Chương 160: Chapter 156

The demon city of Zakka smelled like wet wood and old stone, but mostly just wet. Illy took a deep breath, sitting cross legged on a barrel in her nightwear. She might have been more embarrassed, but she could tell with Market's Blessing from the yank that it didn't matter at all to the demons here. They saw clothing the same way she saw salt. It made emotions taste better from the mortals. They didn't care what she wore, they only cared what they themselves would wear for the effect.

She could tell passerby demons were taking their sweet time strolling near, likely eating up her annoyance as it radiated out. And while she was getting more used to getting thrown into these rounds with just about everything missing, what she hadn't acclimated to was the temperature. Selena got to travel around with her full armor and weapons somehow, and it was well padded on the inside for high altitude flying. She was basically built for cold weather.

Mithril was just about everywhere in wet clumps all over, and the only place Illy had found that was somewhat dry was on top of this barrel, because it was halfway indoors. That was fine, Illy was plotting to leave this city today after all. Selena just needed to get the right items for the trip. And she was currently debating with a trader for a box on the end of a long stick with a few mice squeaking on the end. And salt. The elf's feathers were constantly flaring up and down.

Apparently salt was doable, but the living mice were not. Illy pulled up her quest log and checked the timer again. They only had days before Selena's ancestral home became someone else's property, and the last scrap of Flight Nightreaver dissolved into political footnotes. She wasn't sure why this was a problem in the first place, and the Moonwing paladin-in-training seemed hellbent on keeping her secrets about it. But the quest was a persistent one that lasted between rounds, and it came with a good wallet.

The moonwing soon returned, looking defeated.

"The few mice to be found are already spoken for." She said, sighing.

"The merchant cannot sell them to us."

"How bad do we need them for the travel?" Illy asked. The feathers puffed up slightly. Illy whistled.

"Oh, that bad?"

"The spirit realm is dangerous for those who are unprepared, and while I can handle some workaround solutions using salt, bone and wood, this particular danger is one we cannot spot without an animal sacrifice. Perhaps we may be blessed with luck to our passage and encounter another caravan to travel with.... if we remained on a main roadway and waited there."

"Which could be hours."

"A half day or more, yes."

"We could still make the attempt, feck, what's the worst that happens? We die?"

"I…" The ears twitched.

"I am uncertain we should even make the attempt Lady Illy, my Flight is not…" The feathers were puffing out all over her face and the paladin stared straight down into the floor.

"My Flight is not greatly… reliable as of this moment, and safeguarding you is of more importance. It may take us perhaps days of travel if we are unlucky with the roads. We should focus on helping you improve. My Flight's home can be reclaimed by force and right later." Nox herself was involved and working with Illy, which meant by right of her people, following and protecting Illy was more important than keeping vultures off her own home.

"Tch." Illy tutted, "Quest rewards for this one would give a bonny penny. But, arh, can't be helped." She cracked her neck and considered what she could do in the meantime.

"Of all things blocking the way, it's fecking mice in a box. Easiest thing on Earth to catch. And the only yank who could smuggle those for us is halfway across the world right now doing lord knows what." Wade and Leon were currently busy panicking. Eri was having the time of his life as usual on the other hand. There was a deep crack within the arcane diving bell, and it once more groaned in pure agony.

"It's more like… the Coffin's waking up and taking a biiiiig stretch." Medy said over the phone, "And you're hearing the spine crack. And arms. Legs too. Maybe tail." There was indeed, a giant set of tortured cracks that rang through the hallways.

"See? Harmless."

"I'm not five Medy." Wade hissed. The skeleton next to him clicked his jaw once, backing up his boss here to the camera.

"You sure there champ?" The butler's voice drifted off camera.

"You look like you could use your night blanky to hide under."

"Quiet." Bael hushed the Archdemon.

"You never once stepped foot in a Coffin, goldspoon. The sound takes learning."

"I didn't ask for your opinion, goat-boy. Stick to being poor, you're great at it."

"Okay, no fighting while Leon and I are trying to survive all this, thank you." Wade said, putting a stop to any kind of shenanigans out there. Especially since demons could kill each other on Earth and be completely fine in an hour. That meant the threshold of violence was a lot lower and they'd realize it real soon if they hadn't already. For now, Wade had a bit of a dilemma with his recent acquisition.

He was pretty sure he'd been scammed into getting a fixer-upper that couldn't be fixer-uppe'd and would become a money sink instead of the five-star luxury retreat he envisioned. The bell gave a particularly harrowing groan and Wade found himself hugging the first thing he could find while giving a completely manly scream. Eri first made sure his prop pope hat was untouched and pristine, before he peeled Wade off his leg. There was work to be done.

Which firstly involved finding complete proof they wouldn't get squashed inwards. Play refused to do anything other than float around them like a poltergeist, but Wade hadn't expected the NEETess to do jack squat besides maybe taunt and laugh at them. The only thing he needed confirmed was that he didn't have access to the storefront through her here. She unfortunately had to be in her divine sanctuary home base for that, which meant she was truly useless as expected.

Past the ice cold mess hall, they ventured through into an engineering room, where dials and readings were all over. Wade looked it over, then held a hand back to Leon.

"Glove warmers please." Ahead in the room behind them were wheels and levers all over the place. And a lot of ice stuck all over it all. He could just feel the pain even touching those things would feel like without proper equipment.

"Da, not recommending licking anything here." Leon gave him a grin. Wade grabbed the glove warmers off his hands, ripped open the package and stuck it inside his own snow gloves. Yes, he remembered Bael mentioning to bring cold weather gear for now, until the group found mana potions or catalysts they could use to cast free magic spells for warmth. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

That's how Arcanauts down here handled the cold, a simple warming spell was very easy to use and maintain. Temperature in the Arcane Realm usually went from freezing cold to mostly nippy but not frozen over. They just had bad luck in this particular region right now. But until they found the armory, they were out of magical options to handle it. Properly equipped, Wade walked into the tiny room.

"The pressure gauge is on the far left, upper right corne- yeah, right there! No, back one, okay that one, you see it with the little engraved three four number at the start of the label?" Wade looked over the tiny gauge. It started with three four, and then had a bunch of letters and numbers attached next to it. And it was basically buried under a bunch of other panels.

"That's what tells the pressure outside? This tiny thing among all these other things?" Shouldn't it be the biggest more important gauge?

"Oh, they all look a little different coffin to coffin. Important part is that it says three four on top right?" Medy asked.

"That's the default number that should mean pressure gauge basically, in most Coffins. Make sure the ice on it didn't make you misread that part. The rest of the numbers are more about what kind of data you can expect from it. We got to warm it up first and prime an air sample." The process involved a lot of lever moving, some of which only Leon had the strength to push fully, and operators were somewhat expected to be using magic to empower their push.

Which seemed the most backwards use of magic Wade could think of. Why were there so many gears and levers in this base when they had magic? Shouldn't it all be running on magic or something?

"Just a quick question here, call it morbid fascination, how old is this base?" Wade asked.

"Anyone got a potential timeline for how many years it's been abandoned for? Is it some ancient outdated model?"

"The Coffin is either older than the invasion of blackrot, or a illicit mining operation." Bael said with a shrug.

"Something in architecture telling you this?" Leon asked, looking over to Wade's phone, then back to the mess of needles, glass and pipes ahead of him.

"The dead miners, yesterday." Bael clarified.

"They left bodies in their suits, that means mortals. Mortal miners only truly existed before the time of blackrot. Today they would be here only for operations where demons cannot be summoned for information risks." Medy waved him off.

"Oh, it's gotta be for a weird mortal plan. A base older than blackrot would have long collapsed by now, I think the mortals here must have been up to no good! For money!" New Fleeting Quest: Discovery of Bones - Discover the goal of this failed Expedition. Rewards: Copper Lootbox.

"Oh, Wade, you getting this new quest too?" Leon asked. Wade shot him a thumbs up and then screamed as the bell made a particularly heavy groan followed by a massive crack. Nothing else happened.

"It's just stretching, relaaaax." Medy said over the silence.

"Oh, speaking of, go check the pressure range calculator. It should have gotten a correct reading by now." Wade scrubbed the hoarfrost off one of the glass gauges, where a needle was currently twitching at the very bottom, in the deep green zone. The other end was completely red. Seemed some things really were universal.

"Is it working?" Wade asked, watching as the needle occasionally flickered up by a few centimeters, but otherwise looked like it hadn't moved from the default position.

"I mean it should be. Just, never seen a reading that low before. Neat," Medy gave a nod.

"Okie, either it's completely busted or the outside pressure is way lower than you need to worry about. Hells, I think even if you mess up and cause a leak in the barrier, the coffin here might not even implode and just get slightly bent inwards as mana floods in."

"Lovely picture." Wade muttered, looking over at the needle.

"Anyhow, you got your answer now!" Medy gave a smug nod.

"The Coffin's doing just fine!"

"If we needing to know what crew here were sent for, where would we start?" Leon asked, focused on getting his copper lootbox out of this.

"Hmm, captain's quarters might have papers?" Seemed like a good idea to Wade. Plus, they might find the armory along the way. They did find the captain's quarters before the armory and airlock out. Problem: It was sealed shut and required a key to pass through.

"Okay, I think I know now why the quest had a reward attached to it." Wade muttered.

"So, magically locked door in the way."

"Uh, locked sure, but not magically." Medy said.

"Free magic enchantments on non-living things like this would probably last a few days at most? You can mana-treat material to make it basically never decompose but that's about the only thing I can think of that would be permanent." So the doorway was very sturdy, and locked.

"I got it." Leon said, turning back.

"Need to find proper tool, should be in toolkit I put in crate." Wade followed behind, "You know how to picklock doors?"

"I maybe have very rebellious teenage years." He winked, "No worrying, is much simpler than you thinking. Trust me." And for once, Leon was wrong.

"Okey, so raking not working for this one." He pulled the tool out of the lock, looking at the bent end.

"Maybe warded lock? Is older method of making lock."

"Can you pick those?" Leon shook his head.

"Technically less secure, but need skeleton key and actual skill. Raking very easy to do in comparison." There were a few more attempts, but the captain's quarters remained sealed shut and so too their chance at a copper lootbox. It seemed they were expected to venture outside, find the dead bodies, find the captain's body in specific and loot the key off of it, and then come back all the way here. Unacceptable. That door was getting opened one way or another. Wade ran through the options.

Leon had a knockback boon, and he might be able to target the door with it. But if the door ripped apart, it could break other things in the bell or twist something. Given the haunted groaning and occasional cracks, Wade really didn't want to push this thing any more. The door didn't count like an enemy either, so melting it with a corrosive debuff from Skyviper wouldn't work. He could stuff a few insects inside the keyhole, and spray the inside with his bottle of destruction.

They'd die from the bottle, then blow up from his boon, and potentially break the lock. Or just render it completely unpickable. Or maybe the metal was too sturdy for the low-powered explosion of Arsonist.

"It won't be stronger metal than you know of." Bael said when Wade ran the idea through.

"Our metal craft is greatly behind Earth's." Leon did have a second boon, he could root a target in place for thirty seconds after marking them. It had a cooldown of course, but it might work. Root the doorway in place so it wouldn't rip apart anything else, and use the knockback effect to snap parts of it. Although Wade wasn't certain that would work either.

"Maybe we pick it open with a free magic spell of some kind?" Wade considered.

"We need to find mana potions or a catalyst in the armory anyhow for half the build ideas to work this round. Might as well start the wizard party early." Spells were limited to imagination and maybe he could imagine the internal forces needed to open a lock? In hindsight, he realized that might not work. Wade stared at the lock, then at the door frame, trying to figure out how to get through without breaking the bell itself.

"Leon."

"Da?"

"The lock's shut tight sure, but do we actually need the door at all after this? I'm the new owner here, I say I don't like this doorway and would rather an open-office layout, you know what I mean?" Wade had his eyes fixed on the other end of the wooden doorway. While the bell had a pretty constricted design, the doorway itself remained rather standard, which included some innocent looking hinges. He tapped one of those hinges.

"I mean really, don't these just look awfully breakable to you?" Leon grinned back. Eri clicked his jaw behind them both, hands held behind his back like a sergeant looking over two misbehaving grunts. The two here had been taking their sweet time, and the skeleton prefered to get things done the proper way. There was the sound of metal being unsheathed and Eri stabbed his greatsword directly into the lock, right where the deadbolt would be.

It sliced clean through like he'd stabbed a pen into paper, the blade glowing blue from his favorite enchantment. Zin's voice came out on the phone speaker, laughing.

"Little life lesson on trying to be clever about every solution here, kids. You have a professional golem hunter. Who hunts and kills golems. Which, I hear, are made of metal." Eri clicked his jaws a few times, pulled the weapon back out, then reached the handle and gently swung the door open, letting it do the rest on its own inertia. He clicked his jaws, sheathing the bulky weapon behind him, patting imaginary dust off his hands.

Beyond was a simple desk, an armory, and other oddities that Wade was certain would fit a sailing ship of the line from the victorian age. Minus a sphere globe on the desk. It even had a feather quill pen. And more importantly, there was something on his HUD that was highlighted right over it. A single white circle, hovering right over the second drawer. Identify Extraction Loot Spawn"Hell yes, now I see how it works!" Wade raced right in, and opened the drawer up. The moment he did, it was like a jackbox surprise.

Some kind of item leapt out of the drawer and hit the ground, with a trail of white behind it. There, it hovered over the ground, circling in place, still glowing white. Wade ran Identify. Tarnished Flask (Low Quality)"Uh, what's a tarnished flask?" Wade asked, reaching a hand down to touch it. The moment he did, it was as if all aspects of the game vanished, since it dropped straight down on the floor and stopped glowing white, turning into a mundane object.

"... Is there anything special about it?" He brought it up, and it smelled like metal on the inside. Completely empty as well. And rather rough on the edges, looking more like it was handmade rather than done by a machine.

"Hah! You got vendor trash, el-oh-el!" Play said, floating further down the hallway, slowly rotating upside down, doing the only job she was supposed to do.

"Better luck next time~" Well. Luck giveth, and Luck taketh. There was still those copper lootboxes left to get once they ransacked through all these old papers and figured out what this entire operation was up to.