The Darkest Secrets

[Rehtul Orlouge]

Well, that answers that, Rehtul thought as he watched the girl white knuckle the shard of ice she had created. It was very rough magic, as though she'd had far less practice with it than her apparent age would suggest. She hid behind that small weapon as though it were actually going to do her any good.

With a sigh, Rehtul lifted both of his hands in an appeasing gesture and said, "Relax, girl. I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm the new owner of this establishment. The previous master died some time ago, I think months or maybe a year or two ago now. I can only assume you were a part of one of his experiments. I released you from that tube, perhaps earlier than you'd expected from the panic you're feeling." The ice mage traced some of the built up dust on the top of the nearest table and rubbed it into a neat little ball between his fingers.

"However, had I not found the secret entrance to this place in the store room, you'd have never been found or released from that place, so I think a little gratitude would be in order," he said, a slight edge to his tone, as though her pointing her makeshift knife at him were as much an insult as it was a threat.

He fought against his worse nature, brought his tone back to something slightly softer, and said, "Look, I don't know what you're doing down here ot why you were in that tube. You don't even have to share that information if you don't want to. However, I plan to take stock of and catalogue every scrap of note paper down here, make my own journals and notes on my findings, and perhaps even profit from it. You, young lady, are free to leave, however. I've no intention of stopping you."

With those words, he turned his back on the young woman and began to search the room, paying her no more heed than he would an animal in the wilderness. His fingers flew through page after page of research notes as he tried to figure out what the experiment in this particular room was.

"The use of alchemical methods to... accelerate the aging process and instill knowledge, huh? Okay, but how the hell did you actually pull it off?" he asked, as though the dead could hear him from the beyond and more importantly would be willing to answer.