Erin nodded her head, her eyes already glossing over with drowsiness. Yawning, she said, “Alright, thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it, and I bet your dad does too.” Before she had even finished the last word of her sentence she was curled up and resting against the wall, her eyes shut and sleeping.
Without moving a muscle, Seraph waited to ensure that she had stayed asleep, and that no one else had woken up in the meantime. He wasn’t sure how long they would stay asleep, but he did not think it would be for long. They may not know it yet, but sleep during a delve in a designated safe area was always short.
Quickly, he searched the other desks but didn’t find anything that looked or seemed important. Before leaving the room, he gave it one last look to see if he had missed anything, but nothing caught his eye before moving out.
There were two rooms he still needed to search, both at the back of the office, on opposite sides of each other, down a short hallway. The first had a sign in a bronze plaque that read “Principal”, he would visit that room last. The second door had a sign that read “Nurse Office”. Of the two, he had a suspicion that what he was looking for could be found in the Principal's office, but a quick search of the nurse's office would likely provide some loot.
As he flicked on the light, Seraph noted that it could hardly be called an office. Just a small room with a clinical, industrial looking bed. On the bed were two dusty boxes, and a small medical container on the wall that read “Emergency Kit.”
“This will come in handy.” Muttered Seraph as he grabbed the side of the container to take the emergency supplies. Inside the kit he found a small bottled labeled “Pain Killers” and some gauze, picking up both and placed them in his spatial pocket.
Notification: You have acquired 2 pills. Each pill grants pain immunity for 5 minutes and restores health during combat to “Stable” status.
Notification: You have acquired “Set of Gauze”. Application of gauze cures “Bleed” status.
This was a good find, he would share one with Paul when he had the chance, but for now would keep both on him until a better time presented itself. The only thing left in the room was the two boxes on the medical bed. And the only thing left for him to do was open them.
Two identical boxes meant only one thing. One was real, one was a fake, likely a mimic, and the only way to know for sure was to either open the box and suffer massive damage or even loss of life, or to attack it up front and hope to kill the mimic first and not accidentally destroy the lot.
“Oh well.” He said with a sign as he pulled his mace from the loop on his belt and sung down on the first box. The box screamed, a short sort of death knell as his weapon struck, striking on soft flesh rather than cardboard. Black blood oozed from teeth where the lid of the box had been. Seraph felt instant relief that he had been correct in his guess, and from the layout of the teeth, he would have likely lost a hand if he had attempted to open the box.
Rapidly the mimic began to begin to shrivel up and rapidly decomposed. In its place dropped a handful of the tokens to leave Phase II and begin Phase III. He quickly counted, they almost had enough for everyone to pass on. He would divvy them out when everyone woke up. Carefully, just in case he opened the second box and breathed in relief when this box didn’t attack him either. Within the box he found a gold brooch that gave off a faint blue light, Seraph knew that the item was enchanted, but until he could get it identified, he would be unable to use it.
“Hey, what's that I heard a noise, something like a monster, everything ok?” Came a voice from behind him. Seraph turned to see Alexander there. “I found a brooch and some tokens after killing a monster in a box.” Seraph replied, as he showed off the brooch, trying to pass off the item as something casual and minimize the extent of his find.
Alexander looked at the brooch with a disgusted expression. “Why are you carrying around a brooch? That’s worthless. I’ll make you a deal, I’ll let you keep the brooch, and in return you give me some of those tokens.”
Seraph looked at him, and saw that Alexander had maneuvered himself to block the door, he had no intention of letting Seraph get away without handing over the tokens. This was not how Seraph wanted to spend his limited time. “Sure, I was going to give them out anyways.” He responded.
An idea came to him, and he counted out the full 10 tokens and placed them in Alexander’s hand, but rather than let go, he held on as Alexander looked at him with a brief expression of surprise and noticeable fear. “Activate.” Seraph said to the tokens as he released Alexander’s hand.
Instantly, Alexander disappeared. He would be a problem for later, but for now, Seraph had other matters to attend to.
Chapter 13: Left Behind
* * *
Looking at the space where Alexander had been, Seraph internally reprimanded himself for being impulsive. This had been sloppier than he intended and would likely cause complications. Complications that he would need to deal with almost immediately, and complications in the far off future. He knew realistically no explanation would fix this.
Even though Seraph had tried to remain quiet as he searched the safe area information and items, he had still been loud enough to wake up Alexander, even as he had struggled to not wake up the others. A mistake had been made, he had made a mistake, and that mistake had likely been whatever noise had woken Alexander up, or that Seraph had been mistaken in his belief that Alexander had been peacefully sleeping when he went to search the back rooms.
Regardless, it was his mistake to own, and a reminder that his senses were not without flaws. He could be fooled; he could be caught unawares. It was an important reminder that he was not some primordial being, not some god incarnate, for now he was just a boy, or at least had the body and experience of one. With only a few things different, this would have been an exceptionally dangerous situation for him. He needed to get stronger much faster.
“Thankfully, I was able to salvage the situation.” He thought. “By sending Alexander onward, instead of being forced to try to kill him.”
The mechanic had not been difficult, all it required was the active intent to use the tokens and the verbal command. A common technique he was familiar with from his other life, just a matter of will, will and intent. Without a minor infusion of mana, the spoken command, and a will to activate the tokens, it would never work. This was a fail safe to protect the new and uninitiated, but as Seraph had just done, there were still a few ways to abuse it.
Looking again at the empty spot, Seraph’s thoughts turned back to Alexander. Of the man he knew little, their paths had not crossed in his first life, Seraph was sure Alexander had been an early casualty. The man’s purpose was unclear, and though the man might not have been a genius or an expert fighter, he did show promise. Seraph preferred not having been forced to take the man’s life. He was no necromancer; the dead didn’t yet serve him. Interest As for Alexander, his purpose is unclear, and though the man might not have been a genius or an expert fighter, but he did show promise, Seraph preferred not having to take his life. He was no necromancer; the dead didn’t yet serve him.
That said, if Alexander had woken up or only pretended to be sleeping, it was possible that Erin or his father had heard the noise he made from slamming the boxes and would come to investigate or investigate Alexanders absence. He was prepared, he had already thought of a story, ready and prepared if needed, Alexander was after all an oddity.
He moved silently to the doorway careful to not make another sound and peered out, he couldn’t see them sleeping from where he stood, but he could hear them. The sounds of soft sleep coming from Erin, and from Paul he heard loud snoring. They were asleep, though not where he remembered them falling asleep. They too must have woken and moved around. If that was the case, he still had time before they would wake up to keep searching.
Quickly, but not so quickly as to not be careful, or make more noise, picked up the remaining tokens from inside the room, the ones still left in the box, and the
excess left behind from when Alexander’s ten tokens were activated. Lastly, he reached for the brooch he had found and pinned it to his jumpsuit, as he was walking out he stopped himself as he realized he had missed something. He lowered himself to the floor and pulled a small metal washer from one of the corners of the medical bed. If one didn’t look at it closely, it resembled one of the phase advancements tokens. He quickly stashed it in his pocket, stood up and shook the dust off of him and grabbed the helmet and left the room.
One never knew if quick sleight of hand might be necessary. There were still no guarantees they would find enough tokens for the remaining to move on.
Looking around one last time to make sure he had grabbed everything, Seraph smiled at himself. This was his element, and while he wouldn’t quite call it thriving, he was living, and soon he hoped he would find a way to unseal his power that lay in the Emblem of the Black Seraph.
They currently had enough tokens for 2 people to move on to the next stage at any time, and if he knew anything about his father, it was that his father would refuse to move on if anyone was left behind. But more, so he knew that if everyone could move on, most would choose to do so, and Seraph knew on an instinctive level that they needed to stay and explore further.
He thought of the small washer in his pocket that looked so much like a token. An insurance policy, if one was needed.
With only one more room to check, the Principal’s Office, Seraph crept a few feet down the hall as quietly as he could. From Erin and Paul, he heard no sound or movement and assumed they must still be sleeping. On some level Seraph knew he was in conflict with the stated purpose of guarding them in their sleep, and he knew if they found out he wasn’t doing that, it would not be well received. But it couldn’t be helped, he had no reservations about what he was doing, this was an opportunity to explore this place uninterrupted without having to explain or think of more palatable explanations for why he knew things. He wanted to avoid questions he wasn’t prepared to lie about or had no interest in answering.
Gently he turned the bronzed doorknob and softly pushed the door forward, careful and slowly to try to keep it from creaking and making too much noise and possible waking one of them up.
What he saw stunned him. Unlike the general office space were Erin and Paul lay sleeping, the principal's office was meticulously clean and immaculate, as if someone, or something had been there recently. There was no other explanation It had the faint look, feel, and smell of having had recent exposure to the outside world, it was not stale and musty as the other rooms had been. But except for the footsteps of his group, there was no evidence that anyone else had even been here. The dust outside the office was more evidence that no one had been inside for years if not decades.
“Yeah, something isn’t right here.” Seraph thought as he gave the room a quick glance. The cleanliness was definite proof that this was the room he needed to dig through to find whatever secret this place was hiding that he needed to find. He pushed the papers on the desk aside and laid took off the brooch he was wearing and laid it on the desk. He wouldn’t be able to benefit from it anyways until he got it identified and for now it was just getting in the way. But as he laid it down, he realized it was no longer giving off its previous blue hue of dim light, which meant it had been identified.
Seraph grabbed hold of the item and looked at it closer.
Notification: Brooch of the Hometown Hero – So long as you possess greater strength and agility than the other members of your party, you will be viewed as the leader of the group by non-members in the immediate vicinity.
He grimaced. It was a mostly useless bonus for him. It may have benefits, but he would likely trade it at the first opportunity rather than keep it, he had other ways to make people acknowledge him as a leader. He had hoped for buffs to his fighting ability, rather than charismatic bluffs. His had never been the way of the illusionist or the bard. What he did not gain through loyalty, he took through force. He would pawn it at first opportunity or toss it if it was too inconvenient.
But this was not a revelation without merit. It was interesting that it had been identified, and the only way it could have been identified was if somebody on his team had done so, and he had already seen Paul’s special ability, and he had seen Erin’s ability, leaving the logical conclusion that Alexander had been the person to identify the item. If that was the case, Seraph found it interesting that Alexander had not tried to steal the item too.
At some point during their encounter Alexander must have used an ability. An ability that he had previously refused to disclose, an ability that allowed him to identify items. Likely a non-combat ability, which was likely why he refused to disclose it before, the man was not just a fool, he was insecure too.
“Problematic.” Seraph said to himself under his breath. “An insecure fool is dangerous.” There was little Alexander could have done to make himself less of a fool in Seraph’s eyes. The man had attempted to coerce him, and ultimately Seraph would ensure he paid a high price for that. Within the dungeon the only thing that mattered was strength and the application of power. The dangerous nature of the dungeon cared little for anything else, but the people who lived in it cared about the actions of others and how those actions affect them. To Seraph, Alexander was as dangerous as a sword in the hands of an amateur.
Seraph dismissed the thoughts from his head because he needed to focus on the task at hand and finish looking through the office. He grabbed the stack of papers he had pushed aside when he laid the brooch down, careful to avoid knocking over the computer, and quickly riffed through the paper catching bits and pieces of what was written on them as he rapidly scanned them. In the piles of paperwork he found nothing of importance, janitorial needs, maintenance reports, aging equipment, old service authorizations, class progress reports, and budget line items.
An old photograph on the corner of the desk caught his eye, and he picked up the frame to look at it. It showed a man in a crisp suit holding a woman in his arms, from the warm way the man held her Seraph mused it was likely his wife, but both his face and hers had been torn out. However, like everything else in the room, the frame was not marred by fingers, grim, age, or dust.
A chill ran down Seraph’s spine. This was proof that they were not alone in here and from the photograph, he had to assume that whatever or whoever else was here, they could freely move without leaving signs of their passing. Seraph was unsure how such a thing could happen if they were in a safe area. The whole chain of thought made him nervous and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
He ran quickly to the office door and looked out, his heart pounding. He was able to get himself settled once he saw that the door to the general area was still barricaded, Paul was still sleeping, as was Erin. He promised at the least he would pay more attention to their safety and not completely ignore their situation, so long as it did not interfere with his own mission
Something was missing something still, it was obvious to him that he was missing something simple, something overlooked.
He gave the room another look, the poster of Einstein on the wall didn’t seem that relevant, neither did the complete collection of Encyclopedia Britannica. He moved around to the other side of the desk looking for drawers that he could open and check and was disappointed when he saw that there was only an empty steel shelf built into the interior of the desk, save for a short stack of post it notes that was almost depleted, an obvious sign of extensive use. Behind the shelf he saw a long cord trailing down.
“The computer, of course.” Seraph thought. “The thing I’m missing.”
Seraph had forgotten the importance of computers; it had been a long time since he had needed one. He had sat down in the chair and after looking for a second to find the power button, turned it on.
Notification: You lack the requisite intelligence to use this terminal, requires 8 INT.
Notification: The skill “Tech Savy” or “Computer Literate” is required to use this
computer.
Irritated he dismissed the prompts and turned the computer off, there would be other ways to solve this. He needed to find something out of place, something that didn’t belong. Something in this room was the answer, he looked at the bookshelf again, going shelf by shelf, and when he was ready to give it, he finally saw on the top of the bookshelf, a place he had not looked before was a white 3-ring binder with post it notes sticking out of the sides. He reached up and grabbed it, pulling it down and laying it out on the desk.
The cover was beat up, partially torn, and covered in greasy hand prints. The opposite of the room, it read across the top “Findings from the Mist’s Edge - A Case Study by Reverend” and the top corner bore a mark that was secret to many but well known to Seraph. Three slash marks in each direction, the mark of Carrion Crow, the guild he had founded, the guild he had led into the abyss of the final floor, the Locum Malificar.
Chapter 14: The Wormwood Report
* * *
Seraph gently opened up the binder, afraid to damage what he himself viewed as a precious artifact. The report was something from another timeline that had somehow managed to make it back into the past just like he had. It was something that would tell him of the fate of Reverend, and ultimately maybe there would be some clue or hidden knowledge that would help him in his mission to strengthen humanity and strengthen himself.
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