and will be able to broadcast information across continents once I complete my runic calculations. I also have other functions in mind, more catered towards assisting Rosa's awakened knights." She continued.
"Using it to give our knights a bird's eye view of the battlefield?" Xaryus pondered aloud, intrigued by Pandora.
"Yes, but more than that. It would be able to overlook large geographical areas and with it, we could track powerful animus signatures from calamities and disasters from the safety of the sky; Maybe even space." Rosaly added, placing the lid back on top of the crate,
"Truly a revolutionary construct of my own design… But at what cost?" Rosaly stared at the crate for a moment, a hint of anger and disgust peering through her gaze.
Xaryus and Zadius simply stayed silent, not finding any words to input in the tense room.
"We should get going… How are we supposed to transport the device?" Zadius asked, stepping closer to the crate.
"We will have to carry it physically, it possesses a runic array that will destroy the device it placed in any type of SDS device." Rosaly responded, turning back to the room's entrance.
"But that may not be necessary." She added.
***
Now back in the hallway that held Surva's corpse, Rosaly shared the cold body a curt glance before moving on; a swirl of thoughts raging in her mind.
"I want to find the people who did this." She said abruptly, turning back to Xaryus and Zadius.
Before they could respond however, she continued to speak.
"I noticed that several aspects have been stolen and if the perpetrators still had any of them in their possession I may be able to track them if I created any of the items on their person." She ended
***
Soon, Henry returned with guards that belonged to the Lionheart Knight Order and were stationed in Castillan.
They were unable to hide the surprise of seeing the blood soaked interior of the warehouse.
Upon seeing the severity of the situation they immediately departed from the quarry, their intention to report the incident directly to their superior who would in turn inform the King and his court.
A foolish decision, however Rosaly simply wanted to know how compromised the Lionheart chain of command was.
She was going to deliver her own report of her findings and conclusions to Rebecca as soon as possible.
The knights insisted that Rosaly take shelter at the RavenCross mansion within the Middle ring of the city.
It was not a bad idea. In such times, taking refuge in a branch family's home would have produced better results than wandering around. Especially since said family had grown to such renown due to the aid of its main family; the Lionhearts.
Seemingly cooperative, they made their way to the manor and allowed the knights to handle the remnants of the massacre that occurred in the warehouse.
The trio sat within their carriage in silence whilst Rosaly wiped the blood off her hands with a piece of cloth. Eventually their path strayed from one that would lead them to the RavenCross manor.
Not knowing who was behind the leak in information, Rosaly wasn't keen on wondering if the RavenCross family had their hands dirty.
Instead, the carriage stopped in front of a building, its structure looked fairly simple but it was made of the highest quality materials.
To the top of the intricate double wooden doors that stood at the entrance was a green sign with elegant, cursive writing denoting the name of the establishment 'Royal's Den'.
All three of them exited the carriage, Xaryus holding the box on his left shoulder.
"What about Henry?" Zadius asked as he glanced back at the carriage pulling off.
"He's from Castillan, so he knows his way around. And he has a job to accomplish." Rosaly answered as she opened the inn's door.
"Such as?" Xaryus asked, stepping up behind Rosaly.
"Spreading misinformation about my whereabouts. It will give us some time to locate the culprits and figure out who's behind this. Plus they already know the carriages description, he will dump it and acquire a new mode of transport."
Behind the wooden doors revealed a small room, much smaller than Xaryus would have imagined it to be. It was well lit with a small yet beautiful chandelier. The floors were of oak and walls made of some type of dark wood.
The room was rectangular in shape, to the left held a small table with two beautifully carved oak chairs that sat beside a window, giving customers a full view of the outside street; now being dulled by the darkness of night.
To the right was a large wooden counter, sat behind it was an elven woman with long golden hair tied into a sleek bun. A round rimmed, golden glasses enhanced the beauty of her alluring blue eyes accompanied by sharp and clean facial features.
Even by elven standards, this woman would have been considered very beautiful.
"Welcome to the Royal's Den, how may I assist you?" The woman spoke, her voice soft yet mature.
"Two rooms please." Rosaly answered.
"One." Zadius interjected.
Rosaly turned back to him in confusion. Both Xaryus and Zadius looked back at her with plain expressions.
Xaryus simply nodded at her, a form of reassurance she thought.
Turning back to the elven woman, Rosaly sighed, "One room please. I'll pay for a week." She continued.
"That would be a hundred and seventy-five gold pieces." The woman said before flashing a soft smile, "Or would you like me to put it on your tab?"
"The tab, I'll be going to the usual room." Rosaly answered before making her way to the door that sat to the woman's left.
"Please enjoy your stay." she said in a slightly more cheerful tone, yet her eyes locked onto Zadius as if she had seen a familiar face.
He ignored her gaze and made his way behind Rosaly and Xaryus.
Behind the door was a long hallway that looked like it was pulled right out of a castle. Its length betrayed the size of the building's exterior.
"Runic arrays are used to make the building's exterior seem much smaller than the interior." Rosaly said as she walked down the hallway.
"I'm more surprised she wasn't perturbed by your bloody clothes." Zadius added
"You'd be surprised how often people come to her like that." Rosaly answered.
The pristine hallway was littered with doors, each with a small golden tab that had a number engraved on it. Rosaly stopped at the door labelled twenty-one, opening it to reveal a large room.
At the back was a king-sized bed lathered with different pillows, a set of chairs around a low table that held four teacups and a white clay pot.
To the other side of the room was a single door leading to the bathroom.
Promptly, Rosaly walked towards the room and closed the door behind her. Shortly after the door closed, the sound of running water could be heard.
Taking a seat around the low table, Xaryus and Zadius began to converse.
"Should we report back to Leveness? Things are getting out of control."Xaryus asked.
"No, we were specifically told that we cannot reach out for help unless the situation becomes dire." Zadius replied, drawing himself a cup of tea.
"Is this situation not dire?" Xaryus' face frowned as he spoke out.
"No… people die. All that matters is that we keep Rosaly safe and get her back to Rosa." He continued, taking a sip of his tea, "We need to focus on finding out who those thieves were first and how they knew about Pandora. Luckily, Rosaly seems to know how to track them." He ended, taking another sip.
"A mole within the Lionheart's circle of information maybe?" Xaryus replied.
"Maybe. But before we contact her, let's at least do some scouting to properly understand our situation. Ideally, we should wait on our mission's overseer, but they may take too long." Zadius said as he drank the last of his tea.
"This tea is terrible." He added as he gently placed the cup back on the table.
"Why did you drink the whole thing?" Xaryus questioned with an amused look.
"Thought it would get better."