“I can’t believe it’s already healed,” Kaz mutters as she inspects Demy’s hand, her brow furrowed as she traces the faint–and still yet fading–scar across his palm. It is the only remnant of the wound she inflicted with her sword less than ten minutes prior.
“Yeah, it does that,” Demy responds, a bit uncomfortable by Kaz scrutinizing his hand. “One of those things clipped my shoulder earlier; I was just going to let it go but Dahlia healed it first. I didn’t have the heart to tell her not to.”
“Handy little trick,” Kaz admits and drops his hand. “I’ll remember to save my prayers for if you’re really hurting, then.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Demy says sarcastically. “It’s kind of obnoxious. Do you know how hard it is for me to get drunk?”
“Moderation is virtuous,” Kaz says simply, scanning the foyer for the others. It is empty, however: She and Demy are the first to return.
“If the Nine ever do anything good for me, maybe I’ll take that under consideration. Until then,” he muses, taking his flask from his jacket pocket and downing the rest of it. He shakes it a little, only a scant drop or two coming from the upturned container. Annoyed, he says, “Damn, I wonder if I have time to go refill it from those casks in the pantry before the others get here.”
The sound of a door opening causes him to groan in exasperation.
“Yo, Demy! Oh, hey officer,” Cashew greets as he trots down the stairs, giving Kaz a mocking smirk.
“I’m not a cop, you twerp,” Kaz shoots back, giving the Halfling a small, playful shove. “I was a captain in the army, it’s not the same.”
“Uh-huh, very different,” Cashew says, rolling his eyes.
“You guys are never going to believe what we found,” Wren says with a big smile.
“Pretty sure that’s our line,” Demy says.
“Did you find the basement?” Wren asks curiously.
“We found the basement door, yes,” Kaz answers with a smile. She and Wren high five–or mid five, really, considering their height difference.
“I bet that it’s locked! Right?” Cashew says with a knowing grin.
“Uhh,” Demy mutters, looking over at Kaz.
“Well, we didn’t actually… check,” Kaz says sheepishly.
“You–what?!” Both Wren and Cashew exclaim loudly, simultaneously.
“I mean, we saw the door,” Demy says, defensively.
“You didn’t go check to see if it was locked?” Cashew practically yells.
“It was in the pool,” Kaz says simply. As if that explains their actions perfectly.
“Oh well that explains it,” Wren says with a snort. “Kaz hates water, I mean hates it, so there’s no way she’d check it if it was under water.”
Demy goes to say something but Kaz puts her hand over his face, shushing him in the process. Quickly, she says, “Look, I don’t trust pools. Their depth is deceptive, they’re basically death traps.”
“So what, we gotta swim down to it?” Cashew asks.
Kaz pauses for a second, looking away. “We figured out how to drain the pool. It should be empty by the time we go back out there,” she lies.
Wren squints a little and leans in, staring up at her. Suspiciously, they say, “Wait a minute, you drained it already and just didn’t think to check the door, didn’t you?”
“You suck at lying,” Demy mutters as he swats her hand out of his face.
“Water doesn’t deserve the truth,” Kaz argues. “Anyway, you asked if the door was locked. How do you know it’s locked?”
“Because we found this really cool old key!” Wren answers, fishing it from their pocket and holding it up triumphantly.
“If that isn’t a ‘Secret Basement of a Creepy Old Mansion’ key then I don’t know what is,” Cashew says affirmingly.
“Did I hear ‘Secret Basement of a Creepy Old Mansion?’” Dahlia asks as she and Addy appear, descending the staircase to the others. She adds, “Cool key.”
“You did, and thanks! We found it in a secret lock box in Tarn’s bedroom,” Wren brags.
“We found a secret shelf full of books on magical curses and diseases!” Abby says excitedly.
Demy blanches at her words. Kaz and Cashew both give him a discreet glance.
“Well we found the basement door; we had to solve a puzzle to reveal it,” Kaz adds proudly.
“Yay! We all did good!” Abby says happily.
“The key and the door make sense. But the books we found make me worry about what’s down there,” Dahlia says.
“Why would the General be researching such a thing?” Kaz asks.
“A better question is why he would hide that he’s researching it,” Cashew points out. He blinks and looks at Wren, saying, “Hey, that’s right. Those letters.”
“Oh! I almost forgot about them,” Wren says, digging the batch of letters out of their bag. “Addy, we found some letters written in Loxian in the secret compartment that had the key in it. Can you read them?”
“I can try!” Addy says, holding her hands out. She takes the letters from Wren and opens them, scanning them gingerly. “Looks like Tarn was in communication with… Oh! Professor Abney!”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Dahlia peeks up at the letters from beside Addy. “Do you know them?” She asks.
“I do! Professor Abney was on the expedition team. She volunteered, now that I think about it,” Addy says.
“Sounds like she knew more than she let on,” Wren says.
Cashew mutters under his breath so that Addy doesn’t hear, “I bet most of the expedition crew were like that.”
“Why would Tarn be contacting them?” Kaz asks.
“Professor Abney was the head of our alchemy department,” Addy explains. “It looks like her and Mr. Tarn were talking about some kind of possible cure.”
“Cure?” Demy asks, suddenly looking up. He reaches out and puts a hand on Addy's shoulder in an attempt to focus her attention, his expression serious as he asks, “Cure for what?”
“I’m not sure!” Addy says, looking up at the much taller Demy. “They were really vague in the letters, they didn’t actually say.”
“Oh,” Demy mutters, letting his hand drop.
“I’m sorry Demy,” Addy says gently, giving the much larger man a hug. She adds reassuringly, “But I bet that we’ll find out if we check the basement!”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right,” Demy says, smiling a little. He pats her head, too awkward to merely return the hug, as he says, “Thanks Addy.”
“Looks like we know what the plan is, then,” Kaz says. She looks at the others. “We don’t know what we’ll run into down there, so we should be battle-ready just in case.”
“Always itching for a fight,” Cashew says with a smirk, heading toward the back doors.
“Kaz, a blessing might help if there is some kind of disease or curse,” Wren mentions as they and Kaz follow after Cashew.
“Good call. I’ll say a quick prayer before we open the door,” Kaz agrees.
Demy quietly follows after, really wishing he had the time to go grab some more ale, especially after what the others found.
“Come on UNA!” Addy says and looks up, seeing her little mechanical companion circling overhead. She follows after Demy, UNA softly humming as it follows after her.
Dahlia brings up the rear, staring at the back of Demy’s head, unblinking.
~~~~~~~~~~
The floating orbs of light created by Wren help to illuminate the bottom of the pool, which act as miniature versions of the two moons that sit high above in the dark sky, down to the size difference between the two and the particular phases of each. The sun has fully dipped behind the horizon and night has unceremoniously crept across the Heart, though with it comes none of the usual sounds of insects and nocturnal creatures. It is eerily silent, save for the noises made by the group as they make their way down into the empty stone basin.
“How did you find this door again?” Cashew asks. He stands in front of the secret door with his arms crossed, looking it up and down carefully for any signs of being trapped. He doubts it is, since it is hidden like this, but Tarn seemed to be a bit paranoid about anyone getting down here. The stone door is completely free of markings, presumably to not stand out from the rest of the wall: There isn’t even a handle. The only indication that it is in fact a door is the slight outline, which is tough to see even right in front of the door, with the pool drained.
“Well, you see–” Demy begins, but Kaz interrupts.
“We bumped into the sundial and it drained the pool,” she says flatly.
“Hey, we had a whole story for how we found it!” Demy whines.
“Yeah and they already called us out on not actually checking to see if the door was locked,” Kaz says and shrugs her shoulders.
Wren pats Demy on the back and reassuringly says, “Hey, you found it, that’s what’s important.”
“But–but my muscles,” Demy continues to whine.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re huge,” Cashew says dismissively. He walks over to the nondescript chunk of stone that serves as the door and starts inspecting it more closely, looking for some kind of lever or latch or something.
UNA descends from above slowly, hovering just above Cashew, also inspecting the door with its bright blue eye.
“What is that thing?” Wren asks, watching UNA float just above Cashew’s head.
“The mosquitos here are huge,” Demy mutters.
Cashew hears the low hum of the construct and looks up, letting out a shout of surprise as he covers his head and ducks away from it. “Addy, your stupid flying dog thing is crowding me!” He shouts.
“She’s not a dog! Her name is UNA,” Addy responds, hopping down from above to the floor of the pool.
“The mosquito is a girl?” Demy asks, confused.
“She’s not a mosquito!” Addy says and holds her arms out, catching Dahlia as the little Goblin falls from above.
“Thank you, friend Addy,” Dahlia says as Addy sits her down.
“Wait, your other dog wasn’t a girl,” Cashew argues.
“CAM also isn’t a dog! And prefers non-gendered pronouns,” Addy explains.
Kaz groans and rubs her temples.
“So, any sign of the keyhole?” Wren asks Cashew, trying to get things back on track. For Kaz’s sake, if nothing else.
“I think so,” he says and moves back in front of the door, keeping a wary eye on UNA. His hand slides over the smooth surface for a moment before he presses his fingers against the stone, which gives way in a neat square. The indented portion slides to the side, revealing a keyhole.
“Nice, Cash,” Demy says, giving a thumbs up.
“Impressive,” Kaz agrees.
“Yeah, well,” Cashew mutters, giving a dismissive shrug as he smirks victoriously.
“I’m sure a petty thief such as yourself has a lot of practice finding things like this,” Kaz teases.
“That’s profiling, officer,” Cashew says, giving her a rude gesture or three.
“Is it safe to use the key now?” Wren asks, impatiently stepping up to the door, the key already out of their bag and in their hand.
“Should be, I didn’t see anything off. What about your dog, Addy?” Cashew asks.
UNA lets out a few beeps as Addy and Dahlia move up to stand with the rest of the group. “She says that the door looks clear and also that she is not a dog!” Addy exclaims with a smile.
Wren glances back at Kaz, nodding to her. Kaz nods back and clasps her hands in prayer, bowing her head as she begins to speak:
“Holy Kelathorne, we are on mission from a just source. Bestow upon us a small blessing so that we may perform our task without fear.”
A soft light shines from Kaz’s amulet, washing over the others in a warm, reassuring wave. Most react in some combination of surprise, awe, and/or indifference, save for Demy, who frowns deeply but manages to keep his mouth shut, merely letting a discontent hum sound from the very back of his throat. Dahlia notices, however; she continues to stare up at him, her expression flat yet intense.
Bolstered by Kaz’s prayer, Wren doesn’t hesitate to place the key within the lock and turn it. There is the sound of machinery, of cogs and wheels moving somewhere within the wall; then the square stone door shudders and depresses inward, just as the small section hiding the keyhole had done prior.
The sound of grating stone mixes in with the sounds of clockwork machinery as the door continues to move back. It stops for a brief moment before moving to the side, sliding into a perfectly cut out space for itself and revealing a gaping opening of darkness beyond.
Wren’s lights move up to float alongside them, but they seem to struggle to penetrate the darkness, acting as little more than dim candles against the smothering wall of shadow. They manage to illuminate just enough of the entrance to reveal a set of stone steps leading down into the pitch black. UNA slides into position alongside the magical lights, shining her own light from the lens that acts as her eye.
Even the combined effort of magic and technology does little to push back the gloom.
From deep within, there is the very faint, brief sound of movement.
The clinking of metal for but a second.
The ticking of a clock, endlessly.
And nothing else.
The six share a worried glance before drawing their respective weapons and carefully, slowly, descending down into the abyss beneath the manor.