"Well, 'thought out' is probably debatable," Hannah said suddenly, "but let's just say someone thought of something." She had already begun to examine the room more closely, and our initial assumption that this might be a warehouse or library was not wrong. There were old wooden shelves everywhere, some of them still containing old objects and books. Many of these things had been gnawed on and had definitely seen better days. 
"I think I'll join Team Em and be disappointed too," Cáit laughed, "there's not much here at first glance."
Hannah wasn't really interested in our conversations at the moment, but she started to leaf through the books quickly, reading out the titles of books like 'The Art of the Gear', 'Mechanics and Imagination', 'Technological Innovation and Development', 'Machine Masters and Inventors', before saying, almost a little maliciously, 'We'll definitely take these books with us. I'll have to translate them, and probably simplify them for Em, but with any luck we'll at least find clues to our little projects in the books.”

"Could you stop labelling me stupid?" I asked, slightly annoyed, but Hannah just shrugged, "That's what you're interpreting my words to mean. But I doubt that anyone in Yorkchester, apart from me, understands the content of these books anyway."
"My gut feeling tells me it has nothing to do with language?" asked Angus, a little irritated by Hannah's unusually patronising manner. 
Hannah nodded, "That’s correct. ‘Mechanics and Imagination’ was written by my dad, ‘Machine Masters and Inventors’ by Genevieve. That book will take me months to understand. So having to simplify it for Em wasn't even meant as an insult."
Somehow I wanted to be angry with Hannah, but the fact that she had just admitted that she was struggling with at least one of the books made me feel a little better. But I felt she was underestimating me a little because of my lack of common knowledge.
"This isn't really a library either, it looks more like a place where our order has collected and stored certain things some decades ago. At least I was right about this not being my old lab," Hannah added, sounding a little disappointed.

"Maybe it's time you start telling us what you're looking for?" Cáit said suddenly and Angus nodded, "I know of an organisation called the 'Order of Aurora', but that group has been extinct for a good 150 years."
"I'm well aware that our group no longer exists," Hannah murmured, "Otherwise there would be a note about it on my status screen."
I got the impression that Hannah was trying to avoid the question at first, but then she suddenly took off her old jacket and showed us the inside, "Does that sign look familiar?"
"So we've finally come full circle," Cáit nodded and I remembered that this sign was the reason Hannah had trusted us almost blindly back in the dungeon. 
"What do you know about this symbol?" Hannah asked, and again it was the usually silent Angus who replied, "It's probably connected to the goddess Aurora, who - like many other gods - is no longer worshipped these days. I have seen this sign in some old books."
"Correct," Hannah nodded, "Our organisation followed Aurora and was dedicated to her approach to technological progress. This worked quite well for a few decades until my parents' generation suddenly made great progress. The generation around Genevieve and me then used this progress to develop our own specialisations and, unfortunately, were ahead of the times. We were not able to make any of this research available to the public. I told you the reason for this the other day in the garden. Unfortunately, after everything I've experienced and learned in the last few days, I feel that little has changed in today's society."

As Hannah told her story, we began to pack as much as we could into our item bags. One of the great advantages of the room being long and not very wide was that we could casually talk to each other while doing other things.
"I suppose you're looking for your old lab now, to make sure all your research is still there and hasn't fallen into the wrong hands?" I asked and Hannah nodded, "I can't rule out the possibility that they've been found. But the good news is that at least our research here in Yorkchester hasn't been deciphered yet."
Angus listened in silence, as always, before saying calmly, "I was a high-ranking member of the Adventurers' Guild for many years. If anything extraordinary had been found in the last two decades, I would know about it."
"And if everything is as well hidden as this room, those idiots from the Adventurer’s Guild won't find it anyway," muttered Cáit, "Otherwise there are only the scrap collectors from the Merchant's Guild, who aren't interested in such things. That leaves our rather young and small guild in Dubstep. And to be honest, we would never have found this hidden place without Em and her skills.”

While the others chatted, I took a quick look at the globe and realised that it must be quite old, as it still had the Kingdom of York on it. Also, there didn't seem to have been any information about the North at that time, as nothing was marked beyond the great mountain range. I actually found this quite exciting, as people were obviously afraid of an unknown enemy at the time. Apart from the fact that the Northern countries were completely missing, I found other things strange - starting with a few hand-drawn dots. I didn't get around to asking any questions, though, because Hannah was already talking.

"The plan was to put some of us into a long sleep with the help of one of our inventions and the use of our ether. We were to be divided into several chambers throughout the kingdom. However, this presents two problems now..."
"You already mentioned the problem of the exact locations," Angus nodded, "The second one is probably that we would have to travel to other lands to find some of them."
Hannah nodded hesitantly, then added, "We're talking about six other locations spread across the territory of the old kingdom. At best, we'll find them in the same condition as they were 250 years ago. At worst, we'll probably have to search in dungeons like this one."
"We?" asked Cáit in surprise, and Hannah chimed in with stoic calm, "We are treasure hunters. Searching for secrets is the purpose of our guild. And I can promise you real treasure. Though most of you will only realise the true value over time, as we have made great discoveries, especially in the fields of engineering and medicine."

I started to count the dots that someone had drawn on the globe and was able to identify 11 different markings. 
"Let's say Sara really agrees to put all our resources into finding your old buddies," Cáit suddenly began to argue, "How do you think we're going to do that with the current number of active members? Even if Kirsty came along now and then to help out, we'd still be too few to see any quick results. And we don't even know if we'd find anything or anyone?"
"Besides, we'd probably have to take Em with us all the time," Angus added. 

I heard my name and mumbled, "What about me? Sorry - I was just a bit distracted. Can I ask you a question completely unrelated to the current discussion? Would anyone like to volunteer to explain this globe to me? And please, no comments about how stupid I am, because the girl from the North is asking questions that any toddler can answer in Dubstep.”
Cáit wanted to come and look at the whole thing with me, but Angus said, "I'll do it. It looks old and I know you're not much of a history nerd." 
Hannah muttered quietly, "I might as well do it," but Angus gave her a surprisingly angry look before saying, "She asked for someone who wouldn't rub her nose in the fact that she might ask a stupid question."
"Probably two stupid questions, actually. And Hannah's going to have to answer one of them," I smiled and then, as everyone gathered around me, pointed directly North, "I'm going to assume that this is a map that was correct 250 years ago. Why were people afraid of the North back then? If this picture is correct, then there was no information about this area available at that time.”
I had expected Hannah to answer this question directly, but to my surprise she hesitated and scanned the object briefly. 
"Okay. Nothing seems to be torn or missing. That's odd. We had some knowledge of the region back then. There were definitely the first loose trade links with Southport, Edgeshore and Merrowbarrow. Linhaven was also frequently visited by ships. However, not much was really known about the region. Very few people were allowed to cross the border or set foot into the cities.”
Hannah seemed a little confused by the faulty globe, so I immediately asked the second question, "What are these strange markings? I count eleven of them.
Angus muttered, "This mark is Dubstep. Then we have the two neighbouring towns of Wayfield and Redgate."
"There's nothing here," Cáit said suddenly, "I was in that area only a few weeks ago. And the twins should be more familiar with this area as it is close to their home country."
"Okay. I suggest we will take this thing with us and Hannah can have a better look at it back at the manor,” I said and Hannah nodded thoughtfully before murmuring to herself, "I have an idea what these markings might be. It seems someone was convinced that no one would find this hiding place. I suspect these are the places where either more sleeping chambers are hidden or our inventions and research results."

At that moment, a question that I had been wanting to ask for a long time burned under my fingertips, "I have another stupid question."
"Feel free," Hannah grumbled, "Because the first two questions were absolutely valid.”
"Something that's been on my mind all along, but only now seems important enough," I began, noticing that I was starting to fumble, "How were you going to leave the chambers?"
Hannah gave me a slightly irritated look and replied, "Through the door?"
"No shit?" I rolled my eyes in annoyance, "You're really not making it easy for me not to want to lock you back in your chamber today. How were you going to open that door? Because the switch was outside your chamber and I had to press it."
"Well, yes. Someone should have woken us up after 500 years and let us out," Hannah replied and Cáit laughed, "So there was at least one person who knew of your existence and whose job it was to pass on that knowledge."
"I don't know anything about that," Hannah replied, "Our leaders certainly had a plan and had considered various possibilities. But I would be surprised if the complete extinction of our peaceful group was one of them. In other words, the knowledge may have been lost over the decades."
"Or not," I said suddenly, "It could be a coincidence, of course, but maybe we already know the person with the necessary knowledge. Noah and his family. Even if we agree that this isn't a treasure chamber, he knew that there was a hidden chamber in some dungeon on the third level."
"Hannah and I will discuss this with Sara tomorrow. We should at least spend some time talking to Noah. However, I share Cáit's concern that there aren't enough of us at the moment to seriously pursue this," Angus said suddenly, pulling out additional item bags. After three hours we had everything stowed away and Cáit gave the order to go home. "What are we going to do about the switch?" Cáit asked suddenly, and I muttered, "Give me a knife. I'll take it with me. If we have to go back into that room, we can blow up the wall or I'll try to fix the switch somehow".

We arrived at the mansion around three in the morning and went straight to the room. "We're really going to have to find a way to cover this distance more quickly soon," I muttered exhaustedly, to which Cáit only replied with an amused chuckle, "You'll get used to it."
"But I hate having to walk such long distances," I complained, to which Cáit hugged me out of the blue and whispered in my ear, "Em. Even though you were great today and I had a lot of fun with you, can you do me a favour? Stop crying."
I just stuck my tongue out and went straight to bed as I was pretty tired. 
But something was different today as I didn’t try to keep my distance from Cáit. On the contrary - I was looking for her to be closer to me and Cáit seemed to have noticed this too, because I suddenly felt her hands around my belly and her warm body very tight to mine.

Datal0g

If this were a classic light novel, volume 1 would be over at this point. Chapter 25 should lay the foundation for the rest of the story. Thanks to everyone who has read and followed my little "escape from reality" project so far. The next chapters are already in the works, and hopefully there will be many more - after all, there is a lot to explore and many open storylines.

At this point, however, I would like to make a brief comment: I'm well aware that the Adventurer's Guild chapters feel very contrived and forced, and I won't deny that I deliberately helped things along a bit. When I was writing those chapters, the whole project was a little writing exercise for me to keep my mind off work in the evenings. So I didn't think about it at the time, I just wrote it the way I did.

Would I write those chapters in the same way today? Probably not in the same way. Definitely in terms of content, but I would definitely do some things differently. Come to think of it, it would probably be enough to tweak some of the passages and leave out the concerns about the Adventurers' Guild in chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 10. Well... hindsight is 20/20 :)