56. The Tower 7

"So you are saying that once the door closes one day in here is like a year outside. So a hundred years it roughly three months in here. So if that door closed time would jump ahead very rapidly for anyone outside."

"Yeah it could have been really bad."

"Glad that I was close enough to hear."

Crystal looked around again. "What exactly is this place Berry? This magic does not feel like anything I have felt before now that I am in here."

"We are in a dimensional space that they laws of time were altered. Let me look around for a few minutes." Berry walked over to the first set of cages and Rurik stood in the door and waited for them to come out. He was not very interested in what was going on as long as it was not a threat to him.

Everyone but Rurik was following behind Berry, close enough to react but far enough to be out of the way. The got close to the first containment area and huge hunting cat threw itself against the barrier trying to get to them. The barrier threw it back and a cloud seemed to surround the cat as it stood up. Crystal let out a gasp. "That is a mutated hunting cat from the shadow realm. I am not even sure what to call it."

Berry was looking at something else. She felt the power of the barrier and knew that it would take a divine level dragon to get through it. Well maybe not that strong but no normal creature was going to get through. "Crystal this looks more like it is from your area of magic would you come and take a look." Berry pointed at the food and water barrels that were in the front of the cage.

Crystal came over and saw that while it was not truly divine magic it was based on the principles of divine magic. "You are right. Well close enough to be considered right. They are each enchanted with runes that mimic divine spells that make fresh water every day as well as something similar to a hero's feast spell. But it has been modified to be the preferred food of the creature that is eating and not only that but it is on a rotational basis. It was way stronger than anything that I or anyone that I know can do."

Novum looked around and saw that there were several different areas that seemed to be holding animals. One of the areas looked like a swamp. "So this place is in a time stasis or close enough that the animals are not in danger, and the barriers are strong enough that we are not in danger, correct?" Berry and Crystal both nodded. "Okay then. Rurik how late is it getting to be?"

"Almost dinner time."

"Then let's head back to the dining room and set up for the night. We can eat and get some sleep and we will start fresh in the morning. And we will go straight to the 4th floor."

Crystal replied, "I think that is a pretty good plan. Especially since that cage over there is giving me the creeps." She pointed to the cage that the swamp was contained in. The other girls looked at the cage and nodded in agreement.

They did not bother with any tents or anything and the did not bother with the kitchen and built a small fire in the dining room. The food in the kitchen was still there in some of the pans and they did not want to clean everything just to use it. The spices that Novum brought from the city went perfectly on the snake that they killed as they were coming out of the lake and into the tower. They set up a guard with Topaz, Rurik, and Novum taking the longest shifts so that the mages had enough rest so that they could have a full compliment of spells for the day.

The next morning the crew headed up the stairs to the fourth floor with a little bit of excitement and a little bit of fear. They were not sure what to expect on the next floors. They proceeded up the stairs in the same order as yesterday and again one o the first things that Topaz had to do was call everyone forward.

"Hey this is written in a language that I do not know and I need someone to come and read it. The door is safe to open to the extent that I can find no traps and it does not appear to be locked but yeah not sure about the sign."

Novum was the closest and moved forward and read the sign beside the door. It was in the elven language and he had no trouble with it. He read it out loud for the rest of the group.

'Greetings guest. I apologize that I did not meet you when you came in but I am in the middle of some research. Please feel free to come to the fifth floor to meet me. Before you move forward I need you to be aware of the special circumstances of the 4th floor of this tower.

As you already know since you are a guest here, I am a master of both time and space. (Not really a master, but I always wanted to say that.) The next floor of this tower is one of my biggest experiments and my biggest accomplishment to date. It is a culmination of everything that I have spent the last two hundred years learning.

When you open the door it should look like a full country manor with orchards, animals and farm land. There are even people working the land. This is an attempt by me to make a new future for all creatures of the realm. The physical resources in this room are the same as the resources on the outside of the tower. I have simply simply shrunk them down and put them in here. Then the ground outside the tower will need minimal work to be put right and then you will have twice the land to work. The beauty of this is that the resources necessary after everything is shrunk down become a fraction of the resources necessary for a normal farm.

I have rambled more than long enough. So what you really need to know is that when you step though this door you and all of your equipment will be shrunk down to around six inches or so in height. If you try to go back out the door that you came through you will stay that size. The only way to get big again is to walk through the door on the opposite side of the farm. And it works that same way when you come back.

I look forward to seeing you soon and hope that what you see might make you consider investing in the future."

Novum shook his head. "The only damned reason he put this note on the door is to sell the product on the other side. And he made the doors so that he had a captive audience. They have to go and see him if they want to get big again. This is a....I have no words to describe how crazy this is."

Erica looked at Novum with confusion. "This note was left here as a sales pitch? What does he even mean that...you know what never mind. What do we do?"

Novum thought for about a full minute. "We open the door. If it looks like he said it looks then we know that at least part of the information is correct and we can proceed. If something is wrong we may have to test the waters a little bit to decide how to proceed."

Erica looked at him again. "So if the inside looks the way that he described it you are willing to trust that the magic works the way that he said and that we will be fine once we walk out the other side? That is some lunatics' level of trust there my friend."

Topaz spoke up. "Not really. Think about it, he wrote an entire sales pitch for his mini farm. There is no way that he would allow anything to go wrong with the magic in this room if he was trying to sell it to someone. The magic in this room is probably the most stable in the tower. Erica would you be willing to do part of the work on something that you were trying to sell or would you make sure that absolutely everything about it was working."

"I guess you are right. That does make more sense. I mean the entire thing is a little crazy but it makes sense in a way."

Novum reached out and pushed the door open. As he did the scene in front of him made his jaw drop. It looked exactly like a large manor farm just really small. He could see the huge, well huge in comparison, manor house. There was also barns and grain storage and all kinds of different buildings. What amazed him the most was a small ball of fire suspended in the sky that looked just like a small sun. He also saw a few clouds floating. They seemed to go to one side and then disappear. He expected them to just show back up on the other side but they didn't and after another minute a cloud nothing like the first one appeared.

"Well he was honest. Let's go." Topaz started to step through the door.

Novum grabbed her by the neck of her armor and picked her up. "Don't rush in just yet. Right now we have a huge advantage. We can draw a full and complete map of the area that we are going into. It would be rash to just run in without taking advantage of the situation. You are a locksmith you should know about taking advantage of the situation."

"I....you are right. I was just a little excited. This is awesome."

Novum and Berry both pulled out pieces of paper and Topaz and Erica held out the ink for them. It took quite a while but they were both taking their time and writing down not only the things on the map but also a lot of notes on things that they were seeing and even how things corresponded to the things around the room. They were not sure what they would see once they were in the farmlands and had to be sure that they could find the door to get out.

They all took turns looking over the farm as well even if they were drawing the map. They all had different perspectives. When Crystal got close to the a chill ran down her spine. She could sense a dark magic from within the farmlands.

"Novum I have a bad feeling about this. I am not sure what it is but something in the farm is not right."

"Not right how? Is the magic unstable?"

"Not that kind of not right. There is something evil living here. I don't know how else to put it. Just evil."