We had a delicious breakfast this morning as it was Seeding Spree. After helping with the kitchen chores we headed back to our room.

“When do we start?” Tilly closed the door.

“When there a fewer people in the hallways.” I checked the contents of my pockets.

“We need some preparations.” Milly sat down on the bed.

“Obviously light.” Caroline sat down beside Milly.

“A rope.” I sat down on Caroline's lap.

“We should define goals, and what we need to achieve them.” Milly looked at Tilly.

“Reading the books!” Tilly’s eyes sparkled.

“Exploring the tunnels!” I grinned at Milly.

“We could take the lamp from our room and there is oil in the storage room.” Caroline patted me on the head.

“Exploration is going to be be time consuming and may be dangerous!” Milly frowned at me.

“We should go for the secret room in the library first. Maybe we find something useful for exploring.” Tilly leaned against the door.

“Of course that’s your first choice.” Milly looked at Tilly.

“It makes sense. I was only briefly in the room and it’s probably safe. There may be traps in that room, thus we should take our time.”

“We shouldn’t skip lunch, because there will be questions in the case someone tries to find us.” Caroline pulled me in a hug.

“Focusing on the room makes sense for me.” Milly went over to Tilly.

“Let’s sneak a peek outside!” Tilly opened the door.

She left for a few moments. Caroline and I went over to Milly. I took our lantern, turned it off, and put it carefully in the pocket of my apron.

“All clear!” Tilly whispered excitedly.

We headed to the hallway with the storage room and stopped for a few moments. Then we sneaked to the door of the storage room and closed the door behind us.

The room was dark. Usually the door was left open which let enough light in from the hallway to get something from the shelves in this room. Not all of the the shelves were used.

I fetched the lantern from my pocket.

“Open the door a bit, we need light to get the lantern started.”

A few moments later we had the lantern burning.

The secret door was to the right of the door. We had to climb the sturdy shelf and Milly opened a small square hole in the wall, just below the ceiling, after pressing at one of the stones.

“Give me the lantern and get in. I close the door thereafter.” Milly squeezed herself beside the door on the board.

I gave her the lantern and climbed up and into the hole. The secret passage was narrow and had a low ceiling. I could see only a few meters into the darkness.

“Here is the mechanism.” Milly pulled a small lever in the wall.

Just in front of the exit was a bit more space that was used up by the door when it was open. There were stone tracks on floor and in the ceiling.

“And behind that flap is a peephole.” Milly pointed a square piece of stone with a handle.

I studied the setup for a few moments.

Then we followed the secret passage for a few meters. It ended with a turn to right into a shaft leading up and downward. I noticed a square piece of rock in the wall in the direction of the refectory. Carefully I prodded it and I felt the piece giving way as I started to push at the left side.

I handed the lantern to Milly and waved her away. Then I opened the flap again and there was tiny hole behind it. I could sneak a peak in the refectory and as a put my ear at the hole I could listen to people talking.

“A peephole into the refectory.” I closed the flap again.

I couldn’t see an end of the shaft with our lantern. Oil lanterns are cumbersome while climbing. I put the handle between my tooth and soon we arrived in the secret room by the library.

“We shouldn’t make loud noises. Talking should be okay I think.” I put down the lantern on the lectern.

The room was quite cramped with four people inside. The door to the library was properly locked.

Tilly walked to the bookshelf and started to browse the books. Caroline took the lantern and hold it up. As the room was small we all could see quite good.

Milly and I found a locker in the edge where the library door sled to.

“Any ideas how to search for traps?” I looked at Milly.

“No. Do you think there are traps?” Milly looked at me with wide eyes.

“I can see nothing magical. Caroline, we need some more light.” I examined the locker closely.

“Nope. I don’t see anything suspicious either.” Milly gave me a skeptical look.

“Step back in case something stabs me. No need to get everyone hurt.” I started to examine the floor an the walls.

Finally I opened the lowest drawer. And nothing happened.

“Weapons.” I fetched a small sword from the drawer. Either the sheath or the weapon had magical properties. Too bad we were not able to find out more about them.

I pulled the sword from its sheath and the blade seemed to be in a perfect condition. Holding them apart I could see both of them had a faint magic aura. I sheathed the sword again and handed it to Milly.

A short spear, barely fitting in the drawer was magical as well. I picked it up and it was showing no sign of decay. I handed it over to Milly as well.

The next magical weapon was a light war hammer with a wooden shaft. One side had a spike while the other was blunt.

The last weapon was a two headed axe with a wooden shaft.

The rest of the weapon were rather rusty.

In the corner in the remains of a bag was a mail shirt, which had a magical aura as well. The rings were finely made and intertwined. I could see no signs of spots where the rings were welded together.

I went over to Caroline.

“Try this on. Our outfits are already a kind of light armor.” I put the shirt in her hand. It was thin and not really heavy.

“Me?” Caroline looked at the pile of metal rings.

“Give me the lantern and try it.” I reached out for the lantern.

“O-Okay.” Caroline pulled the shirt over her head. It fell down to just above her knees and had long sleeves. After a few moments the magic of the armor seemed to do something.

Caroline stood there gawking at herself.

“This is expensive!” She paled.

After a few minutes the chain shirt’s magic went dormant again and was a perfect fit.

“Nice!” I beamed at Caroline.

“Let’s check what happens when you put if off again!” I pulled at Caroline's left sleeve.

The armor didn’t change thereafter.

“Let’s put them back into the locker for now.” Milly put the weapons back into the drawer.

“We can go dungeoneering after lunch.” I grinned.

“What about the books?” Milly prodded Tilly.

“Well. They are old and difficult to read.” Tilly nodded at the stack of books to her left.

“There are three books about a dragon war.” She grinned.

“The other ones are books about non-humans and monsters. Still old books.” Tilly sighted.

“We’re going to need quite a bit time to read them.” She pouted.

“There were a few old maps as well.” Tilly smiled at me.

“Show me!” The maps were too large for the lectern unfortunately, but they covered most of the continent.

“I’ve found a magical bag!” Milly had a small leather bag with a shoulder strap in her hands.

I could see quite bright magic emanating from the bag. The brightest of the items until now.

“It’s empty, but it’s much too large inside!” Milly opened the bag.

“A bag of holding!” The outside was about the size of a purse. I looked inside the bag. The place inside was about double to tripple of the size. There were compartments for smaller items and it was.

“Such bags are incredible rare!” Caroline's eyes fell out of their sockets.

“We can put all the books ins...” Tilly exclaimed.

“Ssshhh!” I clapped my hand down her mouth.

We spent the rest of the morning checking the books. There were books about the gods and their followers and many reports about political stuff. Probably long outdated.

One book we found was probably magical. It had magic to hide in bookshelves and we only found it because Tilly had stacked everything else from that board on the lectern.

We could see no magic on it, but on the front side was the draconic rune for magic engraved in the thick leather cover. The only problem we had was it didn’t budge as we tried to open it. We felt a tugging and then the book stayed closed.

“There is something about magic inside and there is a lock on it!” Tilly clenched her fist and glared at the book.

“Maybe it’s for people with mana only.” Milly gave Tilly a hug.

“Using force would damage the book at best. I’d wait until our magic awakens” I scratched my head.

“That’s years away!” Tears started to form in Tilly’s eyes.

“How about having lunch? I’m hungry after all the reading.” Caroline looked at us.

“Let’s have lunch and shelf the book for now.” I hugged Tilly as well.

We went back to the storage room and left it without much trouble.

We left all we found in the secret room. We all agreed it’s the safest place for all the stuff we found in the secret room.

After lunch we met in our room again.

“What should we do with all the stuff we found. From a legal point of view it’s not ours.” Milly on the bad leaning against the wall.

“For now we’re going to read the books. I can’t feel bad about that. We may be lend the weapons and armor to explore the rest of the secret passages.” I laid myself down on the bed.

“We need a reliable light source for that, and I’m in reading. We need information.” Tilly laid down on the bed as well, using my tummy as a pillow.

“Then we are on the same page.” Milly laid her head on her knees.

“The bag would be very useful while traveling.” Caroline leaned against the ladder to her bed.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we reach it.” I started to pat Tilly’s head.

“We keep the things we found for ourselves though. We need all information we get.” Milly licked her lips as she smiled at us.

“What should we do with the afternoon?” Caroline climbed up to her bed and let her feet hang down.

“We should have another lamp for the room. And the best would be one without oil. There’s a risk the burning lamp could be smelled in the library.” I pulled my feet to my behind.

“Magical lamps are expensive.” Caroline twisted her legs.

“There were some in the carriage.” I put my hands behind my head.

“You don’t want to steal one!” Milly shot me a scorning glare.

“There are magical lamps around. We need a sound reason to acquire one.” I winked at Milly.

“Maybe we find one that no one needs. As long as it is in the castle it’s not stolen. Isn’t it?” Caroline pulled her legs up.

“That’s a rather wide definition of stealing.” Milly glared up.

“Well. You take it from a place where it is not needed in the castle to another.” Caroline bend over the rim of her bed and smiled at Milly.

“We seem to desperately need one. Just be careful.” Milly sighed.

“Then let’s leave our precious secret alone for today.” I patted Tilly’s head again.

“But..”

“Imagine someone finds out because we’re careless.” I interjected.

“That would be bad, indeed.” Tilly looked at me with wide eyes.

“Let’s get comfortable and rest. The last months were tiring and tomorrow we will go the hunters lodge. We don’t know what awaits us there if we stay longer.” Milly got up from the bed and changed into a nightgown.

We followed suit and had a relaxing afternoon. After lunch Miss Tessa offered us a few hours in the pool, which we gladly accepted.

Caroline has changed a lot in the last months. The training and more food changed her in a well endowed young woman. We all had grown a bit. Looking down at my chest I had to admit that they slowly grew larger. I think Caroline was at least two earth years older than me, probably more. Milly and Tilly developed still quite the same than me. Milly and Tilly looked alike just as on the first days.

Maybe I should try to have a closer look in one of the mirrors in the rooms we clean after all. It tried to avoid what they showed so far. Quite silly in fact, since they only show who I am now.

We went to bed early as next day was a normal working day again. We would stay at the Hunters Lodge for a while.

Maybe we could sneak away for a hot bath once in a while.