[TWS] Chapter 47 - Secrets of the Abandoned Prison

Miria led Asterios back to Selene without needing his help in locating her through their connection. They arrived to see her kneeling beside the boy.

Asterios quickly examined his body and confirmed that the potion managed to successfully relieve it from most of the tension the monster caused him and started to slowly heal the damage. They needed to bring the kid to a real healer to fix him up properly as many muscles in his body were torn and there were some traces of contamination, but his life was not in danger anymore and he was just peacefully unconscious. He definitely needed a good manicure though.

Wrapping the boy in a fluffy material to keep him warm, they laid him down by one of the walls. Everyone sat by his side and the girls stared at Asterios expectantly. Miria already relayed to Selene what he told her back in the office.

“Well then, first of all, I’m really sorry for fooling you like that. I know how angry and disheartened you felt when I seemingly got possessed. I never stopped sensing your emotions through our bond.”

Miria shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m sure you had your reasons for acting that way, Master.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I only realized we are dealing with a Phantasmal Horror after he tried taking over my body.”

“What are a Phantasmal Horror and Nightmare exactly, my Lord?” Selene asked.

“The latter one is a quite common ghost-type monster, looks similar to how the Horror looked, but more shapeless, and is just an entity born out of contaminated essence like most monsters. It takes over mentally weak prey like animals or people and attacks everything on sight like a crazed beast, damaging and mutating the body as you saw before. They are not that hard to deal with as they don’t really possess much intelligence. But, the crucial detail that allowed me to differentiate the two with him acting like a Nightmare was the fact that Nightmares can’t switch hosts before their current one dies,” he explained.

“Phantasmal Horrors are monsters born from actual souls. That person was a member of one of the races living here in the past, and judging by the dagger in his skeleton’s chest, got murdered by someone for some reason. With a deep grudge and in a place filled to the brim with contaminated essence, this prison, his soul has been bound here and turned into a Phantasmal Horror. He retained all of his memories, knowledge and such, thus he was a much more cunning and dangerous enemy. He must have known about Horrors too since he knew what to do to free himself. They control their host’s body even better than their lesser counterparts and if they want, they may even be able to go undetected until someone with good senses or experience shows up around them. Or uses correct abilities.”

Selene nodded and stroked her chin. “Since the brothers kept playing in the ruins and he didn’t capture either of them until now, I assume he was waiting for someone with a stronger body to show up, but got tired of it and possessed one of them to lure the adults in. I don’t know why he didn’t catch someone from the two teams that came here before us, but if I were to guess, maybe they had someone who could deal with ghost-types easily and he failed to split them up?”

“Possibly. And then we forcefully made our way down. Anyway, back to the beginning.” Asterios took a sip of water. “When that mist came out of the boy’s mouth, I realized my mistake instantly, and without a second of delay, I raised a mental barrier around my mind. It’s a basic move for Summoners. We have to protect our connection as it’s our most crucial strength. He never had a chance to penetrate it. Not with the strong energy I can now use to enhance it. I could have pushed him out immediately, but while Selene would most likely be able to easily resist too, Miria isn’t proficient with mental defence and there was a risk he would take you over before we managed to do anything. I didn’t have any support items ready, and the moment you were to be taken over, it could have ended badly. It’s not as easy to expel a Horror as it is a Nightmare and he wouldn’t just sit idly and let us do whatever we wanted.”

Miria's shoulders slumped a little and Asterios quickly petted her ears reassuringly.

“Everyone has a weakness and you can’t master everything. Don’t forget that was also the reason we decided to try and summon another companion. To fill in the blanks.” She smiled at him faintly and nodded. “So, I decided to make my barrier more brittle and let him break it while keeping a less conspicuous one around the very core of my mind, allowing him to seemingly have control over my body while I just sat back and observed, ready to act whenever things got out of hand. Unfortunately, I don't know if Horrors can intercept communication through the Summoner’s bond, so I refrained from contacting you in fear of him realizing that he wasn’t in complete control. I’m sorry about that.”

“That was a logical decision, my Lord. There’s no need to apologize,” Selene said.

“Yeah.” Miria nodded enthusiastically.

Asterios smiled at them. “Well, you know the rest. You did great not letting your emotions take over and calmly acted according to his orders while, I bet, looking for a way out too. The only safest method of getting rid of him was finding the soulbound relic and overcharging it with mana, and you led him into my trap perfectly. Both of you made correct decisions all along the way. I was truly overjoyed seeing that. Well, maybe except the part where he approached you.” Asterios moved his gaze onto Miria. “For a moment there, I felt like all of my scorching hot energy was going to burst out as intense fury filled my heart. It’s… been many years since I’ve experienced that feeling…”

His expression turned cold and both of the girls’ hair and fur stood up from the sheer animosity in Ast’s gaze. Neither of them saw him this serious ever, not even when he confronted the adventurer in the Guild in the past. Miria placed her hand on top of his and he quickly turned back to his usual, calm self, showing her a soft smile.

“I’m happy you care for me this much, Master.”

She mustered all her courage and leant forward to kiss him on the cheek. Sitting literally next to Selene was not helping, but she managed to do it with a completely flushed face.

“No one got seriously hurt and that’s what is most important. But… What are we going to do now, Master?” she asked.

“We can go back the way we came down, try finding an actual exit since the Horror had to bring the boy down here somehow or check the office again before the Guild sends people here to investigate after we make a report. That key looked too fancy to be for some lousy prison cell or gate,” he laid out their options.

“I think we should check it out, my Lord. I can carry the boy with us. It’s not a problem,” Selene suggested.

“I agree. Maybe he had some hidden treasure.” Miria nodded.

“Alright. Let’s make it quick then. We should not delay too much. We'll just take a short glance as we walk through the complex in search of the exit. If it takes too long, we go back to the hole.”

They stood up and Asterios glanced at the unconscious boy. He seemed quite fine and his condition was stable, but Ast wondered if they really should be dragging the teen around as they looked around. At the same time, it wasn’t wise to leave him alone here either.

Selene noticed his worry and tapped Ast’s shoulder for him to step aside. She then walked closer to the boy, kneeled down and joined her hands together. A moment later, a light-blue light emerged from between her palms and some swirling spiritual energy surrounded them. She then directed them horizontally towards the ground and began slowly moving them away from each other in a straight line.

Asterios and Miria watched as a bluish path formed after Selene’s hands, and in fifteen seconds, she created a flat, semi-transparent surface the size of a person. She placed her fingers against it and pushed the floating oval down like it was completely solid. Then, she slid it under the boy’s body and positioned him on the spiritual platform on his back. Finally, Selene stood up and gestured with her finger upwards, making the platform rise to the level of her hips.

“I hope you don’t mind if I carry him like this, my Lord,” she spoke to Asterios with a smile.

“Of course not. This is really good. Guide it by my side and we can use our usual formation. Does this drain your energy fast?”

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s a simple technique. Mana consumption depends on the carried weight and this child is not that heavy. I can also use most of my other abilities while upholding this platform unless they require a lot of control.”

He nodded. Selene’s manipulation of pure spiritual energy was coming more useful day by day. Asterios was glad they accepted her in the end. He was sure at that time that a control type spiritual user would bring some utility into their fights along with the firepower, but he was pleasantly surprised with how useful her arts were outside of combat too.

They left the empty room and headed straight for the Horror’s office. It was the best place to start their search for anything interesting. Although the girls have already turned that place almost upside-down when looking for the relic, leaving it in quite the chaos, Asterios watched everything as it was unfolding and took note of a few things when their enemy was supposedly in control of his body.

Miria and Selene started checking around the chamber for any hidden compartments, holes or storages. Asterios told them that the Horror would most likely have checked them first if there were any, as the chance of them containing some important items from the ghost’s past would have been the highest. They decided to try anyway while he scanned through a few books that caught his eye. Especially one that was hidden behind many fake layers inside one of the drawers of the magnificent desk but didn’t become the relic.

After five minutes of rummaging through the Horror’s belongings, the girls didn’t find anything amazing but rounded up the things they thought might be valuable. Seeing Asterios still engrossed in reading something, both of them walked up to him and took a glance at whatever he was holding.

“What’s this, Master?” Miria asked curiously while leaning against his shoulder.

“A logbook of some sorts.”

“Did you learn what this place is?”

He chuckled. “It would have been too convenient having such descriptions written down and just lying around here. None of the people who lived or worked here would have needed that.”

“Ah. That’s true. I didn’t think of that.”

Asterios smiled and patted her head. “I didn’t get to know exactly what this place was, but I can make a so-so guess based on the little details I’ve gone through. While the upper area was definitely an official watchtower, one of four around this village if I remember correctly, I’m fairly sure only this one had a secret, underground facility which most likely wasn’t known to many from the organization that occupied these.”

He pointed at the skeleton in the furthermost part of the chamber. “That guy over there, the same we encountered, was named Dane. I didn’t find any mention of his surname or other details. He might have been an overseer of this place, judging by this logbook I hold in my hands right now. It’s a kind of registry of people held here, with a history of their tortures and what they revealed under them. From the way things are described, they seemed to be mostly criminals, although it’s hard to judge when seeing it from only one of the sides. It also speaks about testing something on those people. The log ends without anything suspicious being mentioned, so my guess would be that one day someone from upper branches ordered to clean up the place and silence people who knew about it. Dane murmured something about betrayal, so it could have been done by a double agent too, or the person was placed here undercover by the organization to monitor the place, and he wasn’t aware of that. That’s all just my assumptions though.”

“That’s still quite a lot you were able to deduce from the books, my Lord, even if not everything is correct,” Selene praised him.

“I’m pretty good at reading stuff and piecing it together. You know, years of practice in the academy.” He showed a reminiscing smile. “Anyway, let’s keep these logs. Information in them can be useful. And also dangerous. If anyone asks, we have no idea what this place is except for the fact that it looks like a prison of some sort. We know nothing about who operated it and what kind of people they are, although I’m pretty sure they aren’t the nice and kind type, so let’s try to not bring their attention to us.”

The duo nodded and they all moved to the piled up spoils of war Selene and Miria prepared. Ast gave the panthergirl a few notebooks and asked her to store them somewhere safe in her world. She also brought there all the valuables they chose to pick up for selling later. Mostly rings, necklaces and various gems belonging to Dane. There wasn’t much left in this room. If it had anything more in the first place.

Then, they began walking around the underground complex in search of a proper exit. There were many rooms they visited, but most were emptied or the things inside didn’t hold any importance to the party, so they only took a glance inside to not waste time. They also kept looking for a chamber that could be opened with the key they destroyed, but no doors looked like they matched the item. Or one of them did but weren’t reinforced or protected in any way and Selene punched through them like through all other locked ones they encountered on their path.

In a small storage room, seemingly meant to hold weapons and tools, Selene was bothered by the weird placement of stands and shelves. They were positioned in a very irregular and chaotic way when compared to other stashes they checked before. Asterios decided to go with her hunch and everyone focused on figuring out if there actually was something to them.

At first, they couldn’t find any reason for the weird design, nor any clues as to why everything was placed the way it was. While examining one of the stands holding rusted weapons, Selene tried fixing the position of one of the swords which was leaning to the side. It was out of habit. She always kept all her things tidied up and in order.

But, after being pushed into the proper position, the sword slid back to the previous one. Selene furrowed her brows and tried again but to no avail. During her third attempt, she noticed that the ring upholding it was tampered with and purposefully made the weapon angle itself that way. Something clicked in her head and she stepped back to look for any other pieces of equipment in disorder.

Knowing what to look for, she found them with ease and the other two watched as Selene walked from spot to spot while poking different weapons. Then, she came back to the very entrance, looked all over the storage and started visiting the previous places again but starting from the door.

She kept following where each angled weapon pointed and ended up in front of two, crossed, rusted rapiers hanging over a wooden buckler on a wall at around chest-height. She took them down and found a keyhole in the stone surface, showing it to the others.

“Why would anyone prepare such an elaborate and complex ‘puzzle’ for a spot that requires a key anyway, and most likely is known only to its holder. I won’t believe that they would forget where it was,” Asterios commented after she explained to them her actions.

The girls shrugged. Since there was a chance it was a hidden cache instead of a passage, it was Miria who took it onto herself to open it. Selene’s way of doing so could damage whatever was inside. And it was a correct decision as, after a few short moments of the Miria thrusting her mana-sharpened blade into the wall, the hidden compartment opened and revealed a few rows of small vials and bottles with liquids of various, dark colours.

Selene reached to bring them out, but Asterios quickly stopped her. Even without checking the labels they had on them, he was able to tell those contained poison. Some were damaged and the smell was distinct enough for him to notice. She carefully levitated them out with her spiritual energy.

Nothing else besides those concoctions was inside and Asterios decided to keep the containers that didn’t look like they could easily break. He concluded that those must have been the things Dane was testing on the prisoners. With the help of the notebooks, he planned on analysing the contents and maybe figuring out some of the recipes. It was a farfetched goal, but he always liked experimenting like that.

Finally, after ten more minutes of looking for an exit, they followed a corridor that ended in stairs and led them up. The party arrived at a dead end. Miria noticed that one of the stone blocks was slightly bulging and pressed it in. A metallic click followed and the wall in front of them moved a little. Asterios pushed the structure and it opened like a door, emitting some noise of stone scratching against a stone.

They found themselves in one of the rooms in the dormitory section of the watchtower. Looking back at the wall, they realized that the moving part was lined up with the fireplace which was embedded into the hidden, stone door.

“No wonder we missed it. Even if you were to notice the change in the air current, you would most likely assume it came from the chimney. Clever,” Asterios commented.

After getting outside, Asterios turned to Miria. “You are the fastest one here. Go to the Guild and tell Ven we found him. Ask about a good healer too. We’ll meet at their place.”

“Alright.”

She switched into her panther form and dashed away. Asterios glanced at Selene and the floating boy now by her side.

“I apologize for not being able to change my form like Miria, my Lord.” She bowed a little.

Asterios shook his head. “It’s fine. We’ll just wal—”

“But it’s still my duty to bring you to our destination as fast as I can,” she interrupted him and opened her arms while smiling mischievously.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You can’t be serious…”

Moments later, Selene was speeding through the forest with Asterios in a princess carry. Again.