While I wasn’t able to tell exactly what I was looking at, I was certain it was something that did not belong.

Monitors, blinking lights, control panels, you name it.

-Are you seeing this shit?

-And I can’t believe my eyes - replied Il. - Do you see any entrance?

-Not yet.

-Yet?

-This mechanism… this spell is still not full! It still keeps eating mana!

-What the hell…

Yeah, even after the reveal of the other room, it was still not done.

I mean, surely, after bringing to life something like that, that was surely it, right?

Nope.

I was eagerly looking around, trying to see where my mana was going, but for naught. I just had to wait and see.

And soon I did.

It happened just as my mana was finally stopped being sapped into the spell.

Honestly, even without that hint it was pretty hard to miss.

Right where the other room was almost at the border between the “glass cell”, a rectangular shape appeared.

A door.

Finally, something that was useful.

-Come on, check it! - hurried me Il.

I guess she was as eager to see what was actually inside as me.

-You don’t have to tell me twice.

I stood up and placed my hand right at the door, which immediately moved in, not even needing much force.

What was just a frame of the door moved inward a bit and then moved aside.

A stone sliding door? Neat.

Inside was just as I saw from the other side.

Two walls stacked with monitors, leaving only the one with the door and with the window empty. All of them black and turned off. No visible physical buttons, nor anything else for that matter.

I did try tapping them once or twice, but no use.

Fuck.

-Shit. Is that because of my body?

-You think that they are turned on? I mean, this place is abandoned.

-I can hear them working.

That was true. The room, while mostly silent, was filled with a low hum of technology. Even a quiet noise like that was easy to pick up in the silence of this empty place.

Maybe a cooling fan, or something?

Who the hell knows how that thing worked.

-I never expected that I’d be fucked by a lockscreen.

-Are you kidding me?

-Can you explain?! What the fuck is that?

It was For.

Right, we weren’t alone.

-Long story short: you need fleshy fingers to see whatever this thing was or is used for. And as you are aware, neither of us have those.

-Who in the hell makes something like this?! - she asked, clearly flabbergasted. - I mean… What's the point even?!

-I am not going to explain that. Just let me tell you that it’s not really weird or unusual. On the other hand, having all of those here…

-Yeah, that’s not normal.

That was an understatement. To find a, seemingly, working computer in some underwater cave? Yeah, no that’s not something I’d predict in a million years.

And yet, that’s what was going on.

-Say, Mor… don’t you think this looks… sort of familiar…?

Yeah…

I didn’t want to say that out loud, but she was right. I realized it the moment we saw the not-glass panel and the room it was adjacent to…

This setup looked just like something we had in MIRE.

An empty room, with a control and research booth connected to it… a clear view to check the test subject…

There was no mistaking it.

-I guess we now know where Mike was doing his experiments…

-You think that was him? - asked For, a bit shaken. - And wait, how do you know someone was experimenting here? I can’t feel any magic residue or anything…

-I bet that was a long time ago - I said, shrugging. - And about who, do you have any other leads? It’s not like there’s many people that can use something like that.

-It could’ve been… I mean….

-It was not me.

Iloa.

Right. She had a very close connection to both technology and the old world, not even mentioning Mike.

She definitely would be able to operate something like this, but while I am not certain about creating it, it wasn’t completely out of the question.

For was not convinced by her answer, though.

-And how should we be sure? You’ve been silent all this time, only now you speak. It’s clear that you’re hiding things from us.

She did not reply.

-It doesn’t matter - I said, trying to pacify her. - And I don’t think it was her. First of all, this place is abandoned. Don’t you think if she had access to something like that, she’d be hiding in here, instead of choosing to almost die next to a ruined building?

-So what? You said it yourself, it’s abandoned. There’s nothing here, so why come back? Sure, it is sealed, but that wouldn’t stop Axelrod. Nor you, for that matter. If she knew about this place and chose to avoid it, there’s clearly something here, don’t you think?

-And secondly - I said, not letting her throw me off - You forgot that there’s no air here? How do you expect a person to work here?

-Back at you: how do you expect someone to hide here? It’s clear that she knew something happened here and escaped. Now we…

-I am not saying that this place is worthless - I assured her. - Of course I am going to try and investigate this more, but I don’t think she has anything to do with it.

-I don’t care if you don’t believe me - added Ilma - and I am quiet because I have nothing to say to you.

Clearly, the answer only annoyed her, but wasn’t in a mood to try and force them to make up.

-Let’s not get distracted and continue our investigation.

But it was easier said than done.

Just like I noticed earlier, there was no way for us to actually use those computers, but it was not going to stop us anyway.

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I did want to try to poke it with some spells, but this time I was stopped by Il.

She was concerned that we’d destroy it. And since we had no idea what exactly this thing was used for, it could’ve been problematic if some kind of alarm got triggered.

I did say that we’d probably be fine, considering our bodies, but agreed. It would be a waste to destroy something like this, even accidentally.

Hell, maybe we could take someone here and help us…?

I mean, it would’ve been risky, but…

When we were focused on the tech, Kon and For were more interested in magic.

Sure, my attention was somewhere else, but that didn’t stop them from peeking on us and inspecting the magic hanging in the air, and especially the window to the “specimen room”.

According to those two, it was some kind of mix of water and illusion magic.

Well, even just looking at it was enough to tell me that, but I was not going to say that out loud.

Of course, the more interesting part was the fact that the spell was not detectable from any other side than the one we were able to see through, which made this enchantment incredibly powerful, if not even an overkill for something like that…

Why would someone try to hide the fact that they were observing their test subject? To not mess with the experiment results?

Well… there was a clear answer for that, but…

I did just as I said, trying to explore more of the place, but that didn’t give me much.

There wasn’t much more to the tunnels I’ve seen, or rather anything else at all, so I wanted to get out and leave, but I couldn’t.

The doors were closed.

Did the mechanism suddenly unstuck itself? Or did the door close behind Il?

I did call her back, but apparently it wasn’t like that when she went out from the hidden passage to check on the other rooms.

-That’s a problem.

-Can you try and press the step again from your side?

-I mean, sure, but last time I was too light…

And she was right.

Whatever she did, the step didn’t even move a bit.

-Fuck.

-Well, I mean I can… Hipiso visu!

Before I was able to say anything, she conjured a bunch of rocks out of thin air and dumped it onto the pressure plate. And…

-Still nothing. How much force did you put into that hit?

-Well… a bit. You think I broke the mechanism?

-Possible. Although I can’t see the damage from here…

-I guess something snapped… damn.

-You’re good at destroying things.

-You don’t say… Well, I guess I am not stopping then, huh?

-What do you…

I didn’t let her finish.

I already knew where exactly the door was, so there was one way to do this… I mean, besides just melting the rock in front of me.

I slammed my fingers right where the crack in the wall used to be, trying to maybe feel out the boundary between the door and the frame…

I didn’t really think much while doing it… Not really sure why I did that either.

I already knew that my body wasn’t really that much stronger than a regular person’s… I knew my strength was in durability…

At least… at first.

I don’t know what got into me. I guess my instincts kicked in?

Because I started pushing more and more on where I knew the door was… I jammed my fingers between two parts of the door.

I knew it opened outwards… at least for me, so I guess it was possible to force them open. But surely, I didn’t have strength for that, right?

Well, wrong.

Surprising all of us, I didn’t even have to strain myself, but managed to push the door open. Of course, I did make an awful lot of noise to boot, but that was not really something I was worried about right now…

-Since when can you do THAT?!

That was a good question.

And it came from literally everyone who was watching me.

-I have no clue… - I said, looking myself over in amazement. - I guess… now?

-Yeah, no shit - scoffed For.

-I mean…

A bit caught in the moment, I removed my hands from the doors and it suddenly slammed behind me, making even more noise.

-And now you are locked out. Great job - commented For.

I rolled my eyes and went back towards the step that I knew was a pressure plate and slammed it once more with my fist.

This time, it did not work.

-Fuck… - I said out loud, annoyed at myself.

-Well… I guess we don’t HAVE to go back there… - said Kon, trying to look on the bright side. - You already said you can’t do anything with that mechanism…

-But it would be nice to, right?

-...

-Well, we still need to explore the rest of the place, right? Let’s get on with that instead…

Il was right.

We went ahead and decided to do that, splitting once more.

This time though, I was paying more attention to any mana anomalies that I could detect, hoping to find another hidden path or something like that…

But found nothing.

What we realized though, was the fact that the place was smaller than we thought.

Before, I thought that this place was closer to the size of the tree-castle in the capital, especially after seeing some of its layout, but after a while here… It looked like it wasn’t even half the size.

And that wasn’t just it. It felt… like the place was unfinished.

Of course I don’t mean the general emptiness. Sure, that helped build the atmosphere, but I rather meant something else. Some corridors were ending in dead ends. Staircases leading to nothing. Rooms that were too small to be functional.

The first thing that came to mind was that we just were finding some hidden passages, but I couldn’t be so sure about that.

Right, even getting to open the first one was lucky and barely even happened, so that was possible.

But, there was no magic at play. If those were hidden pathways, they were well hidden or not magical. On the other hand, we already knew that we couldn’t rely on our magic detection any more: the one-way windows were a good proof of that.

I must admit, I did have an urge to try and force some ways open… Like the obvious ones, I mean.

For example, having a stairway end into a ceiling. For sure, if I was to try and force myself through it, we would’ve found something, right?

I did have strength now… seemingly at least, but even with that I had my doubts.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.

Too bad, it didn’t work.

I am not sure if that was because there was no door, or the lock was too strong, but even though I pushed as hard as I could, the wall would not budge.

-Maybe it’s a pull?

I mean, of course, that also came to my mind, but that was not something I could really do about…

At least not physically…

-Do you think I should try and melt this shit?

-Are you serious? - Il was flabbergasted hearing that. - I mean… I guess we can try, but can you really melt this rock?

-If not melt, maybe meld? It’s not like I’ve never done this, and it definitely seems that’s how this place was created.

-Er… hell, I don’t know. I guess we have nothing to lose and everything to gain…

-Yep.

-Let’s try it, then.

I was about to unleash a spell, but hesitated for a moment.

-Something wrong?

-I mean… I have faith in my abilities… but you better step back. Just in case.

-Right.

She stepped back, almost half way down the stairs.

I mean, I told her so, but to go so far down…

Whatever.

I took a breath and thought about how should I go about that.

Should I actually try and melt it? I mean, I said so, but now when I thought about it it really seemed like an overkill… The amount of heat I’d have to use to even make a dent would be humongous…

I did have mana to spare, sure, but still… It probably would be easier to try my hand in melding…

But… a tiny bit of fire wouldn’t hurt, right…?

Well, too bad, because I actually forgot that I couldn’t do it. At least not in conventional ways.

The air being oxygen-less would prove problematic, at least if I was to use an open flame…

But if I was to…

I placed my hand right in the middle of the ceiling, where the stairs were seemingly leading to, and focused.

I decided to try heat, to at least see how bad it would be…

-Wesnoho.

When I called my mana, my hand changed its color to red.

It was a bit startling, but knowing the spell I was using, I was not that surprised.

I did use a word that was supposed to “heat it up” , quite literally, so no wonder that it also affected me.

It wasn’t really doing much, though.

Even though I poured enough mana into the spell that it should at least leave a mark on the rock, there was no sign of anything.

I guess heat wasn’t the play, so let’s get on with melding.

That, while probably more effective, was a bit more complicated. To try and form something usable…

Wait. I didn’t have to do that.

It’s not like I knew if something even was behind this wall. I could just bore a hole the size of my finger, to take a peek. I didn’t have to instantly make a doorway.

Realizing that it’s going to be significantly easier, I switched my spell.

-Visu, gus.

That worked significantly better.

The moment I spoke those words and touched the wall, it started moving away, as to avoid my touch.

It was definitely off-putting. It almost looked like a living creature that really did not want to let me touch it.

But that was in our favor. It meant that I could get through without much of an issue, so I went ahead and got to work.

A finger. When that was not enough to get through, a whole hand. Even though the hole I was making got larger, it didn’t get any harder.

Then, my arm.

At that point I was kind of worried. If that was not enough, did that mean I’d have to step forward or something? Make a hole the size of my body?

I mean, I could, but what’s the point?

If it would’ve come to that, I would already be pretty sure that there wasn’t anything on the other side.

Speaking of the other side…

I was lucky I actually did not get to that point.

If I did, whatever came next would’ve been a much worse problem.