《The Awakened World》Vol. 2, Ch. 53 : Searching through a madman's belongings

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After Thomas dealt with the woman, whose name was apparently Care Nottworth, we continued towards the rundown alley in which Madman operates. A sign that reads, 'Closed until further notice,' hangs on the door.

I share a glance with Thomas whom nods, and we both kick in the door. We find that the once dimly-lit room now has no light to illuminate the space, with the exception of the doorway.

My Presence Detection is telling me somebody is in here, but I can't find their exact location. It's like a bad radar; it just tells me the general location, and it doesn't help that the skill is detecting everyone else here too. "Where's my money, Madman? I know you're in here!" Thomas decides to be brazen and kicks a nearby cabinet.

The others walk inside and begin picking and prodding whatever they find. Midas, for some reason, is sniffing the air. "Heh. I smell something…"

Rose pokes a skull. "Is it the drugs?"

"No. Well, I do smell that; it is quite pungent, but something else." He presses against the wall, tapping at various spots, and scouring something. "Thomas, can you break this spot?" He marks a point on the wall in pen.

Thomas nods and punches through the drywall. Midas reaches through the hole and picks out a wallet. He rifles through it. "Hmm, any money and bank cars, if any, have already been looted, but there's still a City ID." He shows everyone an ID that belongs to one Amos Graves.

The photo is really unflattering. He's kinda unlucky to have sneezed during his photo. However, we should probably focus on the fact that he has a City ID, and, more importantly, I can now track him.

Midas hands me the wallet. Hmm, I smell Midas, the drugs of Madman, and something like…rotten. I think that last one is Graves. Either that or there's something dead in these walls, though I wouldn't be surprised.

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"…Why am I the sniffer dog if you could easily find his wallet?"

Midas turns up his nose. "I can only smell things of value. As Thomas has stated, Doctor Graves has accrued debt, and as such, I will have trouble locating him by the scent of money; he's not even worth investment, apparently."

"…*cough*" Silence fills the room, except for a lone cough. Wait a minute. Nobody here coughed, so where did that come from?

Sophia grabs a nearby chair, and begins prodding the roof with it. Eventually, she finds a trapdoor that leads upstairs. A ladder falls down with a crash.

"This feels familiar," Rose mutters.

"Probably the fact that we're inspecting a suspicious sound from an attack in a Nazi-infested city. I'm just speculating here," Midas replies in a mutter.

Thomas climbs up the rickety ladder with a creak on each step. When he arrives at the top, his left eye lights up like a flashlight and illuminates the attic. I follow after him, but before Sophia climbs up here, the floor gives a little under our weight.

"Right," Thomas says. "I think—and this is just my thoughts—this floor isn't up to code, and it will collapse under any more weight or sudden movements." Sophia quickly jumps off of the ladder.

Skulking around, we find various…things. Like old things. Does Madman collect antiques? I think I saw a Van Gogh around here somewhere.

I open a chest to find a single item inside: a golden thing. I'm pretty sure it's an old oil lamp. It…calls to me. Beckons me. I…want it.

Out of nowhere, Thomas grips my wrist and stops the momentum of my hand, breaking my concentration. "Wha- What?" I blink a couple times. Dang, what was I doing? Oh wait, searching.

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Thomas closes the chest carefully. He points at the keyhole and the mercury-like Nanobots flow down his arm and they morph into a key, locking the chest. "Be careful. Madman practices some questionable magics. There's no doubt that anything up here can be cursed, or, at the very least, harmful."

I continue my search with vigilance. There's a cloth covering a statue of some kind. It's a stone statue of an angel, but it's not like most welcoming angel statues you would find. No, it's crying. Weeping one could say.

"Doesn't seem cursed," I mutter.

"You can't say for sure unless you got some skill in Dark Magic," Thomas calls out from the opposite side. "Huh, weird mask." He holds up a heart-shaped mask with yellow, beady eyes. Golden spikes protrude from the lavender base. There are etchings too, but they're kinda faded.

I turn away from the statue and continue digging. I find a cabinet large enough to stand in, but it's kinda imposing. Thomas walks up next to me and eyes the cabinet.

"I can detect Spatial Magic on this thing, but…it's broken. Like a drain with no end, this Spatial Magic leads nowhere. Probably has a twin somewhere out there, but the state of this thing means it's probably destroyed."

He looks closer. "Actually, this instability could probably send you anywhere in the city, at least. Don't know where you'd end up though. One could have their head show up in a toilet."

He steps back. "…And the magic has been activated recently too. Whoever was up here, possibly Madman, used this cabinet to vanish. Oh well. Let's just use that wallet and chase after Graves. Yeah?" He doesn't wait for an answer and jumps down the ladder.

I take a few steps down the ladder, but something seems off…

Did that statue move? It was crying earlier, right? Now it seems kinda scary with its pointed teeth.

Eh, probably just my imagination.

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