[The Door]
[The Door]
The walls were dotted with dozens of holes. Each hole was positioned in a piece of stone and emitted a pure white light. Moreover, even on the edge of the ceiling there was a circle of this amazing Stone of Light. They could see every detail of the hall under this soft light.
It was the first time that Ashes had seen the explorer make such an expression. She could not help but feel pleased. "Didn't you know? When a witch forces power into the Magic Stone, it can stimulate the extra ability."
"Are these Magic stones?"
Thunder carefully picked up a piece of glowing stone. Holding it in his hands, even without the holes, its light did not diminish in the slightest.
"I don't know." Tilly shook her head. "These stones may have been glowing here for hundreds of years, if the relics had such a long history. They were all hidden behind the slates, so nobody could find them. Only witches can operate this special switch."
"You didn't light them up?"
"No, they can glow on their own." Tilly grabbed a piece of the Magic stone, closing her eyes. The white light reflected on her beautiful features. "If it's a device that requires magic to keep it going, it would be impossible to take it down so easily, just like candlelight can't easily leave a candle. The holes in the wall are only the positions of the Stone of Light, they're nothing special."
"Assuming you're right, and they can be luminous on their own, and continually bright for hundreds of years, then their value is simply immeasurable," Thunder said, "The snow crystal produced in the Kingdom of Everwinter, isn't half as bright as this. A piece the size of a fist can be sold for hundreds of gold royals."
When the sailors heard this, they all stared at the stones. The expression in their eyes suddenly changed.
"As we agreed, you can take half of them," Tilly said vaguely. This was not her focus. Now that there was plenty of light, she could explore the hall more carefully. Ashes did not want her to pull down the seaweed with her hands, so she simply picked up the sword, and cut all of it from the wall. Soon they found the second hidden Magic Stone.
Tilly poured her magic power into it in the same way. Accompanied by the crisp sound of a metal crash, everyone was surprised to see a huge slate appear above Tilly's head. Both sides were held by copper cords, it appeared to be a ladder. The bottom of the slate slowly fell to the ground, the other side led to the top of the ceiling. When Ashes looked up, she saw a metal door at the end of the channel.
"Tilly," seeing Princess Tilly go up the stairs on her own without any hesitation, Ashes could not help saying, "let me go first."
"Go ahead, this isn't a treasure land." She climbed to the top of the stone ladder, holding a Magic Stone next to the door. The metal door opened quickly.
Seeing Tilly enter through the door and disappear into the ceiling, Ashes had no choice but to keep up with her. She kept her sword in her hand.
Ashes could not help staring at the ceiling. She saw that there was a room much smaller than the hall, and the wall in the room was embedded with the Stone of Light just like the wall below. What surprised her more, was that there was no water damage.
There was a wooden table, a chair, a bookshelf, and a cabinet. All the furnishings were intact, covered with thick dust, and one could even see a broken spider web. A row of books was neatly placed on the bookshelf. Everything was covered in gray dust. An old book sat open on the table, as well as a cup, a kettle and a penholder. The quill pen was merely a pole, and the ink had long dried up. Compared to the hall which was full of algae and shells, this room seemed to belong to another world.
Thunder climbed up thirdly, then looked around after pouring cold lump. 'here is...'
"It's an abandoned residence," said Tilly. She opened the book on the table, patted the dust, and read it page by page. "Someone lived here for a long time."
"What does it say?"
"I don't know." She shook her head and showed them the book. "I've never seen these words before."
"The book on the shelf seems to be the same." Ashes wiped the dust on the spine off with her finger. The words contained strange wavy lines, and no one could comprehend their meaning.
"We can take it back and examine it," Tilly laughed and said, "and according to our agreement, the books and the Magic Stones belong to me."
"Of course," Thunder said, touching his beard, "but I hope that when you find something out about this place, you can share this old story with me."
"No problem."
…
The three of them searched the second floor carefully and soon had a general idea of the place.
They did not find any new Magic Stones, but on the other side of the room they found something strange. At first glance, it looked like a thick metal pipe—one side was embedded into the stone wall, and the other side shrunk gradually to the size of a wrist. At the end, there was a glass lens.
"What's this?" Ashes knocked on the pipe, and a series of crisp echoes came out from it. Apparently, the middle was hollow.
"It looks like a telescope for sailing, maybe the people living here used it to observe the outside world." Thunder brought it closer to her eyes for a better look. "You can't see anything through it. Perhaps it's broken."
"I'm not sure." Tilly pointed to the wall behind the metal pipe. "Look there."
Ashes looked in the direction Tilly pointed, and saw a copper board with a handle on the wall. There was a small hole below the handle, it appeared to be a keyhole. Princess Tilly went over and tried to pull the handle. The board did not budge. "It's locked."
"Let me try." Ashes held the handle and pulled hard. The entire copper board suddenly fell from the wall.
"Ha, you're right." Thunder applaud. "It's also a Magic Stone switch."
A huge Magic Stone was stuck in a groove behind the copper board. It was different from the former two, looking much larger and slightly purple.
"Do you want to activate it?" Ashes asked.
"Yes." Tilly nodded her head without hesitation. She held the stone with her two hands, but nothing changed.
"What's the matter?"
"It's too big," she said, beads of sweat appearing on her forehead, "I can feel it's absorbing magic power constantly. It seems that the installation behind it is huge."
"How about you forget it," Ashes said frowning. She knew that once the magic power exhausted, the witch would likely go directly into a coma. Spending all her magic power in such a dangerous place was clearly not a good idea.
"No, it's almost finished, I can feel it." The words had barely left her lips when a thunderous crash came from the wall and the whole room began to shake.
"Is this... an earthquake?" Thunder held the metal pipe to prevent himself from falling down. Ashes seized Tilly into her arms at once. Dust had fallen down, and everyone was coughing.
The vibration lasted nearly 15 minutes, and then gradually calm was restored.
Molly leaned out from the stairs. "What just happened?"
"A new installation," said Ashes, "is everything okay downstairs? "
"Everyone was freaking out, and some parts of the roof collapsed, but fortunately, I used magic power to cover them." The little girl walked closer to her and asked, "Lady Tilly, what're you looking at?"
To her surprise, Tilly did not answer her, her eyes were focused on the end of the metal pipe. After a long time, she sighed. "It is simply incredible..."
Curious, Ashes came forward to look. What she saw was so shocking that she could not speak.
At the other end of the "telescope" emerged a vast land, the edge of which seemed like a cliff, so deep that you could not see the end. A huge stone arch stood in the middle of the cliff, and the door was deep and dark like an enormous mouth that could eat anyone.