Evan eased open the door to the pool house. “Okay, first off. That door should not be open like this. That means we’re likely to find something in here. Whether it’s an animal or one of those things, it’s a tossup.”
“Good to know. So, there are two floors?” Larin walked into the first space carefully. Evan stayed behind in case something jumped out at them.
“There’s a small basement where we keep the pool equipment and machinery. But other than that, the most space is between the two floors. Upstairs is just a single room for quiet reflection, as Aunt Esme called it. Down here are rooms to change, and a space to entertain pool guests. The thing is, most of this space is bright and airy. If what you sa
“Now the great hunt for these ruins. I have no clue what they want me to do with ruins. Well, it all depends on how much of the building still exists. Even cave entrances need to have a ward placed on them. But it’s finding them. How are we to find them with these maps? None are to scale, and half of the symbols don’t have an explanation for them.” “Hugo, it’s less about what the symbol means and more about what we bother to investigate. We don’t have a clue what is out there. What has cropped up? Or how the land has changed. All we can do is cover this land as best as we can and deal with things as we get to it. Isn’t that what Gemma and Larin want?” “More information would have been nice.&rdqu
When Evan’s light slid through the inky darkness of the room, the two men heard the hisses and grumbles coming from the shadows. “That’s what I heard the night I came here. They’re in there. How are we going to do this?” “If you can hit the far wall with the light, we can see if there’s a door in there or not. No door, then I’ll ward this place and come back to clear it out later. Otherwise, we need to clear it out now, ward the doors and then get out of here. I don’t want those things rushing us. So, we’ll do one wall at a time, then return the light to the centre of the room. Go clockwise.” The room’s walls bore niches, and, within each niche, the men could see shadowy forms that p
“Now that we’re done eating, we really need to talk about several things. Or I’m afraid someone will walk into a dangerous situation because they just didn’t know. I will assume everyone else is in the same mindset as I am. Okay, I’m going to start with Mr. Winters, knows something weird is going on here and wants to stay out of it as much as he can. The same families basically run the town council and the local university control board. They aren’t happy because an unknown donor to the university is insisting on turning this place not into a museum, but into a paranormal research facility. I don’t know what that means for us in the long run, but I doubt it would be good. I couldn’t get any of the repairmen to visit for at least a week. So, we have time to quell the Fear Monger situation and the warding issue. I’ll turn this over to Becky and she can tell yo
“Okay, we’ve found several flashlights stored in various places of the cottage. However, I can’t guarantee how long the batteries will work. But we’ve taken some of our rechargeable batteries from various techs we have and gave them a charge. So, make sure you take replacement batteries. Evan, we’re stuck with our phones as flashlights. I’d recommend while we get ready for this that everyone charges their phones. We should go into two groups where at least one person has a phone so we can communicate if need be. Is that alright with everyone? If we use three groups right away, they won’t have a weapon with them. Later, when we find these weapons, we can revisit the groups.” “I have a mass charger in the computer room through there.” Becky pointed to the breakfast roo
Gemma and Evan paced the basement floor while trying to listen for sounds from the tunnel. The two men only left them minutes before this for a destination that no one knew how far it was. Gemma’s only consolation currently was she heard no sounds of falling or fighting. “We need to know where that goes and where those things went.” Becky shook her hands as the tension got to her. “Why am I waiting for the other shoe to drop?” “Because at every turn, so far the other shoe has dropped. I’m hoping that we’ll run out of shoes.” Gemma responded to her friend’s comment dryly. “I just want some good news. How are we to get these things done with all this looming over our heads? It’s not like we can tell the restoration people they can’t work right now because we
Finally, the small group began their search. Clearly, the entrance was not as easy to discover as the one in the basement. Gemma thought perhaps there was no secret room. They spent a lot more time searching for the entrance, to no avail. No one discovered anything out of place. The walls appeared solid. There were no odd cracks between the stones that might outline a door. Fancy trim, creatively hidden as a wood panel no wooden door. “Okay, this is ridiculous. The door isn’t here. We’ve looked everywhere for all entrances.” Evan sat down on a trunk. “We know there’s a room right there. The measurements of this room prove that.” Becky stated the fact, which was obvious to everyone. “I agree we’ve chec
Gemma watched Larin step into the soft glow coming from inside the staircase. He soon disappeared down as the circular staircase turned around on itself. Hugo followed Larin. The small width of the staircase cramped the men and Gemma assumed the two could not fight in such short quarters. A moment later, Larin’s voice rang out from somewhere below. “It’s all clear. They warded this place up tighter than any place I know. Everyone can come down, but be careful and don’t wander or touch anything. We don’t know whether they warded anything with a curse or trap of some sort.” “Well, that’s a comforting thought. Don’t touch it or it might explode in your hand or kill you.” it did not impress as much Becky as Gemma thought she would be.
After several minutes passed, the glow faded, and Angelica looked up. “You’re in luck. Whoever wrote this journal didn’t use magic on it? Which means you are one lucky guy. Your backside is in the clear.” Evan noticeably sighed with his relief, then rushed over to open the book. “Oh, great, it’s not in English. Actually, I’m not sure what it’s in.” Becky moved over to look at the chicken scratches on the pages. “Looks like code or shorthand. Not surprising. Many scientists choose to do that or dictate voice recordings to make notes. It’s faster.” “Lovely more research and translation. Just what we n