The Storm King

Chapter 683: Katerina’s Villa

The supposedly haunted villa was a fairly large place, and one that was in a very desirable part of the Empire—in suburbs extremely close to the wealthy farming estates between the Scamander and Serenity rivers. The entire estate was smaller than Leon’s home, but the villa itself was about as large his, only without the ancillary buildings that Leon’s villa had. It looked a little different from Leon’s villa, though, primarily built of green marble, black granite, and highlighted with pink quartz. There were only two courtyards, one in the center of the villa and one out in front.

As Leon glided in just above the street, he scanned the building as best as he could. As with almost all buildings within the Empire, it had been warded against magic senses, and as was common with more expensive villas, was surrounded by an eight-foot-tall decorative wall. There weren’t many other enchantments that Leon could sense within its stone, aside from what he’d learned were fairly standard structural enchantments to ensure that the villa was extremely durable.

However, even with those structural enchantments, as he approached, Leon noted that the villa seemed a little rundown. It seemed that the owners were trying to fix that since the front courtyard was filled with various construction materials, but he couldn’t see anyone there actually working. Only Talal and a middle-aged third-tier woman were there, quietly chatting.

Leon dropped to the ground as he walked through the gate, Anzu just behind him. The griffin seemed curious about the construction materials lying around, but he stayed with Leon as he approached his personal assistant and who he presumed was the villa’s owner.

“Leon!” Talal called out, raising his hand in greeting.

Leon nodded in return. “This is the ‘haunted’ house?” he asked.

“That’s what my workers keep saying,” the woman explained as she walked forward to meet Leon partway, her face breaking out in a wide, welcoming smile. “I am Katerina, it’s such a pleasure to meet one a mage of your caliber!”

“Ah, uh, thank you,” Leon said, a little taken aback, but not quite surprised. In his interactions with people who knew who he was, it was hardly uncommon for them to act exceedingly polite and almost servile, as if they were trying to suck up to him a bit. “I’m Leon, it’s nice to meet you.”

“An absolute delight!” Katerina gushed as she shamelessly took Leon’s arm and steered him toward the villa’s front entrance, whose door had been removed and was leaning against the wall right next to the frame. “It’s an honor to have you come out and help me and my husband deal with this small issue, though I have to admit I’m a little embarrassed. This shouldn’t normally be something that a man as powerful as you should have to deal with…”

“It’s no problem at all, I assure you,” Leon said a little stiffly. He didn’t enjoy this woman holding his arm, but he didn’t mind it so much that he’d ask her to stop. “I’m quite interested in learning about older civilizations that existed here before the Empire, and when I learned that there was a villa built above ghost-infested ruins, why I just had to come out here and see it for myself!”

“Something to thank the ghosts for, then,” Katerina replied. “I hope it’s not too imprudent to say that, Leon. These damn lazy workers have been rotating in and out, constantly complaining about ghosts and the like, and I’ve had very little to thank this situation for over the past couple years. But bringing you to my home is an honor truly worth all the hassle! Please, consider me your servant for the time being; if there’s anything at all I can do for you, don’t hesitate to say so!”

Her grip on his arm tightened for a moment, but Leon made the conscious decision to not dig into her offer for any other implications.

“How about we get started with this place, then?” Leon asked. “Tell me about your villa.”

Katerina escorted Leon inside, closely followed by Talal. Anzu, meanwhile, laid down just outside the door to wait for Leon to return.

“My husband and I bought this place some twenty years ago,” Katerina explained. “We lived here for about fifteen years, until we had to move for work. Never, in all that time, were we harassed by any ghosts, apparitions, or any other unnatural phenomena such as that. We’ve always made plenty of sacrifices to the gods, and participated regularly in the monthly fengari festivals. Our household shrines were well-cared for.

Leon glanced around at the villa’s atrium. It was, indeed, in a sorry state, with most of the marble flooring torn up, revealing the bare foundation stones beneath. The granite columns were covered in dirt and dust, and the walls appeared only half-painted, with everything to his right painted a vivid red, while everything to his left a similar shade, but duller and clearly older.

Leon replied, “All villas look like this when they’re being renovated. Sections of mine have been in similar states pretty much ever since I bought it. There always seems to be more work that can be done.”

Katerina laughed. “True. And things seemed fairly straightforward with our villa. Our contracted workers were making good time, but apparently, they were seeing things for a while before the supervisor brought it to our attention. Motion in the corner of their eyes, missing materials, quiet, unintelligible voices, that sort of thing. Turnover for our workers started to drastically rise about six months ago, but it wasn’t until just a couple weeks ago that things took a more serious turn.

“While working on the basement, one of our workers fell through the floor and into an underground chamber. While down there, he swears that he saw ghosts. None of our workers have returned since, leaving our renovations only half finished.”

“That’s unfortunate. This place is beautiful even as it is, but I can tell it would be so much more if all of these renovations could be complete.”

“Thank you,” Katerina replied.

“Do you mind showing me the chamber your worker fell into?” Leon asked.

“Of course, this way,” the woman replied.

As they walked through the large villa, Leon asked, “You said that there were missing materials, yes? Do you know what happened to them?”

“Initially, we thought it was just some of the workers stealing some of the materials, but in light of everything that’s happened since, I can’t say for certain.”

“Do you know what went missing?”

“Copper and silver, mostly,” Katerina replied. “We needed the conductors to help renovate this villa’s enchantment scheme, but much of the material went missing.”

Leon nodded, understanding that a fairly large amount of silver was needed for robust enchantments. The enchantments themselves didn’t so much need the materials, as they could be inscribed upon just about anything that could conduct magic power, but silver—and, to a lesser extent, copper—was one of the best magical conductors around, and adding silver to the enchantment scheme could greatly increase the amount of magic power that an enchantment could be fed.

For the enchantments that Leon had put into his villa, he’d invested at least a million silvers into such upgrades, ensuring that his wards were much more potent than they’d been in his home back in the Bull Kingdom.

Upon reaching the basement, Leon asked Katerina, “Is there anything else that you can tell me about this ghost problem? Even the smallest of details could be important…”

“Nothing immediately comes to mind,” Katerina replied. “I wasn’t that hands-on with the work being done here, and unfortunately, none of the workers who could give you a better picture of what was going on here were willing to return, no matter how much money I offered.”

“A shame,” Leon said as they reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in a fairly large underground space. The basement was much smaller than the entire footprint of the villa, and based on how it was built, Leon figured it was little more than a wine cellar. There were four vaulted alcoves to the right and left, and bigger arches in the ceiling to help hold up the stone villa above. As with the rest of the villa, the basement was entirely empty with all of the building materials having likely been moved outside, though the second-to-last alcove on the right side had been roped off. Leon could understand why, because the entire floor of the entire alcove, which was big enough to have held at least a dozen barrels of wine if need be, had collapsed into a dark, lightless pit.

“I’m going to take a quick look around, if that’s all right,” Leon said as he disentangled himself from Katerina. She seemed reluctant to let him go, but she didn’t resist as he pulled away.

“Of course,” she whispered. “If you need anything at all, please let me know.”

“Will do, thank you,” Leon replied, and he strode over to the edge of the pit and looked down.

It wasn’t that deep, only about two stories. However, Leon’s eyes widened as he realized that he’d finally found something worth his time.

The chamber at the bottom of the pit wasn’t made of stone or any such common building material, but familiar glossy gray metal. The chamber wasn’t domed, but it had a wider floor than it did ceiling, with the walls sloping inward as they rose. The bottom corners had a thin gap between the walls and the floor, and Leon knew from experience with such architecture that it eh facility this chamber was a part of was powered, then the gaps would’ve been filled with white fire.

For the first time in all of his searching through old ruins in Occulara, Leon had found architecture that strongly resembled that of the Thunderbird Clan’s other major facilities, such as Xaphan’s prison and Nestor’s lab.

As he thought about Nestor, Leon cast his consciousness into his soul realm. Things down there hadn’t changed much in the past ten years, but he had removed the golem statue that he’d been using as a silent threat against the dead man. However, he had heavily expanded the tables around Nestor’s ruby, allowing Leon to have more materials at his disposal when learning from the dead man. He’d also moved one of the bronze golems from his replacement archives so that Nestor could have an assistant to help him with his own studies. He’d yet to break his own enchantments that were locking the journal Leon had taken from Jormun’s transformation cave, but Leon wasn’t exactly holding out much hope for him to change that anytime soon. Regardless, he’d still built up some amount of trust with the man to allow him the golem assistant.

[Well, dead man,] Leon said, [I think I’ve finally found something worth a damn.]

Leon could hear the shudder in Nestor’s voice when he brought up the last ruin that Leon had gone to explore, and Leon couldn’t blame him.

[I thought we all agreed never to mention that place again?] Leon murmured as he choked down the bile that started to rise in his throat.

The crackling voice of Xaphan responded from within his pavilion. [I don’t remember anything of the sort, and besides, sewage is an apt topic when speaking with your resident ghost.]

[As it is when speaking with a demon so pathetic that he lost his title,] Nestor retorted.

Leon felt Xaphan’s anger spike for just a moment, and he shouted, [Enough! Let’s not get into this right now!] He spoke with strength, and the two who were about to bicker quieted down.

[Xaphan, don’t you have mist to absorb?] Leon asked. He’d made a modification to Xaphan’s pavilion several years ago, finally fulfilling the demon’s desire to have an enchantment that would help him absorb the Mists of Chaos beyond the edges of Leon’s soul realm. He’d used a similar enchantment long ago, when Leon was still living in Ariminium in the Bull Kingdom to rise from fifth-tier equivalent to eighth-tier equivalent power, and Leon had promised to build him a more permanent version of that enchantment. The Thunderbird had advised against it, citing its danger, but Leon and Nestor eventually developed something that would work for the demon. It was still far too dangerous for Leon to use, especially with his still-recovering soul realm, but Xaphan had been steadily using it for the past few years. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as the original enchantment he’d used, so he was still at the human equivalent of the eighth-tier, but he was still gaining in power.

[Yeah, yeah, yeah,] the demon grumbled. [If you run into something dangerous down there, always remember that you can throw that ruby at them. Might distract them long enough for you to escape. Even if it doesn’t, you’d still at least be rid of this shitstain.]

Ignoring the comment and cutting Nestor off before he could respond, Leon said, [Dead man, have you any insights to share with this other ghost? You know, since you’re one yourself?]

Nestor sighed long and deep. [What’s down there is definitely of import, that much is certain. I can’t say what it is without you going down there, though.]

Leon nodded. He’d gone over this with Nestor many times in the past decade. Occulara was so different now as opposed to what it had been during Nestor’s time, that he didn’t have even the biggest landmarks to orient himself. Even the Scamander River ran a different course, further complicating his and Leon’s attempts to figure out what might of the arsenal might be left. About the only thing that was certain was that Occulara as a whole hadn’t moved, otherwise Leon wouldn’t have found anything at all in his search for the arsenal.

[There is something else, though,] Nestor said. [That woman said that silver and copper went missing?]

[Yes,] Leon confirmed.

[Hmm, that’s certainly something to note. Those metals would be good for a great many things, not just as conductors for magic power.]

Leon turned back to Katerina and quickly asked her what other materials were around that weren’t stolen. After having most of the materials listed off, Leon thanked her and returned to his inspection of the underground chamber. Unfortunately, it didn’t help Nestor too much in figuring out what exactly a ghost might want with those metals, or even rule out the possibility that all of that metal had simply been embezzled.

[Would you think there’s anything dangerous down there?] Leon asked.

[Doubtful,] Nestor replied. [Passive defenses, maybe, but something underground for so long… This place is clearly without much power, otherwise anyone who lived in this primitive dwelling would know what it was they lived atop of.]

[Your lab, Xaphan’s prison, the Cradle, and the Teira archives all still had power,] Leon pointed out. [All were potentially dangerous.]

[If you’re not going to risk it, then don’t,] Nestor retorted. [I require no justification.]

Xaphan then added, shouting from his pavilion, [But we’ll be right here, watching you the entire time!]

Leon rolled his eyes. Turning back to Katerina and Talal where they were waiting by the foot of the stairs, he said, “I’m going to head down there and check the place out. If I’m not out in… let’s give it three hours, then maybe think about raising some alarms.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea, wouldn’t it be better to organize a larger expedition for something like this?” Talal asked, showing a surprising amount of concern.

“I’m not going to organize a large expedition only for this to turn out to be a dead end,” Leon replied. “Just a quick look around to try and get a feel for the scale of what’s been found. I’m not going to take any real risks, just jump down there and see what I can see.”

Talal looked like he wanted to argue the point a little more, but he seemed to think better of it and just nodded. This wasn’t the first time Leon had done this when they’d found a ruin, and nothing had ever happened before.

“Hey Talal!” Leon called out. A moment later, Talal’s bronze features could be seen at the edge of the pit above. “Once we head out of here, see if you can dig up the history of this place! It looks like someone else has been down here before, but not recently! Focus on any records of renovation!”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Talal said.

A moment later, Katerina appeared at the top of the pit, too. “You probably won’t find much, this villa is fairly new,” she stated. “It was built only about a hundred years ago.”

“What was here before?” Talal asked.

Talal sighed in dejection, and when Leon threw him a questioning look, he explained, “When a building is leveled, most of the time, a lot of its unimportant documents are disposed of, as well. Ilian records stretch back tens of thousands of years, and there just isn’t room to store absolutely everything.”

Leon muttered, “Damn. Well, see what you can find anyway, even if it’s just a record of who owned this land before Katerina and her husband.”

Talal nodded again, and Leon turned his attention back to the chamber he found himself in.

There were four doors that led out of the chamber, but two of them could easily be ruled out as ways to go, for they were broken and ajar, revealing that the chambers or halls that they connected to had collapsed. That left only two for him to choose from.

Using his magic senses, which thankfully weren’t blocked by any wards down here, Leon inspected both doors. Both were trapezoidal and without any ornamental flair that might’ve indicated their purpose. They lacked control runes for opening them, but Leon could see scratches on the edges of the doors where he guessed they’d been forced open at some point. The door to his right had more scratches than the door to his left, so he figured that he’d start there, first.

Leon strode over to the door, retrieved some tools from his soul realm, and forced the door open. It moved slowly, resisting him greatly, but he still managed to slide it into the wall, giving him access to the dark corridor beyond.

“Now,” Leon muttered aloud, a smile spreading across his face at the prospect of exploring such a mysterious abandoned facility, “Let’s see what we can find…”