The Great Hero is a Schoolteacher

We found bushes on either side of the main door, reasonably far from the upcoming blast. We hid behind them as best we could. Then Catalin looked at her hands and whispered strange words that I couldn’t understand. It felt weird to be the only person able to decipher magic signs that were invisible to everyone else, and yet, not to catch a single word of an incantation. Weren’t both related to magic? Weren’t they different parts of the same language?

Apparently not. Or perhaps I don’t understand the words because they’re part of a spell, and my natural power prevents me from ever using them.

Catalin held out her arm as if to catch something, and turned her hand slowly. Over there, the doorknob moved as well.

There was a loud noise, like a supersonic shockwave, and everything in front of the door flew away as if ripped by a storm. The combination of sounds was deafening. Branches torn from a shrub fell into the water, and our boat danced on a sudden wave.

“Don’t hurt my baby!” complained Taiki.

We stayed still for a while, lest something else happened, but that part of the pink forest came back to normal. The buzzing at the back of my head was gone. Even the birds started singing again.

I stood up from behind our bush, relieved that I’d been right about the spell, but I still needed one last check before we stepped inside.

“Can you try again, Catalin, please?”

“Of course.”

This time, she could push the door open without causing any unpleasant effect. The spell that had protected the house for so long was no more. I let out a sigh of relief.

“It was easier than I expected. I guess we can put our shoes back on and begin searching the place.”

We gathered in front of the entrance. With all shutters on the first floor closed, it was too dark for me to see inside.

“It looks calm,” commented Taiki.

I narrowed my eyes. “Can you see in there?”

He shrugged. “Not very well, of course, but I’ll always be amazed at how blind you humans get, as soon as the light dims a bit.”

“We’re not blind,” answered Chess. “We just have a different sense of sight.”

Of course, if Tibuns look like cats, it makes sense for them to have cat-like night vision. But it is true of Zimeons as well?

I turned to Catalin. “What about you? What can you see?”

She smiled. “The entrance hall is narrow, there are doors on either side, and no stairs in sight.”

“Okay. You’re better than us, both of you.”

“May I still summon some light?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Catalin.”

The little ball of light flew before us in the corridor, revealing whitewashed walls that were barely damaged by the ambient dampness. There were dark traces in the corners of the ceiling, but nothing more alarming. A minor case of black mold.

I crossed the threshold with Chess at my heels and the others following. There was no sound inside, save for the occasional creaking of wood. A smell of mold completed the impression that no one had come for decades, and that the house was being slowly reclaimed by nature.

“This place looks so normal!” commented Catalin in a disappointed voice.

Taiki snorted. “What did you expect?”

“Something grander. Turoch Garnet was rich and powerful, so why is this house so ordinary?”

We found a kitchen behind the door on the left. The stove had certainly not been used for decades and the cupboards looked about to become home to a new form of intelligence. Chess tried to open a drawer, but Catalin shook her head.

“If it’s stuck, leave it in place! It’s certainly not what we’re looking for.”

So we went back.

On the other side of the corridor, we found the dining room, complete with a long table, chairs and a large cabinet. Paintings were hung on the walls, but they were moldy, so even though we could see which were portraits and which were still lives, we couldn’t recognize anyone.

“Can you sense any magic? “I asked Catalin.

She coughed softly.

“No. Can you?”

I shook my head. To be honest, this feels more like plain old urbex than like an adventure through a wizard’s hidden place in search of a secret spell.

Taiki crossed his arms and waited as we opened every drawer and lifted every cushion we could find.

“Are you done looking for clues?” he asked after a while.

I chuckled. Is this urbex or an escape room after all?

Catalin frowned. “Al? Is something funny?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain… There’s a form of entertainment where I come from, where you must find clues and solve puzzles in a given amount of time.”

“And if you don’t?”

I was taken aback by the question. My mind stayed blank for a second, and then I answered. “You lose, that’s all.”

“It doesn’t sound very fun.”

That’s probably because nobody faces real danger in an escape room, whereas, here, we don’t know what dirty tricks the old man left to protect his place.

As I was about to look under the cabinet, I realized I probably wouldn’t find the code to a hidden padlock there. We were here to save the Brealian kingdom. I couldn’t let my mind slip away.

“Let’s visit the rest of the place.”

The last door, at the end of the corridor, was locked. Chess tried to force it open, but it resisted.

“Catalin, is the key on the other side?” they asked.

My fiancée focused, muttered strange words, and then she shook her head. “I can find nothing to operate, sorry.”

“Can you pick the lock?”

“I’m not experienced enough.”

Taiki hit the door with the palm of his hand. “Then what good are you?”

“Hey!”

He startled and I realized I’d shouted. I needed to make my intentions clear.

“Please, we’re in this together and I just can’t let you snap at Catalin like this!”

“Okay, Great Hero Al, but what do we do now?”

I had three clueless faces in front of me. Three companions, all younger than me, who were expecting me to make a decision, since I was the one who brought the team together in the first place. I was the adult. I was the teacher. I was the hero.

I sighed. This door looked just as ordinary as the others.

“Is there magic around?”

Catalin shook her head.

“Then let’s assume the door’s not trapped,” I decided. “We’ll hit it until it breaks.”

We took turns kicking the door near the lock. Chess asked if they could ram it with their shoulder, but I refused. It was too hazardous. I didn’t want to deal with a dislocated shoulder in such a remote place.

When the wood was damaged enough, Taiki used his sturdy twin knives to finish the job. He broke the lock and opened the door.

“For the love of all, what the…”

I looked around and understood why he was so confused.

The room was a workshop. A woodworking workshop that ran all along the back of the house, with high windows and a raw wooden staircase leading to the upper floor. The shutters only hid the lower half of the windows, so I could see all the woodworking tools lying around, as well as a collection of saws, planks, and unfinished metal frames. Half-disassembled chairs and tables lay in the corners, in such a chaotic pile that if one of us pulled out a beam, the rest would probably fall over us. I frowned.

“And what did a wizard do with all these tools?”

Chess shook their head. “Perhaps he liked a bit of manual work in his free time. What I don’t understand is, why was the door locked? There’s nothing valuable in this room!”

“No, but this room leads to the upper floor.”

I looked at the raw staircase. According to the book in the University of Magic Arts, the symbol on Kossi’s neck was reproduced in a stained-glass window in this house. We’d seen no stained glass, so it had to be upstairs.

Catalin ran her round-tipped nose over the metal frames. “There’s magic around, but I can’t pinpoint it. I wonder what it is.”

“It’s okay, Catalin. Let’s go.”

The corridor on the second floor had three doors, but only the one on our left was open. Daylight flooded into a room with a wooden floor, filtered by the pink canopy, and also by stained-glass windows. My heart pounded when I found out that one of the patterns was very familiar.

“Hello,” I said to the window. “There you are.”

It was the exact same symbol I had seen on Kossi’s neck and memorized with Cherub’s help. I stepped into the room before anyone had had time to tell me otherwise.

Something intangible shifted. I couldn’t tell what, or how, or why, but the reality I was standing in was slightly different from the one before. I turned around. My three companions were still here, and none of them had turned into a more exotic creature than they already were. The change had to be more subtle than that.

“Did I trigger a spell or something? I didn’t see any glyph, but I wasn’t looking for one.”

While Chess and Taiki shook their heads, Catalin winced. “I’m not sure. There’s magic energy in this place and it’s not very stable.” She stayed at the threshold for a second, then her eyes brightened and she joined me in the room. “This must have been Turoch Garnet’s study. Look at these books!”

There were bookcases on either side of the windows, magnifying glasses, several chests along the walls and a writing desk. A faint smell of beeswax remained in the air, although the room hadn’t been cleaned for a long time.

Well, symbol on the window! What can you tell me about the spell I’m trying to dispel?

Apparently, nothing. It was just a nice stained-glass pattern. How could I read a glyph over the door, that nobody else could see, and fail to understand another one that was clearly visible to everyone?

All right, Alicia. I’m not letting mild confusion stop me. Just think!

I breathed slowly and deeply.

The person who’d ordered this specific pattern had to know what it meant. Therefore, Turoch Garnet’s work had to be instrumental in understanding how to free Kossi.

“If we can find anything about the spell that subdues the dragon, it must be in this room. Now, how do we proceed?”

Catalin looked at the shelves. “Not every tome in here is a spell book. Let me check.”

She began inspecting the bookcase on our left, removing one volume at a time and putting it on the floor after a quick look. “History treaty, plants of the mountains, lives of renowned sorcerers…” At this rate, it would take her a long time to inspect everything.

I wish I could help her, but I don’t think I can tell a spell book from a regular one. What can I do while she works?

I exchanged an uneasy smile with Chess. Taiki, on the other hand, was already checking a map displayed on the wall. I felt useless and I hated that. This was my quest, my power, my mission. I couldn’t let a magic student do all the work for me.

Are there any books in the chests aligned near the wall?

I opened the first one and found a bunch of pens and ink. Perhaps they could still be used, but I doubted it. Was there any paper on the writing desk? I turned around and looked.

Hey, what’s that, at the bottom of the desk?

I knelt down and looked closer. That was magic all right: a symbol that glowed softly, right there on the wood, neither engraved nor painted, just… there.

“I found something!” I told my companions.

I looked hard at the symbol. Come on, little spell, tell me your secrets, what are you here for?

A secret drawer, invisible to the human eye. A hidden mechanism that could only be triggered by saying the right words, woven into the spell by the wizard himself. What were they? They were hard to read, even with my power. I double-checked before saying:

“Dona Sasinth, Turacor Liu!”

Chess gave me a strange look. Catalin startled. But the drawer slid open, revealing its content: a precious-looking book, bound in leather and engraved with leaves. I held out a hand, ready to take it, but Catalin screamed.

“Don’t!”

As I looked at her in astonishment, she rushed towards me and gave a long look at the book.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “It’s his personal grimoire. Given Turoch Garnet’s rank, he must have cursed it, to make sure no one got away with touching it.”

I squinted. “Excuse me? Isn’t it terribly dangerous?”

“Not to him. Let me get something…”

She looked around her, but before she could move, Taiki handed her a piece of fabric.

“This should help,” he said. “As my dad says, ‘Always keep a handkerchief’!”

Catalin used the fabric to take the grimoire, wrap it and slip it into her bag. Then she took a look around. “It may not be the only spell book in this room. Al, do you allow me to check a little longer?”

“Of course.”

Loud thud. We all jumped on our feet.

What was that?

The sound came from downstairs, and whatever made it sounded quite heavy, and possibly quite angry too.