“How’d you notice these secret room anyway?” Grom asked as they watched Linar peruse the shelves, carefully monitoring for any sign of trapped items.

  The secret room had been within an unlit hearth, opened when a sconce nearby was pulled. The room itself was long and narrow, the walls covered with shelves that contained oddities no apparent monetary value. There were skulls of various shapes and sizes along with random scraps of cloth and a wide assortment of other things they had little doubt were some sort of morbid trophies.

  “I saw footprints leading into the hearth,” Linar said, carefully snatching a small cloth doll off a shelf before ripping it in half and checking the stuffing for signs of valuables.

  “Oh,” Syril said disappointed, “You didn’t use that wand we found earlier?”

  “I told you,” Linar said. “I don’t need that thing.”

  “It was helpful last time,” Syril said.

  “Yeah, but that room was absurd! I already found the secret room here. Why would there be two?”

  “I don’t know,” Syril said. “Why would there be an overly elaborate hidden door hiding a pickled penis?”

  “Fine,” Linar relented.

  He flicked the wand, and it glowed again, pointing at the bookshelf.

  Linar bit back a curse.

  Syril stood silently watching as Linar slinked over to the door, his posture saying “I told you so” far more effectively than the words themselves ever could.

  Once made aware of the presence of the secret door, it only took Linar a moment to find the activation, using his experience from the last secret room. He pushed a knot in the wood that made up the back of the shelf, and with a click the whole shelf swung open. The magical emanating from a stone in Ellen’s hand lit up the new room. It was smaller than their current room with a chest at the far end and skeleton lying next to it.

  Cobwebs covered the skeleton, and no remnants of clothing or equipment remained save for an ornately decorated book.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Spellbook!” Ellen squealed excitedly.

  She moved to run in, but a strong hand grabbed her shoulder.

  “Wait,” Bill said, gesturing to Linar who was examining the floor.

  The rogue threw a dagger at the floor, and flames filled the room. When they faded, the room returned to how it’d been, sans the cobwebs.

  The book remained where it had been unharmed.

  Linar went in alone, examined the chest briefly.

  “Not trapped,” he said to the group as he worked.

  Next he stabbed it with another dagger.

  “Not a mimic,” he said as he moved to pick the lock.

  “And not worth our time,” he said at last, disappointed.

  He’d swung the door open top reveal an empty chest.

  At that, Ellen twisted free of Bill’s grasp and ran to the skeleton. She ripped the book out of its boney hands, and at the motion the bones fells into a heap.

  Book in hand she retreated back to the shelf room and planted herself at the desk within, immersing herself in the arcane scrawling’s on her new find.

  “Are you sure its empty?” Bill asked.

  Linar tipped the chest over, checked that it had no false bottom and then nodded.

  “Why not use the wand again?” Syril said.

  Linar stared at Syril for a moment, opening his mouth a few times to speak before ultimately choosing to keep his thoughts to himself, and used the wand. Once more the wand pointed in a new direction, at the wall directly behind the chest.

  “I hate temples,” Linar muttered to himself, and he angrily searched for the way to activate the third secret door.

  He found a button underneath the chest, and once pressed, a vertical seam appeared on the wall, revealing a door that swung open with a gentle shove revealing a room covered in treasure.

  “Or… maybe they aren’t so bad,” Linar amended.

  ?

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