55. The Tower 6

All of them looked at her. Novum broke the worried silence. "Okay now that we have eaten and rested Topaz would you please lead the way to the second floor, or at least through the other door."

"Right away boss."

Topaz led the way out of the room and then looked over the door one more time and then opened it up. There was a set of stairs that went up. Topaz went up a few steps and then Novum followed behind her. There was another gap of about five steps and then the rest of them came up the stairs. They wanted to keep a gap just in case something happened. Close enough to react but far enough to be out of range if there is a trap.

Topaz got to the second floor landing and there was only one door that she could currently see. She looked over the door several times and then finally she grabbed the knob and twisted the door open. As soon as the door started to move she felt that she had missed something and a bolt of lightning was coming at her face. She quickly dove down the stairs and Novum caught her and put himself between her and the lightning bolt. She was far enough out of the way that she would not have taken damage. But since she was not properly prepared she would have taken a lot of damage from the fall down the stairs.

"Nice catch Boss. Thanks. I am not sure what I missed but that man was not playing around. But you know now that I think about it, the door may have been just like the silverware downstairs. It might be fine if he had touched it so that makes it a lot harder to find and disarm. I will have to keep an eye out for that type of thing."

"That is probably a good idea. Go ahead and check it again and take a look around inside but don't touch anything. From the smell that came out of here it is probably a lab of some kind. I will have Berry and Crystal check it out. You are only to check for traps. Remember don't touch anything."

"I got it boss don't touch anything that is not really shiny." She gave Novum a smile as she checked the frame again and looked around the room as she went in.

"Berry, Crystal it appears to be an alchemy lab or something like that. Could you come up and check it out and see what you can figure out. And maybe quickly, I told Topaz not to touch but..." The two women quickly hurried up the stairs and into the lab.

Berry was in the room first and she was a little surprised to see that Topaz was walking around looking at stuff with her hands behind her back. Once she saw that Topaz was not touching anything she took a moment to look around the room and was amazed at the room. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, exactly. There were even spots drawn on the tables to mark what went were. The jars on the shelfs were the same way and each had a label in exactly the same format.

Berry was looking over a few of the jars and had completely quit watching Topaz. Each jar was labeled on three different languages and one of these items was from an animal that she had never heard of. She also saw the names of some plants she was not sure what they were or where they came from. One of the names was familiar like when you see someone you know but you can't remember where you know them from. Then it clicked. This plant was only grown in the abyss and could not be grown outside of it as far as she knew. This plant was worth as much as a medium sized village.

Crystal saw that Berry was absorbed with the shelves so she closed her distance to Topaz. She saw the girl looking over the shelves of ingredients with mild interest. She was not an alchemist and without taking these things to one she would not understand the value of them. She was not above taking them but she was not sure that the juice was worth the squeeze.

Topaz spotted a set of trunks in the back corner of the room and made her way back there. Crystal was right on her heels. "I need you to stay back a little bit Crystal. I need to look these over, given where they are they might be empty or they might contain magical creatures or something. You never know in a place like this."

"Just take your time. The lightning bolt earlier put me on edge a little bit."

"Put you on edge. It almost hit me. But it also put things in perspective for me. I will take my time and look very, very carefully." Topaz moved to the first trunk and started looking over every part of it. She was not touching only looking for now. Crystal saw her looking and stepped back out of the normal range of a spell, just in case.

Topaz looked over the first trunk twice and then a third time from a different angle, the one where it was directly linked to the owner. After her third time finding nothing she opened the first truck. She was on the balls of her feet ready to dodge, run, or roll in whatever direction she had to. The lid of the truck fell all the way open as its hinges were old leather and had probably been worn out long before this room was sealed.

Crystal looked over her shoulder. "Berry you should come and take a look at this stuff."

Berry heard her name and realized that she had been zoned out for a while now. "Okay." Berry walked over and saw that the truck was full of books. Some on them had writing on the spine and some were so old you could only see where there had once been writing. "Is it safe to pick one up?"

"I checked the truck three times on the outside and did a quick scan of the inside while we waited on you. I found nothing."

Berry slowly reached out and picked up one of the books without a title on the spine and looked away as she pulled it out of the trunk. When nothing happened she blew out a long breath and looked over the book. She read the title and then froze. Topaz and Crystal ran over to her and checked her out. She did not seem to be under any enchantments or spells of poison, she was just in shock. Topaz shrugged her shoulders and slapped Berry in the face. The blow brought her out of it.

Berry read the title and realized what she held in her hands and froze in shock and fear. This simple book, well it was not simple book, a single chapter had went up for auction at the arcane tower a few years ago and a mage that bought it had paid a large amount of platinum as well as two spells that were considered of the epic tier and only able to be cast by those of the highest power. They had both been original spells carefully developed and researched by him. And he had given two of them up for a chapter of the book she now held in her hand. She could barely even think and suddenly the side of her face was on fire. Topaz was shaking out her stinging hand.

"Thanks, Topaz. Baron I need to talk to you for a second."

Novum walked over. "What is it Berry, is everything okay?"

"Guess that depends on your definition. This book needs to be kept secret. If anyone finds out that you have it the most powerful mages in the realm will be at your door trying to get it. Through coin or murder, at this point they would not care."

"What is so important about the book Berry?"

"I have no idea. I only know the name. Honestly I do not even want to open it and read about anything. I am just going to put it back in the trunk and leave it for you to deal with. I recommend that you find a powerful mage, throw it at him and run like your life depended on it."

"I will consider that as an option. Let's lock the trunk back up and then leave everything here. We will pick it up on our way out. My portable hole is starting to get a little fuller than I like and I do not want to take the time to reorganize everything until we are sure that this place is safe."

"That sounds like a great plan." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Okay Topaz lead the way."

With a nod Topaz was out the door and headed up the stairs. She came out of the room so fast that Rurik who was still on guard jerked around to see if something was wrong. When he saw her grin as making him jump he knew that everything was okay. He stepped back to let the others by and Novum was quickly moving in case Topaz did something and needed help.

Topaz was looking over the door and then just before she reached the handle she stopped and checked again. It was not that she spotted a trap but something about this door felt different than any other she had seen in this tower. "Ladies could you come and have a look at this door as well please. I do not see any traps or anything like that but something feels off."

The three magic users came up to the door and Berry and Crystal put a hand out and reached towards the door. Berry was the one to break the silence. "You are right Topaz this door opens to an extradimensional space. And I may be wrong but it feels like it has been time warped. Crystal?"

"Yeah you are right Berry. I am not positive on the time warp but I can tell you that this opens up to another dimension. Probably something that was created by the master of the tower for a specific purpose."

Berry looked at Erica. "Step closer and put your hand out." Erica did as she was told and about the same spot in the air where the others hands were at she felt something. It was not like a wall but she could definitely feel something. "That is the magical energy that contains the power of the door. You feel how it does not feel like part of this world. It does not feel like any energy of this world. It does not feel like the energy that we take in when we rest."

"Yeah I feel how it feels different."

"That is one of the ways that you can determine what magic if for. This time the energy feels like it is from somewhere else. If it was a fire mage the magic would feel like ours but it would be warm."

Crystal nodded in agreement with both the information and the way that she took the opportunity, one that did not come along very often, to teach the young mage about magic. "Now do you feel how there are like ripples in the magic. Like someone threw a pebble in the pond."

"Yeah."

"We are not sure, as this branch is not as exact, but this is what makes Berry and myself think that time magic is involved."

Berry gave Crystal an appreciative nod. "That is enough lessons for the day. Now we need to open the door and see what we can find on the other side."

"So you guys are good and I can open the door?"

"Let us move back just a little bit then. You know just in case." The girls moved back behind Novum and waited on the door to be opened. Topaz was ready to move and opened the door. Nothing happened and they moved forward. The magic casters went in first and Topaz was right behind them.

Novum stepped through the door and looked around. There were lots and lots of cages. They were not small cages but more like habitats that would would see in a zoo. Berry was looking around and saw some runes beside the door on the inside. "Wait! Don't let the door close."

Novum was the closest and dove towards the door. Just before he could reach the door he knew that he would not be able to stop it. Rurik pulled the door open from the outside. "Did you guys say something?"

"Perfect timing Rurik."

Berry let out a long breath. "There is a time warp in here and it is crazy. It is about a year to day. But it is only once you close the door that it is active. It is actually a pretty impressive piece of magic."

"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."