D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 2023: Chapter 2023 Room for Secrets

— Kat —

Kat was on overwatch and Lily was now in charge of finding the secret room. This was mostly because Kat could more easily watch the entire hallway without getting spotted. Plus, Lily was technically stronger at the moment though that probably wasn’t going to matter. The real issue was they still didn’t know which of the two rooms belonged to Appoline, nor did they have confirmation the entrance, or secret lever, was in that room. They just didn’t know enough about her to guess.

So Lily started with the hallway. Extended her shadows to cover the entirety of the back wall, carefully seeking out any sort of crack that would signal an opening for them to sneak through. Either by having Lily stretch her shadow through the doorway, or Kat as water droplets. The easy answer didn’t prove to be the correct one, as the only gaps Lily could find were the standard ones the grout filled.

Her shadow was practically a liquid at this point. She’d dumped it at the top of the wall and let it drip downwards while applying some force towards the wall. The hope was that the shadows could seep in somewhat if there was a gap. It was working quite well actually. Even little bubbles or imperfections in the grout were now filled with her expanded shadows. So the idea was sound. The hidden door was simply better hidden.

Once the wall was completely coated, Lily started to press each of the bricks individually with her shadows. It probably wasn’t going to work, especially not when all of the bricks seemed firmly in place but it was worth testing. Once that ineffectual attempt was over, Lily repeated the testing but instead of just pressing down, also tried to feed mana into the bricks to trigger something. Still no result. [Do you think I should check the rest of the walls? My main worry is that at least one other room is probably occupied.]

*I could look inside… but I think we’re better off trying other things first. The risk is a lot higher then the two rooms we know are empty and soundproof. As long as you could put everything back in order fairly quickly we should be fine.*

[Good point. I’ll get started on the room with the big bed. That should be easier.] Lily would swiftly be proved incorrect. Just because the room was mostly filled with a bed didn’t mean the space wasn’t being used. Lily’s first order of business was to lift the entire bed up off the ground and look underneath it. Her shadows didn’t struggle at all with the weight despite its size. There was a bit of a worry that it would be built into the wall but that seemed not the case.

No, the issue was that apparently, despite using most of the space in the room for a bed, the owner of the room wasn’t a complete fool and had a bunch of extra stuff underneath it. Most of said stuff was stored away in various trunks, and they were all on a big wire rack against the ground that could be shifted around so you could get to all of the trunks without lifting the bed up every time.

The annoying part was that if Lily wanted to be thorough she’d need to check every trunk. Lily gently put the bed back down and decided to save that particularly mess for later. Then she started to go into the closets and soon realised why there was so many trunks under the bed. Inside the main closet, there looked to be no more than two outfits for any one person. None of them were sized the same, and the two sides of the closet were clearly separated in clothing meant for men and women.

Still… there didn’t seem to be anything else noteworthy inside the closet. The back wall was a solid wood panel. As far as Lily could tell the metal rod holding the clothes up was perfectly normal. There was some temptation to look into the clothes individually… but they were all rather fancy and while Lily was comfortable in putting most things back into place she didn’t know how to unruffle fancy clothing in a few seconds. She added it to the mental list of ’things to check if they were still struggling’ and shut the door.

Lily then decided to glance inside one of the trunks before getting to the desk. Just to be sure… and yup. It was packed with clothes. Rathe neatly too. This one she’d grabbed was for a man and it had one section split into two piles, one for pants and one for shirts. A section to the side that was magically expanded and had a bunch of shoes in it. Then… underwear.

Lily quickly shut the trunk back up. She didn’t want to get involved in that… though. [I have a suspicion. Assuming this is Appoline’s room.]

*Oh?*

[I’m willing to bet one of these trunks doesn’t move properly, or maybe can be ’locked’ in place so that you can lift up the clothes and enter the secret room THROUGH the trunk.]

*That’s possible?*

[Thyme can certainly make it possible. Thyme probably wouldn’t even need it to be locked in place, but for this? Yeah I’d bet that’s how it works.]

*Then why are you going for the desk first?*

[Because we might find some useful information here. Plus, while it IS a neat idea I’m not sure how I’d know which trunk is the correct one, or where to place it. I’m hoping my space senses can help with that but it… might not. I don’t sense anything off about the floor at the moment. The trunks are all very ’self-contained’ so the space distortions aren’t obvious when they’re shut.]

*I see. So mostly procrastination.*

[Look, if you want to go check the other room?]

*No, no I’m good. Wouldn’t want you to be caught by surprise. Though… if the trunk trick you’re suggesting is how we enter the room. Is there a way to hide it from Appoline? Assuming she comes back?*

[Nope. Not at all. Which might be the point.]

*Bother.*

Lily scanned the desk and found a few novels. A quick flick through them for hidden keys between the pages or extra notes left her with nothing. Inside the various drawers were writing implements and old letters written in code. Of course, coded letters were still intended to be read so Lily didn’t even notice that there was anything odd about them. It was easy for the translation ability to work considering they were hand written, and recently too.

Lily was in two minds reading them. On the one hand, none of them left any mention at all about the recent attack on Jen. The good news though? It DID confirm this was Appoline’s room at least. Assuming of course that two famous poisoners didn’t live across from each other. They were using code names, which unlike everything else didn’t get unscrambled. The owner of the room was going by ’Nightshade’ and the person they were writing to was using ’Sugarplum’ as their codename. Or at least, that’s what Lily read them as.

From what Lily could tell of their writings, Appoline was more focused on creating deadlier and harder to trace poisons. She could do other things, and was a genius alchemist that could’ve revolutionised several parts of alchemy… but simply didn’t care. Her goal was to increase two factors of her poisons. How deadly they were, and how hard to detect they were. She did at least venture around a bit in regards to how they were ingested, but Lily wasn’t spending enough time in her reading to get the full picture. Just confirm the two of them or find evidence of a murder.

Sugarplum, in contrast to Appoline, was a slightly lest talented alchemist from the sounds of things, but they were more willing to explore other topics. His or her main focus was on trying to make the most interesting and exotic effects. In fact… Lily looked over one of the letters again. It seemed like Sugarplum was more interested in making ’prank’ potions. Things with extreme but temporary effects. This letter was speaking on the possibilities of temporarily transforming someone into a duck.

Appoline seemed to think you’d only be able to turn someone into bloody chunks that way, but Sugarplum had already managed to turn a mouse into a chicken. Which was apparently not the intention at all? [Ok that’s weird. So apparently this person was trying to make a potion that gave you wings to fly. Somehow managed to turn a mouse into a chicken, and then got sidetracked with trying to turn a person into a duck. That’s… why? Why get so lost?]

*They seem to be just having fun with it. In contrast to Appoline. Though… I’m not sure how often she actually kills people with those poisons. I mean, she’d have to test them somehow but I’m not sure that’s the point? She really does seem to be in the business for the love of poisons.*

[Hmm… yes you’re right. It also implies, rather strongly, that she isn’t responsible for attacking Jen. We might want to check with Lin, but if she truly only cares for creating and enhancing poisons…]

*Lin did indicate it was probably personal though.*

[Right, that does change things.]