We made the rest of the trek in decent time, with Bethy using her army of flying squirrels to run recon. Jessie was indescribably jealous and kept trying to convince the vampire girl to give her one, but to no avail. They were all hers and she wasn't willing to share.

When we reached the entrance though, we ran into kind of an issue. Namely, the big ass door blocking our way. Inside the door I could see a smaller door, but it was pretty much unopenable and a solid piece of the larger barrier, so our only real option was opening the bigger door, which was about a hundred feet tall and made of some kind of E-ranked metal that weighed a LOT.

The weight, from what I could see, was conceptual mostly, but there was definitely some real heft to it, and even with Randall putting his all into it we couldn't get the thing to budge.

"Who builds a door like this?" I complained, kicking the damned thing hard enough that my toe ached. "Like, what is this? A school for giants? How are we supposed to even get inside?" I walked over and tried to pry open the small door inside the big one, doing my best to slip my fingers under the metal, but to no avail. "Why even PUT a smaller door here if it isn't going to open?"

"I think it's meant to be an exit only." Said Chelsea, stepping up next to me. "The smaller one at least. The bigger door seems like some kind of test maybe? Calliope tried to shadow jump past it but it didn't work, so that implies it's meant to be opened as is. It's just so damned huge though, it'll be hard to get any leverage."

I blinked. Leverage. "Hold on a second." I said, scrambling over to the edge of the massive entryway. The divide in the door had some overlap, but there was definitely a gap. I reached up onto my back, pulling free my stygian branch. Slotting my staff into the gap, I retreated to the other end and PUSHED. The door groaned slightly, and barely, JUST barely, moved outward.

My staff was E-rank too, but it was a higher end material than this door. Which meant it could offset some of the Impact through the use of the leverage abilities I'd been learning. I put both hands to the staff, calling the others to come help. Bethy, Chelsea, Callen, Callie, Mel, and Abel all lined up along the length of the weapon, hands gripping the wooden shaft with just enough room.

Triggering Mephistopheles, I looked down the line. "Alright guys. On the count of three. Mel, Chelsea, channel your flames into the staff, I want to use them to try to blow the door open as we push. Ready?" At their nods I began to count. "One." I flooded the staff with power, building as much black flame up in the end as possible. "Two." I felt the two more types of flame join me. "Three."

Releasing the flame all at once, I also triggered the death energy buildup in my staff, empowering the whole attack in a way that wouldn't have worked without the staff being used as the channel. All of us heaved with every ounce of Might we had, and an exponential force surged through the staff and into the door as I roared, releasing the channeled energy to amplify the force of the shove.

The was an explosion of blue glowing glasslike flame as the door was shoved hard, groaning as it was force open about three feet wide.

I turned, as did the others, catching it where it was and planting our feet. I jammed in my staff as a block, and triggered Mountain Stance to amplify my defense so it wouldn't push me back. The others gave it their all, with Randall squeezing his paws into the gap to halt the closing, and between all of us we BARELY managed to bring it to a complete stop.

"Go!" I roared, and the others filed past us, slipping behind where we stood to enter. "Abel!" I yelled. "Get Randall." My mentor nodded, turning and swinging a hand, creating a tunnel of lubricated space so the huge beast could slip through the small door gap without getting stuck. As soon as those two were gone, the door began to close. "Everyone in!" I bellow as I tried as hard as I could to prevent the door from picking up speed.

Callen, Chelsea, and Mel all dove inside, and Callie grabbed me as she entered, yanking me out of the way of the door as it slammed closed with a massive nearly subaudible boom, rattling my bones as I slumped onto the floor. "Damn." I gasped, barely able to breathe. "That was...a lot. Give me a minute. That took it out of me. Everyone else ok though? No fingers or toes left outside the door?"

Benny snickered. "I think you might have dropped your dignity, but other than that we're fine." Celine jabbed him in the ribs and he gasped. "Ow! Honey I was just kidding with him."

She rolled her eyes. "There's a time and a place Benicio. He just helped save our lives. Or at least get into this place with..." She paused. "Now that I'm looking around I'm suddenly a bit less grateful. How exactly is this preferable to being out in the nice open forest?"

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"Celine, you're my friend, so I'll say this nicely." I said in a sympathetic tone. "We all hate the forest now. The woods are awful and we never want to go back."

Callie kicked me in the shin, glaring. "How was that NICELY? Celine, don't listen to him. We don't hate the forest. We just...don't want to set foot in that leafy green hell for the rest of our lives...wow." She glanced at me. "My bad, you were right, I hate it way too much to softball it."

Our newfound hatred of the forest aside, Celine wasn't wrong. The inside of this place wasn't too much better. Glancing around, I could barely see for more than a few feet, so I called over to Mel. "Hey, toss out some fire for us? I want to light this place up a bit so we can see where we are." What I could see in the small bubble of light cast by the fire Chelsea and she were still holding wasn't painting a pleasant picture.

When she tossed out the fire, we got a much better view as floating fireballs lit up the various locations around the room. What I saw was mostly more of the ruin that had been visible close by.

Everything was gone except the bones. Columns were there, but the trim had been pried up, the floor was bare and scraped clean (also appearing to have been pried up) and the walls were empty, with only a few holes where I was pretty sure fixtures used to be.

"Wow." Said Benny with a laugh. "They took everything but the kitchen sink, huh?" Then he paused, squinting across the massive entryway. "Actually I think that hole in the floor used to be a fountain. Chances are good they took the sink too if they took that. Damn, what the hell happened to this place?"

None of us had an answer. The Aetherbright Empire predated all of our factions as far as I knew. Knowing a bit about the BMP was one thing, they were contemporaries of the various organizations we belonged to. But this place...nothing. I opened my Eye of Revelation, scanning the room for any clues or hidden panels.

Whatever the others were here for, we needed to beat them to it. They wouldn't have come here without a way home at least, and if we got to their target first we could use it as leverage. That was a last resort, because I didn't want them getting what they were aiming for, but if I had to pick between Hatescream returning or being stuck here forever with most of my loved ones I'd pick the former.

I scanned for secret passages first. Worst case I didn't find anything, but if there was one it might lead to somewhere the looters hadn't gotten to. That would be somewhere to start.

After five minutes of walking around looking, I stopped in front of one of the stripped down columns. Kneeling, I put a shoulder against the bottom right hand section of the column opposite the wall and PUSHED. There was a low grinding and the section was pushed in a few inches, before a section the size of a reasonably tall person swung away from the column, revealing a spiral staircase that was comfortable enough for us to walk through one at a time.

Callie whistled. "Honey, have I mentioned lately how useful you are?" She said with a laugh. "Because I can't help but marvel at how convenient it is having some of your Skills on hand."

I rolled my eyes, but she leaned up to kiss my mask to let me know she was kidding. "As nice as that is, I think it might be best to send the cats up. We have no clue what's at the top of these steps. It could be some kind of monster. Or worse, it could be another fucking test." I was getting sick of the constant traps and assessments around here. I knew it was supposed to be a school but I did NOT approve of their methods.

Bethy giggled. "Oh I can send them up if you want. Donuts has been dying to go for a walk. He's been on thin ice since back in the dungeon when he warned all those other kitties." She let out a piercing whistle that made the rest of us flinch, hard. "Donuts!" She barked. Her shadow twisted, and the vague form of a cat emerged from it...a cat with wings.

"IT WORKED!" She squealed with delight. "Which means I can do this!" She threw out her arms, dissolving into a cloud of flying furry forms...but not bats. A horde of small black kittens with bat wings swarmed around us, licking us with sandpapery tongues and snuggling against us happily as they flew by.

Despite the urgency of the situation, even I couldn't really complain though. It was just so cute. Jessie squealed with delight, scooping two of them up and squeezing them tight as Callie grabbed one to snuggle with. Benny, who was a cat person at heart, snagged one too, though he tried to play it cool as he cuddled it. Donuts, seeming to have made peace with his crazy owner, waited a minute for further instructions then rolled his eyes and slunk up the stairs.

After a few minutes the cats swarmed back together, congealing into a maniacally laughing Bethy with her arms raised in triumph. "I DID IT!" She crowed. "I am no longer your AVERAGE vampire princess. I have become meow powerful than you can possibly imagine." She froze, snapping her teeth together. "I...ignore that. I did it on purpose. Actually nothing happened. Don't bring it up."

She started muttering to herself, flinching every time she inserted meow into sentences under her breath, and the rest of us just decided to ignore her. We waited fifteen minutes before Donuts came back down. "So?" I asked the vampire. "What's up there?"

She recalled the cat into her shadow, listening intently, head cocked and ear towards the dark. "He says...medicine? Big pots with no fish. Weird smelling plants." She shot her shadow a suspicious look. "Spit that out." There was a pause and then a mouth opened in the dark, hacking up a small ball of plant matter with a burp. She picked it up, grimacing. "This isn't cat nip." She scolded the cat. "It's nightshade. But it does explain what's up there. I think we might be right under an old alchemy lab." Well, that was worth checking out at least.