Chapter Text
The next day went by without any notice. If Vaccaria hadn’t experienced it for himself, he probably wouldn’t even know that yesterday had existed. Today was the day they would finally reach the tower. The night before they had settled down a short walk away from their destination. Although they could have walked the miles without problem, Vaccaria had decided against it, since no one knew what would await them. If someone truly lived there than said person could see them as intruders and attack them. Also they did not know whether it was just one person or more. No, when not having enough and reliable information, it was the best to stay on the safe side and proceed further one step at a time. In the case of the little group that meant to push reaching the tower to the next day, so they were in full strength.
“Captain, what’s the plan?” Flying Sword asked.
During yesterday’s dinner, they had discussed how to approach the tower. Should they split up to investigate or stay together? What were the pro and cons of each option and in the end would be the least risky one for them.
At the moment they only had the rumors that said that a witch lived in the tower and assumptions that she might be responsible for the drastic change in weather, so she must be a powerful being. However, being powerful and being strong were considered two different things here. Those, who were considered strong, were able to control their powers, no matter how much they had or not, while those, who were considered powerful, could not control their huge about of power. Of course, there were also people that were both, powerful and strong. The Battle God was the strongest and the most powerful!
“We will approach the tower together, then search for an entrance. In case we find a door, we will knock and wait. If no one opens, we will leave a message and take a look at the other half of the forest. At some point, we will have to go to the Village of Origins and the Frost Forest. If someone opens us, we will have a conversation and depending on the outcome we make further plans.”
It was a simple plan, but there wasn’t much they could do in the first place.
“You should be prepared for the worst. We don’t know, if whoever might live there is welcoming us or prefers us dead.”
Vaccaria was sure that his reminder was unnecessary, but better safe than sorry.
Within a mere hour they reached the tower and started walking around it.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Quadruple.
Two times clock wise. Two times against the clock. Nothing. No door.
Since there was no entrance, the chances of someone living there were quite low. Well, at least that was what Flying Sword and Red Leaves were thinking. Vaccaria, on the other hand, thought differently. The tower had an entrance – more than one. It was just not a door. After running around the tower another time, Vaccaria made a decision.
“I will go inside. If I don’t come back in the next half hour, you go inside as well.”
“Go inside? How?”
Both, Flying Sword and Red Leaves, looked at him in confusion.
“Through the windows.” Vaccaria pointed at one of the “windows”.
It may not be the normal way to enter a building and definitely not the most appropriated, but at the moment it was the only one.
“And how am I supposed to get up there?”
As Witch Vaccaria could use his broom to reach the window and Red Leaves could use the recoil of their guns to push herself up, however Flying Sword had no such methods or tools to help him up – and no one could jump that high.
“The window isn’t that high, so I assume that the recoil of Red Leaves guns should be enough to get both of you up there. Any more questions?”
“No.”
Without further ado Vaccaria got on his broom and flew to the window and entered the tower. In his life, he had seen many things, but nothing could have prepared him from what he was seeing now.
No, he was not in some kind of hidden laboratory in which human experiments had been made. He also wasn’t in a torture chamber. To the contrary, he stood in a very well kept room that reminded him of vestibule. On the wall hung a picture of a flower field. Two comfortable looking armchairs stood next to a little table, on which stood a delicate vase with a single rose inside. He couldn’t see any dust on the furnishings or the floor. Someone must life her and clean it daily.
From the height of the window Vaccaria assumed that he was in the first floor at the moment. Beneath him was probably the entrance hall and maybe a basement. Should he take a look? Maybe it was better to take a look just to confirm that nothing dangerous was hiding under him.
Carefully the made his way down, always expecting some hideous creature to attack him, but in the end all that happen was him finding more and more extremely clean rooms. Whoever lived here must have some kind of obsession. At home more than one person was cleaning up the guild rooms every night, yet it never looked as clean as here.
Never had he expected to be scared by too much cleanness. Wasn’t it always him that told his teammates to make sure to always tidy up their places? Now he was in a place that could be perfect, because of how tidy it was, yet he could only feel highly uncomfortable.
After checking the two lower levels he returned to the first floor and looked out the window to give Red Leaves and Flying Sword a sign that he was fine and would now proceed to inspect the rooms above. Whenever he reached a new floor Vaccaria gave sign to his comrades before taking a closer look and move on. Theoretically he could have reached the top of the tower very fast, since every floor barely had anything in it, which made it hard to hide something or someone. Yet, since he was overly caution it all took at least thrice as long. Although he hadn’t found anything interesting, he at least had a relatively good knowledge of the stricter and possible escape routes or things that may get in his way of escape.
The top of the tower was not only the biggest room, it also was the messiest. Multiple thing hung on the wall, some of them even overlapped each other. All kind of dolls and material for crafting lay round on the floor or the cupboards. He could see an untidy bed and clothes on the ground next to it. It was a mess. Nothing but a mess.
How could this be? All the other rooms were so clean and yet this room looked like someone just had a fight in here.
“Who are you?”