Back in the vault I took out Dot’s device. There had to be something I was missing. The maps were useless when it came to this room. It wasn’t sure on the size or the shape of things at all. If the size was right, then there must’ve been a hidden door somewhere, but if it wasn’t then I would have to search the rest of the mansion for some unmarked passageway.

“Kien do esobai.”

The mana seemed to all come back to me. But if there was a secret door, there might be a way for them to seal all the air off completely, making any attempts to find the gap useless.

Maybe it was like the hallway? No light until there was complete darkness?

I blew out all the lights and nothing happened, there was still a slight glow from the hallway, so I went out and blew those as well.

Once they went out there as an outline of a blue glow in the wall to the left of the vault entrance.

I sighed; I hadn’t even bothered to check outside.

I took out her device yet again to look for traps or triggers, there was nothing. So, I moved onto my mana flow searching process and found a few bricks that seemed to be looser than the others. With a slight push in the middle of the collection of bricks the door slid open.

The waft of air that came from the new opening was dense and moist. It smelt of salt. A dark secret underground cavern with a salty smell. I wonder what wonderful things there were for me to find down here.

I lit all the lanterns back up and closed and relocked the vault door before heading down the new hallway. There was a leaver right after the door and pulling it down closed the door behind me. Surrounded by darkness the same, now familiar, blue glow lit up my path.

As I got further down the hallway, along with the moist smell there was also a stench that was aggravatingly familiar.

And when I got to the end the sight of dungeons didn’t surprise me. There were rows and rows of caged people below the platform that the hallway opened up to. The map was at least almost right about the size of the room.

With this discovery of what was most likely a slave trading operation, there was a ding.

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

Bonus Updated:

The true treasure has been found. How will the truth of Althea’s Gate be revealed?

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

Nope.

It’s just a bonus. A waste of time.

I just need to find the slave collar scrolls. That’s all I need to do. That’s all there is for me to do.

I kept my eyes focused on the path ahead of me, the stairs to my left were the only option. They took me down to the same level as the cells. Now that I was closer, it was increasingly difficult to ignore not only the cries and moans of the beings there, but also the smells that were coming from the cells.

Where is the stupid office? That’s all I’m looking for.

I forced my head to keep straight, and my eyes pointed away from them, towards the wall that the stairs were against. I went along it in both directions but didn’t find another door or entrance of any sort.

The other end though seemed rather endless. A quick glance through the dimly lit line of cells and I couldn’t see the other end of the wall. Even though the salty moist scent was overpowered by the smells coming from the cells, I still couldn’t find the direct source of it, which probably meant there was something at the other end of the room.

I put a firm scowl on my face and headed down the aisle of cells. I stuck to the middle so that no arms could reach me. I clenched my jaw and tensed my neck so that it wouldn’t move even on instinct.

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I just had to keep my eyes on the path in front of me.

I made it to the other end and met a wall. I walked along it and I found a normal door, after sticking my ear against it and not hearing anything close enough to the door to be a problem I stepped through.

On the other side there was a large cavern that held a small dock and a small sailboat tied up to it.

This was a rather secluded way to conduct a slavery operation. There was probably something-

No stop it, just get the scrolls and empty the vault.

This is just a floor of a tower; these people aren’t real.

The sound of the water gently crashing into the rocky shores, and the boat hitting the dock were all I could hear thankfully with there not being any beings on this side of the door. I closed it behind me to block out even the slightest noise from reaching me.

Down another set of stairs and in the wall to my left was a door.

I headed inside after checking for sounds from the entrance and found a rather cluttered office space. It was even worse than the lord’s office, making it much more of a challenge to search. Checking for dust patterns wouldn’t be helpful to determine the time certain objects had been in their spots since none of the surfaces were clean enough to be able to compare the dust levels too.

I’d have to look through the books and scrolls individually.

Where to start though…The desk was the only spot with a cleared spot, but even that was small. The rest of the space had stacks of books and papers. Against one of the walls though there was a scroll shelf. The upside down triangle shaped holes made it easier to stack and organize them, but how much of it was actually organized with seeing how many of the shelves seemed to be forcefully stuffed… I really doubted there was any organization, but it was probably the best place to start.

There was a stool in front of it, so after moving the books stacked on top of it, I used it to get up to the highest shelf.

Any dried blood was probably so old I couldn’t smell it anymore but since we had just gotten here, their contracts had to be somewhat fresh. Probably the better way to search than taking each scroll out and trying to return it to the way it was.

So, I did my best to go by each of the shelves carefully until I found what I was looking for at my actual eye level.

I pulled out the scrolls and the entire shelf of them came out with the one I grabbed. I glared at the pile below me and gathered them up before opening them one by one.

The first few I came across weren’t fresh enough to still smell, but I eventually found the six scrolls I was looking for.

But it was clear that the others I had gone through were also slave contracts.

If this whole shelf was slave contracts…

My hand had already pulled out another shelf before I could tell it not too and took a peek at the scroll I had picked.

It was another slave contract. If this whole shelf were contracts… This was more than were in the cages in the secret dungeon, and in the coliseum. How many people have they captured and traded or used for entertainment.

No! It’s just the tower floor. These people aren’t real.

But if they were…

I turned and looked at the cleared space on the desk. There was a notebook next to it that seemed fairly worn.

I opened it up despite knowing it was probably written in a language I wouldn’t understand. But having read several records at wasarera, all of those also in languages I couldn’t read, I could at least guess what they meant by how they would organize things.

But this notebook wasn’t even trying to hide what it was recording. The first page was numbered, in the thousands, with a diagram of a being that looked human like. There were several markings on the diagram in different colored ink and each was numbered. The numbered list next to the diagram must’ve been descriptions.

Flipping through the notebook just revealed more pages of these records of whatever testing had been done.

My scowl wasn’t forced anymore, my hands tightened on the book, and I felt a small ache in my chest.

I grabbed the next notebook underneath and wasn’t even surprised to find it filled to the brim with the same notes.

Notebook after notebook, they were completely filled with experiment notes.

In my anger I didn’t pay attention to where I was placing the books after I read them.

My fingers dug into the one at the bottom of the pile though, kids. They were just kids.

Every

Single

page I flipped through,

kids.

I tore it in half and slammed it onto the desk. Some of the other notebooks toppled over, a few opened, and I saw more drawings of kids.

I slapped my face.

These people aren’t real.

Remember that this is just a tower. No one was real, even the ebashin that did this.

It’s whoever made this floor that should be getting punched, not the ebashin created by this place who apparently did this.

It isn’t real, it’s just a messed up cruel distraction to get you to do more work.

The plan would be simple. Rip the scrolls and hope they were not in the fighting ring or whatever. Then go back to the vault, fill up the bags, and head to the library. Hopefully by then they’d be there, and we just take a leap off the cliff and fly down to the canyon below and we’re off.

That’s all I have to do.

That’s all I’m required to do.

I grabbed the slave contracts and ripped them in half. There was a sparkle in the sigil as I ripped through the paper.

I went back to the door and looked around for the floating fluff ball.

He was floating by the scroll shelves. He looked at me, his head tilted.

I looked at him, and then back at the notebook I ripped up.

At the stacks of similar looking notebooks.

And finally at the old book of kids.

Kids just like the floating fluff ball in front of me.

Kids just like my siblings…

The memory of their gaunt faces, the last thing I saw of them, rushed to the surface.

I held back the tears, but the anger overflowed.