บท 6: 6 Castle on a Hill

"Is it really?" Kilian rubbed his hands together and circled around to the enterence of the castle. It was a manor with those weird fairy tale castle designs, if it was meant for the villian of course.

Dark, a bit worn down, the perfect place for a vampire to steal young girls and nobody would have the balls to go inside and duke it out with him.

Kilian raised his head and looked around the outside of the manor.

"This will provide nice shelter in the meantime!" He smiled.

A sudden crash could be heard as the door that was barely hanging from its hinges fell down the stone stairs.

Kilian raised his brows. He approached the fallen door from the bottom of the stairs and peeked inside. He couldn't see much except for an extreme mess in the darkness. An odd feeling if weak dread overcame him.

"Hm? Is there something inside?" Kilian asked with a confused tone.

[I detect some life forms inside but this terrible darkness is clouding my senses. There must be an artifact inside to cause us this feeling.]

"Ah, no wonder." Being one of the best assassins to ever lived, Kilian rarely found himself feeling dread or fear for his life.

Especially since he could die any moment. He chose that lifestyle and it wouldn't fit well for him if he's constantly worrying about death during each mission.

Anxiousness and fear distort reality, your very actions and judgement will become unnatural and full of uncertainty. And at that moment, you will lose your life.

But this artifact, to give Kilian such a feeling, must be something very strong. Interesting.

Kilian walked up the stairs and pushed aside the other door. It made a loud creaking noise but at least the light filtered through.

But he noticed he didn't need to do so. Inside was a large round room that looked like a ballroom. Fine marble pillars were carved with elegant lions, bears, and vipers each impaled with various weapons holding a crest of some sort in their jaws.

The pillars were lined up against the wall nicely. Just on the wall opposite to him, Kilian saw a stained glass display which took up the entire space. Despite looking eroded and shattered, he could still somewhat see the appearance of a dragon swallowing the sun. A lion, a bear, and a viper were postrated just below.

There were no furniture, just book shelves and these pillars and the stained glass painting were enough to bring a sort of light into the room.

Kilian walked to the center of the room with his eyes locked on the glass picture.

It seemed to be telling a story.

[Those pillars and this drawing are most likely to be connected, this manor is a lot more interesting than I thought.]

Kal spoke up.

[I sense many life forms, but they seem to be weak. Not much different from a corpse I say.]

Kilian looked around. There were four doors, two on each side of the room. Then in the middle was a grand staircase covered by a red and gold rug. It lead to the glass painting then seperated into two ways, leading to two corridors.

"What about that artifact?" Kilian placed his hands behind his back and walked up the stairs.

[I suppose you're already on the right track.]

He sensed something, the sense of dread was seemingly leading him towards something.

"Keep a check in the surroundings, Kal."

[Of course.]

Kilian took a turn to his left and looked down the corridor. There were many doors in the spacious hall, and they each faced their own window. There were cobwebs littered around but the dread grew denser.

He approached the first room in front of him and twisted the door knob. It wouldn't open. He applied more force but it still wouldn't budge.

"Oh?" He raised his fist and punched through the door. Dust was blown away and there was a large hole on the door. It instantly flew open and revealed a standard room. A worn table in the center with four chairs. There was a fireplace just behind it with the head of a beastly creature just above.

There were some vases around but he didn't study those at all.

He moved to the next door. And after seeing that it wouldn't budge, he used the same method as before and punched his way in.

This time it was a study room. A desk with a nice chair facing the doorway, surrounded by nothing but maps and old leather books.

Kilian wondered if he could use this room to study a bit more about this world. Those maps seemed fine and maybe he could brush off the dust and such.

He moved on to the third door and surprisingly it wasn't locked.

It was a nice bedroom, as big as the two other rooms combined. The bed was extremely large, seemingly able to hold nearly a dozen people. By it's side, large balcony with vines crawling up the walls was noticed. There were two big glass doors that were shattered and broken off their hinges and layed on the stone balcony.

He saw a large white dresser and a smaller one just by it. This half of the room looked devent compared to the other half.

Kilian saw an entire wall filled with a bunch of weapons. Sabers, lances, swords, crossbows, and spears.

"Quite the display hahah." Kilian looked at the measily sharp rock on his hand and tossed it aside. He walked over to the weapons with his hand on his chin and inspected them.

Despite serving most of his life to his profession as an assassin, he was no weapons expert but he had a friend who was interested in collecting anything sharp. He could tell these weapons weren't in good shape but they were still remarkable. He picked one of the sabers out of random then looked around some more.

Kilian noticed a ring in a glass case in the far corner of the room.

He walked right over and slightly bent his body to look at it. It looked average, seemed like nothing but a silver ring. Though, the inside was completely purple.

[Lucky you, you just found something important so early, take it.]

Kal chuckled.

"Really?" Kilian lifted the glass case and picked up the ring. It was warm, as if someone had already warn it before.

He slipped it on his finger and balled his fist up, expecting some sort of magical transformation to happen.

"What's it supposed to do?" He fiddled with the ring with his thumb.

[Place a drop of blood on the ring.]

Kilian paused for a moment then bit his thumb. He took off the ring. Crimson quickly flowed out of his finger and fell on the ring.

For a moment, nothing but silence. Kilian grew confused but the ring started vibrating.

The blood on its surface became golden and was instantly absorbed by the ring, turning it golden also. This happened within a couple of seconds and everything returned back to normal, except for Kilian's surprised face and the golden ring in his palm.

"I'm liking this magic mojo even more." He laughed and slipped on the ring.

[Glad you do. What you've been given is a spacial ring, a storage device, be careful not to lose it and care for it well. Place your focus within the ring.]

Kilian looked at the ring and focused as if he was reading a book. The world around him turned into a small empty room. He returned to reality. So... how do I do this?

Looking at the bunch of weapons, Kilian randomly waved his hand in front of them and they, to his surprise, instantly disappeared. He focused on his ring again and found them laying comfortably in the corner.

[You're a quick learner, I haven't even taught you how to put anything inside hahah.]

Kal grew to like his partner.

Kilian simply smiled then turned to leave the room. Once remembering the wardrobe, he walked over and opened it. There were a multitude of clothes around but they seemed quite dirty and worn, save for the suit hidden away in the corner. He pulled it out and smiled.

It was a dark navy jacket with white and gold trimmings and designs. The buttons were like ice-blue diamonds and were cold to the touch. It came with a simple white collared suit and black pants with a nice belt that had a dragon on it.

It resembled the dragon on the stained glass picture from earlier.