Entering the fort from the front, where the main entrance was, was not an option. There were drakonians milling about, no amount of skill in stealth would prevent us from being spotted. Instead we went around the structure and approached it from the back. The wall of the fortified courtyard was in bad shape, the large roots going through were proof of that, and gave us some opportunity to sneak in.
With my sphere, I could see through the wall and into the courtyard. The drakonians had built a small camp there, I could see tents and fires. No permanent structure however.
Vel used her plant magic to move a small part of one of the massive roots out of the way. The resulting tunnel allowed us to enter without being spotted by the watchers on the higher levels. Most drakonians couldn't see in the dark, instead had to rely on torches. The amount of light created by the crystals was, at best, at the level of a full moon back on Earth. Even their scouts likely only had the first or second rank of Night Vision, far from the perfect vision Vel and I had.
The part of the courtyard we had entered was void of torches or tents since the floor was covered in more roots. We used the shadows to our advantage and went for the nearest door into the fort.
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Inside the fort was pitch black, only a few shafts of faint moonlight radiated through the windows.
'Let's start at the bottom,' I signed to her.
'Understood," she signed back.
The fort had tight corridors and stairways. I kept my dagger at the ready at all times and watched for anyone coming close to us in my sphere. I could see several levels up but only a third of the structure lengthwise. There were a few kobolds milling about on the ground floor and higher but none ever came close to where we were.
The first of the lower levels had several empty storerooms and what looked like a jail. Further down, we found more storerooms and something much more interesting. An active enchantment was blocking my perception. The hallway ended with a brick wall half-way through the structure, at the same level where the previous storage rooms did.
On the wall itself was an enchantment I could read with my magic perception, it was faint enough that I doubted I would have been able to find it without it. The fact that I couldn't see into the stone of the wall had been my first clue about something being wrong.
'Secret passage. Magic lock.'
'Wall?'
'Yes.'
I doubted the village scouts would have left any stone unturned during their exploration. Yet, this looked to have been untouched for a long time. It was possible none of the village scouts had my particular combination of perception abilities.
'Open?'
'Yes,' Vel signed enthusiastically.
I wasn't an expert in enchantments, nobody in the village was, but it seemed that magic perception allowed me to peek behind the curtain enough to get some clues anyway. With the help of my magic skills, I managed to at least understand the idea. It was a lock. Which was obvious in retrospect.
It probably wasn't the kind of lock with a physical key. There was a circle at the center of the enchantment that looked like a keyhole but it was at the center of a brick. One possibility was that the key was another enchanted object that was pressed in the circle. If that was the case, we were out of luck. But I also had another idea.
I placed my hand at the center of the circle and pushed mana into the structure. I saw it run through the channels but everywhere it went, it seemed to fizzle out, almost like when a spell was missing a component.
But maybe it was.
I pressed my palm against the blade of my dagger and made a shallow cut. Vel was watching me with interest and I just gave her a reassuring smile. This time, when I pushed mana through, the enchantment reached back. I felt a slight tingle on my cut but continued to push, no foreign mana was coming back into my system. My mana, however, continued along the channels and reached the edges of the door.
Something clicked and the wall receded slightly. As soon as it did, my perception sphere got through the blockage. Behind the stone door was a small hallway and several rooms. I gave the door a good shove and the big stone door moved out of the way.
I motioned to Vel to follow me. It was time to explore some ruins, Indy style.
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I checked the other side of the secret door and found a simple mechanism to open it. After Vel had entered, I left the door slightly open behind us as I didn't want to resume the perception blocking enchantment. The seam would be difficult to spot from the outside without close examination.
"Did we just find a secret chamber?" Vel whispered.
"I think we did," I whispered back enthusiastically.
"How did the scouts miss this?"
"There was a protection against perception skills, I felt a big void in my sphere while it was active. And I think I could only see the lock because of Magic Perception, lots of other skills would have missed it."
"So we got very lucky."
"Yes we did. Now that the door is open, my sphere can see through it."
The two rooms to the right of the hallway looked like storage rooms. The first was empty of anything worthwhile, just half-rotten crates and lots of dust. The second had a stash of weapons. Swords and shields, spears, bows, and so on. I didn't recognize the material they were made of, a dark metal with a silvery sheen.
Out of curiosity, I tried to identify through my sphere.
> [Nefril Steel Sword (Sharpness, Durability, ⨀ x 2)]
It was nothing spectacular, my dagger had the same, but the last symbol indicated empty enchantment slots. They allowed to change enchantments on the fly without having to reforge the weapon, the village rarely used them as they were difficult to create and required special crystals to work. But here, there were a few dozens of each weapon type and they all had empty slots. It would definitely be a good idea to bring back a few to the village.
On the other side of the hallway was a long room. The walls were lined with shelves. Most were empty but there were a few that contained books and one that had several items on display. At the center were two sets of wooden desks, empty.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Let's go to the armory first," I said, "second door to the right."
"You found some goodies?"
I gave her a smile.
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"That's a lot of weapons," Vel said, "and they are high quality too."
We had opened several crates and my girlfriend was trying out a short sword. She went through a few quick movements and the blade looked to almost flow in her hands.
"Ever heard of Nefril Steel?" I asked.
"No, but I'm not a blacksmith."
She placed the blade back in its scabbard and started to tie it to her waist. On my side, I pried open one of the crates containing bows. They were placed in a rack and had likely been protected with some sort of packing material if the sad pile of dust at the bottom was any indication.
> [Nefril Composite Bow (Power, Durability, ⨀ x 2)]
I gave the weapon a detailed look, it was definitely made of composite materials, the limbs were made of a type of wood I had not seen before and were augmented by nefril steel. At the extremities, there was a mechanism that almost looked like a pulley bow but without the multiple strings. The handle was made of metal and had a wrapped grip that felt like rubber. Attached to the handle were sights. I looked through the metal ring and found a lens with markings, as I adjusted the bow the markings seemed to shift like a reflex sight on a gun. I took some arrows from another crate, also made from the same composite material, and added them to my quiver. Even with unlimited copies, it felt wise to take some spares.
"You're taking a sword?"
"Yes," Vel said, "it's better than anything I've tried in the village. You're taking the bow? It looks weird."
"It looks like some of the high performance bows from my world," I said.
"I'll get one too then."
I nodded. I took a pair of daggers for myself.
> [Nefril Steel Dagger (Sharpness, Durability, ⨀ x 1)]
We were operating in tight quarters and having more options to stab enemies would be a good thing. I continued to browse the crates, I wanted to bring back different weapons for the village smiths to go over. I found some axes and hammers as well as something strange.
> [Nefril Steel War Axe (Sharpness, Durability, ⨀ x 2)]
>
> [Nefril Steel War Hammer (Sharpness, Durability, ⨀ x 4)]
>
> [Ravri Combat Glaive (Sharpness, Durability, Space Expansion, ⨀ x 4)]
The so-called combat glaive was a metal tube around fifty centimeters in length that looked like a handle, the four enchantment slots were positioned at the center around two wrapped sections. At each end of the tube was a hexagonal cap. It was a very perplexing weapon, I turned it around in my hands a few times until I figured out the mechanism.
I felt a small amount of mana into a part of the enchantments and metal poles slid out from each end. Then, with another push a blade unfolded from the front end, it was curved and twice as wide as the shaft itself. I repeated the operation again with the last receptacle and a small blade extended from the other side.
"Wow," Vel said, "that's impressive."
"I like it," I smiled, "I think I'll keep this one too."
My spear combat was likely a bit rusty but I could always purchase the skill. I retracted the weapon and put it inside my reach pouch. I packed two axes and two swords in my backpack for the smiths to look over.
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The desk room was far more interesting. Most of the shelves were empty and however long they had been sitting there, any hint of what they had contained was long gone. The few books I found were written in a language I couldn't understand. The script looked roughly similar to dark elven but the words were all nonsense. I put a few of them in my pack to bring them back to the village.
The biggest discovery was in the last shelf. Instead of books, it had several wooden boxes which all contained the same items placed on a velvet cushion. The first looked like a metal fingerless glove with several crystals embedded inside. A lens-shaped purple crystal was in the palm of the hand, three rounded crystals were on the back, and two button-shaped ones were on the wrist. The second was a simple bracer with several rings of the same metal evenly spaced out along the length, only three crystals were set into the front most ring and the rest had empty slots.
They were also packed to the brim with enchantments, especially the gems. The mesh of magic was so dense I had trouble making out the individual parts.
> [Ravri Ritual Gauntlet (???)]
>
> [Ravri Ritual Bracer (???)]
I frowned, it looked like my Identify was too low level. The skill was notoriously hard to level and the guides Breknir had given us recommended using essence to increase it. Since I had enough points to get it to the third tier, I went for it.
> Skill Identify raised to rank 3, level 3 for 5 ES (+15 levels)
I tried to identify the items again. This time, it worked.
> [Ravri Ritual Gauntlet (Bound, Durability, Key, Spell Slots, Mana Battery, ???; 0/5 spells, 0/1000 MP)]
>
> [Ravri Ritual Bracer (Bound, Durability, ⨀ x 8, ???)]
I raised an eyebrow at the result. An epic-tier bound item. Those were rare, enough that I had never seen one before today. The additional question marks at the end raised even more questions. Were there some enchantments I couldn't identify?
"What are those?" Vel said from behind me, "I only get question marks."
I had taken the boxes to the nearest desk and opened them there. It was strange that there hadn't been any locks on the cases, only a stasis enchantment. Items of this quality should have been more protected. But maybe they had been. The lock on the door hadn't been easy to open and I now had an inkling I had forced my way through. The bracer had an enchantment called 'key' which was likely to open the door.
"Ravri Ritual Bracer and Bracelet," I said, "they are bound items. The bracer has a bunch of powerful enchantments including spells slots and mana battery. I get question marks too so there is more than that. The bracelet is only question marks"
"That's so weird."
"Yup." I paused for a moment. "I want to try them."
"Isn't that … dangerous? You don't know what it does. The unknown enchantments could be dangerous."
"I have a feeling they aren't," I said, "but you’re right. Let's bring them back and have Breknir identify them, his skill can probably get more information."
I closed the case and placed it in my backpack alongside one of the spares, Vel took the last one since my pack was getting a bit full. We left the secret chamber and I sealed the door on the way out. I didn't want any drakonians to loot this place.