After stepping through the door, I entered a closet of sorts. It was cramped on my own, and having Mezu here with me really wasn’t helping the situation.

The familiar ding and its banner couldn’t have arrived soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to floor 35: Althea’s Gate

Description: The city of Althea’s Gate has been through years of tough times until the current lord bought it. She reopened the city’s historically most popular attraction, a colosseum. With betting and tourism being the city’s main source of revenue once again, the city has begun to flourish. However, the method in which the new lord bought the city has been under question for years.

A rumor of the great wealth that the new lord has acquired has attracted many thieves to Althea’s Gate. Though sprinkled into those rumors were details of the location of the vault as well as a small mention of a possible secret treasure to be found. As of now none have been successful, and thus the rumors have only grown in their absurdity.

Just like the others before, you have been drawn to Althea’s Gate not only for the treasure, but the infamy that would come after it was acquired. However, during the attempt your party was separated and only you have remained uncaptured. The others have been equipped with slave collars and sent to the colosseum, tasked with the amusement of nobility and commoners, fighting for their lives for the rest of their days.

Completion Requirements: Find the slave collar contract scrolls and free your party.

Additional bonus: Complete the original theft and reveal to the world the true treasure in Althea’s gate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, instead of a floor with a vague description, it’s surprisingly embellished. Though this was rather a large task simply for one person.

The tower managed to pick the right person though, if it was Dodger or Quartz, I’m sure they’d just run around killing everyone. And then just smash their way through the place to find the scrolls.

That would’ve been less work on my part, but I guess it’s better that I’m doing it. However, I’m also here with Mezu.

I looked over at the small fluffy head.

I’m sure he wouldn’t go out of his way to help with anything…. And I don’t think he’d go out of his way to hinder things.

He doesn’t seem so heavy that I couldn’t carry him around like the others, but he was only two heads smaller than me, proportion wise, it wouldn’t really make sneaking around all that much easier.

Dot was even shorter than me, it would be funny seeing her carry him around.

Well carrying was probably not the best idea, I’ll just fly him around in emergencies. Whatever I do, I doubt I’ll be entertaining enough for him to stay still. That being said, Dodger was complaining about how he had practically fallen asleep on the last floor. If he did that, and I just flew him around it would certainly make things a lot easier.

Time to focus, if this was a story and we were filling roles, the tower might’ve given me something useful not in the description.

I looked around the small closet and saw a brown leather bag that seemed out of place. I opened it up and emptied it out onto the floor. There were a few things: a lockpicking kit, a few smoke cloud scrolls and a few maps.

I strapped the scrolls to my side, replenishing my lost stock, before squeezing myself closer to the wall to be able to take a good look at the maps.

From what I could tell, they were more like schematics for both the colosseum and the lord’s house. The only similarity between the two buildings that I could see were a couple underground passageways. The labels were just barely visible, the drawings must’ve been old, but I could tell that they should be connected to each other, giving easy access from the Lord’s house to the colosseum.

The colosseum itself was very basic. It had cells below the main floor, and one large room that came off from them. The cells were probably living quarters for the captives and the large room was probably the waiting room for the fights. There were also various levels of hallways for people to enter the stands or private rooms from.

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For the colosseum there were two schematics; one that looked at the building from its side displaying the height and placement of floors; the other contained bare sketches of the various floors. The first showed the location of the tunnels and showed a shaft that reached to the top floor, where on the second it showed a large private room. It must’ve been the lord’s, which meant the passage was only for her personal use.

There were some notes that had been jotted down next to the shaft. They were fresher but were in a language I couldn’t read so that meant it wasn’t overly necessary information.

The question is whether or not the contract scrolls were in the colosseum or the mansion. Having everything in one spot wouldn’t be the smartest thing. But if they have a history of being able to catch any and all thieves, they could’ve gotten lazy over the years.

I rolled up the colosseum maps and put them aside so that I could look at the mansion’s maps. I did a cursory flip through them and saw that they got progressively less detailed as it went down from the main three floors to the basement levels.

The lower most floor, that was even below the tunnel level, had the least detail. Whoever had drawn it merely marked an entrance and a possible hallway or two. There were a few marks that seemed to suggest possible positions of the supposed vault, but overall, the floor itself was the same size as the rest of them which felt a bit much for just one vault.

Either these were drawn up by someone who was just guessing, or there was something down there that wasn’t just gold or jewels. On the off chance it was simply that large and filled with all the lord’s treasures, I wouldn’t be able to carry it all out on my own.

If not, that room held what this ‘true treasure’ the banner had described.

Best case scenario would be to get the rest of them and then to clear out the vault, that way we can get all the rewards possible. Especially after the last floor’s utter lack of anything good. But freeing them would probably gain unwanted attention. Would have to plan things out, if I accidentally freed them while they were in the colosseum it would be easily noticed.

I pursed my lips and chewed at the inside of my bottom lip. If I go see what’s what, then decide how to get as much of it as possible, that’d be best. Either way I needed to find the scrolls sooner than later, so I have the ability to clear the floor’s requirement. As long as that actually filled it.

Now where was I? I couldn’t hear much of anything from outside the room, and leaning my ear against the door didn’t reveal any more. There wasn’t enough sound to indicate that I was in the colosseum. Which meant that I was likely in the lord’s home.

I looked over the maps some more. The entrance to the lower level was marked only on the rough drawing of the floor itself. Which wasn’t that helpful.

Based on the drawings of the other floors the entrance was most likely in the library. It was far enough from the exit of the tunnels from the colosseum, and the proportions of the floor seemed off when compared to the floor above it.

Hopefully the colosseum events were happening now so that the house itself was probably its most empty.

I looked around for some sort of closet on the main floor but only saw one on the second. Alright then, I needed to head downstairs and then along the right hallway, count three doors on my left before entering the fourth. There was only one hallway connecting the entire floor, so I’d have to head down that hallway no matter what.

I mean there was the option of climbing out and then down the side of the house, but I didn’t want to be spotted.

Hopefully the ceilings were high enough for me to fly Mezu above anyone’s line of sight, and then I’d only have to be overly aware of myself.

I rolled up all the maps and packed away the rest of the items into the bag and slung it over my shoulder, adjusting the strap to fit relatively tight to my body.

“Alright buddy, you need to stay really quiet.” I said quietly.

I took his hand and opened the door slightly. I looked out and turned my ears a bit to make sure I couldn’t hear anyone coming.

There was nothing so I pulled him out of the closet. I looked up but this hallway wasn’t high enough to make flying him at all practical.

I tried to get him on my back, but he shook his head fervently.

Was this little brat underestimating me?

I tried to hold back a glare, but my face was twitching at the effort.

“Fine,” I muttered.

I lead him down the hallway making sure to stick to the edge of the wall. Once we made it to the corner I waited and listened before sticking my head around it. From here I could see the gap in the wall where the stairs were from here, and there wasn’t anyone in sight.

Even after I rounded the corner, I kept close to the wall. Once we made it to the stairs, I looked down to see a pair of guards at the large entrance doors, and various servants walking about the grand hall doing their duties.

I guess climbing was the only way. I went back down the hall and double checked the map before heading to the correct room. Luckily the room was empty, so we entered. I went straight to the wall of windows and looked out them. Conveniently, the room seemed to be one that was facing a cliff.

I opened the window and looked out and down, we were right along the edge of the cliff so no one would be able to be at ground level looking up at this wall.

I turned to Mezu, held my hand out, my palm facing him. I concentrated my mana in my hand.

“Yaen do isoya mu kien.”

The mana in the air moved around him and lifted him up off the ground.

He flopped around a bit unsteady and had trouble keeping his balance. Once he gained some sort of equilibrium, well once he stopped moving since the spell would keep him steady as long as he didn’t move around so much, he looked at me. His eyes and mouth were wide open. He looked at the ground then back at me and saw the corners of his eyes turn into a smile.

I shook my head; he could go from being a stupid brat to being cute.

“Yeah, yeah.”

I pinched my fingers around the mass of mana under him.

“Uriyo do rua mu etekeen”

I pulled a line of the mana and tied it around my wrist.

“Out you go.”