"So you're heading to the museum next?" Sol asked Rex through the glowing communication gem.
"Yeah, Aron wanted to see something more interesting than empty houses, and it's within the expanded search perimeter."
Faintly from the gem, Aron's grumbling could be heard. "Since when were museums interesting…"
Sol chuckled not knowing why he was so displeased and gave the go ahead. "Sure, it's your call. Maybe bring a few scholars to check it out once you deem it safe."
"Will do, Captain. How's it going on your end?"
Sol looked ahead at the massive castle like structure, surrounded by an empty moat. "We're about to head into the heart of the city."
"Alright, good luck."
The gem stopped glowing as they cut off the mana sustaining the connection. Sol pocketed it and turned his attention to the massive doors ahead of them.
"Let's hope this works." Sol muttered, taking out the Midamol Key at the gate. After a moment of waiting, nothing happened.
He looked at the cube in disappointment. "Guess it's only good for getting into the city."
It could have other uses, but they had no way of knowing where, so they could only blindly use it wherever it seemed applicable. With the key proving useless here, they had to find another way into the metal structure.
'No windows… and it's fully made out of that strong alloy. Should we just try to break it?'
As he considered their options, Lapis spoke up.
"Down there." she said, pointing toward the bottom of the empty moat. A large pipe wide enough for them to walk in was visible.
'It does lead into the castle, but it probably goes into the water supply... though it could also be something worse, like the sewers…'
Hoping for the former, Sol thanked Lapis and hopped down to the bottom of the moat with her and Nataly, ordering the rest of the team to stay back while they found a way inside. A group their size wouldn't work well in the pipe, especially for the larger orcs who would have to crawl to fit. If anything went wrong, retreating would be extremely difficult with so many people crammed together.
There were grates blocking the entrance to the pipe, and although they were made of the incredibly durable alloy, a well placed shot from Sol's Tynamo Cannon broke the lock, allowing them to enter without hassle.
They followed the pipe, searching for any kind of hatch or opening they could use, until they eventually came across one. A ladder led upward, and judging by how far they had walked, they were still within the castle.
"Is this some kind of storage room?" Sol asked as the three of them climbed up, finding themselves in a small room filled with miscellaneous tools and supplies. There were bags with labels, but without understanding the language, they could only assume they were maintenance related.
"Looks like it. Oh! This leads to a small passage." Nataly said, peeking her head out of the room's only door.
They stepped out of the supply room into a narrow passage that stretched in both directions, only five feet wide.
"Let's go the direction we came from." Sol suggested.
The passage lined up with the pipe underground, so they followed it back, hoping it would lead them near the entrance. Eventually, they found a door that connected to the main hallways. The hall was massive compared to where they had just been, with ornate pillars lining the walls and elegant decorations.
Looking back at the passage they had come from, Sol noted the stark difference and thought to himself, 'So that was the servants' passage?'
He had heard of such passages before but had never seen one himself. While there weren't any in the Royal Knights' Headquarters, he knew they were used in the Royal Palace for servants to move undetected and as a possible escape route for the royal family.
The three continued down the grand hallway and reached the gate from the other side. After some searching, they found a lever that caused an audible clanking, unlocking the door and swinging it open.
The soldiers waiting outside readied their weapons, but upon seeing it was Sol and the others, they lowered their guard and regrouped.
"You know, this is kind of easy." Nataly commented as the soldiers joined them. "Besides the unsettling atmosphere of an empty city, there's really nothing stopping us from exploring."
Sol nodded. "Well, it is abandoned. This mission is more about searching than fighting."
WREEEEE!
As if to contradict him, a loud whirring sound echoed through the hallway. Sol activated [True Sight (Variant)] to check their surroundings, he saw the multiple odd shaped mana signatures heading their way and what was even weirder was that he couldn't detect any life signs from them. What he did see was that the area was saturated with mana, though that didn't help.
He could hear footsteps and the sound of wheels approaching fast. Soon, the source of the noise came into view. A variety of large mechanical creations flooded the grand hallway, they came from the main hallway but a good portion also poured out of the servants' passage and aiming their various weapons at the team.
"Prepare to fight!" Sol commanded, drawing his Lipon and activating it, unleashing a flaming sword.
"INTERAMEN! SUPREN O DAI!" the mechanical creations shouted in unison as they advanced.
…
Meanwhile, the perimeter team had just completed a basic sweep of the museum.
The museum appeared to be themed around magical technology rather than dwarven history, so most of the displays featured magical gadgets and inventions that had advanced their civilization.
Rex, who had been hoping for more historical content, was a bit disappointed but still intrigued. The only issue was his inability to understand the language on the exhibit labels, leaving him only able to guess their purpose.
After regrouping with his team, Rex said, "Now that this place is safe, we can bring some scholars and sages to explore and figure out what these items do. If we're lucky, one of them might lead us to making life clusters." He pointed to two humans and three orcs standing nearby. "You five will stay here and watch over the museum. Call us if anything happens."
"Yes, sir!"
"By your command!"
The five soldiers accepted their assignment and stayed behind while Rex, Aron, and the remaining soldiers returned to the base to escort a few lucky scholars and sages to the museum.
When they arrived at the base, Aron secretly approached Lazuli while Rex was busy discussing who to send with Duncan. Lazuli was sitting peacefully under a tree, reading a book on intermediate poison spells.
"Hey, Lazuli, how are things here?" Aron asked.
She closed her book and smiled. "Hi. It's alright. Nothing's happened except for the occasional cheers and arguments between the scholars."
"Cool, cool, cool. So… you finding it boring?"
She shrugged. "A little, I guess. Why?"
Though she had her book to practice magic with, it wasn't exactly related to her task here.
Seeing that she was also a bit bored, Aron decided to get to the point. "Well… what if we swapped teams?"
"Huh? Why?"
"I just thought you might want to get out and explore, you know, since it's your first mission…"
Aron, of course, didn't tell her his real reason: he wanted to stay back and relax with the human and orc soldiers and maybe spar with them.
"I don't know… Captain Sol assigned us to our teams. I don't think we should be swapping around on a whim. Besides, I'm fine here. I can practice my magic." She didn't mind staying or going, but didn't want to go against orders on her first mission.
Aron sighed, realizing she wasn't interested. He didn't push it further. "Okay… Guess I'll go help Rex escort the scholars to the magic museum."
Before he could leave, he felt her grab his arm.
"Did you say magic museum?" Lazuli had a strange look in her eyes, one Aron had never seen before. It actually scared him a little.
"Y-yeah?"
Without letting go, Lazuli began dragging him.
"Where are we going?" Aron asked, bewildered.
"To Duncan. I want to swap teams with you."
'The hell? Does everyone here love museums?'
In the end, Aron got what he wanted, just not in the way he expected.