Bill lifted the vampire thralls and threw it across the room where it passed through the glowing orb of light Ellen had enchanted to follow him and slid to a stop in front of Grom, who bashed its head in with a mace.

  Silence filled the room, only broken by their heavy breathing.

  “How many thrall does that make?” Syril asked.

  “Eleven,” Ellen answered.

  “You sure?” Grom asked, “It felt like a lot more.”

  “No,” Linar said, looking inside a small sack and counting the rings and other jewelry within. “Eleven is correct. Seven had wedding rings, two worthless necklaces, one had nothing, and this one looks to have a family signet ring of the dead noble that started all of this hullabaloo—see, I told you he wasn’t murdered in the city.”

  “Alright,” Syril said. “Ten-minute break, then we press on. Ellen, send Newt to keep watch.”

  Ellen gave a quick arcane gesture, and the raven transformed into a rat and scurried under the door and back into the hallway. They’d seen many rats in this sunken ruin that had once been some sort of temple, and the familiar wouldn’t stand out.

  As the others rested, Linar went through the pockets of the noble turned vampire thrall turned corpse and found a fair bit of gold and other jewelry, adding it to the sack. Afterward, he examined the room thoroughly, looking behind all the furniture and under rugs for signs of a hidden compartments or rooms.

  “Nothing?” Syril asked.

  “Nothing,” Linar agreed.

  “Did you try the wand?” Syril asked.

  “Wand?” Linar asked, “What wand?”

  Syril sighed.

  “The wand that finds hidden doors we found and gave to you to use,” he said in a lecturing tone.

  “Oh, that wand,” Linar said, not looking away from his task. “We don’t need that.”

  “Use the wand, Linar,” Syril said.

  “Look Syril, I trust your judgement when it comes to seducing ladies and getting blood stains out of fabric because we are a team and those are your specialties. You need to extend the same courtesy to me when we are in my wheelhouse, and finding secret rooms with treasure is my specialty.”

  “Why can’t you just try it?” Syril asked.

  “Why would there be a secret room inside a secret room? Who would do that?”

  “Humor me,” Syril said.

  “Fine,” Linar said, pulling the wand out of his jacket with an exaggerated flourish. “I’ll—

  He stopped speaking as the wand suddenly and violently turned in his hand, pointing at the bookshelf on the far side of the room that he’d already examined.

  “Do it.” He finished weakly. “This thing is defective! I already checked that.”

  Syril only have him a look, and the rogue relented and went over to give it a second examination.

  He looked at the ground once more, checking for signs of drag marks indicating that the bookshelf swung out, but found none. He rocked the shelf back and forth slightly and saw that it wasn’t secured to the floor. He moved everything off of the shelf, one at a time, and found that none of the objects were a secret trigger.”

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  “See? It doesn’t work!” Linar insisted.

  “Let’s move the shelf out of the way,” Syril suggested.

  With great reluctance, Linar did so with Bill’s help. Once the shelf was moved, Linar noticed the brickwork beneath it perfectly outlined the shelf. Without moving the shelf, this wasn’t noticeable, as each stone was cut precisely where it went under the wood.

  “That’s weird,” Linar said.

  He examined the wall behind where the shelf had been, and there was nothing, no button or sign of anything.

  “Ellen, can you cast silence for a moment?” Linar asked.

  She complied and the room became magically silent, all the small sounds of people existing vanished, and Linar couldn’t even hear his own breathing.

  He kicked the shelf, knocking it over. Everyone looked at him with silent surprise, all mouthing some sort of protest. Once everyone had settled down and the broken objects off the shelf stopped moving, Ellen let the spell go.

  “Why did you do that?” Syril asked.

  Linar didn’t answer, instead dropping down to examine the bottom of the shelf.

  “Here!” he said excitedly.

  He’d found a small little hole, only a half an inch across, and sticking a probe up it found it contained a small rod. Tapping the back of the bookshelf gently, following the path of the cavity up the shelf until he reached a knot in one of the boards. He pressed in, and the rod shot out of the bottom of the shelf a few inches with a satisfying click .

  Linar examined the location of the rod, then looked at the corresponding location where the bookshelf had been sitting. There he found a small crack in the mortar between stones. He stuck his probe in it. Nothing happened.

  Frustrated now, he broke the rod off the bottom of the bookshelf and pushed it into the crack.

  With the telltale sound of rumbling stone that accompanied all such mechanisms, the spot beneath the bookshelf lowered into the ground, and the wall behind it shifted, moving backward and then sliding to the side, opening up to a small dark alcove.

  Linar walked away in frustration, cursing about “overly paranoid religious fanatics” as the others moved in cautiously to inspect what it was.

  Inside the alcove sat a plinth, on top of which was a jar filled with a yellow liquid, with something floating within it.

  “Why is that in a jar?” Bill asked.

  “Beats me,” said Ellen. “It looks to have some sort of religious significance.”

  There was silence for a moment until Grom realized that had been his cue to say something.

  “Uh, yes… I’m not familiar with whatever god this temple worships. Sorry. I’m strictly a cleric of Cland. A Cland man if you will.”

  “Great,” Syril said.

  Linar finally got over his frustration and came closer to look.

  “Oh,” he said, someone excited. “It’s a relic! That’ll be worth something.”

  “It’s a penis,” Syril said.

  “Yeah,” Linar said, not seeing the issue.

  “I thought relics were like, I don’t know, items of significance that once belonged to great clerics. You know, like goblets and stuff.”

  “What’s so special about a goblet?” Linar asked. “I can assure you, this item once had great significance to its former owner.”

  “I’m not carrying that out of here,” Bill said.

  “Me either,” Syril said.

  “Fine,” Ellen said. “I’ll put it in my bag of holding.”

  “Are you sure it will fit?” Bill asked. “It’s pretty big.”

  “It’s a magic bag,” Ellen said. “It will fit. And besides, it’s not that big.”

  “I don’t know, it is pretty big,” Linar said.

  Ellen let out a laugh.

  “You all keep telling yourselves that!”

  “What does that mean?” Bill asked.

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