CHAPTER 431: ARC 6, CHAPTER 47: RETRACING STEPS

’16th of March, eleven hundred hours. Well, eleven twenty-five to be exact. Having to trek all the way back, we had to take a stop at Wensteter Village again.

At dawn, we shot straight for this castle. Same as before—other than the rain pouring down outside thudding every brick to echo down the hallways. Oh, and the mad detective scurrying around throwing every book left in the place-’

"Thud-tock!" "Not that one," Fumeko was on the tips of her toes, her arms stretched up into the bookshelves.

"Tis a charming study, if there be not the homes of arachnids in every bend. The heavens sorrows hamper luminosity this chamber so deeply would be drenched in otherwise," Tiffany, like a prissy noble, inched away from the cobwebs—her nose in a wrinkle.

Jotou had her arms crossed while she examined the room, careful of the dust, "I like the rain, but I think this castle wasn’t built with weatherproofing in mind." Her blonde locks were all frizzy as she turned.

"Did she have to say drench though?" Ben replied, daring not to touch anything with his armoured hands.

"If thy predilections lie with prose other than mine own, perchance thou finds inundated or drowned more apposite, deviant," the pale blonde leered to the side.

"Sorry," Ben was not even sure he got most of it, but continued about the room. "You know, it might be helpful to say what we’re looking for other than just, ’a mechanism to activate some other door’."

"If I knew what the exact mechanism was, I would’ve said so or found it already," condescendingly the brunette spoke.

Suddenly, the entire room became pitch-black with the sound of a small flicker. "Great, I can’t bloody see anything in here now," Clyde’s uttered into the dark.

A ball of white light returned, affixed to the centre of the ceiling. "I thought I saw the spooky ghosty boy again, sorry, it was just a big moth," Asobi said.

A large brownish moth casted a flickering shadow below as it kept passing through the light over and over.

"This new god fellow was here for quite a while, correct? Wouldn’t whatever mechanism we’re looking for have signs of use?" Colwyn’s staff lit up with a dim bluish-turquoise glow.

"That was last November. I don’t think even Fumeko could tell how old dust that’s settled or a cobweb is," Hotaru replied whilst holding her tail up in front of her, keeping safe from the dust.

Fumeko’s eyes popped wide open, "Found something," she was holding onto the bookshelf’s frame with shadows curling in her palms—her elbow deep into a shelf up above and her foot on the bottom shelf.

Ben walked over and peeped at what she reached for. "Oh yeah, there’s a little notch in the brick and a thingy; barely can see it," he squinted. "Here let me get it for ya." "Click."

"Ca-chunk, creaak, clack-tick-snap." A series of whirring clicks reverberated through the walls and floors, seemingly descending lower into the building.

"Yay! Meko was right!" the light in the room flickered through different colours.

"Mine recollection serves that the deity of this era who designated Casten Castle as one’s sanctum was tall, was he not?" Tiffany teased.

Fumeko side-eyed the girl nearly the same height as her.

Ben examined the little switch again, "It was stiffer than I expected—guess it’s old."

"If it’s a mechanism to open something like a distant, old and heavy hidden castle door, I imagine there’s gonna be a lot of weight behind it," Jotou responded.

"But there’s supposed to be more than one, right?" Clyde picked up dust by sliding two fingers over a table.

"In theory," the brunette replied. "I think someone should find where the noise leads; it could be the cellar. The rest of us can find the remaining switches."

"Probably best not to go alone," Jotou stated. "Split up, let’s cover more ground."

_

Soft echoes rippled throughout the pantry, bouncing off of the walls and back to her. "A lever lies here not," Tiffany stated and began letting out soft echoes towards the other side of the room.

Colwyn stood on a stepladder, opening up cabinet after cabinet while Clyde did the same for the lower ones. "Aha, one cannot veil thyself from mine otherworldly gaze. Even the heaven’s heights could not obstruct mine ascent towards thy discovery."

"Did you find it?" Colwyn turned.

"Evidently..." Tiffany was posed, pointing at the ceiling where there was there was the slightest hint of an indent and something minuscular poking out of it like an insect.

"Finally," Clyde threw the cabinet door shut as they all convened underneath the notch in the brick.

"Just a moment," Colwyn waved her staff around. A gradient of bluish-turquoise water bubbled together with a few plops-

"I got it," Clyde had already aimed a headless arrow, rounded at the tip. With the bowstring taut, he shot at the upper part of the wall. "Tick! Click!"

The arrow was angled in such a way that it ricochet off of the wall and flew towards the switch, hitting it with a click. A similar series of sounds followed suit, reverberating through the pantry and out.

Clyde picked up the arrow and kept it back in his quiver, "Save your magic and energy. I think we’re going to need whatever we can get for what comes next," he told his sister,

The water splashed onto the floor and Colwyn nodded, before the three left the room, following the sound.

_

"Tick-tick, clack."

"Looks like they found the other switch," Fumeko remarked while her, Asobi and Ben scoured the bedchamber.

"Nice bedroom; real Victorian era-esque," Ben judged.

"Mhm. So is every switch gonna be on the wall?" Asobi glittered the wall with white lights.

"I don’t know," the brunette shrugged and shifted the cloth off of a nightstand. "They’d be wherever it could connect to the mechanism hidden in the floors and walls. So it most likely has to be in the brick.

As for in this room, the writer didn’t even stay here, it was a spare. Which is what even tipped me off into the theory that these rooms might be hiding something. And, there you go," Fumeko glanced behind the bedpost against the wall.

"Found it?" Ben approached.

Fumeko had one eye shut, "Asobi, get a light over here."

"Flwoosh!" Ben lit up his hand with fire- "Tss!" "Stsh!" "Flsh!" Ben dispelled the fire as it burned and flickered the dust flying through the room, threatening to let an ember or two catch onto the old fabrics in the chamber. "Sorry."

Asobi shone her wand like a flashlight before handing it to the brunette.

Fumeko shined the wand towards the switch, "Definitely what we’re looking for. I can barely reach it," even her arm was too big to squeeze through the back.

"Hold up," with a grunt, Ben’s armour clanked as he crouched down and pressed his back against the bed and with a heave, began pushing it aside.

It did not budge initially, but with enough of a grunt and once it gave slightly, the legs of the bed scratched against the brick loudly throughout the room. The brick underneath it was of a much more vibrant whitish-grey and even had a light indent of the bed’s foot-post.

The bed sat at an angle now, enough for Fumeko to squeeze her upper body through with her dagger in one hand and the wand in her teeth. Using the butt end of the dagger she—"Click!"

Mechanical whizzing echoed mutedly underneath the floor. "You were right, that switch felt heavier than it should’ve," the brunette handed the wand back to the elf.

"Ew," Asobi examined her wand which was previously clutched in Fumeko’s teeth.

_

Downpour and mildew—the damp odour paired with the muted sounds of mechanisms and thudding raindrops made this cellar walkway much more of a dungeon than anything.

Each stair down echoed with a clack of their heels against the brick. Through an archway lied a cellar devoid of alcoholic bottles and what barrels were left here were busted open or drained dry.

Hotaru’s ear flickered back and forth—her brilliant blue eyes would follow quickly behind to locate the sound’s movement. Her hand stayed up, glowing with bluish water.

Jotou sparked her head, clearing up the musty smell and stuffy air she could no longer bear, "Feel like an adventurer yet?"

The wolf-girl’s sideways glance was mixed with single fang poking out with a smile. "Shut," she bumped her hip against the blonde’s.

Jotou bumped back whilst they walked down the long cellar.

"Will there come a day you won’t tease me?" her tail swivelled.

"Not as long as I live~"

"Do you really need to say things like that?" she raised her crimson brow.

"What, you think I’m gonna die?" she cooed back.

"Stop it," her tone rose like a mother’s warning.

Jotou slanted her head to the side and leaned forward so the redhead could see her stick her tongue out and wink. "Even if I fall, I’ll get back up."

"Hmh," Hotaru’s fangs glistened. "I look forward for the teasing for the long years to come~"

"Now look who’s talking. Honestly, are you trying to jinx us?"

"Maybe that’s enough teasing for today..."

Jotou giggled quietly.

"Click-clack! Tfch! Flck-Tink-Crack-Click!"

Before them, the previous sounds began coalescing into a rusty mechanical cacophony. The cellar wall, mundane and simple, began to quake and rumble.

The bricks shifted inwards, till a curving arch-like line sectioned itself off from the rest of the cellar wall. All of the bricks rotated loudly, grinding against each other piece till they were like spinning cogs.

The bricks spun until they shrunk and with a light warping sound, they vanished, leaving behind an archway on the backwall that revealed an alcove with a totem of some elven being.

Affixed to the totem was a perfectly spherical orb that sparkled in the hue of diamonds. "Well, isn’t this familiar," the blonde remarked.

_

Everyone now stood in the opened up alcove, examining the totem carefully. "Detective three, cult two," Fumeko recognized the orb with ease.

"Three what exactly?" Asobi glanced around with bubbled up eyes.

"Yeah who’s keeping track of this?" Jotou knitted her brows.

"And what victories and losses are we counting?" Hotaru’s ears folded down.

"Can you all shut up?" Fumeko stood upright.

"This is a teleportation thingy from the Gauntlet, what’s it doing here? I mean, duh, teleporting, but the totem and everything," Ben leaned in close.

"Do you lot think that it’ll take us to the Gauntlet labyrinth?" Clyde queried and leaned in close as well. Colwyn put her staff in between them and the orb, nudging the two back away from it.

"It’ll take us wherever Ambrose was going to frequently. We won’t know the actual location, but if I had to guess, the magic’s similar," Fumeko shrugged.

"Shall we then? This is what we came here for," Jotou reached her hand out to the orb.

"What about all our gear we left at the inn dude?" Ben reminded.

"It wasn’t much, we can buy it again. Most of our things are at the guild, unless you three brought everything along, which I don’t think you did, so," Hotaru replied.

Clyde patted down his tunic and checked his quiver, "I mean, sure, but we’ve got it open. We can head back, gather our things, maybe tell the guild or any of the adventurers and then come back here."

"We’ve already been using our time freely, who knows what another two days could do. Stop being a chicken," Fumeko held a note in her hand that she had written up. "Deliver Pocket." "Fwoosh!" Her head then reeled back nauseously.

"Was that a good idea...?" Asobi tilted her head.

"Rejuvenate," Hotaru splashed onto the back of the brunette’s neck.

"Hss!" Fumeko’s shoulders lurched up. She glanced back with winced eyes, "A fair warning next time...?" She sighed, "I’ll be fine," she pulled out a chocolate bar from her pocket and undid the wrapper. While gnawing on it she spoke, "My dad knows what’s going on here now."

"And that’s supposed to comfort us how?" Clyde rubbed his forehead.

"Now’s not the time for cold feet, if you want to leave, you may," Jotou ordered with a spark in her eye before she touched the orb. A greenish-blue hue wisped around her and her form was whisked away into the orb.

"Well, you heard her," Hotaru followed right behind, whisked away as well. Fumeko and Asobi went in next, leaving the other three behind.

Ben took a deep breath, "I’ll see you twinsies on the other side. I’m coming buddy. Geronimo!" he touched the orb and was teleported out...