While we’d all been thinking it, having Rieka state it so bluntly made all of the girls tense up. I gave them several minutes to prepare themselves for what came next, before we picked one of the doors to check through.

  Deciding to eliminate the less-dangerous of the two, chosen based on the idea that the door with the runes and wards on it would be the more dangerous one. Before we left the main room, Kassandra broke out her runestones that she’d prepared to use for our campsite at night. Setting them up in a half circle around the other doorway allowed her to create a ward line that would send a warning to her if anything crossed it.

  With that done, I moved into the anteroom on our chosen path. It was a small space, maybe eight feet square, but sealed in with metal plates. If the doors on either side were closed, anything inside the airlock would be trapped there until either door was opened from the outside.

  The floor inside was dark with the same ancient bloodstains long dried, not a single inch of the floor was untainted by the dull, rusty stains. So I pushed through the airlock to the other door, confirming it wasn’t trapped either and wedging it open with a hunk of wood I took from the far side. Once it was secure, I then urged the girls through once I was sure it was safe.

  In the Shadow Mountain facility, we’d found a common bunkhouse that was obviously for the occupants. It had been just rows and rows of bunks in a single large room, with a small area for eating off to one side. There hadn’t been virtually any privacy in that space, or even anywhere to relax really. But we’d found private rooms in the ruins above this area, so it wouldn’t be surprising to not find anywhere for people to sleep.

  The area we stood in was a long, rectangular room with piles of smashed tables, broken wood, and other shredded debris piled in the center of the room. Ten doors were set into the wall, five to the left and five to the right, at regular intervals. Most of the doors showed some kind of damage or lay shattered in their frames, but the entire area reminded me of the buried research wing that we’d discovered in the Shadow Mountain facility.

  “Fascinating,” Jane breathed, jigging from foot to foot in excitement. The little scholar clearly wanted to race off to inspect the room, but from her darting glances my way, she was waiting for me to give the go-ahead. “I wonder what they were doing here. This is like that lab you showed us, where they were summoning creatures to study. But why ten doors? I thought the elements were grouped in sets of four?”

  “Probably storage or records,” Rieka answered, taking a few steps to one side while studying the room. “If we are going to find treasure, it’ll likely be in those storage rooms. Thank you again for the light, Shayla, it helps a great deal to be able to plan.”

  “Happy to help,” Shayla responded shyly and I felt the gentle pressure as the moth woman leaned into my back. I could tell she was blushing from the pressure of her back there, as she was using my shoulder to hide her face.

  “Just like before, ladies,” I said to pull attention away from Shayla. “I want you four to keep well back. Two to a side, cover the doors with your rods. I’ll check and clear each one. After the zombies startled us last time, I’ll go in alone. If I need help, I’ll give a shout. I won’t be out of sight for long, promise.”

  I could tell that none of them were happy with the idea of me venturing alone through the doors, but every one of the girls were built for range. It was the dichotomy of being the only person prepared to fight in melee with four mages with me.

  Another reason why I can’t let myself become too reliant on Manipulate Element, I need to be able to defend them. If I can keep whatever threats come at us distant, then they can rain unholy hell on whatever decided it wanted to fuck around with us. I can’t lie though, it would be nice to have someone else to help me cover them. Four mages to one fighter is a risky mix, I thought as the girls split up. Shayla and Kassandra took the left side while Rieka and Jane took the right, and when the girls were prepared, I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders before approaching the first door on the right.

  “I’m going to do everything on one side to the end then double back,” I said aloud and got various sounds of agreement from the girls before I moved up to the first door. The shattered remains of a long table sat behind me, bloodstains darkening sections of the wood but with no signs of the body that they originated from, it only made me more nervous.

  The door I’d chosen was more like a regular door that I’d gotten used to in this world. It was made of solid wooden beams and bound in iron with a large bolt set into the stone wall to hold it secured. There were more runes carved into the door, but studying them, I confirmed the runes were linked to reinforcing the door, but they seemed to be focused on the bolt.

  Being very careful, I tested the bolt to make sure that it wasn’t engaged before pulling on the door to open it up.

  Just as before, the room was ten feet square. The floor had a solid copper ring set into it that was a good six inches across and carved with more runes.

  Water, summon, bind, ward, I thought as I studied the different rune clusters, recognizing some and relying on the strange power the System had given me to speak and read the languages of the denizens of the world I was summoned to.

  “Looks like these are more summoning rooms,” I called before backing out of the room and closing the door. To test what happened, I slipped the bolt into place and locked the door behind me.

  Those runes carved into the door flared brightly for a moment before the door gave a sharp creak and locked into place. Before, there had been some play when I tugged on the handle, but now it was more like a door carved into the wall. To finish the test, I threw the bolt back once more and the runes faded to empty again.

  “Looks like sealing magic linked to the bolts, something for you to look at, Jane,” I called back to the girls before moving on to the next door.

  That one was a mirror of the previous room, though the rune cluster for fire replaced the one for water. Its door had been damaged heavily, but still swung in the jamb enough that I could get it open, though it squealed in protest.

  Given the damage to the door, I didn’t want to risk messing with the bolt so just moved on.

  Each of the rooms on the right side held a summoning circle and a door that felt like it wouldn’t have been out of place in a high-security prison. But it wasn’t until I reached the last door that I struck the metaphorical gold in this situation.

  Unlike the first four doors on the right, this one was just a door made of wood and iron with a large keyhole in it. No enchanted deadbolt or anything like that. The keyhole looked intricate enough to be sturdy and secure, but not so much so that I couldn’t just break it if I needed to.

  “Pretty sure this is the supply room,” I said, glancing back at the girls to find all four of them grinning excitedly at me. “Locked, but we can break in once we make sure there isn’t something hiding in the other rooms.”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  “Sounds good, no sign of movement so far and we haven’t exactly been quiet,” Rieka called back, shooting me a thumbs up. That thought made me wince and I looked at Rieka and Jane.

  “Can you two watch the door back? Just to make sure nothing manages to bypass Kassandra’s wards?”

  Jane let out an eep of concern and immediately whirled to look back through the airlock room. Rieka, for her part, nodded and turned with Jane to stand guard.

  Opposite the supposed supply room was another securely locked door, so I marked that one as another option in my mind before I began checking the other four. Just as I had suspected, the second one turned out to be a summoning room all prepared for use, but missing the targeting runes that would lock in its element. The next room was the same but held the targeting runes for entropy, which I called out to my girls not to be concerned but it was going to get loud for a minute. When Kassandra called back her acknowledgement, I immediately set to stomping on the sections of the circle that held the targeting rune clusters until the copper had been pounded flat, before I conjured a lump of entropic energy to literally evaporate the sections of ring that had held them.

  There, just as I promised Cariad, I thought with a nod before continuing on. The last two rooms held the summoning rings for dark and light aligned creatures and confirmed that this wing was entirely empty of threats.

  With that finished, the girls and I swapped sides. I watched the door while they checked the summoning rooms over.

  “These are different from the ones we found in the other ruins,” Kassandra said after only a moment of study regarding the ring aligned for water. “It’s more subtle, and I’m seeing lines to influence the mood of the target. It would make them more compliant, or at the very least less likely to attack their summoner.”

  “Probably were doing more in-depth study here, while the other facility was focused on dissection,” Rieka said stonily. “That or they were studying how to actually perform the summons, maybe this facility was working on researching the different classes. It sure is nice that they didn’t get beyond the dark and light ones.” Rieka said the last part with such deadpan earnestness that I had to smother a laugh as she gave me a pointed look.

  Doing my best to affect an innocent pose, I just shrugged and smiled with my hands held out to either side.

  “Yeah, it looks like they were reaching for something extremely dangerous and it backfired in there. Too bad whatever destroyed this place happened before they could set it up again,” I said and the wolf princess snorted in amusement before shaking her head derisively.

  “Okay, so this is something we can come back and study later,” Kassandra declared after checking the other rooms. “I don’t want to get too deep into it just yet. What about these last two doors? Liam, can you break through?”

  “Yeah, sure. I just wanted to give you all a chance to check through the area before we cracked in there. Whatever tore this place up absolutely wrecked this place, so I just want to play it safe, can at least one of you keep watch on the door back?”

  “Got it,” Shayla volunteered before the others did, and the moth-winged woman bounced over to take my spot about halfway to the door, aiming her spell rod in that direction warily.

  I kissed her on the cheek as I passed by, making Shayla blush furiously and getting a bonk on the nose from one of her antennae before I hurried past.

  “Okay, the other three of you, further back,” I said as I got to the first of the two sealed doors. “I don’t know if there is a trap on the other side of the door, and the stone is resisting my ability to shape it because of the mana in the air. I’m going to have to just bust through and hope the door doesn’t explode in my face,” I said with a joking waggle of my eyebrows.

  The girls hurried over to clump near Shayla, leaving me to focus on the door and consider how I was going to work my way through this one.

  “I could try and cut through the door with a shift, bludgeon it down, or use the entropy…” I muttered under my breath in thought. “Given way the mana is thick in the air though, the answer is easy.”

  Settling onto one knee, I focused and conjured another bead of entropic energy in my hand. With a gesture and a thought, I pushed the consuming sphere of energy into the lock, being careful to not let the corrosive energy emerge from the other side before I rattled it about to dissolve the internals of the lock. I paused every few seconds to test the door, giving it a jiggle to see if it was loose, and then went back to guiding the sphere of energy around more until I’d hollowed out the locking mechanism.

  Thankfully, I was able to get the door loose before running out of mana, and when it finally gave, I pulled the door open to peek through before beckoning the girls over.

  Inside was another ten foot square room, but unlike the nearby summoning rooms, this one had shelves on all the walls as well as a large table in the middle of the room. Unlike the other sections of the ruins, this room lay untouched by whatever battle had ravaged it.

  There were simple iron dishes filled with sand for burning incense sitting on the table, as well as an ancient brass scale and other measuring devices. But what had the girls’ attention the most was what sat on the shelves around the room.

  Just like the little storage closet we’d found in the Shadow Mountain facility weeks ago, this one had large glass jars, trays, and other containers of various ingredients. I’d never really talked to the girls about what went into the summoning contracts, since they just used our bond to summon me each time. What I’d gathered from exposure was that these ingredients were how they dialed in their specific target. There were feathers, scales, precious metals, incense, bones, skins, and all sorts of other odd things that I’d have expected to see on the shelves of one of those creepy Asian mystic stores from the horror movies.

  “Damn,” Rieka swore after scanning the shelves quickly. “None of the charged metals, looks like this is just component storage.”

  “There’s still valuable materials here,” Kassandra said pointedly, carefully lifting down a palm-sized jar with an inch of what looked like bright blue sand in the bottom. “This is powdered sapphire. It’s used for water and ice summoning and some enchanting.”

  “There is still the other room to look at,” I offered my disappointed princess and she nodded, her pointed wolf ears flopping to either side in annoyance.

  “True. Sorry, Liam. I don’t want it to sound like I’m only here for the funds, but securing those resources is direly important given how close we are to the border.”

  “It’s fine, Rieka. I knew what you meant. It’s why we rushed out here and why we are going to the extents we have in order to keep this secret. You girls snatch what you want out of here while I get the other door open, okay?”

  I cupped Rieka’s face gently with one hand, rubbing her cheek with my thumb slowly and she smiled up at me delicately, her ears popped back up and her tail began to wag happily once more. Given how cute my princess was, I couldn’t resist the urge to pet her gently, tickling those animated ears and getting a happy groan from the girl before we parted. Rieka took up station outside the room to keep watch while the other three ransacked the supply room for anything that they could find a use for.

  Heading over to the other door, I studied it for a long moment, but couldn’t tell if there was more to it than the first. They looked like mirror opposites of each other, so I just shrugged and took a knee again. Giving the handle a rattle, I confirmed that it was locked before I summoned another bead of entropy energy and began working on the lock.

  I wonder how effective this would be going forward? I thought as the metal and wood melted away, vanishing from reality as the energy corroded it. The idea that I can go around dissolving matter how I please is a bit terrifying. Hmm, what sort of defenses exist for something like this? If I ran into a daemon that wanted to hurt me, would imbuing entropy in my skin protect me, or would it just slow it down?

  My mind wandered as I worked, considering what would happen if I ended up on the wrong side of a daemon. Given that I’d only run into Cariad and Cerebaton so far, I doubted it was a real risk, but I couldn’t help but think about it. I knew that the two of them considered me a friend, so I’d have back-up in that situation, at least I hoped so.

  Giving the door another rattle, I heard something clunk quietly as a piece fell out of the lock and the door shifted.

  “Wow, much faster,” I muttered with a grin and gave the door a solid jerk to pull it free of the jamb.

  The electricity that erupted from the handle in that moment made my entire body lock up as pain sang through every nerve ending. I tried to release the door, but my hand refused to respond to the command, instead simply screaming with every nerve ending it had.

  Distantly, I thought I heard the girls shouting or screaming, but my brain was too full of needles and stabbing pain to think until the world blessedly went dark.

  ----

  Discord! Feel free to hop on and chat or ask questions.

  website for links to my other work as well as updates on this one. It has links to all the other places to find this work too!

  Patreon! Additional advance chapters will be available there as well as art and some future projects I'm working on.