Chương 30

The secret door closed behind Oliver, once again sealing off the opening to the wine cellar. He quietly whispered his findings to Ben as he crept down the passageway. The drone remained silent as he explained about the hidden tunnel. This was perhaps a bad idea. Or it could be a very good idea. If the vampires were all on high alert, searching for him throughout the castle, then him being in this tunnel would keep them off his back.

And maybe his killing of their pet tree would lure out any dangerous foes from within this passageway. Or maybe the vampires would be more actively trying to get from place to place using this passageway. It was a gamble. But Oliver at least liked the fact the tunnel was narrow. If he did encounter a foe here, they wouldn't be able to gang up on him easily in a fight. They'd be forced to face him one at a time. The passageway was entirely built from cold stone.

The tunnel was winding, with peepholes scattered throughout several different locations of the castle. Only three of those peepholes had lit rooms though, all of which revealed little of note. Without a means in which to see in the dark, there was nothing to be gained from pressing his eye up against the other peepholes into dark rooms. The drone's lights were far from enough to illuminate the dark rooms on the other side of the stone wall, even the ones with multiple peepholes.

He did have his fairy ring which he could use to summon brighter light, but he wasn't about to use it now and risk bringing attention to himself. The tunnel wasn't always the most even walkway. On three different occasions, Oliver tripped over uneven stones that stuck out of the cobblestone floor. Only his high dexterity prevented him from faceplanting on the hard floor. After a few minutes of walking, a light revealed itself ahead of him.

Oliver cautiously continued forward, shovel in hand, and found himself staring at a single, magically lit torch. It emitted a cold, blue flame that flickered and cast long shadows. It marked a fork in the secret passageway. A path to the left and a path to the right.

"Which way should I go?" Oliver muttered to himself. After a moment's hesitation, he decided on the right tunnel. For no other reason than he was right-handed, so it felt correct to his gut. The path he chose slanted upwards after a few dozen paces. That meant he was returning up to the main castle. Probably not ideal. He contemplated turning back and taking the other route, but then Oliver encountered a roadblock in his path. A flat slab of wood.

Curious, he felt the hard wood until his hand brushed up against a knot. He pressed in and there was another click as the wood swung toward him. That was probably a reckless action. He should have done a better job of checking his surroundings first." Slink," he said, activating his skill at the same moment he slid the glowing drone piece into his pack. No response from within the room. Even without the drone out, there was still some sort of light source in front of him. So at least he wouldn't be blind.

He stepped through the passage's threshold and found himself in a massive library. Rows and rows of books cut across the room's walls. Shelves lined every single wall and expanded into the center of the room, forming a labyrinth of literature. Scanning the bookshelf he'd exited he took note of the fact he'd come from the architecture section of the library. He supposed it made sense in reference to secret passageways. A dark red book hung out of the shelf at an angle.

As the shelf closed behind him, sealing the passageway off once again, the red book popped back into its position. So, it seemed all he needed to do to activate the passageway's door mechanism was to pull that book out. Good to know. Cautiously, Oliver stepped out into the library to explore for a minute. Ben wanted him to find a server. He now stumbled on a location with a lot of information at hand, it would be foolish to move on, even while on a time crunch.

If anywhere in the Nightmare Biome held clues as to where the server might be located, Oliver assumed it would be this room. Large stained-glass windows let in beams of moonlight from high above. The largest of the windows depicted a vampire with long white hair and two streaks of blood dripping down his pale chin as he stood with his arms outstretched, as if welcoming all into his fold. At his feet, mortals were on their knees. Behind him, only corpses.

Oliver was grateful for the light, but would have largely preferred a mundane window pane. The vampire's gaze felt like it pierced through his very soul while he rummaged through the library's shelves, searching for any hints about hidden stashes of treasure. As he flipped through the pages of the eighth promising tome he'd found, he finally located a few informative passages. The writings described an ancient treasure of warm boxes made of smooth steel that hummed.

It was said to not activate its powers until the last days of mankind and that it would be the savior of all in the world. Specifically, it stated the treasure as 'the categorical keystone in the future of our existence.' If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. To Oliver, that description sounded a lot like a room full of servers. And, if the end of the experiment was the end of the biomes, he supposed it was likewise the last days of the world.

An accurate description, as far as he could tell. Naturally, the next thing he did was try to find the treasure's location. It took several more minutes of flipping between the index and passages, but his search bore fruit. And, of course, the servers were buried deep beneath the castle keep, down in the mountain he currently stood on. Just as Ben had surmised. However, Oliver did, at least, gleam one more additional bit of information on the subject. The treasure was said to be located inside the mountain.

That meant underground, not in the castle itself. He muttered the revelation quietly as he read out loud for Ben's sake. Then, before he reshelved the book, he took one final look at the author's name. Yinyan Zheng. That gave him a moment of pause. That was not a typical name he encountered here in his biome. He hadn't heard of anyone with a name like that since his life before the experiment. With that oddity, he decided to slip the book into his bag for further study at a later time.

Preferably when he wasn't actively lurking about inside a Vampire Lord's lair with bloodsuckers on high alert.

"BOOK THIEF!" The booming noise shook the library, knocking books off the shelves. Oliver spun on his heel, trying to identify the speaker. The yell came from all around him. The books on the floor flipped through pages rapidly as if caught in a typhoon's gale.

"DIE THIEF! DIE, DIE!" Then Oliver realized it wasn't a vampire confronting him, but the books themselves. They began to assemble themselves into an amalgamation of paper, fluttering across the room at break neck speed. Oliver narrowly dodged one book smacking into his head. Within half a minute, a golem of paper and glue loomed over him.

"I don't suppose I can just put the book back?" Oliver asked. The golem bellowed at him, a hundred books opening and snapping closed in unison. It swiped with a massive arm, as if in an attempt to backhand him. Oliver threw himself to the side and the golem's attack instead smashed into a book shelf, destroying it. It stepped over the wreckage, a pile of shattered wood and paper.

"You're doing a lot more damage to books than me taking one volume," Oliver pointed out as he vaulted over a smaller shelf in an effort to put distance between himself and his opponent. The golem didn't bother with a response to his quip. And a moment later, Oliver understood why. The broken shelf behind the construct reassembled its broken pieces and slowly reformed. The books floating up returning to their original positions. There were clearly enchantments in place to keep the books from damage.

Stealing a book was a problem altogether different from physical damage. Which obviously resulted in a golem as the preventative solution. Very likely, there was some sort of passcode one could say to shut the thing down. Unfortunately, if such a thing existed, it remained a mystery to Oliver. He rolled, dodging another strike by the paper golem. Before the golem could reel back for another strike, Oliver spun his shovel in his hand and let the blade of his weapon slice into the arm of the golem.

His additional Strength attribute points allowed him to cut a fair bit into the reams of paper, but not nearly as far as he would have liked. He only barely managed to yank his weapon free in time to avoid a follow-up punch by the golem's other arm. After a split second of internal debate, Oliver decided that his blunderbuss wouldn't be useful in this fight. A single bullet wouldn't do much against this type of construct.

And, unlike the tree outside, the paper golem showed no visible sign of weakness to silver when Oliver sliced at it with his shovel. Even if it had, he suspected the golem could easily dislocate a single book embedded with his bullet before the silver poisoning had time to spread. Oliver desperately wished he had some sort of fire ability. Between this paper golem and the tree outside, it would have been an invaluable asset. Not to mention flames as a natural weakness to vampires.

Maybe on his next class choice there would be some option like that for him to spec into. For now though, he lacked the damage necessary to take this enemy out.

"I should have asked Ben for a flame thrower," Oliver muttered to himself as he dodged a book projectile thrown by the golem. The tome snapped closed by his ear with enough force that the disruption in air pressure made his balance queasy. If it had landed, it likely would have smashed bones. As much as he'd love to get the experience from killing this golem, Oliver hadn't survived the Nightmare Biome for years by taking stupid risks. At the moment, he lacked a viable means in which to defeat this opponent.

It was time to retreat. The golem charged, flailing its arms in his direction. Pressing his shovel into a crack in the floor, Oliver forced himself back with the full brunt of his Strength. Missing him, the golem crashed into the bookcase, sending out a cascading domino effect across several of the shelves in the center of the room. They crashed to the floor, spewing books everywhere. Oliver vaulted over a toppled bookshelf.

He cleared it just in time as it magically replaced itself, and then made a mad dash for the secret passage. As he reached out for the red book lever, another tome fell from the shelf and pelted him right in the face, knocking his head back. Still, he managed to yank the passage's lever down and slip inside, slamming the secret door closed behind him. There was some banging, but the golem didn't manage to penetrate the door. Oliver let out a sigh.

He removed Ben's drone for light and carefully wedged the stolen tome into a secure corner of his shoulder bag. Then he tasted the familiar iron taste of blood. He touched his upper lip and retracted his hand to see the blood stained the tips of his fingers. While no serious damage had been dealt to his enhanced body, that last attack had given him a bloody nose. Staring down at his fingertips, Oliver cursed. Blood and vampires were a notoriously bad mix.