by Nic Weissman
The answer to the last question was what everyone feared. Samar could not avoid swallowing loudly. To get to the treasure, where they hoped to find the box they were looking for, they'd have to pass close to the vampire. In fact, in the process of finding the treasure room, it was possible that they ended up facing him. They had already discussed this scenario as the most likely, and had agreed to the plan of action in that case.
They decided to hide the body. Erion crouched next to him and, after putting on a pair of very thin black gloves, took two rings and put them in his bag. Then Thost and Erion slid the body under the bed and went back into the hall. As they had done before, Erion led the group. He went to the door from where that strange man had appeared. Although he knew that it would be open, Erion again performed the entire ritual of reviewing it, to finally open it without much difficulty.
The young man walked into another room. It was a large dining room. In it there were two more doors, to their left and right respectively. It had many of the features of the other rooms. Not a soul was seen there either. By gestures, he ushered the group to prevent remaining in that hall, as close to the door behind they knew they had a complete detachment of soldiers armed to the teeth.
“This may be a good place to cast an evil detection spell,” Ithelas said, as he began a brief chant. “I will be able to tell if there is some evil being in the next room before entering.”
“How long does it last?” Mithir asked.
“I hope long enough to explore this floor,” the cleric answered.
They approached the door on the right. This time, as Erion revised it, the cleric was concentrated very close to him. When Erion finished, he looked at Ithelas, who nodded. He opened the door and stepped into a kitchen. The whole group went in after him. It was a spacious kitchen; inside it one could prepare comfortably food for fifteen or twenty people. On the opposite side of the kitchen there was another door. On the roof they saw a couple of small skylights, also boarded up.
“No doubt, this is not the place where the food of the soldiers is prepared,” Samar said, observing the little use that the kitchen seemed to have.
“However, look there. It seems that they recently have cut vegetables,” Erion said, pointing to a table that was next to one of the two fireplaces of the room.
A small black cauldron was located in the center of the fireplace on a charcoal fire, already off.
“Possibly someone has prepared here a vegetable soup, or something similar; I would say yesterday,” Ithelas added.
The cleric and looter repeated their exploratory routine on each door. Erion opened it and they entered a larger room. It was a bedroom, which once would have housed eight people, possibly the servants of the castle. Now only one of the beds was used. The room looked alike the others in every detail, except the quality of the furniture. They were also very old but its sorry state denoted that they were not of the same quality. Probably its limited use had allowed it not to fall apart literally, but it hadn’t stopped it from looking worn.
The bed that had sheets and blankets was of a different type. It was much newer, perhaps less than ten years old. It was loreda, a wood of light color that was reasonably strong, but much more mundane. It was also unadorned and lacked special quality. Its mission seemed purely functional. They checked the closets of the room. All of them were empty except the one that was close to the new bed. They found more sheets in it, some towels and two robes identical to the ones of the man who they had questioned earlier. Erion found nothing of value.
The next room was locked. Erion used his picks and this time it took a little more work to open it because the lock was a bit old and a little rusty. Finally it relented and they managed to enter.
They had to cover their noses immediately. A horrible stench filled the room. On the ground they found several dead animals. There was a large cow, which was completely pale. It was the strangest color.
“Because of its appearance, I believe that it's been dead for one or two days,” Ithelas said, after briefly checking the animal.
The cow's sides had several holes through which a trail of blood had flowed. It was as if a flock of crows had pecked it and had left it to bleed; however, there was barely any blood on the floor. There were two pigs in similar conditions, but with the difference that the state of decomposition of their bodies was much more advanced.
In the center of the room, there was a large table under which they saw several knives and other butcher utensils. There were also sharp hooks hanging from the ceiling, next to a wall. At the slaughterhouse there was no other furniture, but there was a gate at the far end of the room. It was split in two, so we could open the top half while the bottom was kept closed.
The looter and the cleric approached it. Erion parted only a couple of fingers of the upper part, looked and closed it again. The next room was very large and elongated, maybe about twenty steps long. It was a kind of barn, which had accumulated enough animals in a small space. It was divided into three sections; the biggest had half a dozen cows, in the opposite corner there was a herd of pigs, and included a partition separating a chicken barnyard. In one corner there were large amounts of straw and feed; possibly enough food for a week for these animals. They returned with the group.
“The barn is connected to the outer courtyard of the castle, but access to it is closed by a lattice,” Erion said.
They returned to the servants’ bedroom, happy to leave behind the nasty slaughterhouse and trying to forget the terrible smell. There was one last door in that bedroom. With steel reinforcements at different heights, it was really resistant. Erion and Ithelas were coordinating even better and took less time to carry out their checks. Although Erion found no traps, the lock was closed and was of high quality. The young man had to apply himself for a long time to get it open, but finally the mechanism relented.
Erion did not enter the room immediately. There was something strange on the floor. He felt that the first tile behind the door was separated from the others. After closely inspecting it he concluded that, when pressing it, some mechanism would be triggered. The remaining tiles were normal, harmless. He opened the door wide and told them where they should tread. He waited until they were inside the room and then gently closed the door again. He decided it was best not to find out what danger the trap would trigger.
The room in which they had entered was the most spectacular of all he had seen. It was huge! More than forty steps long. And the ceilings were high as well. It was a huge library. There must be thousands of books, even tens of thousands. Wide shelves covered the walls. They were so high that it would take a long ladder to reach the books that were on the upper shelves. In fact, halfway up, there was a narrow steel footbridge with a handrail. A pair of staircases accessed the catwalk.
The center of the room was occupied by reading tables, chairs; there was even a small copy shop at one end. Multiple windows exposed various objects such as maps and ancient scrolls, gold and silver coins minted in various countries, some jewelry and other objects of the nobility such as scepters. A showcase in the center of the room contained two manuscript books, ancient and beautiful. The room was decorated with several statues, mostly innocent, scantily clad maidens or animals and hunting scenes.
They walked to the other end of the room and found a way out. Erion and Ithelas proved that there was no approaching danger and returned to the center of the library. Erion observed the room carefully again. The words dead, stairs, laboratory, library and hidden door, had been etched in the minds of them all.
“I would say that this room occupies the entire width of the castle. Also, all the walls of the room contact with the outside except this one, the north wall,” Erion said, pointing to the wall where the two doors of the room were.
“Erion has a lot of experience interpreting indoor spaces quickly,” Mithir explained. “We must listen to him.”
By now the whole group had appreciated the skills of the young man and although it had aroused new d
oubts for them, it was clear that the boy knew what he was doing.
“Am I to conclude that, therefore, we should seek a secret door in the north wall?” Thost said.
“Exactly. Those who are better equipped for the task are Samar and I. The elves have a sixth sense to find secret doors. It is always a difficult task, and not always a successful one, so any help is great. Let’s get to it.”
Erion gave them brief explanations of what kind of things they should look for and asked them if they thought they saw something weird just to call him. They began to review the wall and the shelves covering part of it. After ten minutes they had found nothing.
“My ability to detect evil is about to end. I think we should continue to explore this level. It seems that seeking the door will take long,” Ithelas requested.
“I think you're right. Let’s go,” Thost said.
They walked to the end of the library and reached the door they had yet to explore. Ithelas didn't detect any evil at the other side. It was locked. It was identical to the one in the library, which the young man had to work hard on, again, in an effort to open it. When it finally gave in, they saw that it overlooked a large living room, almost as large as the entrance hall where they had been awhile before but obviously much smaller than the huge library.
The room had two fireplaces and was divided into four areas with slightly different decor in each. Great quality paintings hung on each of the walls. Erion assessed that there was a small fortune there. They had the mark of the artist school of the Tylar kingdom. The best works of art were produced in that country. The young man had already noticed that the statues of the library were also of great quality, like the scene on the floor of the hall. Unfortunately it would be impossible to take any of those things, but those paintings ...
Ithelas was in a corner of the room and had been petrified. Thost had asked him something, but the young man did not articulate a word. His eyes and facial expression were totally frozen. He didn't even seem to be breathing. They all went to him, worried. Moments later his expression changed to one of pure panic. Suddenly he took a deep breath with intensity as if he was drowning. They helped him sit on a chair. He recovered gradually.
“Are you okay? What happened?” his father asked, concerned.
“That corner ... evil,” the young man managed to say with difficulty.
Shortly after he explained that in that area of the room he had perceived various evil beings. He had felt more than five appearances, although he could not say exactly how many. One was overwhelmingly evil, the most intense evil that he had ever perceived. His spell was over and he didn't feel anything. He was well again, although a little uneasy.
They checked the corner of the room trying to make as little noise as possible, but found nothing. Their best bet to go down a level was what the servant had said. The living room had another door that was not locked and went back to the room where they had been a while ago. They had completed the exploration of that section of the castle and, as expected, there was no obvious access to the famous laboratory.
“Let's go back to the library,” Thost suggested.
“Yes. Let's look through every inch of the north wall of the room,” Samar added.
“Listen to me, everyone. Seek any irregularities in the wall; any shelf that looks slightly different from the others, either because they are slightly ahead or behind, either because the wood has a different wear than the other; any set of books that seem to snag; in short, any visual cue that seems unusual,” Erion explained didactically.
The elves were a race with a natural ability for this task, and Erion was highly trained in it. But despite everyone's efforts, almost an hour later they still hadn't found anything.
Erion returned to the lounge and dining room, and quickly back to the library. By the arrangement and the distances from the walls he realized that there was a space, which he had been unable to access, enclosed between the southern wall of the dining room and kitchen, and the north wall of the library. He explained these details to the group that listened with interest.
“The hidden rooms sometimes have more than one secret door. Let's check the south wall in the dining room and kitchen. Maybe we'll have more luck there,” the young man suggested.
There was not much to lose in this attempt and, again, this seemed to be Erion's field of competence. They inspected the dining wall for a while and were unsuccessful. As it was not covered by shelves, it was much faster and easier to check. There were only a couple of furniture pieces against it that, since they weren't very heavy, they could easily move to check the section of wall behind them. They moved to the kitchen and repeated the operation. Finally, Erion saw a small spring in the wall between the two fireplaces. He examined the area of the wall with the utmost care and then retired.
“There is a secret door here. If we're lucky, by moving the spring it will open. But I have a hunch that it will not be enough, and that we will have to do more to open it. I'll know more after I trigger it,” the young man explained.
“Ok. What are you waiting for?” Thost said.
“We can't be sure that we'll have the time or opportunity to go through this area of the castle. We'll probably have to face great dangers,” Erion said, who was about to continue his explanation when Samar interrupted.
“You've seen some valuable things,” she said.
“Right. I suggest we lose only a few minutes to collect the most valuable objects. Please, everyone, follow my instructions and we can finish quickly.”
They followed Erion, who went inside the room first. There he instructed Ithelas and Thost to collect two small chandeliers, and he pointed to five of the paintings hanging in this room.
“Pick them up, separate the canvas from a frame with a dagger, and then roll up the canvases together and keep them, as best you can, in your pouches,” he instructed.
With a gesture he told the others to follow him to the library. He asked the elf to keep some jewelry and other objects that were in two of the windows in the middle of the room. Erion kept the two old manuscripts that were also exposed in another case and asked Mithir to cast a spell he had used countless times. The magician concentrated for a moment and then nodded he was ready.
“Walk in front of all the shelves of the room. Walk the perimeter as quickly as possible. Remember to look at the second level also,” the young man requested.
Mithir did as he was told. It took almost ten minutes to walk the entire room. When he was finishing checking the south wall shelves, he suddenly stood and opened his eyes, excited. He sought the nearest spiral staircase and climbed it to the second level. Then he walked a few steps down the runway and took a book. He stroked the cover as if he were touching a holy book. He opened it in half and they could see a huge smile on his face. He swooped down.
“Thanks a million. Thanks,” Mithir said, gesturing.
“You're welcome, brother. Anything else?” Erion urged.
The magician finished checking the few remaining shelves and then approached another group of cabinets where they hadn't taken anything. Of all the objects he took a small rod, which had no ornaments or jewelry or, apparently, no special value. Then he told the others that he was done.
Erion led the group back into the living room where father and son had just finished their tasks with the paintings. Without missing a beat, he asked everyone to follow him into the kitchen.
“Can you still detect magical auras?” he asked his brother.
“Yes. But I have little time left,” the magician said.
“Look at this area of the wall,” Erion requested, pointing to the place where before he had sensed the presence of a door.
Moments later, Mithir explained that as Erion had suspected, the door had some kind of magical protection. It was not going to be as easy to open. Luckily, Mithir believed to be prepared.
“While we were coming here, did you perceive another aura in the previous rooms?” he asked the looter.
“No. Nothing more, brother,” the magician replied.
Erion asked everyone to be located at the other end of the room. Although he hadn't perceived any trap connected to the spring, it couldn't be trusted. The young man triggered the spring and, after a loud clack, they suddenly saw how the outline of a door was drawn on the surface of the wall. Erion thoroughly reviewed the structure that had appeared but found no way to open it. With a gesture he asked his brother to come over.
“Let’s cross our fingers,” the young man said. “Good luck,” he added as he retreated a few steps.
Mithir began chanting a spell and after a few magical passes, struck with the tip of his stick in the middle of the door, as if he was knocking. Then they saw as the tone changed and it no longer appeared to be made of the same material as the wall; now it seemed to be made of conventional wood. It was open.
Erion went in first and the others followed. They were in lab for alchemy and other magical experiments. It had tremendously complete equipment. In a corner of the lab there was a spiral staircase that seemed to go to both the lower and the upper level.
Before they could check more, the door they had entered closed. Everyone started to feel dizzy and coughed. Ithelas perceived a smell of some strange gas in the air. Mithir fell fainting to the ground while everyone else got worse. Was this their end?
CHAPTER 8: THE CRYPT