The “reward” that they received left much to be desired. As a reward, our glorious Noble Tennyson increased work hours for all researchers. All researchers and their families were moved into a large room in the main structure filled with multiple bunk beds. Privacy was now a thing of the past.

To ensure the new shifts were being followed, an enforcer was stationed outside of the new bunk room. You were only allowed into the sleeping area if you were done with your assigned shift. Thankfully there were enough beds provided that we did not have to share a bed with an earlier shift.

Sky, Jade, and her were put to work alongside their parents. All children of researchers were given the task of sorting each object by color and general shape and then carrying it to the assigned area for the adults to study. When the orange-clothed teachers gave a slight objection, Noble Tennyson said that the children should be thankful for on-the-job training.

Thankfully, there were not enough enforcers to spare having them stationed anywhere but our sleeping area. Once out of sight of enforcers, their parents allowed the children quite a few breaks with the requirement of staying close in case anyone came to inspect.

One benefit of working so close to the adults is that she was able to overhear news and gossip. The esteemed Noble Tennyson was rumored to be getting pressure from his superior. Having a lack of progress was not looking good for him. A week ago, a group of nobles arrived with the supply caravan and walked the operation with Tennyson. Shouting was heard from behind a closed door after they were done with the inspection.

One pair of gossiping adults insinuated that he would have been replaced right then and there but they had not found another noble that could tolerate the barrier. With this big break of finding the enchanted objects, Noble Tennyson was pushing as hard as possible to receive fast results.

This new development was both a blessing and a curse for Violet. When it was time for her to go back to the mural room, she had no idea how she was going to get there without being missed. At night, she could not find any secret doors in the sleeping area they were assigned. During the day, she was surrounded by the other children and adults the entire time. The only time she was allowed privacy was to use the restroom. She was happy to learn this old structure had plumbing for sewer and freshwater.

Cloaking and Shadow Blade did not give off any light when she practiced them so she was able to continue practicing them behind the curtain on her bunk away from prying eyes. She was going to have to get creative to find a way to practice Dazzle. So far she had only been able to use that while she was using the privy. The one time she stayed in the privy too long, Jade was sent to look for her and bring her back.

The room where all of the enchanting items were found had a nameplate outside of the doorway. Violet was able to read that it said “Beginners enchanting experiments” on it. It amused her that this big find for the adults was considered to be at a beginner’s level of enchanting.

Most of the enchanted items were shaped like a ball or a square. The square had nice flat sides to work with and the ball provided a little bit of a challenge to keep proportions even on a rounded surface. She was unsure of why they were different colors. Her best guess would be they were trying to keep track of what the students were making by assigning a color to each individual. There were quite a few different shades of colors.

The majority of the enchants that she could read were for illusion magic. The symbols for each aspect she already had were all present on the enchanted objects. There were also other symbols that she assumed caused the aspect to have an action it performed when activated. She couldn’t wait to get the enchanting aspect so she could start to experiment with it.

There were a few doors throughout the explored area of this section that the adults were unable to open. There was no talk about error messages like she had received for the barracks, but it made her curious on if she could open the “locked” doors or not.

She started to make a nuisance of herself by asking what was behind every door until the adults tired of answering her questions and told her to find out herself. After receiving permission to explore, Sky and Jade accompanied her on room exploration every time they were given a break. They were not allowed to go far and were expected back after a certain amount of time had passed, but she was happy to be able to explore.

Most doors were clearly labeled on what the room was used for. The majority of the rooms in this area of the structure were classrooms. Many were generic names like “Classroom 4” but there were a few that were more specific. She stopped when she read “Decoy Classroom 1”. “Let’s go in this one,” she said to the others.

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“That one looks like all the others we’ve been in” Jade whined in response.

Violet had not let Jade in on all of her secrets yet. Mainly because she was full of energy and liked to talk a mile a minute to anyone who would listen. To be fair, Jade had kept the few secrets Violet had told her a secret so far.

“Would you rather go back and be put back to work early when the adults see you?” Sky asked.

“Nope! I think this is a lovely room Violet!”

There was nothing special about the decoy room. There were rows of tables with chairs behind them all facing toward the front of the classroom. She was unsure of what the teachers used to write on because there were no blackboards on the walls in any classroom she had inspected so far.

She was just about to leave when Sky pointed to the back corner of the room. There was another mural on the wall that artistically portrayed illusion and more specifically the decoy aspect of it.

“Yes it is pretty, they have art all over the place why do you care about that one?” Jade asked.

“Can you keep a secret?” Sky asked.

“You know I can if I want to! What’s so special about it?”

“Violet, do you think that mural is just like the one at the end of our barracks hall?”

“I’m not sure, lets go investigate and find out,” Violet replied while already on her way to the mural on the wall.

It took a little bit of searching to locate the open symbol on the mural. Sky was the one to find the symbol this time. He has always been very perceptive of little things. He would make a great detective if they had such professions here.

Nothing happened when he pushed the open symbol. It took Violet pressing it for the door to slide open. The room that was revealed appeared to be a living area. There was a couch and loveseat set up in front of a stone square on the wall. Thinking about television from Earth, Violet got closer to inspect the square.

Greetings Ancient One.

* Call another user

* View user directory

* Call for services

* Watch the latest news

* Sound the Alarm

“That’s just gibberish, I can read and that doesn’t say anything.” Jade was quick to comment.

“Not really, it is written in a secret language that only I know.” Violet gloated. She knew she shouldn't gloat about that but the girl was getting on her nerves.

Violet clicked on the second option before Jade could realize that the selections would not work for her.

User Directory

Violet Tidwell ##ERROR## no assigned number

<-- Back

The user directory appeared to be blank except for her own name. She did not fill out the entire section when she had added herself as an administrator. A lot of the forms did not make sense to her and she didn’t want to put the wrong information down and get locked out of places because of it.

She then clicked “back” and clicked on 4 when she was returned to the main menu.

News brought to you by ##ERROR##

##ERROR## ##ERROR## ##ERROR##

<-- Back

She clicked on the other options and found similar results. The only option she did not click was the alarm. It just didn’t sound like a good idea to sound any alarms.

They spread out to investigate the rest of the rooms they had just discovered. Violet chose a room to the left which ended up being a well-appointed bedroom. There was a desk with a comfortable-looking chair in one corner of the room. The bed took up the majority of the space in the center of the far wall. An entire wall was devoted to floor-to-ceiling dressers and shelving.

Unlike the barracks, the dressers in this room still had clothing in them. The room she was in must have belonged to a woman because there were many varieties of dresses to be examined on the drawers. Many were black or had some form of black on them, but not all of them were.

There were two more rooms identical to the room she just examined. In one of the rooms, there was men’s clothing in the dressers. There was a large selection of pants, shorts, kilts, and robes to choose from. While the rooms were spotless, she found it odd that so much clothing was left behind.

Walking back into the living room, she saw Jade climbing in a cabinet on the wall. Curious she asked, “What did you find in there?”

Jade poked her head out grinning from ear to ear. “Look! I can color now whenever I want.” In her hand, she had a stack of paper and quite a few colored sticks. Upon closer inspection of the colored sticks, she saw that they were what looked like colored pencils or pens. It was interesting because they only made color on the paper and not on the walls or her hand when she tried it.

Sky chose that moment to come in from another room she had not investigated yet. “There is a whole town out there!”