Chapter Seventy-Four: ‘O, forsaken sanctuary...!’

Seven hours after his arrival in Warrenhold, Hector had still not fully explored the castle, and it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.

It was just him and Garovel now. It had taken a while just to find a staircase that led underground, and even then, he’d had to clear away the rubble first. The tall stone doors would hardly even budge, and Hector ended up accidentally busting them down, only to see still more debris in the way. He decided that it was too dangerous for anyone else to venture down with him, so he asked Jamal to escort his mother and Madame Carthrace to a hotel. It was already well into the night anyway, and they all seemed pretty tired. Jamal left him with a variety of supplies, for which Hector was quite thankful.

The castle had its own generator. Somewhere. Until he found it and figured out how to get it working, there would be no electricity. Which meant no light, of course, save only what he brought with him.

Hector’s flashlight didn’t last very long, and he was forced to carry a floodlight around in one hand like a kind of supercharged lantern. He made an iron harness for the large battery pack that Jamal had left him and strapped it to his back as if it were an oxygen tank.

In the beginning of his expedition, he was predominantly concerned with clearing rubble out of the hallways, which usually meant refilling the holes in the ceiling or the walls and then patching the whole section of corridor over with a layer of iron. It also helped him keep track of where he’d already been, because the place was a damn maze, and Garovel couldn’t do much to help him explore it when there was no light anywhere. He found himself sorely missing Harper Norez’s company.

The castle itself was not of uniform construction. The first few areas he found were all made of a mixture of wood and concrete, but then he started seeing whole rooms and hallways of tawny sandstone or dark red brick or deeply blue marble. He found one chamber with lavish rainbow tile, though it probably would’ve looked nicer without the fissures running through its walls. A few other times, rooms were simply small caves with natural rock walls and nothing more.

He tried to explore each floor completely before descending again, but some rooms were so thoroughly destroyed that he couldn’t tell if there were any other doors hidden behind all the debris. More things he’d have to worry about later, he figured.

Five floors below the surface, he came out onto a sudden balcony, and for a moment, he thought he’d found a larger cave, but after shining his light around, he realized it was actually just one giant chamber.

‘A banquet hall?’ suggested Garovel.

Hector took a deep breath of stale air and raised a metal platform up from below the balcony. He climbed on and lowered himself down. He ran his light across the room again, counting eight more doors to choose from--two on each wall. He just sighed.

By now, Hector was getting the distinct impression that he still wasn’t even close to the end of this self-guided tour. He supposed that could be a good thing, but on the other hand, even if he only counted everything he’d seen so far, Warrenhold already seemed way too big for four people. And hell, he wasn’t sure if Jamal and Amelia were going to live here. The thought of having all this space for only him and his mother was even more daunting. Were all castles this gigantic?

‘At least there doesn’t seem to be a vermin problem,’ said Garovel.

“So far.”

‘I don’t think I’ve even seen any cobwebs anywhere. Curious.’

“Watch the next room we find be a fucking den of spiders.”

‘Are you arachnophobic?’

“No. Er... at least, I don’t think I am...”

‘Oh, that’s right. You’re not afraid of anything, are you?’

“Uh--I don’t know about that. When I saw Harper use pan-rozum, I almost shat myself...”

Garovel laughed. ‘Oh yeah? I didn’t realize. I suppose I can see why, though.’

He looked around again. “Agh. I wish I at least knew how many floors there are in this place.” He’d asked Madame Carthrace for a map or floor plan of the building, but she explained that she’d been unable to procure such a thing despite searching for the past several days.

‘Just think of it as an adventure.’

“I feel like I’m gonna get lost down here forever...”

‘Don’t worry. I can probably guide you back.’

“...Probably?”

‘If not, you can become the Darksteel Mole Man.’

“Fantastic.”

Eyeing all eight doors another time, Hector eventually just shrugged and chose the closest one. It led to another hallway. A very long hallway. There had to be at least another ten rooms to investigate, but he decided to keep going instead. At length, the corridor ended very abruptly, as if the rest of it were missing, replaced by a hole leading to pitch blackness. Hector stepped closer to the edge and shined his light through the hole.

This time, it really was a cave.

Enormous stalactites hung down from above, fervently living up to the name of Gray Rock. He couldn’t tell how large the cave was from this angle, but it certainly wasn’t small, and it seemed to extend around the castle.

‘There,’ said Garovel. ‘See that rock ledge?’

He did. It wasn’t very far, just slightly below him. He made a bridging staircase for himself and descended. His light illuminated an extremely steep drop off as he walked, and when he reached the ledge, he looked back toward the castle, finally seeing it from the outside. Or part of it, anyway.

It almost seemed like the tower was upside down. Wide at the top, it became incrementally thinner in rivets toward the bottom, where it found support from a mound of natural rock. But even now, Hector still couldn’t quite see the bottom because of the rocks in the way. Additionally, the hole that he’d exited from was even larger than he’d thought, and it now granted him a view into several different rooms and hallways. A whole chunk of the tower was missing, he realized.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

‘That’s a little suspicious-looking,’ said Garovel.

“Is it?”

‘The center of that hole is about even with the ledge you’re standing on now.’

“Hmm.”

‘I’m wondering if it was really caused by an earthquake. It’s fairly symmetrical, too. Makes me think it could’ve been made by an explosive.’

“You think someone attacked this place?”

‘That’s often why castles are built, so maybe this is just an old wound that was never repaired. But y’know, I just think the whole earthquake story is strange. I imagine that someone skilled enough to build a place like this would know better than to choose a location that has an earthquake problem.’

“It’s really old, though. Maybe the builders just didn’t have that kind of... uh... surveying technology? Or something?”

‘Maybe. Let’s go see what’s on the other side of this tower.’

Hector considered his options. The rocks below looked rather perilous, so he figured that materializing a staircase on top of them would be annoying. Instead, he made a single giant platform and jumped to it. The force of his landing caused it to fall forward, but that was as planned.

Hector fell with the platform, and when he neared the bottom, he leapt off again, creating a sudden slide to catch himself. He eased down through the smooth iron tube and landed comfortably on both feet.

Garovel floated over. ‘Showing off for me?’

He laughed as he annihilated his work. “Never hurts to practice. Though, to be honest, I was kind of expecting to faceplant on that one...”

‘I’m glad you’re not one to let a little thing like the threat of grievous bodily harm stop you.’

He held up his floodlight to be sure he hadn’t broken it and was glad to find it in working order. “By the way, uh... I’m pretty sure I achieved emergence when I was fighting Harper.”

‘Oh? That’s excellent.’

“Not sure what all I can do now.”

‘Looks like we’ll have plenty of space and opportunity to figure that out.’ The reaper floated slowly forward, rounding the base of the tower as Hector followed.

Abruptly, they were confronted with a broad view of what seemed like the entire castle, though the floodlight could only illuminate so much at once. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Hector gradually counted eight towers in total, all hanging down from the ceiling in a ring formation directly above him. Cavern rocks rose up from the floor to cradle each structure, save one, which looked to be half-destroyed with a good chunk of its remnants now hanging freely in mid-air. At the top, Hector could see a series of bridging walkways connecting everything and angled support beams for them extending out from each adjacent tower.

“Holy shit...”

‘Yeah... I’m starting to see why Voreese wanted this place.’

“People think this is an eyesore? It looks incredible...”

‘Hmm.’

The towers varied in size somewhat, but even the ruined one must’ve still had about ten stories. The largest, though, stood directly in front of him. It didn’t grow thinner like the others as it reached the base of the cave, and its stone looked a bit different as well, darker and more intricately carved. By itself, it must have had over a hundred windows just on this side alone, as well as a couple of protrusions into the rock halfway up its massive body.

Hector wondered if the banquet hall from earlier was in that largest tower somewhere, but the more he looked over everything, the more he became convinced that each tower probably had enough space for it.

‘All in all, Warrenhold still looks like it’s in pretty decent condition from the outside,’ said Garovel. ‘Apart from that one tower over there, that is.’

“We’ve been down here for hours already, but there’s still so much left to explore...”

‘Well, you did spend most of that time clearing hallways.’ The reaper paused. ‘Hey, do you hear something?’

He listened. Indeed, there was a faint rushing sound, constant like distant static. “Yeah. What is that?”

‘I could be mistaken, but it sounds like a waterfall.’

Hector cocked an eyebrow. “What? Underground?”

‘It would’ve been very practical to build Warrenhold near a source of water, and an underground river could very well mean an underground waterfall.’

“That’d be... pretty sweet, actually. Where do you think it is, then?”

‘Not sure. Could be on the other side of one of these towers, maybe, behind a wall somewhere. Or it could just be farther down in the cave. Seems like we’ve found the heart of the castle, but we’re still not at the bottom of the cave yet.’

“Geez...”

‘Regardless, we should look for that waterfall first. It could lead us to a generator.’

“Oh, you think it’s hydroelectric?”

‘It’s possible. Obviously, the castle is older than hydroelectric power--hell, it’s older than the discovery of electricity itself--but if the last resident lived here only forty years ago, then yeah, it could have a generator like that. There’s no guarantee it still works, though.’

“Of course...”

At the reaper’s request, Hector backtracked a little, just a short ways from the ring of turrets, and found another steep drop off. This one, however, had a decrepit stone wall--an ancient guardrail, seemingly. Hector shined his light over the edge and illuminated a distant bed of dark turquoise.

‘Oh,’ said Garovel. ‘There’s a friggin’ lake right here.’

Hector could see gray objects in the water, poking out above the surface. “Are those... buildings?”

Garovel went over the cliff for a closer look.

“Hey!” said Hector. “Don’t go off on your own!”

‘Relax. I’d be able to sense if there was anything alive down here. Just stay up there and give me light.’

Hector wanted to protest more, but he figured he should probably just trust that Garovel knew what he was doing. He wasn’t particularly happy about it, though.

‘It’s strange,’ the reaper said. ‘Usually, if I concentrate, I can sense even small animals within a hundred meters or so, but I haven’t been able to sense any life at all. No insects or mice in the castle, no fish or anything in this water here, no worms in the dirt, even.’

‘That can’t be right,’ thought Hector. ‘There’s gotta be bugs down here somewhere, right? Maybe your soul radar or whatever is getting screwed up for some reason. You should get back over here.’

‘My sense is fine. I can still sense you perfectly well. You are literally the only living thing in Warrenhold, right now.’

He looked around again. ‘That’s... a little creepy.’

‘These buildings in the water are houses,’ said Garovel. ‘Very old and empty. This used to be a tiny village.’

‘I wonder how it flooded...’

‘Bah. It’s too dark. I can’t see where the lake ends or begins, but it does seem to be flowing east. Wherever that waterfall is, I don’t think it’ll be easy to reach.’

‘What now?’

‘Eh, we’ll explore the water later. You should get back above ground soon and check your messages. I’m sure your cell reception in here is terrible, and the others will be wanting to hear from you.’

‘Alright.’

Garovel was returning now, flying backwards as he looked over the dotted lake. ‘It seems our new home has seen some rough times.’

“No kidding.”

‘It won’t be easy to repair.’

“That’s, um... yeah. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to afford it. I didn’t even see furniture in any of the rooms, either, so we’ll need money for that, too.”

‘Yeah, and the Queen only gave you three million troas to work with.’

It took a second for that number to register. “Wait, what?”

‘You didn’t think she’d give us this monstrosity without any funds to get started, did you? This place is probably the biggest money pit I’ve ever seen.’

“But... wha...” He squinted with one eye. “Fucking three million?! You’re telling me I’m a millionaire now?!”

‘Technically.’

“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?!”

‘I wanted to see the state of things first. And now that I have, I don’t think you should get too excited about your newfound riches. If the rest of Warrenhold is in as terrible a state as everything we’ve seen so far, then three million troas will hardly put a dent in our expenses.’

“But... three million...”

Garovel chortled as they started back toward the ring of towers. ‘Our goal should be to restore Warrenhold in such a way that it will eventually begin to pay for itself.’

“How the hell do we do that?”

‘There are all sorts of ways to make money, Hector, especially when you already have some at your disposal. But first, we still need a clearer picture of everything that Warrenhold has to offer. Hopefully, Voreese will give us some juicy details when she visits. The castle is certainly impressive to look at, but I’m not sure that explains why she seemed so set on it.’

“Hmm. Maybe there’s a secret treasure room.”

‘That’d be nice.’

“So secret that we’ll never find it.”

‘Sounds about right.’