Ray glanced around Pyron’s office. He cautiously approached one bookshelf and read the words on the spine, unsure what to make of it. “Where do we begin?”

  “Typically, I like starting at the desk,” Tucker said, walking towards the old wooden desk. His fingertips brushed under the edge of the timber. “There could be hidden switches or other useful clues that we’re looking for. But we should split up and search what we can without making too much of a mess.”

  “So… I should check the bookshelf then?” Ray asked.

  “Yes, but just be careful of any loose fabric that’s connecting the books to the shelves.”

  “Huh, why?”

  “Because it could be trapped,” Tucker replied. “I learned that the hard way with Salamander.”

  “His lessons really came a long way.” Ray inspected the books before making any moves. There wasn’t anything that stood out at first sight. Just your standard library with tomes and studies that any ordinary mage would have.

  He read the titles out one after another. The Study of Mana. Foundations of the Soul. A Guide to Braille. Biology of Constructs. Every single book here seemed to be just your average tome that one would collect as a hobby. Yet the only difference was that the Guide to Braille had small circular bumps on the surface. Besides that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the mage’s office.

  “I honestly can’t find shit,” Ray said. “Do you think there could be a hidden door behind the desk?”

  Tucker looked over his shoulder at the rigid stone wall as he opened the drawers. “You would have to check. Try pushing in the stone bricks or something.”

  Ray grinned. “That’s a bit cliche, don’t you think?”

  “You’d be surprised how often it works,” he replied.

  Tucker stared at each open drawer and couldn’t find a single clue as to what could lead them to Pyron. There were a series of notebooks, pencils, erasers, and other desk novelties. But nothing that would scream out at him, call his name, and deliver him the answers he craved. He pulled out the notebooks, flipping through the pages in a desperate attempt to uncover something, anything for them to use.

  With no other choice, Tucker carefully channeled his essence and scoured the room. Each thread searched every nook and cranny of the shelves for hidden compartments. But after a moment, nothing came up.

  Was this really a dead end? Could they have been misled the entire time?

  Tucker’s gaze sharpened, and placed the notebooks back where he had found them. Yet, as the wind essence left his fingers, he felt it. The faintest bit of wind was escaping from the bottom of the open drawer. His eyes focused on the compartment. Something was underneath it. He was sure of it, but as his hand touched the wooden plank, it didn’t budge whatsoever.

  He kneeled on the floor, looking beneath the drawer to see a small circular hole. One that was perfectly round.

  “I found something,” Tucker said. “There’s a small hole at the bottom of this drawer.”

  “Like a keyhole? And beneath a drawer of all places?” Ray couldn’t hide his confusion and kneeled down beside Tucker. “Should we rip the drawer out and flip it?”

  “No, there has to be something here that can be used to open it. Besides, if we did something like that, there’s no telling what kind of trap would activate.” Tucker looked at the objects in the other compartments. “Sometimes it’s hidden in plain sight.”

  His gaze drifted from the objects before landing on a pencil. Tucker picked it up, fiddling with it before pulling off a piece of the wooden frame. “Just like this pencil.”

  “What the hell, that’s some crazy luck,” Ray said.

  “Luck?” Tucker revealed a faint smile. “No, for mages, it’s like a puzzle. They always try to have it be the least conspicuous and hide things in plain sight.”

  Tucker took the small piece of the wooden frame with the jagged teeth at the end and pushed it into the hole beneath the drawer. With a quiet click, the mechanisms at the bottom opened, revealing an old black notebook with crimson characters on the surface.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Now the question is… what exactly are we looking at?” Tucker pulled out the worn book and pages from the secret compartment and laid them out on the table. From the corner of his eye, he could see a small bookmark wedged in the center of the notebook and pulled it free while opening to that page.

  Yet, he soon frowned.

  “It’s blank,” Ray said quietly. “What the hell does this mean?”

  Tucker stared at the bookmark with a complicated gaze. He felt the circular bumps on the surface, trying to make sense of it all, but soon caught the attention of Ray.

  “Wait, I’ve seen that before,” Ray said, snapping his fingers. He walked over to the bookshelf and carefully pulled out the Guide to Braille while checking for any hidden traps.

  Once he had confirmed there was none, he brought it to the desk and placed it before Tucker.

  “This should be it, it has the same dots as the bookmark,” Ray said.

  “Do you know how to read it?” Tucker asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Alright for now, check on Sam, make sure she doesn’t show any signs of waking up.” Tucker watched as Ray nodded. With his comrade keeping an eye on the receptionist, he had time to focus on whatever the hell was before him.

  The bookmark only had two lines.

  First Line: ????????????????.

  Second Line: ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????.

  “Oh my God…” he muttered. “What does this even mean?”

  He opened the book and looked through the first few pages. The characters, if they could be called that, were broken into two grades. The first was simple and had a set of dots for every character, while the second was far more complex, with contractions designed to save space and increase reading speed.

  “Alright… simple enough, how many could there be?” Tucker asked himself.

  Over a hundred and eighty was his answer.

  Tucker closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fuck.”

  He reached for the silver pocket watch from his leather pouch and placed it open on the table. Only four minutes had passed since they began their investigation. There wasn’t any point in complaining about what can’t be changed. The only thing Tucker could do now was move his focus to what was in front of him.

  In his life, there were many others going through far more complex problems and struggles. If he let the stress and dilemma overwhelm him, then it would be over before it even began. The biggest enemy right now was himself and the negativity telling him he couldn’t do it.

  This was something he struggled with personally and needed to overcome. Accept the fact that he was his own biggest critic and his own biggest supporter.

  He scanned through the book as he flipped the pages back and forth. The single dot before each sequence was a capital indicator, and from the general gist of it, Tucker understood the various strong wordsigns and groupsigns associated with each word. But it wasn’t enough.

  Time was ticking away, blurring as Tucker tried to piece it all together. He didn’t have the same luxury as the previous cipher. This had to be solved here.

  By flipping through the textbook’s index, he managed to match the dot patterns to the first phrase by doing a simple substitution. After applying the same groupsigns and wordsigns he then translated the other sentence to complete the second phrase.

  The slight tremble in Tucker’s fingertips subsided. He glanced at the pocket watch—nine minutes had passed. Only seventeen minutes left.

  “The Eternal Forest: May the light shine down upon our souls and grant us our wish,” Tucker muttered.

  A hint of confusion struck him after uttering the phrase, yet soon a low rumble entered his ears as the runes hidden within the grooves of the wooden desk flared. Ray rushed over after noticing the commotion and immediately pulled out the hidden dagger in his utility belt.

  But what appeared before them was nothing they could have ever expected.

  It was a record of tests and experiments carried out at the Emerald Tower. Texts with dates, locations, and summaries of what they’ve done appeared before them. Playing like some sort of open book where the pages were quickly being skimmed. Hundreds of names cycling through a translucent blue screen above the desk. Each repeating the same word over and over again.

  Dead. Dead. Dead.

  Tucker read it in his head, unable to count the names flashing before him while tightly clenching his fists. It played in his mind like a melody that couldn’t be stopped. A melody that wouldn’t be stopped.

  Ray’s voice broke. “T-these bastards… what have they done? What could they have been trying to do?”

  The sheer disbelief in his comrade’s voice struck a chord, and he didn’t know what to say. All Tucker could do was watch the screen continue to play like a memory orb that was finishing its sequence. It was only at the end that Tucker and Ray witnessed the unimaginable.

  An artifact appeared on the screen with Pyron holding it within his grasp. Seven engraved golden rings with characters they couldn’t comprehend rotated around a pitch-black sphere, imprisoning it as blood slithered into its embrace from the mountain of mutilated corpses beneath Pyron’s feet. Yet in the darkness of the night, the Elder remained unfazed as the moonlight struck his figure.

  Then, it happened.

  A burst of crimson and dark light erupted before Pyron, thousands of meters away. Sound vanished, and color was ripped from the world as the wave tore outward, swallowing the ground and sky itself. Trees and mountains alike faded without a trace. Devoured by the dark crimson sphere, before the world screamed back into existence.

  The land before Pyron trembled with the last bits of energy waning from the artifact. What remained at the center of the attack was a vast, smoldering scar of earth that had cracked along the outer rims. Faint veins of bleeding energy climbed to the heavens with one final hum to the echoes of souls that would never ascend.

  That was all they saw before the recording ended.

  A final testament to the weapon that the Emerald Tower had created.