"We are getting ourselves into something potentially troubling, but we can resolve it together, though; I'm sure of it!" Wardi says with a determined look on his face.

"Pick yourselves up, I'll take the lead again. I'm going all out on defence here, throw all your enhancements you can muster on me!" Rhua says with determination to Lucy and Horace. Lucy responds in return with quick casting of spells, stacking up, lighting up the area with Gorthen elemental support Arts: 'Petriskin' and 'Golem's ward'.

Horace shouted, "SHIELD IN THE HOLE!" And a shell covered us in a petrichor-scented mist that hardens on our skin as the vapours touch us.

"Be ready to aid Rhua anyway you can, I have a theory this trap will burn itself out as long as we can outlast its casting." A brave face with her wand out in front of her, Lucy was ready.

Rhua climbed up the ladder and hadn't noticed that the lid began to lift off as if possessed. Catching her off guard and a searing white light came down on her. She quickly brought her shield upwards, the sound was akin to a blowtorch attached to a megaphone as it hammered down on her.

"UGHH this hurts, A LOT, keep those spells coming Lucy. Horace, try another one of your other enhancement shells before I cook to death as well!"

Horace in a greater panic than he already was, shouted "Overdrive!" his turret grew bigger, and he loaded it with a shell that I've not seen before: Putrid yellow, large, and round with a spiral at the tip with what appeared to be a propeller at the back.

Quickly yelling for everyone to watch out prematurely. A BOOM echoed throughout the sewers, as the projectile quickly starts tearing through the brickwork. It was interesting that it sealing its own route as it goes and as I notice, I shouted to Horace.

"What the bloody hell have you used here, lad; this looks more like something Barry would cook up!?"

"THAT'S because this is one of HIS ideas!" he piped up in response.

"Horace, if this kills us, I'll seek your soul in the afterlife and take your soul out to Pasteur with a 12-gauge crossbow!" Rhua snapped at him in response.

The shell had already made its way to the surface, and we heard a voice countdown from "10, 9, 8, DETONATION HAVE A NICE DAY."

The light has stopped and an Intense wave of flame rages through the room above us, Rhua drinks what appears to be an orange potion and pushes her way up, whatever it was she drank she's faring far better than she was previously.

"Rare to find holy resistance gear like the initial blast, fire resistance on the other hand is a dime a dozen, I'll be good from here, deactivate everything and let yourselves recover a bit" She shouts down to us.

Rhua disappeared up into the room above us, taking the lid with her as she does. Lucy conjured a water avatar to help weaken the flames further. Slowly, the flames died out, smoke eventually dispersed as well.

The room seemed to be some sort of pantry or cellar, I think, it's hard to tell with rich folk, because a pantry or cellar for the less well-off tends to be on the smaller side. Whilst on the rich, it tends to be the size of a small house.

"Cheers to Barry for whatever that mad little project of his was. Did you get any more of those from him?" Wardi said, wiping konkreet off his chest.

Piping up with glee, Horace replied, "NEGATIVE, but that was AMAZING. I'll need to get a RECIPE from him AFTER ALL THIS."

"Well, if you do, remind me to be nowhere near it then the next time it goes off," Lucy said

After she finishes with Horace, Lucy walked over to Rhua to discuss something, Wardi and I are looking around the room after picking up Horace and giving Larry the green light to come up too.

"Ahh, I see-I see, it was as I thought: An elemental battery trap. One that triggers an exceptionally high-powered light Art, it seems. It would have kept blasting in the direction it faces until it's all gone or until it's forcibly destroyed. Seems that this whole room itself is like a battery for it, continuously absorbing energy. Look, over there, ley lines connecting the bottles on that shelf to the parchment.

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Rhua walked over to examine but found herself examining a bottle that had smashed onto the floor, hundreds of spent crystalline elemental shards fractured and scattered nearby to it. "The blast must have knocked this one off, they're not the usual shards im used to seeing" Rhua said, examining what appeared to be a spent lightning shards with the faint purple colour associated with it.

"These are not cheap, they're Luzori tier at least. Whoever set this up didn't want anyone getting any further, that's for sure. Look at them all! I try to count in my head, then I just end up losing track of what I just counted. It's at least 20000 HFC for a single piece of these types of shards." Lucy spoke with fear forming in her voice as she progressed.

"Damn. Do we go further, or should we inform the guild at this point? This is a lot of effort to keep out outsiders." Unsure of himself, Wardi looked to us, and Horace responded.

"WE can only go forward!" Horace piped up, pointing downwards and the realisation hit all of us, that the sewer entrance has sealed itself up and runes of various gods are covering it.

"The mark of Serilia?" Larry said with shock in his voice. A symbol of what appeared to be an oak tree, numerous branches dangling many orbs adorned with very many different wings behind it. "Why would that be here? It only appears if Serilia is going to descend or during Chasm happening." Larry continued by reminding us.

"Ok… now I think we may have stumbled into something a little dangerous, brace yourselves, think a fight could happen here." Wardi noticed Larry was shaking. He reached out with his hand, placing it on Larry's shoulders to comfort him.

Rhua stood up and used a rallying cry to amp everyone up: "TOGETHER WE GO!" Runes appeared in the air covering us with symbols for enhancement.

"If this is the end, better to die alongside friends than some poor sod that wastes his life in the tavern." Rhua was ready to dive into the action. With a wave of her hand, she beckoned us to follow behind her. Slowly approaching and wandering up the stairs.

Nobody seemed to be here to greet us in a friendly or a deathly sort of way. As we exited the stairs and into the kitchen, surprised by Horace, who somehow got here before we did, until he pointed at the device that lifted things back & forth from the cellar to the kitchen. He earned himself a savage tap from Lucy for going off on his own without telling anyone.

There was an Artal device on the wall, and it rotated different images of the Von family periodically into view. I point at it and call over to Wardi and Rhua, "Hey, look, remember FOTOS from the old world? Been a while since we've come across them."

"We did have some cool tastes back on Terra. I used to take a lot of FOTOS, when I went away to new places, I miss being able to do that, think of all the cool places we've been to since the merger happened, I'd have made like, a tusen different albums by now!" Rhua whispered a laugh to hide a sad smile. Wardi smiled and touched the image.

"You miss the old life, don't you? I said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah, I do, we must keep pressing on though, life doesn't wait, and neither should we." Rhua whispered whilst giving me a slight elbow out of the way.

"When you're done reminiscing about the old days, perhaps you could focus on the task at hand, we're currently stuck in this bloody place until further notice so let's not get too distracted ey, especially when I'm hearing some weird sounds in the air, I think it's chanting, but I can't tell where it's coming from." Larry said clearly annoyed by the mystery ahead.

"Hush you idiot we don't know if anyone else is here, at least use a bloody dampener potion if you're going to talk so we don't wake the neighbours oh and, don't forget we just rescued your arse, you would have snuffed it without us remember that you deviant little arsehat." Rhua angrily whispered to him. Larry pulled out a colourless vial filled with liquid and drank it.

"I apologise for nothing!" Larry said, his voice now not audible to anyone beyond our distance, causing Rhua to shake her head.

Rhua composed herself and said, "I think we should stay on this floor until we've checked out everything. Besides, maybe there's some compensation in the form of an item or two after I was cooked earlier."

"Rhua! we're not criminals how could you think of doing something so illegal!" An angry hat flailing around was a fun sight.

"Compelling arguments, but I'm going to have to go with Lucy, we did TECHNICALLY break into someone's home, so I guess we are the baddies," Wardi said, whilst pocketing things when Lucy and Larry are both looking away. Rhua, Horace and I look at Wardi and wink in approval. Damn right we are taking some compensation for this. I thought to myself.

Examining the rooms one by one. We found what was likely some sort of maid's room. It seemed to be the only place with any signs that someone had been there; a candle still faintly burning. Continuing on resulted in us coming full circle back to the stairs.

"This floor was a bust, so that leaves the second floor and the entrance room" Wardi said showing off some spoils he's earned along the way to the four of us, Lucy and Larry were oblivious to this house Looking forward to take a look at the goods I thought gleefully.

The second floor greeted us less favourably. A smell was in the air, intoxicating in all the wrong ways.

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