Robin cleared the desk of the notes first thing, stacking them neatly. He didn’t make any attempt to organize them or put them into any kind of order; he wasn’t sure that was possible, anyway, after brief glances at them while he stacked them up. He looked around for a folder or paper clip and found a three ring binder, several folders, and a box of paper clips. Robin stuck the papers into the binder and put them into his satchel, along with the box of paper clips and other office supplies.
He only controlled his haste when he came to the equipment, taking a little extra care when loading the delicate glassware. He used Identify on each of them as he loaded them. Each one came with a notification, all of them granting bonuses towards Research, Alchemy, Chemistry, and similar skills. Every single one of them needed a laboratory to function, though.
Does the Ysari System have player housing?
Robin turned to the other desk and stripped it, not bothering to identify the various instruments that looked like that could be in any standard high school chemistry lab. Soon the desk was bare, and Robin turned his predations to the filing cabinet.
Robin pulled several folders from his satchel and began filling them with the contents of the filing cabinet. He soon had to pull out the rest of the folders, and soon after that, he had to resort to one of the boxes of paperclips. It’s convenient that the things in the satchel don’t get jostled around. Don’t really have to worry much about these papers. Robin had soon emptied out the filing cabinet, storing the massive swathes of papers in his satchel one bundle at a time.
Robin stood up and turned around, returning the satchel to his back.
There was only one more cabinet in the room, but it was the one that made him the most nervous. It was made of the same kind of wood of which the door had been. The metal was the same, as well, the odd alloy that Robin still suspected was comprised of titanium and platinum. He focused Identify on it.
Armoire of the Mad Scientist Created by a master craftsman long after his disappearance, the Armoire of the Mad Scientist is capable of holding an amount of volume no greater than thirty square meters. Objects placed within the Armoire do not rot. The air supply within the Armoire is limited to what is taken in by those who would enter it.
Well… that was something.
I can’t take it with me, but it might have something inside.
Robin was not sure if he was excited by that possibility or not.
He glanced up at Opal, and gave her a nod. She stared at him and wobbled in place.
So needy, my familiar...
Robin reached out and opened the cabinet. The inside was dark, the sheer blackness of the ebony not helping the light pierce the depths of the Armoire. He peered inside and then stood to the side, letting the light in. He felt faint when he saw what was inside, but he stood firm; he had been expecting this after noticing that the Armoire prevented the contents from rotting.
The “room” inside the Armoire was filled with corpses, each of them showing signs of dissection. The first few in the corner were stacked neatly, with labels on what passed for their toes, but the later ones were stacked haphazardly, with some of them even looking like that had been thrown.
Robin ground his teeth. It was hard to tell how many there were in the unorganized room, and especially with the dark. Some of them looked like they had been the security guards that patrolled the perimeter of the grounds and the facility entrances and exits. There were several corpses that still wore the uniform of the groundskeepers. Robin inhaled sharply, then grimaced, expecting the smell of carrion, and was momentarily surprised when no odor came.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
One of them looked like he had a machete on his hip. The corpse was along the back left wall, and was one of the ones that looked like it had been thrown. That might have been the only reason I saw the machete, Robin thought. If they had stacked ...him neatly the machete wouldn’t be sticking up at that crazy angle.
Crap. If I want it, that means I have to go in there. Are there zombies in the Ysari System? There surely are. Should I ...cut off their heads? Stake them? Screwdriver in the ear? Those all sound pretty awful.
There is no way I am going in there with all those things, but… I need that machete. This one worked against the Mad Scientist, but he was focused on his ray gun to really stop me. He could have just grabbed the handle pretty easily.
The hard way then.
Robin slowly grabbed the foot of the closest corpse and pulled it out of the room. To his surprise, the entire corpse came out of the entrance at once, exactly like the Satchel of the Generous Matron. He stepped backwards and let the corpse flop to the ground. It was definitely dead, and had been so for a while, if rigor mortis had worn off.
This may be the first time that I’m glad “Cold Cases” came on after Shark Tank...
The corpse was similar to a human, but had oozing mouths covering the front of it. It was not wearing clothes. Robin dragged it to the corner of the room, apologizing out loud the entire way.
Robin had just gotten back to the Armoire and was about to grab the next person when he realized… he could just grab the machete, if it worked like the satchel. He focused on the machete and it came out of the armoire, seeming to move from the far corner of the Armoire to his grasp, ignoring the space between. Identify!
Machete of the Dark This machete was wielded by a guard who was killed in the line of duty and then abandoned into a darkness more absolute than any human has ever known. Unwilling to ever be in the dark again, the machete now glows faintly at all times. If the machete is left in direct sunlight or placed into fire, it will absorb the energy and save it, radiating a brighter, more powerful energy that can be harmful to certain types of creatures.
That’s pretty cool. Not great, unless I start seeing undead spiders.
Robin pretended that he had not had that thought at all, plowing forward in his mental dialogue.
AND… kind of sad. My machete is afraid of the dark. I kinda wish there had been a real sword, like a sword-sword, though… But I guess I’m lucky that the guards needed these in the first place, and that one found its way down here.
“Alright, Opal! I got another machete!” He held it up to show her.
She turned away and began dancing, trying to be as invisible as a massive Pink Mantis gyrating on the ceiling can be.
Robin cocked his head at her, then shook it and turned back to the Armoire.
“Time to get weird, Opal! Save me if a wall of zombies floods out at me!”
Opal was gone; there was only a giant pink leaf.
Robin snorted and held his hand out to the Armoire. He focused on it, staring at a patch of darkness rather than any of the corpses. Everything that is not a corpse!
A tumble of shredded, bloody, oozing, charred, or otherwise ruined clothing came out of the Armoire, landing at Robin’s feet with a fwuh. He used his Identify skill several times, poking through the pile with his feet, but didn’t receive any notifications. He squatted and began to individually check each clothing item, going through the pockets. He found some spare change, several bills, two wallets (which he left behind after taking the identification cards - there was survival and there was robbing the dead.), and several shoes, although oddly none of them matched. There were also two belts, although they had been so tangled up in the clothing Robin hadn’t noticed them at first. Go, go, Identify! Neither belt returned anything. The Mad Scientist probably took everything of value. The machete sounds like it acquired its properties while in here, so the Mad Scientist probably never noticed it.
Robin kicked the pile angrily. The ragged clothes flew across the room, along with one of the belts and some of the shoes. One of the belts just skidded slightly across the floor, making a metallic scraping sound. Robin perked up at the sound of metal combined with the feeling of weight and bent to check it out, swords dancing in his eyes.
Oh. OH.
It was a massive revolver, tucked into a plastic holster. The bottom of the revolver was poking out through the bottom of holster, and it was what had scraped on the floor.
The revolver itself was not frightening, nor shocking; Robin had been around guns for most of his life.
What had him speechless was the tiny circle of golden runes that seemed to be spinning around the rim of the barrel.
Woohoo! I found a magic gun!
…
I found a magic gun.
...
There are magic guns.
Ah, crap.