Ghost Town (II)

"Search somewhere else, we'll leave the creepy-looking door for later, okay?" he said, before picking her off the ground somewhat effortlessly.

~Her curiosity is going to be a thorn in my side, but I still need her to convince the people of... Southport to trust me,~ he thought to himself before gently putting her to her feet.

"Continue searching the closet, there might be something hidden inside the pockets," he said after some thought, before proceeding back to the table to continue his searching.

Apart from the pocket watch he had found, there didn't seem to be much else of use on the table. There were of course a few other bronze tools -of which he had no idea what their functions were- that he pocketed. He had no money on him right now, so he was going to take whatever looked to be of value to trade for later.

~Huh, what's this?~ he thought to himself, as he noticed a piece of what looked to be a drawing underneath the pile of parchments.

With a single sweep of his hands, he pushed the parchments onto the ground, revealing the drawing that was trapped underneath.

~A map,~ he thought to himself, noting the huge X that was signed on it.

~So we're over here,~ he thought to himself, his finger resting on the large X.

It was positioned to the southwestmost region of the continent that was drawn, just a small distance away from what was called 'The Doomed Oceania'.

~Bordered by an Ocean deemed The Doomed Oceania on three sides, I'm not sure how I feel about this,~ he thought to himself.

The town called Southport sat perched on a piece of the continent that seemed to protrude into the ocean.

~Still, the detail on this map is impressive, it's almost like it was rendered by a machine,~ he thought to himself as he inspected the rest of the map.

The lines were sleek, the letters were square and of the same size, and the different depictions of natural formations were beautifully drawn.

~Hmm, this isn't the complete continent, though I suppose that's what you have to give up to have this much detail,~ he thought to himself, realizing that the map borders ended unnaturally.

For reference, the map covered the entire table, which was about 2 meters long as it was wide.

"Mister, I found something," Afina called from her side of the room.

Edric quickly folded up the map, and stuffed it into the pockets of his cloak, before scanning the table to see if he had missed anything. After he was comfortable that he had taken everything of value, he proceeded to Afina.

"Look," she said, holding up a clay doll.

It was a masterfully crafted cat.. well if cat's had nine tails.

"It's a Bastet," Afina explained in an excited tone, holding the clay doll up with a sort of proud look on her face.

~Is this shock? Is she trying to dissociate from the situation we're facing?~ Edric thought to himself. 

Just a few minutes ago she had seen someone's squashed eyeball on the ground, and now she was proudly showing off a doll as if she were the one who made it.

"Wait, what did you just say? Bastet?" Edric asked, trying to remember where he had heard that word before.

"The Queen's people. You know what a Bastet is Mister, aren't you from the capital?" Afina replied, playing with the Bastet doll on the ground.

~The Queen's people? The capital? Hmm... it seems this continent, or country at the very least is run by a Monarchy. And what do you know, an acquaintance of mine is from the same race as the Queen,~ Edric thought to himself with a smile.

He could already imagine how much influence he might be able to pull if Edrea would be open to working with him. After all, much of business was about who you knew. Very many people had the brains to think of a business idea, but very few knew of the right people to help them execute it.

"Are we going to look through the door now?" Afina asked, apparently having lost interest in the doll already.

~Or maybe she just has a very short attention span?~ Edric thought to himself, as he moved towards the trap door.

"Stand back," he warned, before placing his ears to the door to listen for movement.

Honestly speaking, he wanted to leave the trapdoor alone. However, it would be dumb to leave a potential treasure trove untouched merely because he was scared. That was the way of the impoverished idiot, the truly wealthy were risk-takers.

So after he was certain nothing was moving under there, he slowly tugged at the trapdoor's handle.

~Locked, huh,~ he realized, before applying even more force.

The trapdoor began to creak, and the wood it was made from slowly began to splinter. Until eventually...

It snapped into dozens of pieces with a thundering crack.

"You're strong Mister," Afina said with an impressed expression on her face.

"Good job," she added, before patting him on the back.

~This girl...~ Edric thought to himself, before inspecting the dark hole that now lay in front of them.

~It's that smell again,~ he thought to himself, as he squinted his eyes in an attempt to see what was in there.

After a few moments, his eyes adjusted, allowing him to make out the silhouettes of whatever was down there.

"Get on my back, we're getting out of here," he shouted.

"Wha-" Afina was about to say, before Edric picked her up, and rushed out the front door.

"Of course, it's gone and set off a whole... thing," he mumbled to himself, as he noticed a black mist permeate from all the doors of the village cottages.

Just then, he heard a twig snap from one of the trees to their left.

"Wait!" he shouted, instinctually ducking to the ground.

A split second later, a bolt of black energy went zipping just above Afina, who was hanging on for dear life on his back.

"What's going on Mister?" she asked, her eyes closed in fear.

Just then, a guttural moan emanated from the house they had just fled from.

"Well Afina, as my people would put it... we're fucked."