The two walked down a corridor lined with bear-skin rugs. In the glow of the candles, the lavishly decorated hall spread out before them.
Within arm's reach, carefully maintained suits of half-plate armor gleamed invitingly inside display cases. Every few paces, a delicately colored porcelain vase added a touch of elegance.
More than a dozen valuable oil paintings hung on the four walls, most of them portraits. Roy looked them over curiously and discovered that one depicted Emhyr var Emreis, the emperor who had eliminated the usurper and reclaimed control of the Nilfgaardian Empire several years earlier.
Roy exclaimed admiringly, "He dares to keep a portrait of an enemy emperor in Aedirn. Sevir certainly knows how to flatter."
"With the dwarves' influence, the local army can't do a thing to him as long as he doesn't rebel. It's only natural that dwarves would have a favorable opinion of Emhyr. At least that man doesn't discriminate against nonhumans."
"I don't think so." Roy shook his head and lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "The emperor of the southern empire only wants to use nonhumans." The Witchers and the Scoia'tael would both become sacrifices in Emhyr's northern campaign.
But since Roy was here, he wouldn't let the School of the Viper be used so foolishly again.
The conversation ended there, and the two continued onward.
At the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor, two maids were watering flowers in a vase. When Roy got a good look at them, his eyes widened. He almost laughed, but forced himself to hold it in.
They were two dwarf maids.
They wore dresses and had stout figures, but their... beards were as thick as those of adult men.
"You have to respect the customs of every race."
Letho said quietly, then pulled a pouch of white powder from his alchemy kit and began scattering it around the house. As he sprinkled it, he explained to Roy, "This is dried black hellebore powder. It can irritate certain mischievous creatures and force them to reveal themselves."
Roy curiously stuck his nose out, sniffing around. "A faint fragrance... It smells lovely to humans, but some creatures can't stand it."
"Have you figured out what's been causing trouble for Sevir?"
Letho didn't answer. He took Roy through the entire first-floor hall, then the second-floor guest rooms, and finally the master bedroom on the third floor, where Sevir was catching up on sleep. They searched everywhere.
"Have you found anything, gentlemen?" The awakened dwarf rubbed his dark circles and yawned. Breathing in the faint scent of hellebore in the air, he felt refreshed, and the irritation that had plagued him for so long faded away.
"Nothing so far. By the way, aside from the rooms on the third floor, are there any secret rooms in your house?"
Sevir furrowed his brows and remained silent.
Letho's tone was stern and unapologetic. "Whether we can find the culprit depends on this. You have to tell me!"
"Otherwise, if we don't catch the monster, you won't get your money back!"
The dwarf rubbed his beard with his right hand. After a long while, he sighed. "Fine. I trust the School of the Viper's reputation. It's not that I didn't want to tell you earlier. It's just that this matter is very serious."
"By the kitchen shelves on the first floor, there's a hidden door. It leads to... the wine cellar."
The wine merchant's cellar was his Achilles' heel.
"Be careful when you search. Don't damage any of my barrels."
His eyes flickered uneasily. When he came out of the room again, he was carefully clutching a key. "I've decided to accompany you to the cellar."
"No need. Give me the key. Just remember that the Witchers are still searching downstairs, then go back to sleep for an hour and forget what happened just now."
In a suggestive tone, Letho traced a sign before the dwarf with his right hand. Sevir's eyes immediately went blank, and he handed the key to the big man in a daze. Then he returned to his bedroom and shut the door. A moment later, thunderous snores began to shake the house.
A look of surprise crossed Roy's face. "You hypnotized him?"
Letho replied calmly, "He lied to a Witcher's face. Sometimes you have to improvise to uncover the truth."
With Sevir's note of authorization and the key, the two had no trouble entering the kitchen and making their way into the cellar.
The cellar was extremely spacious, even much larger than the house upstairs. Roy guessed that it extended beneath the entire courtyard of the dwarf's estate.
Torches lined one wall, illuminating every corner of the cellar. The huge underground room was filled entirely with wine. Round wooden barrels were stacked four to a group, two on the bottom and two on top. Each group had a prominent label clearly stating its vintage and variety.
Roy looked around in amazement.
"1259, grape wine."
"1258, mead."
"1257, nut wine."
The vintages at the front were relatively recent. The farther in they went, the older the wines became.
"1200, Mandragora wine."
"1158, Aefluth wine."
"Did Sevir haul every fine wine the dwarves have ever made into this cellar? He's even got wines that are over a hundred years old."
"Too bad I don't like drinking."
Letho smacked Roy's shoulder with a palm as broad as a fan, making him grimace in pain. Then he lectured him earnestly. "You'll understand the taste of fine wine once you've really become a man."
"I don't want to become a drunk."
The cellar was so vast that the two of them couldn't have covered it in half an hour. Yet less than ten minutes later, Letho stopped beside a row of barrels of 1198 Dwarven spirit.
His nose twitched with the keen instinct of a hunting dog. He paused and laid his thick palm against a barrel, tapping it lightly a few times.
"Knock, knock, knock." Roy couldn't make anything of the sound, but his nose had picked up something.
"There's a smell..."
Roy suddenly spoke. With a perception score above 7, his sense of smell was far sharper than an ordinary person's. A very faint smell of decay lingered around these few barrels.
Letho glanced at him in surprise. "An ordinary person wouldn't be able to smell this at all."
But Letho had identified the scent more precisely. "It's the smell of a corpse. A human corpse, soaked in fifty-year-old Dwarven spirit. The strong smell of liquor has masked most of the stench. But it can't fool a Witcher."
Roy's heart skipped a beat. He pointed at the barrel. "You mean there's a corpse inside?"
Letho nodded, his thick eyebrows arching like blades. "No wonder Seville Hogg wanted to come down to the cellar with us. He was afraid we'd discover the secret inside the barrel."
"When we first arrived, I thought a Little Earth Spirit was playing tricks on him. Now it looks like things aren't that simple."
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