A Dark Past

Bailey walked through the door of the building looking around inquisitively, he'd read that the Combat Halls of Adventurers were unique throughout the world – some even had mechanical constructs used in sparring.

Of course, they were no use in simulating fights between Adventurers and beasts but they weren't meant to be, sometimes the beasts weren't the most dangerous encounters in the forest…

'There's always going to be people trying to take advantage of the worst situations…' He shook his head as he thought, in the outer edges of the forest apart from beasts encounters with other Adventurers had been the most dangerous.

Most of the Adventurers could've been considered moderately wealthy if they could make a name for themselves at the time this, of course, led to jealousy among some of the groups that weren't as well off so they started to prey on other humans.

Killing people and taking their belongings became their source of income behind the façade of an Adventurer, historically some of these scum had even managed to sliver their way into the ranks of nobility during the time where kingdoms scattered the continents.

Most of them had been executed during the period of the Emperor uniting the world, of course, it was reasonable to assume that a few had slipped through the net and many had descendants in the ranks of nobility even today.

But, this could be called an open secret of the Empire, no-one was in a rush to expose these families as to survive until now they most likely had a few trump cards of their own.

Forcefully dragging his thoughts back to the Combat Hall he was standing in he shook his head lightly, 'The history of these place isn't important, what's important is if it still functions.' Bailey thought to himself before hurriedly searching the dark room for a switch of some kind.

"Ah!" He said with delight, after having found a switch in the corner of the room, he pulled the switch instantly without a second thought.

Several seconds passed but nothing happened, frustrated he was just about to pull it a second time when part of the roof crashed to the floor. "Oh crap!" His voice full of shock as several more pieces of the roof seemed to collapse in on itself.

After a few moments the falling pieces seemed to stop, with the extra light from the new 'skylight' he could clearly make out what they were - they were caked in several layers of dust but they were windows of some kind.

It was a miracle that the glass in them hadn't shattered, either that or the windows weren't made of glass – either way it was obvious the switch he'd found was to open a skylight rather than activate any sort of mechanism.

However, with the addition of the light shining through the hole in the roof of the building it was easier to see what was in the room – it was spacious with several signs of cuts and 'wounds' the building had suffered over the years it was in use.

Everything in the room was caked with layers of dust, 'Always a good sign...' Bailey thought to himself as he saw all the dust. The fact that dust still littered the rooms was evidence that nothing had managed to make its way onto the platform in recent years; it was even less likely that any beasts had somehow managed to make their way here either.

Looking around the room Bailey didn't seem to spot anything out of place or more specifically anything that looked like a switch or button that'd activate another mechanism. What he did spot, however, was a corner of the room with practically no signs of battle.

An interesting fact considering that nearly every other corner and part of the room had some sort of battle-worn appearance, with this in mind he made his way over to this corner of the room with a hopeful expression on his face.

The corner was nothing out of the ordinary apart from the wall being made of a different material than other parts of the room – the room was mainly made of a type of metal that Bailey couldn't identify but this corner was made from wooden planks.

Considering this Bailey could only think of two possible options for this change of material. One: They'd simply run out of the metal they'd used to create the rest of the room – unlikely considering the entire platform was made out of the same material.

The more likely was the second option: There's something hidden behind it.

Bailey was more inclined towards the second option, it was the most likely and the one he was most hopeful towards, by honing his skills against mechanical puppets it wouldn't matter whether he was fighting beasts or not his overall combat standard would be more refined regardless.

"Come on... This has got to be it." Bailey mumbled to himself, there was a look of hope in his eyes as he looked at the wooden section scanning the entire portion of the wall for some sort of switch or button.

Hidden on the floor in the corner, shaded by the darkness of this portion of the room, a lever connected to the floor was hidden. Baileys' expression lit up instantly upon seeing this, if what he'd read was right if the puppets were here they should still be in working order since they were made out of the same type of metal was the Adventurer outposts.

With that hope in mind, he pulled the lever and waited, he could hear noises from the other side of the wall as it slowly began to rise. He waited impatiently as the wall slowly began to rise.

"What the-!" Bailey dodged in shock, a metallic fist punched out from behind the still rising door, aimed at his chest it'd almost hit him.

Behind the wall, a fully metallic puppet stepped out and walked towards him, a wooden sword in its hand, without giving Bailey any chance to react the puppet had already started to charge at him – stabbing towards his chest.

"Hold on!" He shouted, sweat already beginning to drip from his forehead - the puppet struck at a speed faster than anything he'd ever seen before, it took all of his energy just to avoid its first strike.

'Looks like I'll be using 'that' earlier than I'd expected…'