The Truth - Part 5

As the time ticked by, all four of the girls waited till night had really settled in.

Each one was doing their own thing. Philly was writing in her book as you would expect. Lyrika was pretty much just on guard, looking and listening out for anything suspicious. Ameril was just lying in the bed relaxing, trying to get used to the oddity of having a bed after sleeping in a tent since she fled. And last but not least, Olivia was just watching Felixia, having plopped it on the bed.

Felixia was still very much in a state of slumber, still worn out from its battle, so Olivia saw no reason that they couldn't just leave it on the bed as they went out to search. Even if Felixia did wake up, it shouldn't be able to leave the room, so it would just have to wait for them to get back.

Hopefully, Felixia would continue to enjoy its slumber, as before long, the moon was high in the sky, all the lights were off in the village and it was time to roll.

Telling Philly to stop writing for the day, Olivia headed out of the room, locking it once Philly was out, with the tiny iron key that was in the keyhole. It made sense that high-profile guests staying in a place like this would want to keep their doors locked, so as to keep thieves out.

She made sure to check down the hallway, and the stairs in case there was anyone around, but as far as she could see, it was completely empty. All that was left, was to head to for the room that Lyrika and Ameril were in to get things started.

…

"Okay, I think we should start searching for information about the chief. Let's go."

Back out the door, they headed down the hallway towards the stairs. As they did, they passed by a couple of rooms, which they split up to have a quick search through. These were not the rooms offered by their host, but a few on the other side of the hallway.

One was locked, so Ameril got to work using her locking-picking skills, with Lyrika standing by.

The other, if anything looked like the lock was busted. Questions arose over how the lock got busted in the first place, but it was probably an irrelevant question anyway. With this massive manor and the small number of people in this village, it could have been broken for ages and just wasn't repaired.

Silently opening the door, Olivia poked her head in to see if the coast was clear. Seeing nought but the shadows of the curtains from the moonlight, she headed in with Philly trailing.

The room was dusty. It hadn't been used in quite some time, and Olivia was surprised that bats or moths didn't fly out at them.

It looked to be an office of some kind. At its centre was a desk, along with a rather large and comfortable chair. On the sides of the room were bookcases, completely covering the walls, filled to the brim with books and various pieces of paper. All of which was just caked in dust.

As they looked around, only one thought ran through Olivia's head.

'There has to be a secret door here.'

It was childish, but she was just imagining the satisfaction of pulling a book down and seeing one of the bookcases swing open, revealing a tunnel or something.

Finding it, if there was one, would be difficult though.

For Philly on the other hand, with her nose no longer in her book, she was forced to help with their investigation. Which as it turns out was a very good idea.

"Looks like whoever worked here had quite an interest in history," She whispered as she picked up a blue book just randomly off a shelf, "They had books on all sorts of historical events, but a lot look to be about battles fought between humans and beast-kin."

"Makes sense I suppose. I hadn't heard of wars between Beast-kin and any other race, so for books about it to be here isn't out of the ordinary."

Olivia said that, but it was as she started looking through them…and pulling each one as she did…that she noticed what Philly did.

"There sure are a lot though."

Philly agreed. It would make sense if there were a few, but a good number of the books were accounts of wars and battles between the two races. If this was an office, shouldn't there be an accountant book or even just books about management or other such things. Did they just come here to read about old battles.

It was the same with the pieces of paper and scrolls that also adorned the shelves. A quick read of a few and they looked to also be related to the wars, with snippets of accounts of what happened, or just lists of names, likely people that had died in battles.

It felt like this room was a museum.

'The question is then, did the previous chief of this village use this room. Or was it someone else or the chief before him.'

It was a little unsettling, as who ever used this room, definitely had an obsession over the war between beast-kin and humans.

As they continued to search, having no luck in finding actual information on the new chiefs plans, they heard the door to their room open, followed by two beautiful girls entering.

"There was nothing in that room. Looked to be a reception room or something. Its all just ruined and dusty now though."

Octavia then explained what they had found, or rather, didn't in this room. This was followed by Philly starting to head out with the girls into the hall and continued on their search.

"Wait, shouldn't we check for secret doors," Olivia voiced to the group. "I mean, if you are keeping something important, having a room hidden by a secret door, or just a small place to stash something would be the way to go."

The girls all mostly grew a quizzical look. All aside from Ameril.

"That is possible. I recall there being a few in my Manor. Although they were not used to hide documents or the like. It was more to allow for romantic rendezvous to occur between guests that should not be doing such with each other."

No one really knew how to respond to that. But thankfully, Ameril just smiled and headed further into the room in search of such a door. The rest all soon followed.

What then proceeded was a good five minutes where they all started to pull bookshelves slightly. Olivia brought up the whole book and the mechanism thing, but the silence and confusion she got in return told her everything she needed to know. They were a little too early in terms of technology for that sort of thing. It was likely going to be a mechanical lock behind a book that needed to be opened to access the secret room, rather than a switch or something.

Before long, Lyrika came across a bookshelf that was a little misaligned with the rest..

"Ah, look over here."

They all gathered, and Olivia moved into to help. Pulling down a few books, they found the lock, but like the one on the front door, it was busted as well. So, all they had left to do was pull the bookcase the rest of the way, which revealed a door.

"I knew it." Olivia almost shouted, causing embarrassment to show on her face as she thought she said it just to herself.

Reaching forward, Olivia took the doorknob in hand and pulled the door open, finding the sight of another room before them.

Olivia was elated, sure that this place would provide some information on the new chief.

That is until she heard Lyrika and Ameril sigh.

"It's the room we were just in."

"Wait. What?"

In all the excitement of finding a hidden door, none of them had realised that it was in the direction of the room next door.

After that embarrassing discovery, they all headed back into the hallway to continue with their search, hoping to put that mess behind them.

…

Heading down the stairs, the lightest of foot Lyrika, took lead.

Silently, she headed down the stairs, low to the ground to look around below to see if anyone was about.

With a shake of her head, they knew the coast was clear, and so they followed after her, trying to maintain the same silence that her footsteps gave. For Olivia however, the slight sounds of creaking annoyingly ended up being the soundtrack of her footsteps.

A whispered sorry over something she had no control over, and they finally made it down the stairs. This was then followed by the checking of nearby hallways, and the like to see if anyone was nearby. Which again, came back as being completely empty.

"I wonder where his two guards are. I would have thought they would be waiting outside his room?" Olivia raised to the group.

Raised eyebrows were the response before Ameril brought up some unseemly insider knowledge.

"Well, if he thought he was going to sleep with one of us tonight, then he probably would have sent them away. I remember seeing a man I was to be engaged to do the same with one of our maids."

"Wow, that's…horrible."

It was a conflicting feeling for Olivia, which is why she paused before saying horrible. On the one hand, for the man to do something like that when he was supposed to be getting engaged to Ameril was just terrible. But on the other, it also meant that Ameril and he didn't end up getting engaged, so it was kind of good.

Ameril however just gave a dignified shrug before carrying on. "It was, unseemly. But thankfully I was able to use his dalliance against him, so as not to end up as his wife."

Nobles huh?