It took us a while to get accustomed to the palace. It seemed Emily had been right and no monsters were able to get into the palace grounds. At first my party was a little skeptical and had even kept someone on watch duty but it was soon evident that the barrier did exist even though we couldn’t see it.

  All of us had picked out rooms for ourselves. Most of the rooms were spacious and pretty much identical to each other so it didn’t really matter that much. There were some smaller rooms meant for the staff of the palace and one other notable exception. That being the royal chambers.

  I had figured Emily would have used that for her bedroom. Instead, hers was just a normal one although it was the one closest to the library so that made sense. I then assumed that Ann and Lin would want us to use it since it had the biggest bed.

  I was wrong again as Lin thought the room was too gaudy and Ann thought it was too far away from the library. We had settled on a room a couple doors down from Emily’s. In truth, the beds in the normal rooms were plenty big enough for us.

  Nix ended up taking a liking to the royal bedroom and declared that she was finally sleeping in the luxury that she deserved. Shadow seemed to agree and when Emily didn’t have her in her clutches, she would laze around Nix’s plush room.

  I had to keep a watch on Ann or she would read right through meals and the night. I wasn’t much better so most times Lin had to wrangle both of us. The library was very impressive. Emily spent a lot of time in the library as well but had already read most of the books.

  I think she was rereading her favorite ones. She seemed happy that Ann and I were so interested in the books and had fun acting as a librarian. There were books on any subject you could think of but we were focused on the magic books of course. There was a large collection of them. Just going through them to figure out which to focus on first was time consuming.

  Lux, Torg, and Nix were more focused on the training rooms and treasure vault. It wasn’t like a bank vault with a tumbler, it was just a massive piece of magic metal that defied all attempts at breaking through it. Lux had a theory that the king should have an item that allowed entry into the vault, like a scepter or ring or something.

  It was possible that it had been lost or taken when the city was abandoned but the treasure hunters wouldn’t be deterred. The throne room and royal quarters were checked first. Several items were found that had the potential to be the key. How the key might work was anyone’s guess. Unfortunately, Emily hadn’t found any reference to the vault in the many books of the library.

  The other thing that had to be considered was if the object was tied to the king so even if someone found it, they wouldn’t be able to use it. The only thing to do was experiment. Emily had an identify spell that was helpful although once again it was unknown if it would actually say that it was the key when identified.

  It was decided that Emily would be the one to try the various items that were found to see if they would open the vault. She seemed excited to do it and there was no reason not to let her. She said she had always been curious to see what was in there but beyond that didn’t try very hard to open it as it wasn’t all that important to her at the time.

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  All the items found were identified. They were all valuable but there was nothing to indicate they were the key. Emily studiously tried using each object on the vault door but there was no reaction. Everyone was disappointed but not dissuaded. I think we all figured it wouldn’t be that easy.

  By this time, we had been staying in the palace for a week. Everyone was still getting along with Emily who was always all smiles. We had meals together and at night Emily broke out the games she had found to play. Most of the games were familiar to my party but a couple were new. They were all new to me so I had a lot of learning to do.

  Ann and Emily were the champs of most of the games but Lux was king of the chess like game. I wasn’t very good with any of them but I had company as the rest were about on par with me. Lin was something of a sore loser so I had to comfort her when she lost too many times. The comforting usually led to the bedroom so it worked out well for me.

  My party was starting to get a little antsy though and we were ready to get back out into the city for more exploring. I was aimlessly wandering around the palace while everyone else was getting ready for the expedition. I already had everything taken care of so had time to spare. I eventually found myself in the throne room.

  For some reason Shadow was there as well. Knowing her I figured maybe she had been sleeping on the throne. She was sniffing at a portion of the wall behind the throne and was meowing for my attention. I went over and kneeled down. “What is the matter, are you starved for attention or something?” I asked as I started petting her. That didn’t seem to be it as she started scratching at the wall while continuing to meow.

  The wall didn’t look any different from any of the other walls but from the fantasy movies I had seen there could be a secret door of some kind. I knocked on the wall but again it didn’t sound like it was hollow or anything. Shadow was pawing at a particular spot so I picked her up to see what had her so interested.

  There was some kind of indentation at the bottom of the wall. It was barely noticeable, blending into the rest of the wall. I carefully pushed it but nothing happened. I was surprised as I was sure that would work. Then I remembered how Emily told us you had to push your mana into some of the door handles to get them to open.

  I tried again, using my mana this time. I was rewarded with a clicking noise but nothing else. Shadow jumped out of my arms and started rubbing herself on my legs. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now and Shadow didn’t seem to be of any more help. I idly pet her head while I stared at the wall. Tentatively I put my hands on the wall and pushed.

  A section of the wall moved inwards then rotated out of the way so fast I almost lost my balance. Before I could stop her Shadow raced into the dark corridor and out of sight. There was no way I was going in there alone so went to gather everyone. I was sure Shadow would be fine for a little while.

  Everyone was excited by the news. They were already armored up so it was just a matter of walking to the throne room. Emily sent a light orb floating down the darkened tunnel and we followed after. The tunnel was wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

  The tunnel opened up into a kind of armory. There were weapons racks along the walls and some stands for equipment. Nix lit one of the torches that were set into the walls of the room to give more light. All the racks and stands were half empty with some of the items laying haphazardly on the ground. The extra light also illuminated another door in the opposite wall.

  Shadow was prowling around the room sniffing at the discarded equipment. The weapons looked to be good quality but nothing magical in nature so we moved on to the door. The door was sturdy but unlocked and Nix slowly opened it. It revealed another dark tunnel so Emily sent her orb again.

  The corridor led to a replica of the royal bedroom except there was a trap door in the corner which led underground. I was guessing it must eventually lead outside as some sort of escape tunnel but we would need to keep following it to be sure. The room’s magical lights came on as we entered and Nix gasped and pointed. We all looked at what she was pointing at and more gasps could be heard. On a small table near the bed rested a large golden key.