Ch 221 – Treasure Hidden in Plain Sight
Skidding to a stop as he reached the closed Main Entrance of the manor, Deacon placed both hands flat against the ornate double doors and felt a surge of information flood into his mind as his brain suddenly gained knowledge of a number of different locations where the door could potentially open into.
So this is another reason why dungeon bases are so sought after by Guilds; I can leave the Guild Base anywhere on the outside face of the Guild Base, Deacon mused to himself while processing the information, before another thought occurred to him.
Is it just this door, the Main Entrance, that has this property? Could Leon potentially set up more doors like this throughout the base once he starts renovating?
Pulling himself out of his thoughts and refocusing, Deacon mentally chose for the door to lead to the bottom of the radioactive pond where they had originally found the hidden dungeon entrance that had dropped them into the garden a day and a half or so ago.
Quickly casting Blood Sense to scan the area beyond the doors, as the location for the other end of the door was decided, Deacon noted that with the spatial subdimension around the manor now gone as a direct result of the dungeon being cleared and taken over by their Guild, he was finally able to sense blood signatures outside the Manor.
We’re gonna have to do something about that, Deacon mused to himself. I’ll see if Uncle Bjorn can help me find a warding mage willing to help out, because I can’t think of any decent mage with knowledge on warding from our generation that isn’t either an ass or trustworthy.
Though that brought up a whole other issue with needing a mage for their Guild, as Esmerelda was currently indisposed, I’ll have to check up on the upper years that I know and see if they’d be willing to join.
Finding nothing in his immediate scan other than the faint signatures of small scurrying mutant roaches and some four-legged creatures called wombats that had no wings and bodies that looked like fat moles, Deacon pushed open the heavy double doors with both hands just as the rest of his Guild members caught up to him.
Pushing the doors wide open, both he and his Guildmates found themselves staring at the bottom of an empty chasm where all visible traces of the radioactive water that had previously filled the massive pond they'd desperately dove into to escape the Hoarder had vanished without leaving so much as a puddle behind.
Even the massive sewer pipes that the Hoarder had callously dropped into the pond in an attempt to crush them had disappeared entirely, along with the water.
Did he actually drain the entire pond? Deacon thought to himself in genuine disbelief as he stared at the empty basin. But why would he bother to—?
Deacon's eyes suddenly narrowed as he recalled just how incredibly difficult it had been to see anything within the murky radioactive water as they'd desperately swam through it while trying to escape from him.
"You weren’t kidding," Bonehead muttered beside Leon as all five of them stepped out of the manor's entrance onto the floor of the drained pond. “There really is not a drop in sight.”
Behind them, the heavy doors silently swung closed before then shimmering as their ornate wooden surface began to seamlessly transform to match the exact color and texture of the surrounding pond wall, like a chameleon, before then matching the signature of the area around it to obscure it from all those who were not members of the Ravenlight Guild.
"Did the Hoarder sic his stone worms into the pond to try and dig after us or something?" Bonehead asked as he tried to make sense of what could have possibly happened to completely empty out such a massive pond. “Like that giant ass Tier 2 one?”
Channeling stamina throughout her entire body before crouching low, Valorie leaped fifteen meters straight up into the air to get a better look at their surroundings.
The radioactive water completely mucked up my Blood Sense when we were swimming through it, and without our Mana Lanterns, we could barely see two feet in front of us, Deacon recalled while thinking back to their frantic escape into the radioactive pond. Did the water itself have some inherent magical property that obscured ocular skills and sensory abilities?
"Can't be stone worms," Valorie called down from above as she landed gracefully atop the nearest large boulder to her, which just so happened to be the very same boulder that she'd accidentally banged her head against and gotten briefly knocked unconscious by just before managing to enter the dungeon entrance earlier, though only Deacon seemed to notice that.
"I don't see any worm tunnels carved into the walls or floor down here, and I also don't see those large sewer pipes anywhere that the Hoarder dropped on top of us."
"Then it would only make sense to conclude that he drained the entire pond, given the sewer pipe bits," Leon said while getting a confirming nod from his twin sister, who was still scanning their surroundings from her elevated position. "But the real question is, why would he bother doing that instead of just chasing after us?"
"The radioactive water in this pond might have had inherent anti-ocular properties that interfered with sensory abilities," Deacon spoke up while adding his own theory to the discussion. "I couldn't see anything at all with my sensory spell when we were submerged in it, and we couldn't see beyond our own hands when we were swimming through it if not for our Mana Lanterns providing light."
"And if the Hoarder took the time and effort to drain the entire pond instead of immediately going after us to rob and kill us, then the water probably screwed up his own ocular skills or his stone worms' detection abilities badly enough that he decided focusing on collecting it was more important than catching us," Bonehead reasoned while nodding along with the logic.
Items, skills, or anything that could obscure sensory skills were all but the most sought-after things within the Tower, as who wouldn’t want their information or valuables hidden from others.
"Shit," he muttered as he brought his right hand up to his jaw. "If what we're assuming is true and there are already other Tier 2 climbers searching this Floor for the Hoarder, then the moment they find out about the properties of this radioactive water, they'll all be jumping over each other trying to collect as much as they can for themselves or their Houses and Guilds."
"Then I guess it's actually a good thing that the Hoarder went ahead and collected all the water that was in this pond while we were busy clearing the dungeon," Deacon said while pushing Blood Sense further and noting several Bloatcrawlers in the distance, w approximately two clicks away from where they were and heading upwards.
"But," he began while turning his head to look directly at Leon with a thoughtful expression, "we should definitely gather up as much of the remaining radioactive water as we can find scattered throughout this Floor and store it back at the base."
"Why would we want to do that?" Leon asked, understanding Deacon was directing the suggestion at him since he'd be in charge of redesigning and building their Guild Base, but not sure what purpose storing radioactive water would serve.
"I'm not completely sure if this would actually work the way I'm thinking it might, but couldn't we potentially try mixing the radioactive water with something like cement instead of normal water and see if it gives the resulting stone similar anti-ocular properties?" Deacon offered it as a possibility, causing Leon to look slightly to the side as he began to work through whether such a thing would actually work.
"Or if mixing cement or whatever with the water doesn't work, then whether you decide to tear down all the existing stone surrounding the manor and expand it or rebuild from scratch or whatever you think is best for the Guild Base," Deacon continued, "we could construct a secondary outer wall around the entire base and fill the gap between the two walls with the radioactive water to create an all-natural anti-ocular shell. And then, as an additional security measure, we could collapse this entire cavern to keep our base completely sealed off and hidden, at least from this side of the Floor."
"Yes… that could definitely work," Leon nodded enthusiastically as a whole plethora of ideas came flooding into his mind. "And with the Main Entrance having the ability to change its outside location to anywhere on the perimeter of the manor, I could potentially create a whole network of interconnected passageways and secret routes that could lead to..." he trailed off mid-sentence before forcefully shaking his head to stop himself from getting completely lost in his rapidly developing building plans for the Guild Base's extensive remodeling project.
It’s a damn good thing the Iron Scales Guild is footing this, Deacon softly chuckled to himself as he could see Leon’s eyes glinting as he began to lose himself in his thoughts.
"So…I guess we're holding off on actually clearing the Floor and moving forward until we manage to gather enough radioactive water?" Valorie asked before hopping off the boulder she stood on. "Because honestly, I'm down for whatever we decide either way."
“Most of our Gen probably zipped onto some other Floor to run away from the Hoarder and will only start to come back after the Tier 2s in their camp comb out the Floor to make sure he’s gone.”
"I'm down," Bonehead immediately pitched in enthusiastically. "I didn't get to properly collect any samples of the water earlier because I got pulled into the pond by that Cecaelia, and I don’t see that barrel around either, so I'm down for spending time getting more."
"All agreed then?" Deacon confirmed, to which he received nods from them all.
With Blood Sense and Identify working together, I should be able to steer us away from getting too close to any Tier 2s searching the Floor, Deacon thought to himself as a humanoid figure suddenly appeared at the edge of Blood Sense's range, running at incredible speeds far above them through the upper cavern systems.
That speed alone confirms they're a Tier 2, Deacon mused as he compared the sprinting humanoid's speed with his memories of watching the Tier 2 Academy Enforcers moving around back at the academy whenever they’d break up the parties the alchemists in training would host.
"But any serious building work and the actual remodeling of the Guild Base itself will have to wait until we successfully reach Floor Fifteen," Deacon said while halting his cast of Blood Sense to look directly at his waiting Guildmates. "We need to wait until everyone's attention and the heat on this Floor caused by the Hoarder dies down considerably before we start any major construction – even with silencing wards and the like. It’s just too risky."
Getting understanding nods and verbal agreements from everyone in the group, Deacon turned his attention specifically to Bonehead and asked, "How many empty barrels do you have on you?"
Taking a brief moment to mentally recall his inventory, Bonehead answered confidently, "I've got a couple thousand empty barrels," he said with a nod while patting his Spatial Satchel proudly. "Giga-capacity spatial enchantments on this bad boy."
Seeing the incredulous looks everyone gave him at the casual mention of having thousands of barrels in his inventory, Bonehead smirked and puffed out his chest while patting his Spatial Satchel.
"Shi~it," he said with an exaggerated click of his non-existent tongue and a long-winded chuckle that immediately got on his three Guildmates' nerves. "Legacy diff, what can I say? Alchemy has been in my blood for 4 generations."
…But you don’t have any blood, was the collective thought of Deacon, Valorie, and Leon.