Mage And Wolf
Chapter 131

Chapter 131: Chapter 131

With its spell refreshed and unlocked by Karl the door rises smoothly from the ground on its hinges. A gust of stale air escapes and Karl uses his limited ability at air magic to create a light breeze into whatever space is down there.

All we can see from here is a spiral stone staircase headed down into the darkness. But, after a few minutes the flow of stale air begins to clear, circulating back the air Karl blew down there with an overtone of age and dust.

Karl hands me a rifle, making me stare at him in confusion. The air coming from down there clearly hasn’t circulated in centuries, what are we arming ourselves against?

"High end led lights, the best ones in our kit are mounted to the rifles." He offers by way of explanation. Oh, I understand now. Plus I can use the bayonet to poke things I’d rather not touch.

I take lead because Karl can see over top of me and we head down the stairs, closing the door behind us to keep out unwanted visitors. Having one of those giant snakes sneak up on us would not be good. The stairs lead us at least 4 stories underground before ending into a large room. It clearly had beautiful furniture at one point, but I wouldn’t trust it to hold weight now.

There’s a feeling of damp in the air, but no smell of rot, which as strange as I can see rugs and wooden furniture.

"It’s all enchanted for self repair and cleaning, but the enchantments are failing due to age. Want me to fix them before we explore?" Just like the door then.

"Yeah, if you can salvage this room at a minimum we will at least have somewhere to sleep."

The furniture has all been done separately, unlike the single spell per room method Karl uses, but in a matter of minutes things are looking better, we even got one single light back on, giving the room a comfortable glow to my eyes.

The new illumination makes a number of things clear. The walls aren’t deteriorated, what looked like crumbling stone and flaking paint are weapon gouges and long dried blood. There are scorch marks in many areas, and the spells in the walls are clearly broken, but the thick layer of dust is disappearing from the floors.

Most of the furniture is repairing itself, but only a couch and a few large cushions still self clean. It’s all dragon themed, so it’s certainly original. Which means the nation didn’t simply forget about the Dragon Gods, whoever last defended this place didn’t leave willingly.

"That’s a good as it gets for now." Karl sighs "I don’t want to risk placing fresh spells with so many fragmented ones in the area."

"Shall we continue, now that the entry is secured?"

There appears be to a hallway on the left, entry door unhinged and lying on the floor, clearly burnt. Whatever these short hallways were used for, they’re all ash now.

A few blackened skeletons, both Dragonkin and human, are found in the area, with melted or shattered weapons. If they had any storage rings or other such magical items, nothing survived. The end of the hallway is collapsed, giving no indication how much more might have existed.

The second door out leads to a collection of offices, all vandalized, some burnt. There’s dozens of them, and nothing stands out, so we agree to come back and search this at some point in the future.

The fourth and last exit was the main exit. A wide archway leads to a dark courtyard, the plants long since withered away. Signs of battle are everywhere. Every surface bears damage, skeletons litter the ground so heavily in some spots that they must have fallen on top of reach other in death. Unlike the others, these still have their equipment intact. Fancy plate and chain armors, swords with unknown markings, even the distinct and identifiable garb of cultivating sects.

From the way the remaining clothes are laid out, it looks like the clergy and one, maybe two sects died on defense, many of them found with their backs to the wall facing the lobby. The steel armor and at least seven other groups are also found amongst the carnage.

"What a battle this must have been" Karl remarks, making notes and taking pictures of the scene.

"So many different groups, just in this courtyard. Almost like this was the last stand, or they were defending something to the bitter end." I agree.

One set of rooms is still blockaded by a barrier spell, the probable caster slumped against the wall, black robes tattered, staff in hand, body mummified by time and the sealed room.

The pattern continues until the end of the back hallway, a set of rooms that are storage in the Arcana clergy dorms.

The room is a disaster. The storage rooms doors are mostly intact, but the central lobby has been melted. Scorched bones are everywhere, dozens of people worth, all human save for one Dragonkin skull in the entry. Even the stone of the walls is deformed.

"Divine Fire? " I ask Karl "I’ve seen Hui’Jin do something similar"

"I believe so, or a very high level magic that this world wouldn’t be expected to have."

"It looks like they were trying to hack through one specific door before the fire though. The rest are fine, but that one has a big chunk hacked out of it."

The door is easily unlocked by Karl after he reinforces the spells on all the storage rooms. But it simply won’t open easily.

"I think it was barricaded from the inside" Karl frowns. "Let’s try the others first"

The first door we try is the armory. Only a few weapons on racks remain, and nothing on the armor racks, but we find some enchanted trinkets Karl pockets to examine later.

The second seems to have been general supplies. Stacks of paper, ink stones, cloth and many more items remain under ancient storage spells. Again, Karl refreshes them, giving us time to study this place without fear of it all crumbling when we touch it.

"Now, what could be so important that someone barricaded themselves in? Or were they just hoping to survive?" I wonder out loud.

"The better question is how to get that door open" Karl suggests.

"There’s a hole up by the top, I’ll stand on your shoulders and look in, see if I can tell what’s blocking the doorway" I suggest and Karl tosses me in the air, leaving me flailing for balance until I find a foothold on his shoulders.

Somebody’s a bit impatient.

The room is dark, but not pitch black, something is casting a very faint white light. The door is indeed blocked from the inside, a bar is hung on a set of metal hangers, the former occupant having securely barricaded the room. There’s shelving in the way, I can’t see what the glow is, but I can reach that bar with a bit of ingenuity.

I stick my arm down through the hole and extend an energy claw, smoothly cutting the ancient wood free of its restraints on both sides before I hop down from Karl’s shoulders.

"Alright, try now, I cut the crossbar."

The door swings silently and effortlessly now that it’s not blocked, revealing a dusty store room full of strange containers. I’ve been looking at them for a while now, and I can’t figure out what they’re for. They obviously hold something large and round though.

"Come here, I found what is so important" Karl whispers with reverence.

In front of him are the mummified remains of a white robed High Priestess of the fourth rank, very nearly an avatar, and about twenty of the containers. Not empty, like the ones in the shelves, these all contain Dragon Eggs.

Behind this marvelous discovery is a disorganized bench, piled with books and surrounded by a magical barrier. The egg containers, that I now suspect are incubators, are glowing dimly with white light, the light I saw from the doorway. The fact they’re still glowing gives me a bit of hope that whatever stasis spell the High Priestess cast might still be in effect.

"Karl, can you force that magical bag that goes to Arcana storage to work from here?" I ask, getting a great plan to rescue these ancient treasures.

"Possibly. It will take a huge amount of energy, but if I open a small portal first, I should be able to work the magic of the bag. Are you thinking to send these to Arcana?"

"Yes, directly to Kal’Elouet. You know how she loves running an orphanage, and it’s rather doubtful at this point that any surviving Dragons in those eggs have living relatives."

"First, let me top up the incubators. They’re all at emergency levels, below ten percent remaining. See the glittering dust? That used to be a huge pile of Monster Cores that the incubators burned through over the last thousand years."

A grade 3 stone each has most of the incubators humming happily, though a few are still showing errors, perhaps the stasis partially failed and they can’t take in energy? It’s almost a miracle they’re working at all, given the amount of time they’ve been here. Even with an energy supply.

’Lelou, we’ve found something good for you in this Realm. We’re sending priceless treasures from the ruins of an abandoned Dragon Cathedral to the storage in Arcana as soon as we get the technique right’ I link to her, hoping she can receive it.

’Treasures? I’ll be waiting in the storage room. Best of luck, keep in contact when you can’ she links me back, very faintly.

The portal between our worlds is glitched and far away, just being heard makes me happy.

"Okay, Lelou will be waiting, let’s do this"