The door to the Baron’s office was open, and so was the entrance to his safe room. To Countess’s disappointment, he was in neither.
“Shit,” Countess whispered. “Where the hell are you?!”
The Baron’s office suite had a lot of windows, so the ambient light was enough for Countess to see what she was doing. She started with his desk, rifling through the drawers. There was nothing out of the ordinary. In the waste basket, nothing interesting. Everything in his office proper was normal and orderly, so she went back into the safe room.
The Baron’s safe room was a rumor and a legend. Everyone suspected he had one, of course, but it was never confirmed. No one had ever seen it, until now. Countess was sad that it was a lot smaller and less fancy than she expected. In her imagination, it was a lavish space with a wet bar and full to the brim with treasure and secret documents. It turned out to be a small, featureless metal box, with a desk, chair, and a few unremarkable boxes. Inside the boxes, there was only some official correspondence.
One thing did stand out: The Baron’s humidor. It was a very fancy wooden box with intricate designs etched into it. The box seemed very old to Countess. It was heavy and seemed to be hand-carved. The designs were strange and beautiful. The sides seemed to depict a pre-pagan society of people, living in the wilderness. The most intricate design was on the top. It showed a group of these people receiving a gift from a holy woman.
The Baron always kept the humidor on his desk. What was it doing back here? This was the sign she was looking for, a detail that only she would notice.
Countess examined the outside of the humidor. Nothing added or out of place. She tried to open it, but found it locked. There was a little diamond-shaped ornament on the front of the box. Countess discovered that, if she slid the ornament to the side, it hid a keyhole.
She put the box down, drew out the lock pick set from her waist pouch, and went to work. Child’s play. She had it open in seconds. Inside…cigars. No surprise there. She dumped them out.
“Sorry Baron,” whispered Countess.
A small piece of white card was in there with them. She picked it up. There was writing on one side. It said: “Countess, Expecting you, but can’t stay here. Not safe. Find me, down where the dusty armored sentinel points.”
“Great,” whispered Countess. “A riddle?”
Ok, she thought. So…downstairs somewhere? Hmm…dusty sentinel. The basement, most likely. Why there, though? What was down there? Not much. A wine cellar, a jail, some storage rooms.
Countess had been down there a few times, looking for something interesting. She never found anything. Well, that wasn’t quite true. There was one time she had some fun down there. Some idiot had gotten drunk at the pub and mistook the headquarters building for his dorm. Security found him peeing in one of the office flower pots. She had been serenaded by several of his crazy shanty songs. The more amusing part was how pissed the guard was. He took the job so he could sleep and get away from his nagging wife. That night he had to work. The guy complained to himself at length, until she departed. He wouldn’t shut up!
Wait, Countess thought. There was an old suit of armor down there. Dusty? A little. Definitely covered in cobwebs. She couldn’t remember it pointing at anything, though. It was the only suit of armor down there, and the only thing that could be considered an “armored sentinel.” It was a good lead.
Countess left the Baron’s office suite and considered her next move. She wanted to avoid the main stairs as the pagans likely set traps there. Her best bet was an alternate route, like the one she’d used to get up here. She didn’t know of any secret passages on this side of the third floor, but the second floor was lousy with them. She’d have to take her chances on the top section of the main stairs.
Countess backtracked to the main stairs and looked down. Sure enough, there was something suspicious on one of the stairs, about halfway down. It was risky, but the large wooden bannister was otherwise free of obstructions.
“Well,” Countess whispered. “I’ve always wanted to try this…”
She climbed out on the bannister and let herself slide down backward. On the way down, she had to suppress the desire to yell “Weeeeee!” At the bottom, still mounting the bannister, she examined the ground nearby. There was nothing suspicious, so she climbed down and crouched.
The nearest library, one specializing in books on weaponry, was her best bet. It was a short way down the hall. She made her way there and opened one of the double doors to peek in. It was pitch-black and quiet, so she took out her beta light and put it in her mouth. She knew this level well enough to find her way in the dark. But she was in a hurry, so the visual advantage helped.
Countess went to a corner in the far rear of the room and found the bookshelf she was looking for. Ducking down, she looked under one of the shelves and found the little red lever there. She thumbed it, waited for the bookcase to swing out of the way, then stepped into the open passage. A few moments later, the bookcase slid back into place without a sound.
The room was small and full of random junk. It had a few storage boxes, some fancy candlesticks, and a few paintings which were leaning against the wall. In the corner, there was a metal ladder. It led down, but did not extend up to the third floor. She climbed onto the ladder and started her descent.
It was a long climb down to the basement. It felt to Countess like it took twice the time to climb down than up. The ladder ended in a large, open area with a dark wooden floor. The room was another storage space. Wooden crates were stacked here and there. All were covered in cobwebs. There was not much else there.
The room smelled stale and dusty, but along with that, was a more subtle scent of rotten wood and damp earth. Several windows, high up on the wall, let dim light in from ground level. Countess could see well enough, so she stored her beta light and continued to scan the room.
Something moved by one of the wooden crates. It came darting across the floor at her. Countess’s hair stood on end. She grabbed for her dagger.
Oh, hell no, she thought. It was a giant spider. Its bright green body was the size of her hand! Countess instinctively kicked at it, and missed. It dodged out of the way, stopped, then hissed at her. Then, it stood up on its hind legs. She took another swipe at it. This time her foot landed with a leathery thump, and the spider flew back into the shadows.
Countess had enough time to reposition the dagger in her hand. She was now holding it by the point. The spider shot out at her, and she flung her dagger at it. It hit the spider in the head, pinning it to the floor. She jumped onto its abdomen, sending its iridescent insides splattering in all directions. Countess bent over, put her hands on her knees, and took several deep breaths.
“Oh God," she whispered. "I hate spiders."
Countess retrieved her dagger, then she did her best to clean her boots on one of the nearby crates. It was a shoddy job, but at least she got the big chunks off.
“Disgusting!”
Countess looked around the room for a way out. There were no doors. One of the walls had a red lever at eye level. She actuated it, and part of the wall slid sideways into a recess. A torch-lit hallway was on the other side.
Countess peeked out into the hall, checking both directions. It was quiet, there was no one present. She stepped out into the hallway, and the wall closed behind her.
She was near the storage rooms and very close to the suit of armor. Countess found it right where she left it: guarding an unremarkable, dead-end hallway. This was why nobody gave it a second thought. She gave it a once-over. Yep. Cobwebby-as-ever.
Countess froze in place. There were dark red patches and streaks all over the ground. Blood, and lots of it. If the person hadn’t been killed outright, they were seriously wounded for sure. She hoped it wasn’t the Baron, but she feared the worst.
She looked back at the armor. Where it points, she thought. It wasn’t pointing anywhere, only holding its hand out. She followed where the fingers pointed. Just a wall on the opposite side. Nothing there.
As she moved closer, she noticed a figure by the armor statue. It was one of the Baron's guards. The man was examining the wall across from the statue. Something about him seemed off, and as she got closer, the smell hit her. The swampy, fishy odor unmistakably marked him as a pagan.
Countess approached cautiously. "What are you doing here?" she asked, applying her most authoritative voice.
The man jumped slightly, then turned to face her, a too-quick smile spreading across his face. "Just…checking for traps, miss. Orders from the Baron."
There was a twinkle in his eye. He was watching her closely. And his words were smooth. A bit too smooth for her liking. Countess knew a lot of the Baron’s guards. They all had a certain bearing about them; mannerisms, a way of moving their bodies. This man had none of them. And the smell. The smell was a dead giveaway.
Countess tightened her grip on her dagger. "You smell like the swamp."
The man's smile faltered. "Just got back…from a mission there."
Without wasting another second, Countess lunged at him with her dagger.
He was quick! He dodged, drawing a short sword with a curved blade. His swipe caught her shoulder, slicing through her clothing and biting into her flesh. She hissed in pain but moved swiftly, dodging his second strike and retaliating with a slash of her own that left a long gash across his cheek.
The pagan grunted in pain. Countess was matching his speed. He changed tactics out of sheer frustration. He tried to overpower her with brute strength, tackling her to the floor and pinning her down. Countess struggled against the weight of him. Her arms were immobilized, but her lower body was free, so she kneed him hard in the groin.
He growled savagely and curled up in pain, giving her the moment she needed to get behind him and press her dagger to his throat. "Who are you? Who are you working for?" she demanded.
The pagan groaned, his face twisted in pain. “To hell with you, City!” He spit after he said it. At this range his odor was overpowering, and his breath was somehow twice as bad. Countess’ eyes began to tear-up.
She had been around pagans long enough to know that “City” was a shortened and derogatory form of “city dweller”.
“Don’t test me,” said Countess, her grip tightening. “I will slit your throat. Tell me. Who are you working for!”
"Ah! Ah!” he managed to say. “Priestess. Told to call her Priestess. Don’t know her real name.”
"Who is she?" Countess pressed, but he turned defiant, and said no more.
She knocked him out with the hilt of her dagger and quickly hog-tied him with some hide straps she kept in her pouch for the purpose. "You're lucky I don't kill unless I have to," she muttered, leaving him for the guards to find.
Countess grabbed a nearby torch from its sconce, then crossed over to take a closer look at the wall. She didn’t see anything at first. Then, something caught her eye. It was a small white button in the mortar between two stones. It stood out because it was covered by a bloody fingerprint.
“Not good,” said Countess under her breath. “Not good at all.”
She was usually excited about discovering new secrets, but this one was dreadful. Sweating, Countess stood off to the side with her dagger drawn. She clicked the button, then tensed up, ready for anything. She was not prepared for what she saw on the other side.
Countess peeked into the opening where the stone wall slid out of sight. The room, if she could call it that, was brightly lit by flat, dull-green rectangles on the ceiling. If they were electric lights, she had never seen their like. The flat, white walls were impossibly smooth. They reflected light like dull glass, or a pond after a storm. The King’s palace didn't have walls that finely crafted.
Other things tugged at her mind. There were expertly manufactured objects affixed to the walls. She could not identify any of them. And they had labels affixed to them, or beside them, that didn’t make any sense. She could read them, but she could not derive their meaning.
The room, she realized, was not a room at all, but the top landing of a stairway. There were stairs leading down and around the corner. Countess was quite alarmed by everything she saw. But the worst part of this foreign place, were the long streaks of blood. Someone's body had been dragged down the stairs and out of sight.
