[center][b]Town Square[/b][/center]

Smoke, blood and rubble. Mars wiped some blood off his face with his hand; the explosion had left him soaked in blood which was not his own. He was glad he had chosen to distance himself from the bomb. Smoke was still rolling from around the crater where the fountain had been, and water had pooled in the hole until it began to overflow to the ground around it. As the water swept around Thailen's corpse her blood turned the water a kind of cloudy crimson, and Mars found himself wading through a pool of blood as he approached the woman's corpse. The poor soul. Her body was mangled and a line of blood and entrails stretched from the body to the directions the stoney projectiles which pierced him had flown off to. One of the other blade's, a woman, requested that they push on to rescue the Queen's, then he saw her mutter a prayer. 

 "I'll stay as well. I've done what they asked, and what they've paid for," Mars said as he knelt beside the corpse of the fallen Blade. Her whip was by some miracle still tied off to her torso, he placed a hand on her chin. Her head rested in a pool of blood and brains, her upper lip was completely gone revealing bloody gums and either missing or shattered teeth, but the rest of her face was fairly intact. She had been beautiful. 

"Shame."

Mars attempted to untie the nine tails but it burnt his hand to the touch. He tried again with a layer of cloth wrapped around his hand, yet still the whip seared the cloth and burnt his thumb. He cursed and decided to let the whip rest where it was. A necklace of broken prayer beads was submerged in the blood by her side. They had no value, but he picked them up none the less, careful to not allow more of the beads to slip off. He retied the necklace and shoved the beads in one of his pockets. They wouldn't of been worth keeping, but she had saved his life, and so he preferred it this way. He gently rolled her body to the side, and as he did so the back of her head fell open, split into thirds. The longsword which rested on her back has shattered, one of the stones which had impaled her had did so at such a great velocity it shattered the steel. He let go and let her body roll back as it was. He removed from her corpse a small bag of coins and anything which may be of some value and then walked to the corpse of Jeremy. The man had a few pieces of jewelry and a small leather book with blood soaked pages, likely with nothing important written on the pages, but Mars took it all. 

The spider which had been charred was useless, but the other was fairly intact except for the skull. He sat on a stone resting beside the spider and pulled out a carving knife. In some places spider meat was a rare delicacy, but more importantly people paid for the organs which produced silk and venom. Some people would place enchantments on the silk gland which would allow the organ to produce silk independent of the spider. Seamstresses and weavers would then spin the silk into fine clothes and bedding. In regions where large spiders were common spider silk was appreciated but hardly rare. However in the majority of regions spider silk was a treasured commodity, and with a spider so large Mars could fetch a hefty sum.

Ignoring the fact that one of his 'companions' was a Drow, Mars sunk the carving blade into the spider's abdomen and began cutting in a saw like motion. It was only an animal, and a shame to simply let it rot away.