From the garden, Theodore moved to the back of the mansion and arrived at the rear entrance. With 'Jammer' already active as a precaution against security systems he did not know about, Theodore pulled out his lock-picking tool, a slime in a jar.
Using his threads of Aether to penetrate the slime's outer membrane and reach into the slime's core, Theodore manipulated the slime's body to have it squeeze into the keyhole and undo the lock.
Though 'Jammer' could break down bodies of Aether down to particles, the inside of the slime was protected by its membrane, allowing Theodore's threads to hold their shape.
Within a minute, the door let out a click, its lock picked open. Gently, Theodore pushed the door open and slipped inside.
Theodore had to act fast, As the 'Jammer' behavioral matrix consumed a large amount of Aether to create its jamming field, he only had about ten minutes before the crystal ran out of Aether.
As he had fused multiple crystals into one for maximum output in order to be certain that it would overwhelm the alarm system, he did not have any spares to prepare a second one.
Without a single wasted movement, Theodore darted across the first floor, reaching the stairs and climbing up to the second floor. On the second floor, he eventually reached a room tucked in the middle of the building. A room with neither ventilation nor windows. The only available entrance was through the door.
Theodore was sure the maps were in there as a mouse undead of his had seen Torben procuring multiple rolls of paper from this room before heading out and disappearing into an alleyway. Theodore's crow undeads tried to follow, but sadly, they do not fare very well in the dark and lost him completely.
Eventually, Torben returned with the same rolls of paper and placed them back into this room.
No doubt those were the maps for the sewer system. Torben and his collaborators must have wanted to confirm the contents before making their next move.
Also, from this, Theodore was sure that there were no enchanters amongst them, as an enchanter could have easily imprinted the information into an Aether crystal, thereby eliminating the need for physical paper.
Naturally, the door to the windowless room was locked. Using the slime once more, Theodore unlocked this door as well in record time. Once inside, Theodore found the room to be a rather plain-looking one, with shelves stacked with books and tomes and a desk in the corner. The maps were nowhere in sight.
It was as expected. There was no way anyone would place something so important in plain sight.
With a few pats on his person, small, furry figures began to drop from the inside of Theodore's robe and onto the floor, hitting the floorboards with dull thuds one after another. These were undeads, ones made out of dead mice. With the effectiveness of Theodore's undeads proven since the last time and taking inspiration from how Salome used her rats, Albatross got rather enthusiastic about collecting the fresh bodies.
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The mice scattered the moment they hit the floor, racing about with their tiny feet, pitter-pattering their way to every corner of the room, searching for anything suspicious. By this point, four minutes had passed. Only six minutes before the 'Jammer' runs out of Aether.
Two more minutes passed before the mice finally discovered something, a small seam in the wall tucked behind one of the shelves. Since it was old, it was more noticeable, but had it been newer or recently refurbished, neither Theodore nor his mice would likely have noticed.
There was no time to be gentle. Pushing the shelf to the side and forcing a crowbar into the seam, Theodore pried the wall wide open. He wasn't going for stealth this time. It's going to be a good old 'smash-and-grab.'
Hidden behind the wall was a secret cabinet, filled with a few tomes and scrolls of significant age as well as the huge rolls of paper placed apart from the rest. Those appeared to be the maps, or at least, Theodore had hoped so. If he went all this way to find some salacious portraits or something equally insignificant, then he would be incredibly disappointed. Heck, he might just throw a tantrum. With the amount of stress and pressure he had been dealing with recently, Theodore would not be surprised if his body needed some emergency venting.
Rolling the papers open, Theodore found them to be maps indeed, with a good deal of them matching what he knew from the memories of the mother slime.
Theodore let out a sigh of relief. He had finally found what he was looking for. Now it was just a matter of copying them down. While he could just bring the whole stack back with him, the path through the sewers was not exactly good for papers. He could not take the risk of getting the maps wet and ruining them. Not to mention, something might have been done to them so that they could be tracked down. It did not necessarily have to be some kind of tracking magic either. A special scent could work as well if they have a beast that could track it down.
As such, Theodore decided that copying them would be the safest option.
Pulling out a crystal, Theodore began to imprint upon it what he was seeing on the maps. By being in direct contact with the crystal, the effects of the 'Jammer' was minimized, allowing Theodore to do his work.
Three minutes passed. Having overlaid his nervous system with Aether beforehand, Theodore was processing the information captured by his eyes at a speed that made it feel like the world had slowed down, be it the dancing of dust particles across the air or his own frantic flipping through the maps, trying to commit them to memory and imprint them unto the chunk of Aether crystal in his hand.
Thirty more seconds passed. Theodore was nearing the bottom of the maps stacked over one another. Ten more seconds passed. Only ten left to go before the alarm goes off. Five more seconds passed. Theodore was going through the last of the maps.
And then, at the very last second, Theodore darted out of the room, not even bothering to put the maps back. He had used every bit of time to make sure he had everything perfectly. Once Torben knew that his security had been compromised, it was unlikely Theodore would be able to make it back here again.
As he prepared to make his getaway, from the corner of his eye, Theodore spotted something. Something that was not supposed to be there. Or rather, something Theodore had hoped to not be here on this night.
In the corner of his vision, there was a boy, one with a mole under his left eye, a slim frame, fair skin, and hair like silk. Standing beside the refined-looking boy was a larger boy, brutish and square-faced, with the only thing remarkable about him being his size.
On this night, there were those other than Theodore in this mansion.
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End of Chapter 110
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