Alright then. Today at 7 pm is a briefing in front of the house. Not exactly sure why they do that. I am perfectly fine with the booklet anyway. Having time until then, I leave my room and explore the warehouse and library of the building.

++++++++++++++++++

In the administrative building.

The building of course is a tower. A lot bigger than the one in Osmor and it also looks fancier. The runes at the sides of the walls don’t look as complicated as the ones on the airship, but still somewhat more than then the one in the rock resource zone. No idea why exactly. It doesn’t look like a good investment to put a gib fat and expensive tower into the middle of nowhere. Even for the war that has begun.

Coming to the resource section, I inspect the stuff, which is available for redeeming.

Wow, it is a lot more than is Osmor tower. The variety is basically 2 to 3 times. Some are more expensive, there are even some special local products, like Redgroom mushrooms, Allstar lotus and more. These two were just the more expensive. Costing more than 300 points to obtain one. The Allstar Lotus is supposedly nourishing for the soul, I imagine another misconception here like that mind-calming artefact I obtained earlier. Something worth looking into. Redgroom Mushrooms are herbs very useful for making potions as main or secondary ingredients. As a secondary ingredient, it is only used for the inborn mana of the herb. Some absorb innately fire mana or water mana, with no special or unique properties. Those can be used to strengthen or weaken a property of another herb. Most herbs fall in this direction. Redgroom Mushroom in comparison has a special property. It can either be used for a very strong minor invisibility potion. Similar to my shadow concealment, but way more potent. The other use is to drink it as a propellant for the breakthrough to the 3rd stage. Like the formless mage potion I used, but for individuals with dark or shadow affinity. The potion for similar affinities like dark and shadow can be used by both, but with different effect. A potion made from Redgroom mushrooms works best for dark affinity, but also works for shadow affinity, albeit a bit weaker.

In my opinion, Allstar Lotus is more precious. The mushroom had been pushed to its prize mainly because the most mage apprentices in the organization specialize in dark and shadow magic. So it isn’t very strange. A waste if you ask me. Why no of the bigger organizations grabbed it yet is unknown to me. Maybe because of different naming conventions? They simply don`t realize what it is and an apprentice level herb is not worth the effort of properly identifying it.

I should look through the other cheaper herbs, maybe I can make a quick buck there. Who knows?

My badge heated up while I was looking through the list. The same thing happened when the airship came in the Osmor tower, so I made my way towards the assembly point.

With me were other ones who made their way, but most of the people just stayed put. This just concerns the new batch.

+++++++++++++++

Outside the tower. Already 2-3 thousand apprentices were waiting when I arrived. They all kept a meter or two distance, while most were in a group. Apprehension was in the air.

A grey-haired old man floated atop the crowd and begun his speech.

“Good afternoon everyone, Some had an unfortunate accident while arriving, but luckily most made it here safely. So First, This Tower is the centre of trade through the mountains. You don’t have to concern yourself with it, just don’t attack any caravans. The fighting will take place inside the ruins. Not the way we repurposed on the top. Second. Never and I say Never try to infiltrate the enemy camp on the other side. In case you try. You will die. On both sides are two mages, in this case, me, overseeing things. In the range of the Tower, they know everything. At least everything you can throw at them.” He paused for a bit, seemingly taking a breath.

“Another change we made for the time of the war is opening the library to every apprentice fighting. It has a much bigger variety than most towers, except the main Tower maybe. So don’t get killed, yadda yadda and have fun” With that, he flew away into the tower. Not caring about us anymore.

I believe that it is a leadership thing that they let the Mages appear whenever something major is about to get announced. They could make perfectly do with an apprentice, but this way, they have more of a wow effect. Not that they would call it like that.

Walking away from the tower zone, I go to the cafeteria and restaurant section. What I didn’t see before were the small stalls further back the alley. In a small piece of land where some huge trees were growing, merchants set up booths for their wares.

Walking around, I spot three very interesting booths. One of them sells spices, one nuts and the last is selling waffle-like food.

My first stop is at the waffle station. It has a rather clever mix of contraptions and heating stones to function like those Belgium waffle makers you could buy in the shops on earth. Where you could rotate the waffle iron. He has something similar, but bigger, more complicated and it looked much more impressive. Behind the counter, a female gnome is sitting.

“Hello what can cheeros cheery waffles do for you? Do you want some waffles? You are at the right place, we have all the waffles you can imagine.” She sais. Very enthusiastic. Before she can continue with her monologue, I stop her with a raise of my hand.

“How much for a waffle?” I ask.

“We have different kinds sir apprentice, some with strawberries or other fruits. Today we received a packet of chocolate. That would, of course, be expensive sir” She sais and shy away a bit after mentioning the chocolate. It seems that chocolate is prohibitively expensive, like it used to on earth 700 years ago, before the industrial revolution.

“I take one of each,” I said. She looked shocked for a while, then made all of them fresh in 3 minutes. I very appreciate that. After paying a big prize of 1 gold and 2 silvers. Most of it was for the chocolate, I left towards my room to make myself ready for my first exploration of the ruin. Somewhat forgetting about the other two stalls. After the waffles, I decided that I rewarded myself enough, they should still be here later.

PART 2

The waffles were really good. Much better than the one on earth. Even the so-called flavour optimized ones were by far inferior. Back to important stuff. I prepared some rope, some pieces of metal from a blacksmith. For trying out traps and stuff. I imagine they might be useful. At least computer games told us that. The others were a but load of scrolls, I have of the most important ones like fireball, soul shield, etc. 50 each and for the other between ten and twenty. The newest arcane scroll is not included yet. I haven’t had enough time to go through it. Next were 2 robes with protection runes inscribed into it and 3 others without any inscription. Standing around naked would be a very dangerous thing to do in the catacombs of an unknown powers stronghold. Next were potions and ailments for all kinds of thing. Poison, anti-dote, something for health, something for mana etc. This time, with the big amount of points I got for selling all the loot I acquired until now, I proudly purchased a barrier artefact. This is superior to normal defence artefacts. My reason for buying it is two. One for defence and two to capture some animals alive. Live animals can be sold for heavy money in the tower. Especially the ones from the ruin. The only thing is that it is hard. Most of them feel them in darkness home, in comparison, I don’t. So the second option will be only a theoretical use. I don’t think that I will ever use it.

The last thing was a backpack I got for camouflaging my storage equipment. I know that I have been a bit stupid with my caution until now, some people might already have a suspicion about me having a storage equipment, but not enough to make any moves, until now that is. There is no way to investigate anything about the death of an apprentice inside the ruins. Whether he had been killed from the same side or not.

I also lack friends or people I cooperate with. That is completely my fault. Talking with people not under my control is a very strange feeling. I don’t mean literally controlling them like my enslavement spell. It is also about knowing people good enough to have the ability to predict their reaction. Something Nelton might have noticed. Whatever, he is at least on the best way to have a cooperation with me. I am not gonna complain about that.

Leaving the dorms, I walk towards the entrance. The distance is only about 10 minutes on foot. No need to invent mopeds yet. Successfully ignoring everyone, I walk towards the guards guarding the entrance of the ruins. There were two different entrances. On the left was the one for the actual ruins. The second on the right is the artificially remodelled tunnel towards the other end of the mountain. They cut off part of the ruin, separated it and made this tunned. Luckily, most of the vital infrastructure with the loot is deeper in the earth.

“reason of visit?” the guard asks bored, but still respectful.

“The war, here is my badge,” I say. I am about to hand him my badge, but he just winks me through without even looking at it.

“Alright,” I say, then move into the ruin. Honestly, the first couple of kilometres weren’t very exciting. They were mossy, stinky tunnel slightly downwards. I am certain that this isn’t the only tunnel into the ruin complex, but this seems to be the only one found due to a failure in the ancient formations or other things. Still unsure what they exactly use for stuff like this. The Order prefers formations, but on the ship, I met plenty of mechanic apparatuses. At least knowing how basic Engineering works is good for me. If I want to build artefacts later, I might be able to buy some springs and other stuffs. They would be a pain in the butt to make. Even with that mould metal spell. I already found out a bit about its limitations and springs were one of them. The tunnel continued without anything noteworthy for more than 4 kilometres. Then I came into small-sized champer with different tunnels going from there. This part is still very close to the entrance, so there were some waypoints.

Most read like speculations, some were more clear. Like dorms or laboratories. Some were purely speculative like assembly hall or kitchen. Rooms which look the part, but could also be other stuff.

The information I received from Nelton also rated those ways according to danger. Dorms were moderately trapped and dangerous, the library and laboratory were heavily trapped, thus they were very dangerous. I decided to go into the direction of the dorms. I don’t wish to risk it going into very dangerous areas. Unfortunately, this chart only talked about the danger of the ruin itself, where the enemies are still a mystery.

But I strongly believe that the strongest would go into to the more dangerous places. There were still some stuff to loot from newly opened hallways.

The others had basically no loot and where the main area of the war will be.

Made up my mind, I glug down a potion for seeing anything in the night and continued my way towards the dorms.