Viltz woke up groggily and wanted to get up but noticed an extra weight on his left arm.
Turning his gaze, he saw a beautiful blonde haired young woman sleeping in his arms.
"Last night was pretty wild, I hardly even recognize where I am..."
Shaking his head, Viltz lay back down and waited for Rita to wake up.
Ten minutes later, Rita woke up groggily and slowly stood up, unintentionally dropping the sheet covering her chest, revealing her magnificent figure.
"Good morning." Viltz smiled gently at her.
"Oh... Good morning." Rita rubbed her eyes and returned his greeting as she yawned.
She stood up and started walking towards the bathroom, completely naked.
Viltz stared at the view until she closed the door, then he got up and was about to put on his clothes but suddenly Rita opened the door again and asked him with a playful smile, "Do you want to come in?"
Viltz dropped the boxers he was holding in his hands and quickly ran to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, they both came out of the bathroom and put on their clothes.
"What do you plan to do in the future?" Rita asked as she dried her hair with a spell.
"At the moment I plan to stay in Oxenfurt and you? Viltz also mimicked her behavior and dried her hair with a wind spell.
"I plan to stay in Aretuza and work as a teacher, things like politics don't really appeal to me."
"I hear you, it might seem kind of appealing to some sorcerers who have those things idealized but in reality all you would be doing would be working as a royal ass wiper."
They both left the room as they continued chatting.
Viltz pulled out a key and unlocked the door opposite his.
Some snoring was coming from the large king size bed where a little five year old girl was sleeping in the center hugging a small bench colored puppy as she snored noisily.
Viltz reached over and began pinching her cheeks.
"What do you plan to do with her? Will you enroll her in Aretuza?"
"No. I plan to personally teach her about magic. Instead I plan to enroll her in one of those institutions that teach etiquette and basic knowledge for a couple of years before enrolling her in the Oxenfurt academy."
Viltz shook the girl a little, causing her to wake up.
Lena looked around confused for a while before lying back down on the bed and resuming her snoring.
"Looks like the smell of yesterday's wine got her drunk or something.
Fortunately, I have a plan.
If you don't wake up you're out of breakfast!"
Viltz yelled in the girl's face and she woke up startled, clutching her heart in fright.
"Oops, I guess that's not how this trick worked." Viltz scratched his head awkwardly.
"At this rate you're going to kill her with a heart attack."
Rita scolded him before taking the girl into the bathroom to clean her face.
After dressing Lena, the group went downstairs for breakfast.
As they ate breakfast, Viltz asked Rita with a playful look, "Want to join me on a little adventure?"
Rita turned red, thinking of something else as she replied in a low voice, "But we just did that a while ago..."
Viltz noticed her confusion and clarified, "I mean that literally. I know the whereabouts of an abandoned laboratory of a dead sorcerer near here in Toussaint, that's why I chose this place to have our rendezvous, besides the Belletheyn festival obviously."
"Ah! You mean that!"
Rita pulled herself together and pondered a bit before agreeing.
"Well then, let's finish breakfast first."
When breakfast was over, Viltz opened a portal to the interior of Castle Stigga and said to Lena, "You can't come with us because it's too dangerous. Stay in the castle until I get back."
While Viltz was talking to Lena, a zombie carrying a bucket full of dirt tripped and dropped the pile of dirt on the ground.
Viltz, Lena and Rita all looked at the zombie in unison.
"What is that?" Lena asked curiously, no fear in her eyes.
"It's a zombie, don't mind it, it's just working."
"You have zombies as workers?" Rita asked with a frown.
"I found a bunch of corpses nearby and used them to create basic undead to do the job while I'm not at home, I'm not going to waste such an efficient workforce."
Viltz replied with half-truths.
"Doesn't seem that efficient to me." Replied Rita as she watched the zombie grab the dirt with his hands and pour it into the bucket as more than half of the dirt fell out of his fingers.
"Well, whatever. Lena, you can go play in the garden which is already clean or you can go to your room upstairs which I've already decorated for you."
Lena nodded and stepped into the doorway as she hugged Sasrir tightly.
"Okay, let's go!" Viltz walked out of the restaurant along with Rita and turned to a passing passerby.
"Excuse me, could you direct me to the Orlémurs cemetery?"
"The cemetery? It's in that direction."
"Thank you!" Viltz thanked the passerby and tossed him a silver coin before walking in the direction he pointed.
After a while of walking, the two arrived in front of the entrance to the cemetery.
"Is the laboratory we are looking for in this cemetery?" asked Rita.
"No. But its owner's grave is here. I have information that his diary was buried with him, so let's look for the grave first.
Let's split up to make it quicker.
Look for a headstone with the name Thomas Moreau on it."
"Ok." Rita nodded and went to the right while Viltz searched through the graves on the left.
After a while of searching, Viltz heard Rita call out to him.
He walked over to where she was and saw that she was standing next to a gravestone on which was written, "Professor Thomas Moreau."
Underneath the name was written in Elder Speech: "Salvation resides not in Dol Naev'de, but in our hearts. Glory to Aelirenn."
"I guess this is it."
"Well, let's open the tomb."
Viltz bent down and opened the tomb, revealing inside a skeleton dressed in a scholar's robe with an old journal across his chest.
Viltz grabbed the journal and closed the tomb again.
He then opened the journal and began to read it along with Rita.
Much of the contents of the journal were illegible and only a few pages were well enough preserved to read.
"Since certain suspicious individuals have begun hanging around the outskirts of my laboratory, I have been forced to implement additional security measures. I suspect they are nothing more than common criminals looking for something shiny to steal and have no real interest in my research, but better safe than sorry..."
Viltz turned a couple more unreadable pages before reading on.
"On the advice of an engineer I know, I have decided to secure the compound with a simple mechanical device. In one of the rooms along the path to the lab, I have installed a mechanism for locking and unlocking the doors that is operated by pressing four protruding stones placed high on the walls. I can bypass this lock with a simple spell, but an ordinary thief will face a double challenge: first he must observe these stones and decipher what they are for, and then he must find a way to press them..."
"That's it? The location of the lab isn't written down." Rita was disappointed to see that the other pages of the journal were also illegible.
"I already know the location of the lab, I just looked up the journal to make sure." Viltz said calmly.
"Huh?" Rita looked at him confused for a while but Viltz just shrugged.
"Come on." Viltz turned and started walking towards the lake shore.
Rita shrugged her shoulders too and followed behind him.
Viltz held out his hand to Rita and activated a spell with which they could walk on water.
"Don't tell me what the lab is in the lake?"
"You got that right." Viltz laughed as his eyes glowed with a blue light, caused by a spell he used to be able to see what was under the lake.
After a few minutes, Viltz stopped walking and hugged rita's waist with one hand as he conjured a spherical blue barrier that completely covered them and then they plunged into the water.
Viltz skillfully used small swirls of water to guide the bubble to pass under a destroyed bridge below the lake.
When they reached one of the corners, Viltz made the bubble stop and sent a blast of chaos power into a seemingly normal wall, causing a blue swirl to form on its surface, opening a portal to an unknown location.
Viltz made the bubble pass through the portal and then closed it before deactivating the bubble-shaped barrier.
Rita surveyed the surroundings, amazed at how there could be such large ruins and still be hidden without anyone noticing them.
"Let's begin!" said Viltz before conjuring a sphere of light that floated over her head, giving her some vision in these dark ruins.