As we crossed beyond the secret door hidden behind Mimir's altar, Liara and I found ourselves standing at the end of a long, narrow corridor built entirely of polished stone.
"Wasn't the fifth stack pretty small from the outside?" I asked.
Liara nodded absentmindedly while her right hand brushed against the wall. A second of concentration later, she said, "I sense magic flowing through the walls… I think this is a pocket realm."
For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a pocket realm is an artificial dimension folded within a predetermined area that allows for a much larger space to exist within something that could be as small as a bag of holding or as large as a dimensional doorway which was the case right now.
We each pulled out our hearthstones from their chains on our necks and activated their function to illuminate our surroundings with the help of the 'Kenaz' rune.
"You'd think they would have someone guarding such an important place," Liara noted as she led the way through the narrow corridor.
"Not much point in guards when the only key in requires you burn uber-rare grimoires you can only get in one place," I replied.
"About that," Liara glanced over her shoulder, "you told Mistress Grimsever that the books would find their way back to the special section."
"And they will… Mimir will send the Lesser Key of Solomon back where it belongs after he's done rereading them or something. It's not like the god of knowledge would let me burn something that precious on a whim…"
Liara stiffened suddenly. "You trust in the gods?"
There was something in the way she said it that made me think she wasn't as trusting of the gods herself.
"Nope…" I moved past her while I tamped down on the curiosity that rose in me after I noticed her mood change. Liara would tell me about her circumstance in her own time. "I don't trust anyone except for Divah and my journal."
And maybe Liara. Maybe. Eventually. She seemed the trustworthy sort despite being half ljósálfar and all. That was the biggest kind of compliment I could give that I would never tell her out loud.
"Smart," she said as she followed me. "Trusting the gods never did anyone any good…"
Eventually, we crossed through an arched entryway that opened into a much larger space. One that was at least five times the size of the temple we came from.
"Whoa," I whistled. "It actually exists… the Academy's Vault of Glass!"
The entire rectangular space—from its reflective floor and walls to the carved pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling and even the large chandelier hanging off it—were made entirely of glass. Not the kind that adorned windows, but hard, crystal-like glass that easily held our weight as we tread its floor.
"I've never even heard of a Vault of Glass…" Liara's gaze took in the scene I saw while mirroring the wonder I felt too, and it took her a long while before she managed to come back down from this initial high that was born of discovery. "It's beautiful… wait… are those—"
"Yep"—my smile was as wide as it could go—"we've hit the motherload."
Scattered around the floor were glass pedestals, with each one housing an item that one might only find inside high-tier dungeons or as the heirlooms of ancient families and institutions—the stuff legends were made from.
"And they don't have security for all of this?" Liara asked skeptically.
"Same principle as the special section, I think… If we found our way here then we deserve to pull out a relic or two," I deduced.
"I wouldn't even know where to start," she replied.
"That's why you have me…" I took her hand in mine and led the way forward while reminding her not to get too greedy. "The guide says we're not allowed to take more than one item each…"
"What happens if—"
With her free hand, Liara reached out for a silver goblet with blue flames licking its rim, but I pulled her away just before her fingers could brush its metal surface.
"We don't want to know… so let's keep our half-elven fingers away from the nasty 'Chalice of Fire' yeah?"
With the way Liara's eyes glazed over, I imagined she only half-heard me.
"Liara… are you okay?"
"Yes," she responded in a dreamy tone.
Nope, she was not okay. If she was, she would have commented on something I only noticed myself—we were holding hands! Balder's balls, I was holding a girl's hand!
While my cheeks flushed red, I pulled Liara in close and used the back of my other hand to check her brow. All while being acutely aware of how close her face was to mine. My caveboy thoughts didn't last long though as Liara's temperature sounded alarm bells in my brain.
"Frigid Hel, you're burning up," I cursed. "Vargr… I think you've got 'gold fever', Liara…"
Gold Fever—also called Dragon Sickness—is a kind of mental curse that sometimes affects certain species whenever they're in the presence of a treasure horde. Usually, one that belonged to a dragon, which in this vault's case might have once been a dragon's horde long ago. Elves and dwarves were the most easily affected by this curse, a fact I should have remembered when I led the she-elf into the vault.
The glassy-eyed longing in Liara's face for the shiny objects around us was almost a dead giveaway that she had contracted gold fever, and far too quickly to boot. It made me wonder why. At least until I caught a glimpse of something shiny to my right, and my gaze was immediately drawn to it.
"Son of a…" I shut my eyes to the dazzling golden aura emanating from not one but all the treasures in my line of sight. "Okay, I take it back… this vault does have a security system… and a tricky one too."
'A trap that Divah's journal failed to mention might mean it's not very old which would mean it isn't strengthened over time… I've got a fighting chance then.'
I felt Liara tug at my hand, and out of instinct pulled her closer to me so that our noses were nearly touching. As my brain was currently in Defcon-one mode, it wouldn't be until much later, once I was back in my dorm room reminiscing the day's events, that I would finally blush at the thought of how close her lips were to mine too.
"Don't worry, I know a good remedy for this," I whispered into her ear. "Divah calls it cognitive recalibration… which is just a fancy way of her hitting me hard on the head, I guess."
I didn't do that though. There was just something abhorrent about the idea of smacking a defenseless, mentally afflicted girl hard enough to knock some sense into her. I'd rather the first time I punched Liara's face to be in a ranking battle. Still, I couldn't just leave her be. Especially since I could feel gold fever's hold at the corners of my mind now too.
"Let's hope this move works…" I raised my hearthstone to our eye level and pumped as much magic as I could into it before yelling, "Kenaz!" into the sky.
A brilliant flash of light exploded out of my hearthstone, causing the world around me to turn completely white for those long seconds that the 'flash' I'd conjured with rune magic to work its way into my brain and dispel the curse that was taking root there.
Soon enough, both Liara and I were kneeling on the ground. We'd even knocked a few relics off their pedestals in our stumbling around.
"Seriously, I didn't know that would hurt so much," I grimaced.
"You're an idiot, Wisdom," Liara growled beside me.
"Yeah, well, at least you're okay now," I reasoned.
Seconds ticked by while we waited for our sight to return and then we picked ourselves off the floor and promised each other that we would never tell anyone how easily we got caught in the vault's trap.
"I would never live it down if the brothers' Grimm turned this mistake into a rhyme," she grimaced.
"Well, as long as we watch each other's backs"—I offered Liara my hand once more, although I was pretty sure my cheeks had turned red from the effort—"we'll survive this Vault of Glass' tricks and come out on top."