Chapter 131
With its spell refreshed and unlocked by Karl the door rises smoothly from the ground on its hinges. A gust of stale air escapes and Karl uses his limited ability at air magic to create a light breeze into whatever space is down there.
All we can see from here is a spiral stone staircase headed down into the darkness. But, after a few minutes the flow of stale air begins to clear, circulating back the air Karl blew down there with an overtone of age and dust.
Karl hands me a rifle, making me stare at him in confusion. The air coming from down there clearly hasn’t circulated in centuries, what are we arming ourselves against?
"High end led lights, the best ones in our kit are mounted to the rifles." He offers by way of explanation. Oh, I understand now. Plus I can use the bayonet to poke things I’d rather not touch.
I take lead because Karl can see over top of me and we head down the stairs, closing the door behind us to keep out unwanted visitors. Having one of those giant snakes sneak up on us would not be good. The stairs lead us at least 4 stories underground before ending into a large room. It clearly had beautiful furniture at one point, but I wouldn’t trust it to hold weight now.
There’s a feeling of damp in the air, but no smell of rot, which as strange as I can see rugs and wooden furniture.
"It’s all enchanted for self repair and cleaning, but the enchantments are failing due to age. Want me to fix them before we explore?" Just like the door then.
"Yeah, if you can salvage this room at a minimum we will at least have somewhere to sleep."
The furniture has all been done separately, unlike the single spell per room method Karl uses, but in a matter of minutes things are looking better, we even got one single light back on, giving the room a comfortable glow to my eyes.
The new illumination makes a number of things clear. The walls aren’t deteriorated, what looked like crumbling stone and flaking paint are weapon gouges and long dried blood. There are scorch marks in many areas, and the spells in the walls are clearly broken, but the thick layer of dust is disappearing from the floors.
Most of the furniture is repairing itself, but only a couch and a few large cushions still self clean. It’s all dragon themed, so it’s certainly original. Which means the nation didn’t simply forget about the Dragon Gods, whoever last defended this place didn’t leave willingly.