Tim and Gustav explored the castle that they were in. This place was even roomier than they had imagined, as they ended up exploring several rooms, most of which looked like personal bedrooms, it was a big place. The prior inhabitants have been living here for a while, so it was a bit sad that they died so unnecessarily, as simply, they could've kept their homes if their master wasn't so rash. These dead mages were one of the unluckiest humans in any universe!
Apart from the bedrooms, they also saw a few workshops. Though they understood that one of them was a forge, and one of them was an alchemy lab, they couldn't nearly understand what two of the other workshops were about, on the count that the tools there were very foreign to them.
Anyway, even though they explored most of the castle, they couldn't find any lever of sorts to open the door. The mechanics of the main door seemed very complex as well, they were connected to a bunch of old, large mechanical bolts, springs, and other steel attachments. One couldn't simply pick the lock, because there wasn’t a lock to begin with, as these long, four-foot wide metal beams barred the door, so, this door wouldn't open unless the attached mechanics were triggered!
This was quite frustrating, because unless they were comfortable with blowing a hole in one of the castle walls, they were stuck here. They could float down from the highest floor of the castle, but they'd rather find the lever instead. They wanted to preserve this castle, so they didn't want to take any shortcuts, or dismantle anything today, not even the barred windows, because an open window would make the castle penetrable! With huge insects running around the universe, the last thing they needed was a surprise guest. They wanted to be safe in the castle, even if they ended up spending just a single day here at the end.
“Maybe the lever is in the basement, man?” Gustav pitched, “Tonirus spoke to us from the second story before he let us in, but he was a telekinetic mage. If he could explode someone's heart from a hundred meters away, he can surely flip a hidden lever from the comfort of the library.”
“We'll check the basement, then, it's not like we have anything to lose by just looking.” Tim followed along.
The two of them went to the basement afterwards, and they went together, because it was the only place that they hadn't checked through the past hour. Sure enough, they ran into something weird really quickly.
They found a big room, it was about seven meters wide, it was mostly square shaped, but had a pit of sorts in the middle. This pit was filled with those coal-like brains that he, and Gustav pulled out of that dead mantis' head.
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“That's one way to keep the insects out,” Tim joked.
Gustav walked into the room afterwards, squatted down to shine some light on the room, and then came with a conclusion. It didn't take him long to put some pieces of the puzzle together.
“The lumps are spent, this is a disposal room.” He pointed out, “I'm guessing it's dangerous to leave the lumps outside, because it may attract bugs. A spent cricket brain has to be less threatening, these brains are not keeping the insects away. No chance.”
The two of them couldn’t care less about spent cricket brains right now, so they walked out of the room, and continued to explore the rest of the basement. Unlike the several rooms above them, the basement seemed to be a limited space, its few rooms were tiny, and insignificant.
There were a couple of cells as well, which made this place almost look like a dungeon. There were three cells, and they were all shut, with the keys missing, which seemed a bit irresponsible, especially since they also found a skeleton in one of those cells. This skeleton belonged to a human, and by all means, this could’ve been someone who either broke the rules of the sect, or had simply angered the recently deceased sect master. Either way, it was apparent that this was a bad way to die.
Anyway, the only other room here was just a storage room, and it only had worthless things in it, like brooms, and buckets. They could not find a lever here, and it would be weird if they did.
The two of them gave up afterwards, and they wanted to get up in the castle, to relax for a bit. They planned to look for the lever again, after their heads cleared up. The castle was designed by humans, after all, so it was possible that they missed the lever because of the height difference between humans and goblins.
While they walked up the stairs, in order to get back to the main floor, a small rat crossed their path. The rat seemed young, so he was as clumsy as he was energetic!
The rat jumped around in panic once he heard the goblins walking towards it, and tried to climb up the walls. It failed, of course, but as it tried to climb up the walls, the fourth block, height-wise, suddenly caved in. This block was light to the touch, and after it was pushed it dove in by about six inches, before it returned to its original position.
A second later, they heard a bunch of metal bits clanging, and clicking around the walls. This got the two of them very excited, because by all odds, the lever that they were looking for, was actually more of a button!
They rushed out of the basement afterwards, and ran towards the entrance hall, where they saw that the main door was finally open! That button had triggered its hidden, complex mechanics, so now they knew how to get out of the castle without having to destroy its protective door! As for getting in, they had to settle with floating above the castle, to enter through one of the hatches on the roof, because they didn't want to look for another button from outside the castle.
Anyway, as the light of the outside world pierced their eyes, it also grabbed their attention. They looked outside, and ended up seeing three people that Tim at least, was very happy to see!
They saw Skendus, Ortana, and Arvena! His friends found the castle as well.