Not much time had passed since then when we reached the back door of the mansion.
"We really found it.", I thought. Carefully, Law opened the door and peeked outside. Then he opened it wider to walk through. There was no one in sight. I suddenly thought all this to be too easy. But I didn't say anything, as I didn't see anything suspicious either. There was no reason for anyone to guard this door or the garden either and I hadn't seen any guards when I looked out the balcony. Despite it feeling weird, I wouldn't complain about it.
Law walked straight towards the labyrinth.
"Do you remember the way through?", I asked, not remembering to lower my voice.
Law reminded me with a finger over his lips to keep it down. I immediately covered my mouth with a hand symbolically. Answering my question, Law nodded as he looked up at the mansion. I mimicked him.
A few lights were on. I carefully checked all the windows that were open, but no one seemed to look outside. "Lucky me.", I thought relieved.
We turned around again, but froze after a few steps, as we heard a window being closed. Turning around again to check the situation, I only found the window in question after a voice called out.
"Who goes there?", a female voice asked out into the night. I recognized it to be Carmilla's voice.
I looked at Law because I didn't know what to do. Should we answer and make an excuse or stay silent, hoping she might think she had misheard. Law shook his head after he noticed I was waiting for a decision from him. Following that decision, I remained silent.
As there were no lanterns on this side of the mansion, it was quite dark. The area was only dimly lit by the light emitting from the rooms of the mansion, so we were still hidden away in the darkness of the night.
At least our faces. Carmilla obviously saw our figures, as she didn't return back into the room. The lights were on, so all I could see was her silhouette.
"If you are the young lord and milady, then please return back inside the mansion. It is quite dangerous outside at night. Otherwise I'll need to alarm security to get whoever you are.", she called.
It felt like she already knew it was the two of us, giving us the choice of making a scene or not. Again, my eyes fell onto Law, to await his decision. This was about him finding the portal to get home, after all. I was just tagging along to assist him in some way I was able to. So it was ultimately his decision if we should give up this opportunity or not. It would be harder to get this far if we returned back inside the mansion. At least Carmilla would keep an extra eye out for our activities. It was possible the next chance wouldn't arise until my departure.
Law didn't move an inch. Had he made a decision? I wasn't sure. He gave me no hint. I imagined him to wait for her to decide to get us or call for security, so that we were out of her sight once, but I didn't think that would happen any time soon. Carmilla was just waiting at the window for us to make a visible decision.
"I am waiting.", she confirmed my assumption. Finally Law let out a tiny sigh before glancing around. What was he looking for? It was too quiet for me to ask him without Carmilla noticing. She was quite attentive, so I was sure she would recognize my voice.
Suddenly, Law grabbed my hand and ran towards the little garden shed on the right side of the labyrinth. As he suddenly dragged me with him, I couldn't contain my surprised voice. "Huch!"
As we ran towards the shed, I heard Carmilla shouting after us, but I couldn't understand what she said. Once we reached the shed, Law looked behind, opened and closed the door of the shed loudly, but didn't enter. Rather, he rushed behind the small building with me still in tow.
I wanted to ask what his plan was, but never had the chance, because right after we were behind the garden shed, Law looked back around the corner. That was when I wanted to ask him, but he suddenly ran back towards the labyrinth with me.
I was glad to have been trained by him, otherwise I would lost my breath by now. I tried to find the window Carmilla had called out from, but couldn't find it by the time we reached the entrance of the labyrinth. The moment we turned the corner I heard the back door of the mansion open in a loud manner. They could've seen me if they looked the right way. Though I didn't really have the time to think about that, as I needed to watch the ground.
Every now and then there was a root from the hedge sticking out. I had to avoid them not to fall. Law had slowed down his pace inside the labyrinth, as the ways were narrower and shorter until we reached the next corner, but that didn't lower the risk of falling much.
Rushing through the labyrinth like we did, we reached the hut quickly. Without further ado, Law opened the door and dragged me with him inside.
Finally I had a moment to catch my breath. My heart was beating heavily at the sudden exercise. It was pitch black inside, but I remembered the wall right next to the door being free. Leaning with my back against it, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to slow down my pulse. It wasn't as effective as I had hoped, but I did feel it slow down a little bit.
Opening my eyes again, I noticed Law had turned on his flashlight. I raised my head again as I heard the door suddenly lock. Law had locked it from the inside.
"It has a lock?", I asked in surprise. Why wasn't it locked then? Law just shrugged and went towards the stack of logs. He started throwing them to the opposite wall of the room, freeing the hatch underneath, after leaving the flashlight on the work bench to illuminate the room.
He paused for a moment before turning around and looking at me.
"Are you going to stand there forever? Security is probably just making it's way to us right now.", he claimed. "Right.", I just said and began helping him to put away the logs.
After the hatch was free, I tried opening it. It was much heavier than expected. Trying a second time, now expecting the weight, I slowly lifted the hatch up.
"No wonder it was so heavy.", the wooden hatch was strengthened underneath with a thick metal plate. As I held the hatch open with both of my hands, Law directed his flashlight at the tunnel leading down. There was a ladder installed on one side. It wasn't very deep, maybe two or three meters.
"Now this looks promising.", Law said with a smirk. He held the hatch open with one arm and gave me the flashlight. I climbed down the ladder first. As I descended down, I noticed an earthy smell, as well as it getting warmer. I welcomed the latter. After I reached the ground, I shone back up so that Law could follow behind. He closed the hatch above him, as he climbed down the ladder.
The tunnel from the hatch leading down was made out of metal, but as I turned around to light up the tunnel leading away, I noticed it to just be fortified with metal joists. "That's where the earthy smell comes from.", I thought.
Walking ahead, I checked how hard the walls of this rather small tunnel was without thinking about it. It was the first time I walked through one. I didn't want to be buried alive. But the earth was quite hard, I wouldn't need to worry about it suddenly coming down. The tunnel was just big enough for Law to walk straight, though he still lowered his head a bit.
We soon reached the end of the tunnel. There was a room much bigger than the tunnel in regards of their height and a lot more spacious too. The ceiling and walls were strengthened with concrete, making this look just like inside a building.
There was no doubt, this was the portal site we've been searching for. Just like on the island, there was a circle of stones with the same symbols engraved. The circle on the ground, drawn with chalk on the island, was also engraved into the ground here. Though it was still filled with chalk powder, as I checked.
Finally, there was a crystal lying at the center of the circle on the ground. It had a slightly different shape than the one we grew back then. This one was also shaped like a drop. But it was much clearer than the one Corel had grown. The spikes on the bottom and the holes on it's sides were missing. It didn't have that zigzag shape either. It was just a simple drop. It was not as foggy as well, much more like a cut crystal. For all I knew, it could have been made out of glass.
I wasn't sure how to describe it, but there was some kind of pressure inside this room. Maybe pressure was the wrong term. The air was filled with energy. I felt a tingle running through my whole body. The source of that energy was definitely the portal site. I had felt something similar on the island, though it was a lot more intense in this rather small room, compared to the open space on the island.
"Guess the theory is wrong.", Law suddenly spoke.
"What theory?", I asked him.
"The one that a person needs to fulfill certain conditions to activate the portal.", I didn't quite understand how he could confirm that, as there was still something missing to activate the portal.
As Law noticed my confusion, he continued to explain: "Everything's in place. Considering it was just the right person missing at the portal, that shouldn't be the case anymore with us here. Yet the portal isn't activating."
"You're not quite right there. There's still something missing for the portal to activate.", I told him. The moment of despair when we tried to activate the portal was still so vivid in my mind, I wouldn't forget about it.
"What's missing? That's all we had to activate the portal.", he claimed. I shook my head.
"Don't you remember what happened? It rained.", I reminded him. Then the frown on Law's face disappeared and his eyes widened for a moment. He seemed to realize.
Water. Water was missing to connect the crystal with the chalk and ultimately with the stones. The dry materials may touch, but they wouldn't really connect. I realized that when I saw the liquid flowing along the drawn lines of the circle towards the stones.
I had thought that the collected materials brought forth the downpour, but that didn't seem to be the case here. Or it did rain once when they were put together, but just once. Though that was just speculation. Once we had solved that, Law turned around and went away.
The room was shaped like a rectangle. The portal site was at one end of the room. On the other end was a desk with some papers and a growing crystal on it and a lot of boxes with different materials stacked in the corners. In the boxes were things like different variations of chalk powder or different types of salt. I guessed they knew the materials needed but not what kind exactly. Like we needed the specific salt from the mangroves from sabaody archipelago in the other world. So that might still be a problem. We could bring water easily, but if the wrong crystal was in place, that wouldn't do anything.
I joined Law at the table to take a look at the papers lying around. They looked like notes written by the lord and old notes about the necessities to activate the portal. The last note written by the lord contained thoughts about the exact materials needed.
"It's obvious we need very specific materials to activate Uriel. I'm sure I already found the right kind of chalk to use, but it remains uncertain what kind of salt we need. That part is damaged in the old notes. I guess it to be either salt from the ocean or a certain underground lake, since those are very pure."
I looked for the note containing the information described in the lord's note. It was lying on top of one of the small piles of paper. Lord Trafalgar was right, the part seemingly describing were to find the needed salt for the crystal was damaged.
"Damn it.", I muttered unconsciously.
"What's the matter?", Law asked.
"Huh?", I was so lost in thoughts I didn't know what he was talking about.
"You just cursed.", he explained, raising one eyebrow.
"I did?", he nodded.
I told him what I had just found. Assuming Lord Trafalgar had already found the right type of chalk, there was still the right salt for the crystal to find. The crystal was one of the most crucial things to open the portal.
Law frowned again and looked at the damaged note for a while. Then he sighed and straightened up. "Let's go back up. There's nothing for us left to do here.", he said, waving at me to follow him.
"What about the security looking for us? I mean, what if they are waiting around the hut?", I asked him. I wasn't used to these kinds of situations so I had no idea how to handle them.
"Depends on their number. Either way, there isn't much they can do, since the portal is a secret matter.", he said without worry.
"I could imagine the personal of the mansion to know about it. And they could certainly do something to us.", I argued with him. Law was sure, that they wouldn't harm them. The ultimate goal was to activate the portal, and the two of us were very important clues to that, he said.
"But still, I'd be more comfortable not getting caught.", he finished off.
Law waited for me at the tunnel, since I had the flashlight to lead the way. But I was still hesitant. I wanted to clear everything out down here where they couldn't hear us.
"What if they already broke into the hut? Or the lord simply came with the key?", I kept asking for Law to argue away my worries.
"They'd have come down here if that was the case."
"Or they could be waiting for us in the hut for the moment we return.", Law smiled upon hearing this. "Then they'd be stupid. What if we don't return?", he countered my question with another. Confused by that, I just frowned and tilted my head slightly.
"For all they know we could activate the portal and enter through it. Their goal is to activate the portal, but they also know that it closes itself shortly after someone went through. So them waiting up there would mean they're missing out on the chance to see the portal activating. The lord is not that stupid.", he finished his explanation with another wave for me to finally light up the tunnel.
Convinced, I walked over. "Sorry, but, just to get it off my head, assuming they're stupid and wait for us in the hut. What are we going to do then?", I could see Law getting annoyed at my continuous worries. But I had the flashlight, he had not much of a choice than to answer my questions.
"I'll go up first, so stop worrying about useless stuff.", he only told me. I understood he was telling me to stop asking questions and just trust him. I nodded and turned around again, leading the way back to the ladder. Thinking a bit about our little discussion, I concluded that he was used to the role of being the trusted captain. The crew would follow behind him and trust in his decisions and abilities.
"When I reach the hatch, turn off the flashlight.", he whispered to me, as he passed me to get to the ladder. His sudden whisper in my ear surprised me, which made me jump a little. A bit flustered, I nodded. Then he climbed up the ladder. As we had agreed, I turned off the flashlight once he had reached the top.
A moment of silence followed. I didn't hear Law opening the hatch, only after he completely climbed up and told me to come up too, I knew the hut was safe. As I only had to climb up the ladder in front of me, I left the flashlight turned off. My eyes adjusted easily to the dark in the hut. There was a tad more light here than down in the tunnel. Though it was still too dark to see anything really.
Still, I left the flashlight off, as I was worried about security waiting outside the hut for us. I didn't want to give them the hint we're there. Law closed the hatch silently again, though he couldn't do anything against a slight squeaking sound. I flinched a little as the hatch squeaked like an old door.
"This needs to be oiled. Did it squeak like this when we opened it before?", I wasn't sure, but couldn't remember. We were in too much of a hurry at the time.
Translations:
(1) "Huch!" - That's a german way of expressing a surprised shoutout. I guess the english synonym would be "Gasp!", but I wanted to go with Catherine's mother tongue on this.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzzkLRRlAjR
