Power Of Blood: Darkness Never Leaves 70 Break

The team sat down on the white couches to wait for the High Priest. He sure had a luxurious life for a priest. They thought as they looked around at the golden antiques. They had always thought priests to be living a simple down to earth life. None of them ever imagined the High Priest residence to be filled with golden antique statues. Visha stood up to take a closer look at the beautiful pair of swans carved at one of the walls. The pair of swans were touching beaks to form a heart shape with their necks in a pond surrounded with trees. At the end if the pond, there was a house like carving. Even though it was quite small in the carving but one could sense its extravagance as it had been shaped like a palace in distance. It was a beautiful scenery carved upon the white stone which made it look simple yet elegant. Visha traced the swans with her fingers feeling the smooth curves of their feathers with every stroke. The voice of someone clearing their throat from behind distracted her and she turned to see Shaurya glaring at her while Priest Vishva stood beside him with a warm smile. She bowed in respect to the High Priest and came back to stand with others. Priest Vishva was a humble and polite man who didn't care much about wordly ways of showing respect. He was never offended by aloof people like Visha, in fact he found them interesting as there were not many who were capable of detaching themselves from worldly affairs. He sat down and gestured them to sit down as well. Everyone bowed again before taking their places and Shaurya took the lead.

"Your Eminence, we found traces of a spell in the Treasure room and suspect that it might've been used to cover the noise of the explosion or for the mysterious noiseless explosion itself. Blood was used to conjure the spell and we tracked its origin to the Forbidden forest. Hence, we'd like your permission to carry the investigation further."

Shaurya had kept it short and precise as not to waste any more time. Young Miss had already told them that time was of essence for this mission. The stone must be found before the day of the ceremony at all costs. His words had given a slight shock to the High Priest but he soon regained his composure. Priest Vishva forced a smile on his face and replied.

"The priesthood is very thankful to the Bhairavis for their a.s.sistance in this matter and I will personally remember to return the favor to your mistress. I shall take this into my own hands and would like our young guests to rest as the journey back would be quite tiresome." His words had clearly stated that he refused to let them investigate any further and asked them to leave as soon as possible. Visha felt something was odd after hearing High Priest's refusal to grant permission. Was the Forbidden Forest really that dangerous? She couldn't help but closely observe Priest Vishva but in vain. He was a reputable High Priest, there was no way he'd lose his composure in front of some youngsters. She secretly pulled out a small grain sized black bead from her pocket and threw it at the High Priest. It successfully landed on his coat unnoticed and Visha felt proud of herself. Others still hadn't wrapped their heads around his harsh words. Before anyone could refute back, Priest Vishva got up and left.The team had no option but to leave the High Priest's residence with their heads sunken in disappointment. They had really looked forward to becoming heroes after completing this mission and getting an alliance as a trophy for their Young Miss but ended up being shunned away by the only humble priest there.

"He did say he'd return the favor." Trisha said trying to make everyone look at the silver lining. But this only aggravated them further as they increased their pace to walk away from her. Her ignorance and stupidity had never failed to annoy them but no one was willing to talk any sense into her. It was a disappointing and tiresome day and none of them had any energy to waste on her.

By the time they reached the priesthood, High Priest had already sent word to prepare rooms for their guests to rest before leaving. So everyone there was already aware that the witches had been kicked out on their very first day! They must've been some really useless bunch of trash to have been sent back in just a day. All the disciples gave the team mocking gazes and sneers as they pa.s.sed them. Since the priesthood was very strict regarding discipline no one had dared to come up and say anything but the looks they gave the team was enough to make their teeth clench in anger. Ashwin just wanted to go around punching those idiot disciples who were ridiculing them and calling them useless. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs that they had found a lead and it was their 'precious' priesthood that had stopped the investigation in between. All they could do for now was go to their a.s.signed rooms and think of something. Shaurya saw Trisha as a useless idiot and since Visha was a new member, he wasn't ready to accept her opinion in making decisions yet. So he asked only Danish and Ashwin to join him in his room to discuss what to do next.