The government building turned out to be a compound. Three separate structures sat on the grounds, and each had a different design. The two closer to the door had pillars holing up the roof. Flower beds wrapped around the base of each pillar and ran along either side of the pathway.
To Tristan’s surprise, there was still vegetation in the flowerbeds. A species of glowing mushrooms grew out of the mulch in the bed. There had once been flowers, the lighting from the mushrooms would have radiated up through the petals giving the cobblestone walkway a striking appearance.
Glow stones were placed into the ceiling. The stones were used with such frequency that Tristan wondered if those with light kerns were used exclusively to recharge the glowing rocks. He lifted Vulcan so that the light from his ethereal flame illuminated the ceiling. He blinked in surprise. The ceiling was painted baby blue. With the white light from the glow stones, it would look like daytime on the surface.
They kept their politicians in the basement too long if this was a necessity. Tristan shook his head and continued towards the nearest building. He pushed the door open, happy to find that it was unlocked. He stepped into a hallway with a thin carpet with a kitchen at the far end. Tristan was a bit tired of wroughtwiler jerky so he decided that was the best place to check.
The room was different than anything he had been in before. There was a sink, but it had a drain in the bottom and a pipe leading down to a spigot. He spun the nob at the top of the spigot. Nothing happened.
“There’s probably an empty tank upstairs that uses gravity to feed the water to the sink,” Vulcan explained.
“So it’s like a complicated tap in a barrel of wine?” Tristan asked.
“Yes, I think,” Vulcan answered uncertainly.
Tristan lost interest. The Elders had a similar setup with rain filled tubs on the roof, but it was on top of a mountain. This was eighty feet below ground, rain here would be a disaster. He moved on to the cupboards and found plates and silverware. Tristan’s eyes widened when he opened his third cupboard. Salt, powdered garlic, pepper, and a small amount of sugar.
Tristan picked up the box of salt with trembling hands. He had to protect this. A quick application of architect alloy made a metal copy of the box into which he poured the salt. Then he made a thicker box and slid the first box inside it. He would have tasty food from now on. It took him a few moments to protect the other spices in similar ways before stashing them in his bag. They should be safe in their armored housings.
Going through the other cupboards he did not find much. Mostly different pots and pans. He found a set of knives, which he contemplated taking. The balance was terrible, and he could always make one if he needed to. One cupboard was strange, it was made of metal and had an airtight seal.
Out of curiosity he opened it and was hit by the stench of rotting food. Gagging, Tristan slammed the door while staggering backward. As someone with the decay force, he was no stranger to the foul smell of rotting material, but the inside of the box was a mix of different kinds of rot that bypassed his resistance and activated his gag reflex.
“What was that?” Tristan asked after he was sure that he would not vomit.
“I think it's a primitive refrigerator,” Vulcan also sent over an image of a metal box that was cold inside, “As long as it stays below freezing the food will stay good. Normally it's made with a force imbued metal or wood to draw heat out, they don’t need to be recharged. This one appears to be powered by an artifact.”
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“Probably a water artifact?” Tristan muttered. At Vulcan’s affirmation, he considered digging through the food to get it, but he was here to loot a vault that would be full of artifacts. There was no reason to deal with the rotting food.
Tristan opened the door leading out of the kitchen. There was a large dining hall with round tables spread equidistant from each other throughout the room. From the chairs that were pulled out and used plates, Tristan knew someone had been living here while the ents were trying to break in.
There was a second door exiting the dining hall, and from the angle, Tristan assumed it connected to the hallway he entered through.
As he did not need a table or chairs, Tristan skipped the investigation of the room. The doorway on the opposite side of the room led to a large open room with a door on each side. It was filled with desks covered with neatly organized paperwork. Tristan walked over and picked up several pieces. He couldn’t read them, but Vulcan could.
“These look like complaints and requests for funding,” Vulcan said, “The one in your left hand is from the workers on the third floor. They want another air purifier to be stationed in their area. The other is a request to purchase several living units to store farming tools closer to the surface.“
They went through several desk’s worth of paper before they gave up. It was all requests for some kind of change or upgrade to living conditions. Tristan had not expected there to be so much busy work in running a city. Many of these requests were things that people could accomplish on their own. Replacing dead glow stones with active ones was a common complaint. How hard could it be to just remove the rock and take it to someone with a light kern to recharge it?
Things changed when they got to the desk at the far end of the room. It was constructed just like all the others, so Tristan was not truly expecting anything different.
“This one, oh, this is interesting,” Vulcan commented, “this is a trade deal with the tree folk.”
“What did they trade for?” Tristan asked.
“Edible mushrooms. It seems that the city was outgrowing the above ground farmland. The mushrooms were offered as an alternative that could be grown year-round,” Vulcan mentally cringed, “They were also used as a type of waste disposal.”
“Let me guess, the mushrooms released poisonous spores and killed everyone?” Tristan asked.
“Maybe?” Vulcan said uncertainly, “This document is about trade, it mentions that the tests they did by feeding them to slaves caused no harmful side effects, but nothing else related to health. Grab a different paper.”
Tristan obliged, he stared at the unintelligible text wishing he knew what it said. Vulcan hummed for a moment before saying, “This one is about water distribution, next. Weapon dispensations to a team of new shepherds, next. This one is a concern from the council member of the third floor, he dislikes how pushy the tree folk are getting. He wants to push them out of the farmland by force.”
Tristan found several of those interesting. This place confiscated weaponry, which was unfortunate for the people here, but great for Tristan. The vault would likely be filled with weapons and there might be some metal artifacts inside. They also demonstrated that intelligent mythical beasts existed and that they were out to harm people. This had not been a quick blitz attack, they had slowly pushed into the culture of this city, then destroyed it.
There was nothing else of interest on the desk, so Tristan checked the doors at the ends of the room. Both led to staircases that led upwards, as they seemed to lead to the same location he simply picked one and went up. He was not sure what to expect, but it was not a lounge. These government workers had very generous occupations if they came with a room filled with couches.
Tristan stared for a few moments before noticing a hallway lined with doors. The setup reminded him of the hallway in the cliffside home that had bedrooms branching off to either side.
He opened the first door and found it was indeed a bedroom. It was empty and the bed was still made. So it had been unoccupied, did the employees live upstairs? Well, they did after locking themselves in. The second room had been lived in. Tristan grimaced at the body hanging from the ceiling.
“Suicide is the way of the coward,” Vulcan grumbled.
Tristan tended to agree, typically if a situation did not kill him, it got better in time. However, being trapped in the dark within a city of plant monsters that wanted to plant a seed in him was something Tristan had not experienced. Solitude had a way of eating at people, Tristan might have already gone insane without Vulcan to bicker with.
The body was nearly mummified, leaving little stink in the room. Tristan stepped in and started rummaging around the bed. Most people who killed themselves had regrets, it was the most consistent way to generate an elemental, outside of torture. The other thing these people left behind was a note. Tristan hoped this note would shed some light on what had happened in the city.
It did not take long. Within the drawer of the end table, Tristan found a journal. Flipping to the back page he had Vulcan identify it.
“Yes, this is a journal, and yes we should read it,” Vulcan confirmed Tristan's suspicions.