“Don't move,” Emily whispered, reaching out to press a hand against Rosie's arm.
The buzzing overhead grew closer.
A few giant bees descended from above the mushroom caps, hovering in midair.
Rosie tightened her grip on her short spear. She could clearly make out the fine fuzz on the giant bees' abdomens and the barbs on their stingers; getting stung by one of those was definitely no joke.
Yet compared to the caterpillars, she felt no psychological resistance toward these giant bees.
If they dared to come down, she would give them a beating they wouldn't forget.
“They're not after us,” Emily whispered softly. “Look at their flight paths. They're patrolling, circling along the edge of the mushroom forest.”
Rosie calmed down and observed closely for a few seconds.
Emily was right. Although the giant bees hovered in place with their antennae twitching slightly as if evaluating something, they weren't in a predatory state like when they spotted prey.
“Back away slowly,” Emily said. “Stick close to the mushroom stalks.”
Following the halfling's instructions, Rosie slid sideways along the phosphorescent mushroom stalks.
Emily stayed beside her, moving just as slowly.
The buzzing overhead didn't follow.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rosie saw the giant bees hover in the air for a moment longer before continuing their patrol toward the other side of the mushroom forest, the sound fading into the distance.
Emily's voice sounded softly:
“A giant bee's compound eyes aren't sensitive to stationary objects. If you had run or swung your weapon just now, they would've pounced right away. By moving slowly, we stayed below their recognition threshold, so they just treated us like part of the mushrooms.”
“Part of the mushrooms?”
“In their minds, pretty much.”
For the rest of the trek, they moved with even greater caution.
Before crossing any densely clumped mushroom area, Rosie would pause to listen for any buzzing overhead.
Moving in cautious fits and starts, they finally made it through the phosphorescent mushroom forest and stood before the massive structure.
Up close, it was even more breathtaking than from the cliff top.
Dark gray moss covered the building's exterior, yet the straight lines and neat joinery of the walls remained clearly visible.
There were no windows, only a massive grayish-white stone door.
In the center of the door was a recess forming a regular geometric shape, its edges carved with intricate patterns that even Emily struggled to decipher.
“This should be a sealed gnome mechanism,” Emily murmured, crouching in front of the door and pulling out her tool kit. “I might be able to pick it open.”
She ran a finger carefully around the edge of the recess, then inserted a small pry bar and gently gave it a levering nudge.
Click.
A series of low mechanical gearings reverberated from deep within the stone door.
The door's surface vibrated faintly as dust and tiny pebbles rained down from the frame.
Then, the stone door slowly receded inward, opening a gap roughly the width of a person.
A current of dry, stale air rushed out from the crack, carrying the smell of dust trapped for a thousand years as it dispersed into the cavern.
“Woohoo!”
Emily stood up, dusted off her knees, and pulled a spherical metal device from her kit.
Holding it up to eye level, she gave the top of the sphere a twist.
With a sharp click, a soft white light radiated from the sphere's surface.
While not blindingly bright, it was far more even than torchlight and emitted neither smoke nor burned smell, illuminating the foyer with crystal clarity.
“What's that?” Rosie asked, thoroughly impressed.
“An orb light modified from ancient gnome technology,” Emily explained.
“That's really neat,” Rosie praised.
“Let me lead,” Emily said, raising the light and stepping into the corridor ahead.
The passageway wasn't long. After a few minutes' walk, it opened up into a main hall several times larger than the entry foyer.
The hall boasted high vaulted ceilings supported by several thick stone pillars.
Along the surrounding walls stood rows of stone shelves, stacked with stone tablets and clay jars of various sizes.
Emily set the orb light down on a raised pedestal to cast its illumination over a wider area.
She approached the nearest shelf, picked up a palm-sized stone tablet, and gently blew the dust off its surface.
She scrutinized it for a moment, set it down, and picked up another.
The halfling's expression shifted from initial excitement and anticipation to deep focus.
A moment later, she put the tablet down and turned to Rosie. “This is a research facility.”
“Hmm?”
Rosie was currently checking a line of clay jars on a shelf, hoping to find something valuable, but every single one was empty.
“If my guess is correct, this place studied ancient cultures, languages, customs...”
Rosie put down the jar and wiped her hands.
Ever since entering and seeing those neatly ordered stone shelves, she had a faint suspicion that this wasn't the “treasure vault” she had envisioned.
Still, hearing Emily confirm it left her feeling a bit hollow inside.
She walked slowly around the main hall, her gaze sweeping over the rows of stone shelves.
To scholars, these tablets might be priceless treasures.
To a former dock worker who just wanted to earn money for better gear, they were no different from stones by the roadside.
She walked over to the wall at the far end of the hall.
Embedded in the wall was a record tablet much larger than the others, its surface densely carved with symbols.
As her eyes rested on those symbols, she was just about to turn and leave when—
【Adventure Quest Completed: What Is History?】
【Reward Trait: Ancient Language Proficiency — Grants the ability to understand and read the written and spoken languages of all civilizations throughout history】
Something seemed to gently dissolve in her mind.
The squiggly symbols on the tablets suddenly stopped being meaningless patterns.
In Rosie's eyes, they reassembled into meaningful, structured, and fully readable text.
“...Recorded in the Fourth Era of the Gnome Calendar, the Year of Cultural Preservation. This research facility aims to collect, record, and preserve the cultures of intelligent races fading during the changing of eras. Our creed is: A race's end is not extinction, but being forgotten...”
Staring at the text she could suddenly read, Rosie muttered, “...Did I just get forcefully upgraded from semi-illiterate to an intellectual?”
The body's original owner knew a few words, but only her own name and a handful of extremely simple terms.
Rosie, having inherited those memories, had naturally been semi-illiterate as well.
Not anymore.
She traced her eyes further down the tablet, skipping over several entries about recorded transitions, until her gaze paused at the lower right corner.
It was a brief addendum, carved in a different handwriting from the main body, looking like it had been added later.
“...The outer entrance mechanism of this facility is for routine access only. Entering the lower core area requires a clearance token personally granted by the Gnome Archsage, to be verified at the secondary entrance. The entrance is located at...”
Rosie paused over the note for a second, then called out, “Emily, I found something!”
Emily, who was crouching in front of a shelf looking through things, immediately stood up and hurried over to Rosie.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“It says there's a secondary entrance, but accessing it requires a pass from some Gnome Archsage,” Rosie said, pointing to the line.
“This isn't Ancient Gnomish, it's High Elemental... Wait... How can you read this?” Emily stared in astonishment.
“I guess I'm just naturally gifted...” Rosie made up an excuse on the fly.
She then read out the location of the entrance.
Emily looked suspicious for a moment, but didn't press further. Following Rosie's description, she quickly found the secondary entrance in a corner of the main hall.
It was a hidden door seamlessly integrated into the wall, with a circular socket beside it apparently meant for inserting something.
“Judging by the shape and depth, it takes a circular token to open,” Emily noted.
She stood up, circled the hall, checked several objects on the stone shelves, and came back shaking her head.
“Nothing. A pass of this clearance level wouldn't be kept in the outer section.”
After saying that, she stepped back in front of the hidden door, examined it closely for a moment, and pulled out her tool kit.
“What are you doing?” Rosie asked.
“I picked the outer door, didn't I?” Emily said without turning around. “Maybe I can try the same trick again.”
“Are you sure?” Rosie asked. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
The outer door was just a regular door, while this one was clearly higher security.
“No problem, leave it to me.”
Emily was overflowing with confidence as she aligned her tiny pry bar with a miniscule seam in the door frame.
Click.
A soft click sounded where the bar struck.
CLANG! SCHWING!
Immediately followed by a loud, harsh metallic clash echoing from deep within the walls.
Emily's hands froze.
She turned her head slowly to look at Rosie.
“Uh... that sound doesn't seem quite right.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the entire hall shuddered violently.
Stone tablets and clay jars wobbled on the shelves, and debris showered down from the vaulted ceiling.
Then, the wall directly opposite the hidden door split open down the middle.
The gap widened rapidly as two heavy stone partitions slid back to both sides, revealing an even vaster chamber behind them.
Under the glow of the orb light, a massive metallic silhouette emerged from behind the stone doorway.
It was a mechanical creation.
Over five meters tall, its body was constructed entirely of metal, with thick legs like iron pillars supporting its massive torso.
Its head was a hemispherical dome with a giant amber crystal embedded in the center.
Its right arm was a thick metal barrel terminating in a dark, hollow muzzle, while its left arm consisted of three massive metal claws that twitched open as it leaned forward.
It “looked” at the two intruders.
The amber crystal flared to life.
“WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED DAMAGING COMPANY PROPERTY! PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 998 OF THE COMPANY'S 999 REGULATIONS, INITIATING PHYSICAL ELIMINATION!”
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