System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 192
Roy and Letho listened intently. Apart from the whistling of the wind, not a single unusual sound could be heard in the crypt. The Viper School medallions at their throats did not tremble either, which meant there was no active magic nearby.
No Wraiths.
“Then where exactly did Lady Mary’s corpse go?” Roy muttered as he studied the beast-hide schematic. On it were drawn the separate parts of a sword, guard, grip, blade, along with the dimensions, thickness, materials required for forging, furnace temperature, and the proper methods. Everything was recorded in solid, painstaking detail.
It was a complete forging schematic for a Viper School steel sword.
“Viper steel sword acquired. That’s half the purpose of this trip to White Orchard accomplished. One Viper silver sword diagram still remains.” According to the unsent letter found on Kolgrim, the remaining diagram had been seized by Lord Ignatius of White Orchard.
“Convenient enough...” Roy tucked the steel sword schematic close against his body. “We can settle a score with Lord Ignatius while we’re at it.”
On the other side, Letho was still thinking about Lady Mary’s missing corpse. His long years as a Witcher told him there was something deeply wrong here. “Kolgrim’s death is tied to Mary’s vanished body. Roy, let’s search the remaining coffins too.”
Ordinarily, they would never have stooped to such a thing. Witchers were not grave robbers. They kept to certain principles and did not casually disturb the dead by opening coffins.
But now, there was no better way.
“John, Florian ... great lords that you are, don’t hold it against us...” Roy muttered under his breath as he opened the coffins.
Inside the three remaining coffins they found two and a half sets of remains. Why half? Because the infant corpse was far too small, its bones no larger than a grown man’s fist, and so was excluded from what they were trying to determine.
To judge the sex of the other two skeletons, the Witchers focused chiefly on the pelvis.
“The pelvic girdle is stout, high and narrow. The greater sciatic notch is narrow and deep.” Letho became a makeshift coroner. In truth, after decades as a Witcher, the structure of human skeletons was second nature to him. “The pubic symphysis is high, and the subpubic angle is small. By those features, both bodies are male.”
Still there was no sign of Mary’s corpse. They had no intention of disturbing the coffins in the wall niches. That would have been pointless.
After checking the pelvis, Letho gave the other portions of the skeletons a brief inspection, and unexpectedly found something new. On the back of both skulls, there was a line of tiny black characters branded into the bone.
“This looks like Elder Speech. Roy, come look...” Letho said, turning over the tiny infant skull, no larger than a thumb. Then he sucked in a breath. “Gods. Who could be mad enough for this? To spare not even a newborn child?”
“Let me see.” Roy, thanks to his Aen Seidhe bloodline, was more fluent in Elder Speech than Letho. “Powica si...” He read it aloud.
“What does it mean?”
“Sacrifice ... it means sacrifice in Elder Speech.” Roy’s face tightened. “It means they were chosen as offerings. This kind of thing is usually recorded only in sorcerous texts, and explicitly forbidden there as evil sorcery ... cruel and secret rites carried out for some hidden purpose.”
“How do you know that?”
“At the Temple of Melitele, Coral mentioned it when she was teaching me magical theory. She was very serious when she did.”
For a moment, the crypt held nothing but the heavy beating of two hearts.
“Unknown, evil sorcery, sacrifice...” Letho said slowly. “Then Kolgrim’s death wasn’t simply a matter of Wraiths haunting the crypt. There’s something else behind it.”
There had to be something wrong with the ruling family of White Orchard, the Verrieres line.
“So are we still going on?” Roy glanced around the sinister crypt, suddenly feeling the cold seep into his body. “You’re always saying curiosity gets cats killed.”
“A Witcher’s life is harder to snuff out than a cat’s.” Bald Letho’s eyes turned cold. “Unless you’re thinking of retreating?”
“Just joking.” Roy straightened his face at once and changed his tone. “Kolgrim was an important member of the Viper School. We can’t let him die with no truth behind it.”
“Good.”
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