" That's more like it." I could feel myself melting as the warm bath relieve my fatigue. Not the particular level of heat I desired but for this sad mess of a body, this much is acceptable.
Admittedly, I went a bit overboard today. Despite only having to walk and talk, I somehow got a ton of bumps and perhaps went a tad too hard on the dust inhaling.
Lucky for me, the doctor mostly only scolded the one who were suppose to be watching me. As ordered from above, they have to skip dinner to clean out all the routes we are planning to go tonight before I could even hope to step in. Of course, their personal servants will be helping them out since the scale alone is not something only three people can do.
Moreover...
I am not sure if it is me hallucinating or not but I could occasionally hear the wall sneezing and yelling. Totally not just my lovely brothers and sister wall crawling.
Hehe.
...Albeit, I do feel a smidge guilty for my heath being the cause of their punishment, so I did promise to bring them their dinner, along with those new stuffed sausages made by the kitchen since they would not be done anytime soon.
We just picked some random route out of all maze of passage within the wall so I am not entirely sure where it lead to either. To be completely honest, out of the four of us, I don't think any of us know how to actually read this floor plan.
To keep the suspense of the surprised, we each promised to just clean the tunnels and not enter any of the entrance.
Isolde already brought the box of cut out to Duke Barrow who seems to mirror that helplessly disgusted expression when reading through those ancient articles. The Royal family certainly like to leave an unforgettable impression on everyone in this family, huh.
No wonder even our ancestor over a millennia ago, could be seen making the same expression they are in some of those photos.
Mix within those cut out were numerous photos, not the dignify image captured in the news column but silly personal photo, three man with their families, happily living, laughing side by side. It honestly surprised me how these photo were able to outlast several eras worth of time while remaining mostly readable and not turning into sand the moment I touched them.
Not to mention, this evidently proved what little lines was spoken about the Laurel family legacy true.
I honestly couldn't bring myself to trust fully in not only my memory but also what was written in the 'Flower of Eden'. Maybe, it might be the paranoia speaking, but my experienced of having read almost 10.000 novels in all genre, also including fantasy and not mentioning textbooks for school all throughout my admittedly short life...
...There is more that meet the eyes.
Not to mention since I didn't worked my way to the end of the story yet, there is no way to prove the narration of the story is genuine or that some kind of weird narrative plot twist didn't happen.
Whatever.
Thinking myself down a hole is giving me a headache.
After excusing myself from dinner, I make a detour to the kitchen to get the wall crawlers meal. The staffs already packed them neatly with an extra box filled with loads of juicy stuff sausages for them, even slipping me a separate box of desserts as bonus.
My angels! It truly is you!
All hail the Laurel family!
By the time the maids dragged me away from the kitchen, I already bend like a shrimp and gave them all a teddy bear hug to the best of my ability. It was like hugging those load bearing poles but I couldn't care less.
Adraine didn't let me hold the giant...tiffin box? Is that what it called?
So I settle for holding just the dessert box instead.
To the dust bunnies we go~
------
We decided to just have their late dinner in the common room in the Autumn Palace, since our exploration will start around the first floor entrance. They quickly washed up and dug into the delicious meal to satiate their hunger.
Joining us was most of the family that has migrate from the dinning room after the meal.
"How did the clean up go? Your father even thought three balls of soot were walking the hall earlier. You almost scare him half to death." Aunt Lexi teased, pulling on the twin's cheek before wiping the sauce from their mouth.
"He is just a scaredy cat." Zephyr pointed out.
I shared with them some milk pudding from the dessert box as payment of their hardwork, maybe I should look around in my secret stash to see if there is anything they can use. Getting healthy quicker truly is top priority.
The silver spoon is cool to the touch, scooping up jiggly goodness easily within a single motion. Each bite soft and creamy, mix with the tang of sour fruit jam and fresh fruit slices. Its texture light enough to melt away in your mouth, yet just firm enough to hold shape on the spoon.
So simple, but certainly filled with joy behind every jiggle of the gelatinous body.
Nom nom.
I take my time savoring every bite as I listen to each members exchange nonsense and work with each other. Not like I really understand any of it but it does make a great back drop for me and this cozy chair to lean back and relax.
Later, Olivia and Amber came back from work and joink the two leftover pudding with decorated edible flower before settling down next to me. At this time, I was looking over the map again to try and locate where some of these route led to.
They peaked over my shoulder, squishing me in between them while enjoying their after work snack without care.
" Ah... This room." Amber pointed at one of room on the highest floor.
Olivia follow the secret entrance down a few time before falling into silence for a bit.
" ...I did hear that the butler lost the key to that room ages ago. The last thing I would expect is to find a secret entrance in there after all this time." She pointed out the direction to me, somehow linking the complicated mess of depth perception on the map back to the on of the three entrance we picked to explore tonight.
" It was lock ever since I was nine, Amber was barely eight at the time. So it is safe to say I have never been in there myself."
" Since they chance presented itself, may I join you in this little entourage?" She offered gentlemanly, like the true knightly image of the commander archetype male lead in an otome game.
" Aren't you leaving me out of the fun?" Amber nudged Olivia, looking a bit baffled like her elder sister just stole her line.
And to that that I say
"The more the merrier"
-------
8:00 PM
The grandfather clock sounded its hourly song and dance as the explorer group and its new member depart the common hall to head inside the secret entrance routes.
To keep the element of suspense, we left the most mysterious ones for last and head inside the great recently cleaned unknown. Isolde led the way with us following behind each with a light source on hand to ward off the darkness.
The path starting out was a bit cramped but slowly expand more as we go down with the ground beneath us changing from solid rock to more a more gravel paved footing, it clearly something from the original cardinal that was situated here, leading to a space in between the underground tunnel and the ground floor of the palace.
By the 15th minutes of crouch walking, we reached the exit of the route with the brick wall laid ahead. If it wasn't for the drawn arrow on one of the brick, telling them to pushed this brick in, they would have definitely turned back around.
Using a reasonable force, Isolde try a few time before the square sunk back a bit before the inner latch sounded a click. Taking it as a sign, Olivia help her push on the wall, slowly, the mechanism slide open clunkily, revealing the room beyond.
" Nice. The inner wine cellar, I score big this time." Amber cheered as she look through each barrel.
Isolde told me that this place was actually given to her father as a wedding gift after he married into the family. Her father Mathew started out as just one of many mercenaries passing by the territory on a monthly basis as hired help. Her mother Lawrence was introduced to him through aunt Lexi who had a taste of his homemade alcoholic beverages and passion for drink making.
They caught on like fire to a molotov cocktail and badda bing badda boom, he married into the family. As a wedding gift, the Duke at the time thought of the family's scarcely use basement space that used to house numerous cargo of vintage wine and mead that was cleaned out ages ago after an unfunny prank.
So, since it was already built for the intended purpose, they renovated that entire empty lot into a cellar and give him freedom to do whatever he want in the place. Years has gone by at this point, and even after her mother passed, he would still come down from time to time to bring up a out a good cheer for everyone under clicking glass.
The secret entrance luckily open up where he stash some miscellaneous items so luckily nothing important was moved around. After putting every back to where it belong, we retreated back into the tunnel and head back to where we came from, this time with a few bottles of aged wine Amber snatched along for the ride.
While we head to the second entrance, she seems to have found a place for them in her room before coming back our way. I can already imagined her returning from our little adventure and sit coolly in front of a big windowsill swilling the wine in a glass with a charcuterie plater, enjoying her fulfilling life.
I am not jealous, my dream is :'D.
Anyway...
Unlike the first route that started with us detaching a stair case to slip under, the second route required us to climb into an unused fireplace and drop into a hole inside it.
Surprisingly or not, this route was a bit more on the anticlimactic side since it lead directly underneath the little cabin I have been using as a base of quest operation.
"Oh, it's this place."
" So this where it led to"
I have long discovered a trap door under some of the equipment boxes stacked in the back, but wasn't quite ready to rumble with exploring something like that yet so I decided to put it to the back of my mind just in case.
Who would have thought it became a self-solving puzzle after all this time.
"Hello Maisy." I waved to my maid who has been sitting here well before we arrived, helping me sort through the plants I picked the other day. She is usually the one to help me distribute the quest stuff to the servant in need of them.
After some exchanged pleasantries, with each one of our head peaking out of a trap door like some kind of mole creature, despite being a bit frighten from our surprise entrance she accepted reality rather easily.
As we were returning from to where we came from, we actually found a trapdoor heading upward that wasn't noted on the map. We would probably go there immediately if we could but since they have to put my wellbeing above all else, we just noted it down on the map and headed to the last route.
We have to run all the way to the Spring Palace just to start heading to that room. This passage actually took us almost two hours to navigate being one of the most complicated inter-passage path finding operation. Not to mention, the amount of time we ran to a dead end instead is staggering.
"Here we go!" This is probably the n time I have said this. However, this is the literal last door there is that is connected into this gigantic series of tunnels.
With a loud click, the fitted wood board creak loudly before leaving way for them to enter.