<~> Chapter 157

I looked over the prisoners and realized something, there were only men being held here. I walked over to the guard who had been escorting us. "Are there women being held somewhere else?" I asked.

The guard furrowed his brows. "No, these are the only prisoners we've found. We kept the ones with slave collars in a different room but I was told I can't show them to you, they're a top priority for Nathaniel. One of them is a woman though, that blond dogfolk he was looking for."

I nodded. "I understand. In that case, I want to look around more. Can you show me the room the hell hound came from?"

"Sure." The guard led us out of the room and down the hall into a larger chamber.

The room had a giant summoning circle on the ground that looked eerily similar to the one I woke up in some time ago. Some of the symbols were the same as the ones that were used in my summoning circle. Either the 'fake' summoning book that summoned me was pretty closely based on real summoning circles or the story behind the book didn't match what I was seeing.

I let my eyes shift, allowing me to see the mana in the air. There were some flavors of mana I didn't recognize along with the typical ones like fire, water, and wind. I was quickly starting to get the impression that the types of mana they tested for at the guild were only scratching the surface of all the distinct kinds I could see and sense through [Mana Sense]. I had already intuited that from feeding on 'lust' aspect mana but being able to see the mana really made it obvious.

The air in this room was full of magic. Now that we're here I kind of wish Morrigan had come inside with us. I didn't know if this kind of mana concentration was normal. Other than the dungeon, it seemed much greater than anywhere else I had been. The number of Aspects the mana came in was heavily varied as well. While I was busy inspecting the summoning circle, Torien and Bella split off from me and started searching the room in other ways. The nearby guards seemed more interested in what Torien and Bella were doing than what I was doing at the moment so I decided to take advantage of that. I wasn't sure how good of an idea this was but I took out one of my sketchbooks and began to quickly copy down the circle. I made sure it was crossed diagonally like I had been taught when studying ritual circles before I began to copy down the sigils, just to make sure I didn't accidentally activate it somehow.

It was pretty obvious summoning magic and ritual magic had a common ancestor if they weren't just the same thing entirely. I did spot the irony of being interested in ritual magic when I was a summoned person myself. There was a kind of romanticization in having big glowing magic circles when casting spells though, perhaps my supposed interest in the pop culture of my previous life was influencing my interests here. I closed my sketchbook and slipped it back into my bag, if the guard saw me copying the ritual circle down he didn't say anything about it.

It had been a while since I had practiced any ritual magic using [Light Scribing]. I was a bit more focused on my active magic in the last few fights in the castle and with everything going on at the brothel lately I haven't spent any time experimenting with any rituals. I'm sure the skill is useful but I need to expand my repertoire still. I've been able to mess around with some of the individual parts of circles I have but I just don't have enough unique ritual circles to get many different results. Once we finally get to the capital there should be a place where we can buy some more books on magic, I just hope it doesn't completely bleed away all of our money. Books are expensive but perhaps I could make some copies at the Library of Sorsette when I get access. I'm not sure how much something like that is frowned upon though.

I walked over to Torien who was examining some of the shelves in the corner. "Find anything interesting, Torien?"

She shook her head. "Less than I would have thought. There's nothing but equipment here, magic-infused paint and candles for their summoning circle. Obviously enough to prove they were actually trying to summon demons, which is illegal by itself, but nothing that would lend itself to their greater motives."

"So is this it? Just a bunch of them hiding here on top of a summoning circle?" I asked.

"It is a bit strange how few people are actually here though. With an attack on the city that large you would think there would be... more," Torien said gesturing to the room. "Even if you only consider the people that had to have participated in the attack directly, this place doesn't look like it could have supported something that huge. As deep as these tunnels are, this looks more like a safe house with space for a summoning circle rather than any kind of base of operations. ...It seems like a dead end."

I sighed and looked at the ceiling. "Let's hope we can get more out of the prisoners and slaves the cultists kept then. I'm going to be pissed if Jasper died for nothing."

Torien nodded grimly.

"Guys?" Bella called out to us from the other side of the room.

The two of us came over and looked at what she was looking at along with one of the guards. There was a small depression in the wall and what looked like a footprint that ended halfway into it.

"A secret door?" I asked.

"Looks like it," Torien agreed.

"You seem to notice hidden doors quite often Bella. You have a good eye for them," I said while patting her on the shoulder.

"Hehe, thanks. Something felt odd over here though, I picked up on it through my nature magic this time."

I ran my fingers across the depression but it was hard to tell what I was looking at. I slid the pack off my back and pulled out one of my notebooks before ripping out a page.

Torien raised an eyebrow. "Seems like a waste of expensive paper..."

"Watch." I pulled out a stick of charcoal and lightly rubbed it on the paper over the depression. This was a pretty common trick in movies and stuff but it seemed perfect for this. Once I was finished we could see the shape of the impression perfectly.

"It's a ritual circle," Torien said while looking at the impression. "Not sure what kind though."

"Water probably," I said confidently. I pointed out a squiggly line I've seen in a bunch of the circles. "This line here is usually used in water ritual magic."

"How do we open it then?" Bella asked.

I turned to look at Torien.

"Don't look at me. You should ask my sister, she would have a better idea about this kind of thing."

The guard tried to peek at the paper over Torien's shoulder.

"Here." I handed him the paper with the impression on it. "We found what looks like a secret door. I need to go get my friend who's waiting outside."

"Sure... May I take this? I'd like to show it to... um, Bertrand I guess."

I nodded in understanding. "Sure, let's go up together."

When I came back outside I saw that most of the corpses had been lined up again rather than just left in disorganized piles. Even the bodies of the cultists deserved that much dignity. I thought about placing my coins on their eyes... but no. This wasn't their funeral, their bodies would be moved and taken care of by someone else, this wasn't the time for that.

Morrigan perked up when she saw our group walk out of the door. "Find anything?"

I smiled. "Actually, we need your help. We found something that is probably more your speed. A secret door with the imprint of a ritual circle outside of it."

"Really? Sounds interesting. May I see it?"

I turned and looked over at the guard showing Bertrand the impression I had taken. "Sure, let's go over there."

"A secret door?" I heard Bertrand ask the guard. "You're sure?"

The guard shook his head. "Not really no, Lilith and her group spotted this in the room the hell hound came out of."

Bertrand turned to me when he noticed us walk up to him. "Ah Lilith, what is it that you found?" He handed me the impression I made and I gave it to Morrigan.

"Not sure," I replied. "It looks like there is a hidden door based on a footprint we saw halfway into the wall. Bella noticed it based on the flow of nature magic." I turned to Bella who nodded in confirmation.

"I'll come with you." Bertrand gave some of the nearby men some orders before following us back down into the tunnels.

Once we were back at the ritual circle carved into the wall I turned to Morrigan. "So, can you figure out how to open it? Some of the markings make me think that it's a water ritual circle."

She nodded. "Looks like it to me too. You probably know more about ritual magic than I do already but I do recognize this. It's a basic water lock. It's not typically used for anything important but non-water magic users can't open it easily, I could see how hiding a door with it could be effective though. Allow me, there's plenty of water mana in this room." She held out her hand and coalesced a fist-sized ball of water above it. "Water locks need water magic to fill the ritual circle and then activating it moves pins or bolts made out of water in the nearby area. The only real difficulty is that it can take a decent amount of mana control to fill the circle properly before activating it."

Morrigan moved the floating ball of water close to the ritual circle before stretching it into a disc and pressing it into the circle before pulling away any of the water that wasn't filling the cracks. She then placed her other hand on the ritual circle and activated it which caused the rest of the water to disappear. Several hollow clacking sounds happened all at once and the wall opened inwards revealing the secret room.

I summoned a small ball of light that I floated into the room which revealed a desk and two filing cabinets, the kind that were presumably filled with documents. There wasn't much else inside the room but if those documents gave away any clues to how we could find the rest of the cult of Amphores, then this find would be invaluable.

"Woah, I've never seen an actual secret door before," Bertrand said. I turned and gave him a look. "What? It's the kind of thing you only hear about in stories, don't look at me like that."

Torien stepped forward and examined the edges of the entrance as well as the floor and the ceiling. "Don't see any traps."

"Nothing magic in there either, not any more than out here anyway, should be safe," Morrigan added.

Bertrand shrugged and nodded his head toward the room. "Your find, be my guest."

I stepped into the room and looked down at the desk. There was an oil lantern, quills, ink, and a few thin leather-bound books. I opened one up and it appeared to be a ledger, I skimmed through the one that was on top. It looked like it was a collection of shipping manifests, large lists of goods, where they were from, and where they were going. Logistical things that I didn't really have any reference for. I handed the manifest to Torien before picking up the next ledger.

This one was a little different. This looks like shipping routes but not the ones they were using. Names of roads or rivers were given between each city on the list. There were several holes though, places intentionally left blank because the route was unknown. Most of the places I didn't recognize but near the bottom of one of the lists were Traehall and Goldenhearth. Traehall had a star next to it and Goldenhearth had a dash.

Torien closed the one I had handed to her. "This book looks like a merchant's ledger, most of it is supplies you would need to navigate a trade route. I don't know too much on the subject but the lists themselves don't look odd, the amounts of supplies they are taking aren't crazy for a caravan. It doesn't look like they're trying to raise an army or anything of the sort."

I nodded. "This one looks like trade routes of some kind, a competitor maybe? I'm not sure what any of this has to do with what we're looking for." I handed the second ledger to Torien while I skimmed through some of the loose papers on the desk. They looked like they were descriptions of people but sometimes there were super specific details included like tail length, ear length, and neck circumference. Kinda creepy to be honest.

"I think I know what this one is," Torien said with a sour look on her face. "The stars on each of these cities are where there is a branch of the slaver's guild. These dashes are places where there is no slave market but the city is unavoidable on that route. Capital, star, Goldenhearth, dash, Traehall, star."

Bertrand took the ledger from Torien and skimmed it himself. "Why would this cult have a list of slaver's guild locations then attack the only noble openly opposing slavery?"

"Could they be transporting and selling slaves themselves?" I asked.

Bertrand's eyebrows furrowed. "Perhaps, I had thought that was a possibility too but after seeing their prisoners earlier I find it unlikely. I've hunted down smugglers and traffickers before and the simple truth is that humans don't sell for as much as beastfolk, for a variety of reasons. That room was full of humans, if they were being held captive to sell to slavers illegally they wouldn't primarily target humans. There were only three beastfolk in the three dozen prisoners they were keeping. I find ritual sacrifice more likely, as grisly as the thought is. Usually, big demons like that hell hound come at a cost."

"What do you make of these?" I asked while handing him the strange papers.

He looked them over and shook his head. "I'm not sure either. They could be slave descriptions. Seems likely based on the weird measurements, I have no idea how they would fit in with these ledgers though. I'll have to take these ledgers and show Nathaniel. I'm sure they'll hold a clue to finding this cult. Best give them to someone who can make better sense of it than we can."

I nodded. "Of course. I hope Nathaniel will be able to keep us updated on it."

"With as helpful as you've been I expect he wouldn't object to that. Anyway, I think I've given you all the time I can in here. Now that this place is secure it's time to send in our investigators, people with actual classes for this kind of stuff. There's no way that Nathaniel will have time to talk with you today... after losing Jasper. You're better off coming back to the castle tomorrow."

It wasn't much but we did find some clues. Hopefully that will be enough. I followed Bertrand back into the street and headed toward the brothel. After the harrowing experience this morning I wanted to relax for the rest of the day.

Saine

Hello! Clues! I wonder what the cult's goals are? Lots of mysteries, I hope you're excited! Thanks again for reading as always and I'll see you next time!

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