Advent of Eternity - Chapter 105 (Patreon)

Knell reached the Ruler’s mansion a few minutes later, drawing up to a finely paved path that stood in stark contrast to the rest of the decrepit city. It ended at a large, oiled door inlaid with designs. The door alone probably cost more than some of the houses behind him.

Painted above the door on the smooth stone was the Ruler’s crest, a tree silhouetted by the setting sun. Knell couldn’t help but feel like it represented the city a little too well.

He walked up to the door and rapped on it several times before taking a step back and plastering a bored expression over his face. Several seconds passed before it swung open, revealing a middle aged man wearing a suit.

A butler, probably. Not a very high level one, or he wouldn’t be wasting time opening doors for people. Perfect. It shouldn’t be too hard to pressure him.

“The Ruler is not currently taking audiences,” the man said, looking down his crooked nose at Knell. “Please return at a later date.”

“An audience?” Knell’s lip curled in distaste. “I don’t care about that crap, mate. I’m here to do a tally on the latest shipment. One of you blokes swung by to get a checkup and make sure the traders weren’t scamming you.”

The butler paused, considering Knell’s words for a moment. Knell repressed a grin. There was no rich man in existence that didn’t suspect that somebody, somewhere was trying to scam them.

“The iron shipments?”

“Which ones do you think?” Knell asked irritably. “Now are you going to let me do it or are you going to be the one that explains why coin was paid but nothing was done? If I leave, I ain’t giving you shit back.”

“No, no. Come in,” the butler said, stepping to the side and beckoning Knell inside. Unsurprisingly, the inside of the Ruler’s mansion was just as extravagant as the outside. Soft rugs lined the floor and beautiful statues rested atop pedestals, making a walkway along the rugs.

The butler quickly ushered Knell off the rugs and through a side door, eager to keep him from trekking dirt over anything too expensive. They wound through the house using the servant’s passages, making their way toward the basement.

Knell took note of the path they took, memorizing several doors that were likely to lead to record rooms or studies as they went. A short while later, they headed down a dimly lit stairwell and arrived in a dark hallway.

They headed down it, passing several doors before arriving at one at the edge of another stairwell. It swung open with a long, loud creak and they walked inside.

The butler fumbled along the wall for a few moments before his fingers found a latch. He pulled it with a grunt, and several lanterns sputtered to life along the walls, burning with dim orange light.

Large boxes filled the room, arranged in orderly lines along the walls with pathways just barely thin enough for a man to slip through between them. The butler cleared his throat and brushed his hands off on his pants.

“Here you are. Are you checking all the shipments? Or just the latest one?”

“No point checking ‘em all,” Knell replied with a scoff. “I trust you’ve got records of how much you paid?”

“Just determine how much this is worth,” the butler said curtly. “We don’t need you making something up to protect your lowborn friends.”

Knell let out a bark of laughter. “I don’t got no friends, butler. No man in my profession does.”

“I suppose so. Do you need anything else, then?”

“Just a few hours. You got any food?”

“No. Do your job. I will return in two hours to collect you. Is that sufficient?”

“Works for me,” Knell replied. “You not going to stick around?”

“I have a job to do,” the butler said in a tone that implied that Knell did not. “Do not leave this room until I collect you. Understood?”

“Sure, sure,” Knell replied noncommittally, approaching one of the boxes. He pried the cover off and peered inside it. Thick bars of iron were stacked on top of each other within it. Knell pulled one out and studied it.

Behind him, the butler turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Knell set the bar of metal down and tapped his fingers on his leg in contemplation.

Well, that makes things easier. I figured I’d have to knock the guy out. I do wonder why they need so much metal, though. If all of these crates are full, there’s got to be enough to forge weapons for an army.

Knell examined the room, then walked back over to the door. He pressed his ear to the door, then reached into his bag and pulled out a small vial of oil. It was meant for weapons rather than hinges, but it would do just fine.

He put a few drops on the squeaky hinges and rubbed it in before carefully pulling the door open. The dark hallway was all that greeted him, and there was no sight of the butler. Knell wasn’t surprised. The man was probably eager to get back to sitting in a chair and enjoying his easy, effort-free job.

Knell glanced down the stairwell leading deeper into the ground. It was unlikely the records were kept that deep, as they’d probably have to be checked at least every month. He turned, heading in the opposite direction.

It quickly became clear that the basement level was almost entirely abandoned. After checking several of the doors, Knell determined that nobody worked in this area. They were all empty, and the rooms barren.

He silently made his way up the stairs to the next level. Faint traces of conversation echoed down the halls, but the hushed tones meant that the people speaking were servants rather than the Ruler’s real men – nobody working directly for the Ruler would be trying to talk quietly.

Knell strolled casually through the halls, passing a man as he walked. He didn’t even draw so much as a curious glance. A lesson from his father that he hadn’t gotten much chance to use before, as his leg and face made moving unnoticed borderline impossible.

He walked into one of the doors he’d memorized as a possible suspect for an archive, but it was just a food storage. A woman jumped, scrambling to hide the apple in her hands. She stared at him, swallowing nervously.

Knell just shrugged and closed the door. That was one person that wouldn’t be saying they saw him. He strode away to the next door he’d marked as a possible interest. This time, he found what he was looking for.

The room was small, with a single lantern dangling from the ceiling to light it. Stacks of boxes lined shelves, all stuffed full of yellowing paper.  Dull metal tags hanging from the boxes or shelves identified the sections and where information was stored.

Knell quickly scanned the room. Dungeons were an important resource for any town, drawing adventurers to visit and stimulating the economy. Rosewood looked like it had once been a fairly profitable town, but it had fallen into disrepair.

There wasn’t anything else in the area that would draw much attention to the city. That probably meant that, at one point, there had been a popular dungeon near Rosewood. Whether something had happened to it, or it had been sealed off because of the anomaly Stix’s brother had stumbled into was yet to be determined.

Knell didn’t have to look for long. He spotted a box dedicated to the dungeon after several minutes of searching. Pulling it down with a grunt, he started leafing through the papers. The strain of keeping his magic up was growing stronger, but he refused to let it impact his concentration.

Most of the papers in the box were completely useless, but as he shuffled through them, a few pieces of information started to come to light. There had indeed been two dungeons near Rosewood.

The first and closest rested just beyond a forest, only a few hours away from the town. It appeared to have generated a very considerable amount of money for the town, up until several years ago. The other was considerably farther, and it looked to be far less popular.

Information on the first dungeon was scattered. Even though it looked to have made a lot of money, it was sporadic. Large portions of earnings, but spread throughout weeks or even months rather than a consistent income.

That probably meant it was dangerous, and many adventurers were unable to defeat it and claim the rewards within. However, that wouldn’t have stopped anyone. There were always stupid adventurers. Yet, for some reason, nobody had been reported entering the dungeon for years.

Knell put the papers on the dungeons back and turned his attention to the other sections of the archives. They weren’t quite as extensive as he would have liked, but it still had enough information for him to piece things together.

In particular, he was interested in any major expenses the city had paid that lined up with when the dungeon had been closed. And, after looking through documents for more time than he cared to spend, he finally spotted another piece of the puzzle.

Around the time that the dungeon had stopped bringing in income several years ago, there was a massive expense of thousands of gold from the treasury. It had gone to masons, smiths, woodworkers, and dozens of other professions in order to rebuild the city.

That was as much of an answer as Knell suspected he was going to get from the archives. Something had happened in the dungeon that had destroyed the town, and they’d never completely recovered from it.

Knell put the papers back and rose to his feet. By his mental clock, he’d spent around an hour in the archives. He brushed himself off and returned everything to where he’d taken it from, then slipped out, heading through the servants hallways and backtracking his steps to the exit of the mansion.

He reached the door and slipped outside, the growing pain of his magic chewing at his head, and disappeared into Rosewood’s streets. As soon as he’d put enough distance between himself and the mansion, he swapped back to his captain’s clothes and finally released his magic.

Knell slumped against a building and gritted his teeth as his body returned to normal. Scars traced themselves back into his flesh and pain racked his body. Several more strands of his hair turned white by the time the change was over.

Pushing himself off the wall, Knell turned and headed back toward where his crew was waiting for him. It was time to investigate the dungeon where Alan had gone missing.