Chapter 14: The Rooms

For the first time in months, I am going into his room. It's for the good though, right? I'm going to need money if I want food, so I have to do this. I hesitate a bit, then finally I open the door. It was the same as always. The bed was a mess, there were papers all over his desk. The bookshelf was half open. Sometimes I wonder if he's the child.

I walk into the room. At least there wasn't a bunch of crap on the floor. I search for Simon's money stash. He has to have money doesn't he? I look below the bed, only a carpet. I look for any clues of where he could've hidden the money. I search his desk. All of them are just pieces of paper. I was about to go look somewhere else, before something caught my eye. It was a piece of paper that had writing on it.

I pick up the paper. "Capital's Magic School is Open to Commoners Now! Join Today!" was at the top of the paper. I continued reading. "After fifty years since opening, the school only let nobles in. But on this year, starting a new century, the school is now open to everyone."

[Orion: That's cool.]

"Although you must be 12-14 when you join, no less and no more, this is a five year program..." From there it was basically an entire essay about if this change was good. I got down to the end of the paper. "Just sign down below and you'll be able to take the test to get into the school. Each person is two platinum coins to take the test, and to stay at the school is three gold coins per month, this also covers meals. Each school year starts on the first day of the eighth month."

Below that I saw that Simon had already signed it. I wonder if this was going to be my birthday gift. But I'll never know now.

[Orion: How much are platinum and gold coins?]

I'll just ask Martin when he comes back in two weeks. But I need to find the money first. I put the paper on top of the other papers and continued my search. Not long after I found another piece of paper with drawings on it.

[Orion: Blueprints!]

They weren't blue though, but I don't know any other name for it.

[Orion: Goddamn it. How do you read these?]

I try flipping the papers all over the place. To see if it looks familiar. Then I saw it. An arrow pointing to the top saying, "Trapdoor under my bed".

[Orion: The carpet! That's why he had a carpet in such a weird place.]

I looked over to the bed and I noticed that there were scratch marks from the legs of the bed, almost as if someone moved the bed several times.

[Orion: I am stupid.]

I go over to the bed and shove it hard. I then picked up the carpet from the floor, and sure enough there was a trapdoor underneath.

I lifted it. There was a ladder that reached the ground of the secret room. I climbed down the ladder. At the other side of the room were four chest. That was it. This entire room and there's only those four chest.

I open the one to the far left.

[Orion: Wha- What?! How?!]

This chest alone was filled to the top with copper looking coins. There were at least thousands of these coins. I go to the next chest to my right. The same thing, but with silver coins.

[Orion: Who were you Simon?]

Even though I don't know anything about this world's currency, I can tell that this was a lot more than the average person.

I go to the next one. To the top with gold coins.

[Orion: I'm guessing that from left to right is the order of how much the coins are.]

To the next one I go. There were silver coins again, but they had a different brightness to them. Are these platinum coins? The chest was filled to the top with the coins.

[Orion: I guess I don't need to worry about money for quite a while.]

I laughed. Is this what karma is? In exchange for Simon dying, I get a bunch of stuff? No, it's just a coincidence. Nothing more, nothing less. I quickly get out of the room.

[Orion: I wonder if there are any other secret rooms I don't know about.]

I continue to look for more blueprints. After a while, I found all of the blueprints and it seems like there is just one more secret room.

[Orion: To the living room I go!]

In the living room it says that one of the bricks on the fireplace lead to a secret room. I press on all of the bricks starting from the bottom. By doing that I found the brick, it was seven bricks up and three over from the left.

As I pressed it, the fireplace started to lift up.

[Orion: Woah! I didn't know that this world was this advanced, then again they do have plumbing.]

As the fireplace finished, it revealed a spiral staircase leading down. I lighted a torch and went down, the stairs didn't go that far down. When I walked into the room, light shined from the walls. I put out my candle and set it down. There were a lot of things here I didn't even know where to begin.

I went around the room looking at all of the different things. There was armor, weapons, rings, wands, staffs, and other items. I grabbed a hat looking thing and put it on, it was cool but it didn't do anything. I went to put it back and that's when I saw writing from where I picked it up.

[Orion: "While wearing this hat, you can choose to look like anyone you want. You will turn back to normal if the hat is removed." That's so cool. So do all of these things do something?]

If I went through all of these items it'll take to long. I decided to go through these another day. I walk back up the stairs, press the same brick and went back to my room. I don't need to worry about food for tonight since Martin gave me the food basket.

[Orion: Things are turning around, huh?]

I said sarcastically before dozing off.