by Nic Weissman
“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 them 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 they 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
Samar was the next one to fall unconscious to the ground. Ithelas knew that this gas was slowly poisoning them. He started casting a prayer to invoke his magic. He had to make a tremendous effort of concentration, since it is very difficult to control the magic if at the same time one is experiencing pain or evil of any kind. Control of magic requires absolute serenity. Before losing consciousness too, he managed to complete his spell.
Suddenly he began to feel much better. The magic would protect him from the effects of unbreathable air. Erion and his father coughed profusely. They hadn't lost consciousness yet but they were completely incapacitated. The cleric had to move fast. On a table in the room he saw that there were powders, similar to cooking flour. It seemed, rather, that they were the bones of an animal that had been repeatedly ground. He had seen similar materials in other laboratories. They were used to make potions.
"This will do," the young man thought.
He took the jar and started throwing small handfuls into the air around the room. Soon after, a good part of the room had a bit of that powder floating. Ithelas stopped and carefully looked. There it was! The movement of the dust in the air allowed him to verify that there was an inflow into the room by a small flap that was well hidden in one corner of the room. He quickly sought some rags and as he did not find them, he ripped the sleeves of his shirt and made them two small balls. He then moved to a table closer to the trapdoor and, after climbing it as best he could, put the pieces of cloth to block the flow of gas entering the room. With some difficulty he got his way.
Although the situation wouldn't worsen, there was still a significant amount of gas in the room. He went to the spiral staircase and saw that both the accesses up and down were blocked by a trapdoor. He decided it would be less dangerous to try the top hatch first. He could open it without problems, since it was not locked. As he discovered it, he saw that there was a fence that prevented the passage. It was closed but fortunately, it would let the gas out of the lab.
He returned with the group. He helped his father and Erion to move to the opposite corner of the room to the trapdoor. Then he did the same with the unconscious bodies of Mithir and Samar. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small bag that had several herbs. He selected some oval leaves and placed one under the tongue of the magician and archer. Finally, he gave another pair of leaves to his father and Erion and told them to do the same.
“Sucking this leaf helps the lungs to exhale any foreign agent,” he explained.
A while later Thost and Erion were much better. Ithelas poured some water on the faces of his unconscious companions and Samar opened her eyes. She felt very nauseated and she couldn't help vomiting. Mithir then regained consciousness and was even worse than Samar.
The cleric decided he should do something more for them and consumed an additional portion of his magical energy to complete a cure for everyone. They both felt a lot better after this. It had been necessary. The poor things wouldn't have been of much use in that state. In addition, he hated seeing his friends suffer; he hated to see anyone suffer.
Erion reviewed the trap without touching Ithelas' improvised coating.
“You're probably wondering why I didn't find this trap,” Erion said, apologetically.
No one had really asked why, and weren't accusing him of the accident that they had just suffered. But they let him continue.
“I must tell you that I will not be able to detect all the traps in advance. Some are so well hidden that I simply won't be able to see them. For example, look at that wall. There is the library door. From this room you could see it clearly, but from the library we could not find it,” the young man said.
“Erion, don't worry. We each do what we can. And for the moment I must say I am quite impressed with your skills,” Ithelas said, conciliatory.
“Thanks. In any case, this flap was not a gas trap which is operated with a spring. The gas enters constantly in this room. And it allows it to keep a highly toxic level of concentration in the air despite that there are small leaks from that narrow chimney. This probably means that the people that frequently cross this room have no major problems with this poisonous gas,” said the young man.
They cast a closer look at the laboratory. It didn't seem to have been used very recently, but it was not abandoned many years ago either. There were all kinds of reagents in different shelves, and a myriad of flasks, pipettes and stills of all sizes. It was a fantastically equipped laboratory. Mithir dreamed of one day having such a laboratory.
Erion approached the staircase and reviewed the top flap. After a while he managed to open the gate. He poked his head out and then went down.
“From the outside we saw two towers of similar height and configuration. Both were arranged in the south of the castle, one on the east side and one on the west side. I would say that that trapdoor leads to the west tower. I have seen that the spiral staircase continues up to higher levels. The four levels above us have several windows, as we saw from the outside.”
“Did you see any soldiers?” Thost asked.
“No. Not in this tower. Moreover, the east tower should be in that area,” he said, pointing to the other side of the room. “My conclusion is that there is no access to the tower from this level of the castle. Therefore, there must be access from the outside or from the parapet. In other words, I bet that the soldiers do have access to the other tower and possibly some are guarding it,” the young man explained.
“Interesting. On the one hand, the castle is guarded by the troop. But then work has been done to isolate a wide area of the castle from the area that the soldiers have access to, probably because of the nature of the inhabitants. At this time it is playing to our advantage because we could access this area avoiding patrols,” Mithir said gesturing, while his brother reproduced what he said.
They all recalled the moment when the servant was about to raise the alarm, and how close they were to absolute disaster. In any case, they should continue without further delay. They used the moment to drink some water and took a look in the laboratory, but didn't find much. Ithelas managed to open a drawer that seemed closed, under one of the tables. In it he found what he believed to be four different potions. He didn't know its effects, however. He put them in his bag.
It was the moment of truth. Erion approached the trap of the spiral staircase leading to the lower level. He revised it for a while before attempting to open it.
“It's connected to a trap,” the young man said at last. “Move to that corner of the room, I'll try to deactivate it.”
Erion took out his picks and slid down the side of the hatch trying to locate the point where the device was attache
d to the door. When he arrived at one of the corners he noticed something and stopped. It was there. He was sure. There was a linker that would trigger something if he tried to open the hatch. He had to try to force it back to disengage it. He took another of his tools that was more difficult to handle but it was also longer. With it he could reach the correct place at the other side of the hatch. He began to move the mechanism; it was of good quality, this would be difficult. Then he heard a click he did not expect. He knew what it meant. He rose slightly and jumped giving an acrobatic somersault towards one of the walls, away from the stairs. Four arrows shot out from somewhere in the ceiling and went to dig into various points around the hatch. One grazed him and made a slit in his pants. He had barely avoided the trap.
Suddenly, he felt a sting in his leg, where the arrow had scratched him. He beckoned to Ithelas.
“Something's not right. It's just a scratch, but it's starting to hurt horribly,” the young man said.
Ithelas reviewed the wound carefully and frowned.
“The arrows must be poisoned. And it is a very dangerous and aggressive poison. Take this potion that neutralizes poison and drink it immediately,” the cleric ordered.
At the same time, he applied a compression on the leg to hinder the progression of the poison in the body. Then he cleaned the wound and put on it a kind of tube he carried in his bag of herbs. He began to suck through the tube. He managed to take some liquid out of it. Then he cleaned the wound again. He applied an ointment and covered it with a bandage. The cleric went to the trapdoor and took one of the arrows. He left it on a table and tried to identify the poison by sniffing and checking its color and texture.
“I've never seen this poison exactly, but it seems to be jerpex,” Ithelas said.
“What is that?” Erion asked.
“I'm afraid that it's in the family of scorpions with the most potent poison known south of the continent,” Samar explained.
