"Em. Can you keep your walking stick handy for safety? In case we run into any more rats," Cáit asked and I replied, "Aye boss.”
I was expecting a stupid comment, but Cáit seemed to be fully focused on her role as leader of the group, so she just nodded and walked ahead towards the corridor, where she made a fireball appear in her hand, "So we can see where we're going. The light's pretty bad in here."
There was some light in the corridor, but it was very dim and we could barely see our hands in front of our eyes.
"Good thing we started you off with the basics back then," Angus grinned, "That part of your skill set is coming in handy right now."
"Did you just praise me for being able to light up a room with my sheer presence?" joked Cáit and somehow I found the comment funnier than it should have been in the situation because I just started laughing out loud.

As we walked down the long, dark corridor, Angus suddenly asked, "Are you going to start explaining why you left your safe library and came with us?"
"I'm hoping to find my old lab here," Hannah replied, "Although that would make absolutely no sense as Cáit and Em have already found the shaft to our secret bedchamber."
"At least it would raise more questions about the origin of the dungeons," Angus muttered, "Research into that has been at a dead end for years."
"I'm not surprised," Hannah groaned, "There hasn't been much progress in the last 200 years. Especially technologically. Most of it, unfortunately, in the field of armaments."
"There are automatic doors," I said sarcastically and Hannah gave me a surprised look, "There are other things too. It would be sad if two centuries of technological progress were just automatic doors. But it's certainly less than our group expected."
Of course Hannah didn't understand the sarcasm - but how could she? These things were normal to me, and I used to get quite surprised when I had to open a door by myself.

Cáit stayed out of all the banter and lit our way through the poorly lit corridor until we reached a room. Even if it wasn't quite as bad in the corridor, the air in this room was quite stale. Not surprising, as the air in the dungeon gets worse the further down you go. In this case, however, it was a sign that there had probably been no proper air exchange for some time. 
"It would be really cool if we could find something else to light the way," Cáit muttered, "I can keep the fire going, but that eats up a lot of ether in the long run."
"We could have just tried to make a torch," I grinned, "But of course nobody thought of something that simple."
"I was actually waiting for Cáit to say something like that," Angus laughed, suddenly pulling a wooden torch out of his item bag.
"You're joking, aren't you?" grumbled Cáit, but Angus just said, "If I thought it was dangerous, I'd have said something by now. But I want to see if you are considering everything."
I didn't even need to see Cáit's face to know that she was really angry, but Angus reassured her, "Please don't worry about it. Your approach was good in itself. I suppose it's all right for someone who can light a fire himself not to think about something as simple as a torch. But you have to remember to keep things like that in your item bag in case you need them. The real problem with this dungeon is that there's hardly any wood around."

As we lit the torch, Hannah suddenly muttered, seemingly scanning the wall beside us with one hand, "I can already rule out that this is our old lab. At least it wouldn't make any logical sense. And there would be a switch next to the entrance. Em... would you be so kind?"
"You want me to play detective with my abilities again, don't you?" I muttered in annoyance, and although it wasn't very bright in the room, I could see three people nodding.
I was well aware that it would be easier for everyone if I just did a quick scan of the room. For the moment, though, it seemed practical. I really wondered how they had solved problems like this before I arrived.
But I wasn't interested in arguing, so I just looked around the room for something broken, but couldn't find anything at first. "Bad news," I muttered, "If something is broken, I can't fix it now. Otherwise it would be pointed out to me."
"Then let's just split into two groups and do a quick search in the room," Cáit suddenly suggested, "I'll take Em with me. Just because I can't really do much except blow things up."

We then split up in the room, Cáit making the flame reappear in her hand while Angus examined the other side of the room with the torch, and the first thing we noticed was that the room was long. It wasn't particularly wide, as we could talk to the other two without shouting or even talking loudly - but it must be a good thirty yards long. We also quickly realised that we weren't walking along a wall, but along shelves. Some of them contained books, and in others we could make out objects. At first glance, it looked like a storeroom. 
"I hope there really is a mechanism to turn on some lights. I don't feel like storing everything in the dark," I said to Cáit.
"Yes. Without Angus we'd have to stop soon, I can't afford to waste so much ether."

"Am I the only one who gets the feeling that we're not really going to find any treasure here?" I asked after a few minutes and Hannah replied, "That depends on your definition of treasure. Looking at some of the titles, these books are definitely treasures to me. You could probably use them if I taught you the languages. The bandits probably wouldn't have been able to do anything with the stuff."
"At most they could have sold them," Angus mused, "But then they would have had to answer some painful questions, because at most Chamberbride or the Adventurers' Guild would have taken the books off their hands. I can't judge the rest yet, but I think I felt an old globe somewhere."
As we searched the walls, I kept scanning the area to see if I had missed anything, but to no avail. "Somehow I feel incredibly useless right now," I muttered quietly, but Cáit calmly told me, "Treasure hunts are like that sometimes. Things don't always go according to plan."
This search was wearing on my patience too, and the darkness and stale air didn't help my mood. We finally reached the end of the room - without any visible success. "This is stupid," I muttered in annoyance, but I got the impression that I was the only one who was really bothered. 
"I wouldn't have noticed any candles or weird chandeliers either," Angus grumbled as we searched the back wall, where there was nothing out of the ordinary either.

"Just an entrance, no lights for miles around, a rather primitive switch in front of the door. Hang on," I muttered, then grabbed Cáit's hand, which had no fireball at the moment, and pulled her along with me, "We'll be right back. I've got an idea. There must be a way to open this damn door from the inside."
"Not so blustery," Cáit laughed, but I just said curtly, "I need you as a light source for a moment. I'm sorry."
I slowly walked back to the entrance with Cáit and then searched the area beside the entrance with my hands. "Found it," I mumbled and after flicking the switch, the secret door slowly closed again and it got really dark for a moment.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" asked Cáit, while I only replied "I hope". 
Shortly after the secret door was fully closed again, an engine started somewhere and the lights finally came on, followed by a loud and enthusiastic "What the hell?" from Hannah. 
"Worst case, we'll have to blast our way out," I said on my way back to the others. But Cáit was interested in something else at that moment, "How did you come up with this idea?"
"The short version. I realised it too late, but the dim light was probably some kind of emergency lighting. I suspect it wasn't always this dim. And since the room looks like a small library, there had to be a way to open the door from the inside."

"I'm sorry," I said to Angus, who had come towards us in the corridor. He looked at me in surprise, "For what?"
"For not realising earlier that the mechanism had to be at the entrance," I said, angry with myself, "Nobody travels this distance in the dark. Although I have to admit that I was surprised by this well thought out approach. Looks like there is only light when the door is completely closed. Reminds me of a safehouse - only somehow without air supply."
"You're talkin' funny again," Cáit chuckled.