When the illusion finally dissipated they finall saw what was in the dark opening – it was a narrow spiral staircase.
"It goes even deeper... Why would they put magic circle so far below the structure it was tied to?" Calen frowned.
"Maybe they had a reason to do that – we won’t know until we see it, come on."
The staircase wasn’t particularly long but it connected to a corridor leading away from the dungeon.
"I think we’re getting closer to the center of the fortress." Isara commented.
"Makes sense I suppose, if they really wanted to transport the entire thing placing the circle in the middle would be normal-"
He lost track of his thoughts as the tunnel opened up.
"I was about to say that..."
They both looked at the chamber in astonishment – it was almost as big as the main keep and perfectly circular, additionally most of the walls and ground were covered in miniature runes, creating a truly enormous magic circle the likes of which were never seen.
The first thing they did was inspecting some parts of the massive enchantment, but as they read the symbols Isara started drowning.
"Those patterns... they don’t follow any of the principles the Fool established – the archmages didn’t manage to recreate any of tricks." Isara’s eyes widened.
"Do you mean they recreated a better part of an elusive specialized magic by using just standardized methods?"
"To be completely honest this seems even more impressive now – the Fool invented new methods of enchanting precisely to avoid the insane space requirements that regular way would require."
"I’m sorry to say this but I don’t think you’ll be finishing this anymore."
"I wouldn’t even dream of trying right now – just understanding a pattern would take months, maybe years. Attempting to continue the archmages’ work isn’t something feasible in the near future."
"We can still check out if they left something here though."
Not that there was much to check – despite the chamber’s enormous size it was almost completely empty, with only two places of note:
A scattering of book cases and desks on the far end of the chamber, which was probably a brainstorming and planning area, as well as a massive chest standing some distance away.
"Let’s check the shelves first, there most likely won’t be anything interesting there so it’ll go quickly." Isara suggested.
When they approached they realised that they’re initially impression of few bookcases was completely off due to the far distance. In reality the place was more akin to a free-standing library, with massive multi-leveled collections and mobile ladders for the ease of access.
It didn’t mean mean there was much to find there of course.
All of the books were, quite predictably, about spellcasting and runes – and being students of an archmage themselves, they already read vast majority of them, or at least the parts that were useful to them.
"To be honest I kinda expected they wrote something themselves." Calen admitted. "You know, to document the process and whatnot."
"They were probably planning to in case they ever finished – kinda pointless to write about something that might be unusable in the end, no?"
"I guess." He shrugged. "Look, there’s something there."
They approached the only desk which wasn’t empty – a sole leather-bound journal was laying silently on its surface.
"Well, apparently they did write some things down."
Calen took the notebook and quickly scanned the contents – as he went further, his face slowly fell.
"What is it?" Isara questioned.
"This has almost nothing to do with the project – it’s just ramblings about workplace drama and rumours. If not for the fact that they mention working on this project from time to time I’d think it was a diary of a teenage girl, not an archmage."
"Maybe that’s why they never finished." Isara snorted. "They were too busy arguing about boring shit to actually care about the project."
"I can’t really blame them, they got all the funding they could need for as long as they wanted and literally no consequences for not finishing – only an idiot would have rushed to complete a project under those conditions."
"Do you think they actually would have finished? If they had an incentive to and more time, I mean."
"Perhaps...? It’s impossible to tell if they wouldn’t have encountered a problem that can’t be solved with their approach to magic, but assuming everything went right then they would’ve probably finished eventually."
"Yeah, maybe... Let’s go check out that chest."
Just like with the library they grossly underestimated the scale of the ’chest’ – what they thought was just a big storage box was in fact the size of a shed. It was still shaped like a chest, but it was big enough to fit in several people and still have some room to spare.
It didn’t open like a regular chest and there was no door to go inside, but there was a small wooden window at around the chest level.
"It’s a Trove." Calen realised.
"Well if they left it here it’s probably empty, but it won’t hurt to check."
"I’m afraid we won’t be able to." He pointed at a keyhole in the middle of the window. "Unless you’ve found a key that would fit during your exploration of the castle."
"Unfortunately no – but if it’s locked then surely there has to be something important inside. We have to try to crack it open."
"You want to break into a storage secured by several archmages? There’s no shot."
"Not with that attitude – come on, give me a hand."
They tried every conceivable method of breaking lock related spells but the window wouldn’t even budge – after half an hour of trying they finally gave up, admitting defeat to the trove.
"I must admit, I didn’t think we would fail this bad – I thought we would at least make the protective spells react of something." Isara sighed in disappointment.
"We can always come back here once we get stronger – or find the key."
"You’re right... let’s get out of here.*