It appeared that the narrow pathway was a staircase leading farther underground. Maven and Declan walked carefully, almost without a sound. A moment later, Maven heard the sound of flowing water. It turned out that this path led toward the sewers of Redne.

The next moment, Declan who was walking ahead arrived in front of a wooden door. The sound of rickety wood confirmed that the door was not locked. The two warriors then found themselves inside a rather long and wide room.

“That’s right, this is the sewers,” Declan commented, observing his surroundings. A gutter lied in the middle of the room which extended seemingly limitlessly. Traces of blood could be seen on the floor. Calhoun’s blood. Thus the two of them followed that only clue to track their targets.

Maven never failed to frown every time the foul stench of the sewers stung her nose.

“It seems that my lady has never infiltrated through a waste dump like this. But I guess you nose isn’t the only thing that in need of protection, Galatr!” Declan's trident glowed. Instantly Maven’s body began to glow as well in white, tender light, briefly before returning to normal. Clearly, now she was wrapped in the magical Protection Field.

During the conversation with her two teachers before, Maven deliberately refrained from letting Declan casting a protective field on her, which would last for approximately half a day. Her reasoning being that the sharp Theana would surely recognize the aura it emanated and would suspect her.

This time was different, of course. Everything was already out in the open, so now she wore the holy protective aura as her armor without doubt. While still stinging with pain, the wound on her thigh was slowly healing.

Like an underground sewer in every city nowadays, this one too was inhabited with monsters. As they passed through the smelly and suffocating sewers, Maven and Declan ran into a number of giant rats, giant spiders, and a kind of mud monster that lived off excrements and wastes piling up under the water in the gutters.

Declan had just recently stabbed his trident on a giant rat to kill it, and he got splashed by mud due to his partner stirring the sewer waters under their feet.

“Oh, come on, Mave! Use a less rowdy move, please?” complained Declan who was covered in mud.

Instead of apologizing, Maven laughed at the cleric's appearance. “Hahahaha! I’m sorry, Dec! That was the only move that came to mind!”

“Women.”

While still mumbling silently, Declan swung his left hand. Every dirt that previously stained his clothes instantly turned into dust.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Then, “Galatr!” Since he cleansed that dirt with his magical protective field, Declan had to renew it.

“Be careful next time! Or else, I will keep these stains on when we face those two gang leaders.”

Maven again bursted in laughter. “Good idea. That should be a good weapon. They’ll faint from the smell alone!”

Declan frowned at her ridicule. But then he immediately saw something. “Look, Mave! That light from that crack on the wall… I think it’s a doorway!”

Mave looked at the direction Declan pointed to and commented, “Yeah, that should be big enough for people. No harm in checking out in case it’s not simply a broken wall.”

Both of them then tried to slip through that narrow crack, which didn’t seem to be made for bigger men. Declan pointed his glowing trident, illuminated upon the gap which turned out to be extending inward.

A few steps later, they arrived in front of a stone-walled path and a wooden ladder leading up.

Declan looked back and touched his lips to signal Mave not to make a sound. She nodded while readying her daggers. Both of them then climbed up the ladder. At the end of the ladder, they found another door.

Declan raised his trident, again intending to crush it. But Maven quickly prevented him and began to push the door very slowly. The door was opened without much sound. Maven glared at Declan who simply grinned and scratched his head. The two then entered.

The elf was awestruck by the massive room that she has found. She could see stacks of goods piling up on top of another, whether inside the chests, the ones lying around on the floor, or the ones hanging on the wall.

Maven wondered, The antique statues, valuable objects made of gold, silver and jewels, rolls of silk cloth… By Vadis… are these…. loots?

Suddenly Calhoun’s laugh echoed in the room. “Hahaha. Well done, Maven. You managed to break through all the Viperwolves' encirclement. Clearly, you are collaborating with the authorities, you damn traitor! But the best of all is that you have successfully found this secret treasure storage with only a few drops of my blood.”

Maven and Declan immediately dashed toward the source of the voice. Their sight immediately focused on the gang leader, Calhoun Cavendier the One Eyed Wolf, sitting casually atop of the pile of his loots, chugging on the red wine inside a golden chalice adorned with sapphire, ruby and emerald. It gave the impression that he was indeed expecting their arrival.

The two intruders immediately readied their stance, but refrained from charging. Maven instead looked elsewhere and yelled, “Where is Theana? Aren’t you two always together?”

“I'm here,” answered Theana, already recovered from her fainting and walked stylishly from behind her opponents.

“Such a coincidence. We didn’t think that you will ever find this room,“ Theana continued. “At first we intended to go into hiding first, sell all these stuff, and rebuild our strength in another town. After that we shall hunt you down, Maven, to avenge the disaster that you have inflicted upon our band by threefold or more.”

Calhoun switched with his wife at explaining, “It’s good to see you coming here with your partner. This way we can save a lot of time. This time you shall feel the pain much worse than death.”

Declan shrugged. “What choice do we have? Bloodshed is already inevitable by this point. Let's get this over with.”

Maven nodded to her partner. Then both of them took back-to-back position. Maven against Theana, Declan against Calhoun.

Silence fell. The four warriors were observing their respective foes, trying to predict each other’s moves and strength. Their foreheads wrinkled, thinking carefully about their tactics to use for the incoming battle. A slight mistake might be met with death.