Stepping off at the central station's platform, the group decided to skip hiring a carriage. The morning weather was mild enough to walk the avenues leading to the station on foot, saving a few coins along the way.
Despite the frantic bustle, the clatter of carriages, and the capital's usual commotion, a strange sense of calm and satisfaction settled over the three of them as they fell back into the city's rhythm.
Can't believe I've only been gone a single day, and I already missed all this chaos, Alphard mused to himself, taking in the house facades as they walked past.
It didn't take long to reach the imposing station building and descend the stairs into the darkness of the underground level.
They walked the corridors with the easy familiarity of a restored routine until they stopped in front of Charlotte's office. Antonie knocked on the wooden door with firm, sharp raps and was granted entry at once.
"Good morning, boss," the three of them greeted in unison as they crossed the threshold.
"Good morning to all of you," she answered.
This time, Charlotte's bearing lacked the icy, distant rigor that usually defined her.
Though she maintained her impeccable composure behind the desk, surrounded by towering stacks of files and official reports, a faint veil of boredom and drowsy fatigue showed through her features, softening the usual severity of her presence.
"You look tired, boss," Didier said, breaking into a smile.
"I really am sorry, we've just had too many urgent matters to deal with lately... Forgive me if I seem a bit off my game," Charlotte admitted, letting out a heavy sigh that betrayed days of accumulated exhaustion.
She propped her elbow against the wooden desk and rested her cheek in her palm, letting the heaviness in her eyelids soften her usual severity. Surrounded by walls of files, she studied them through the fog of her tiredness before getting to the point.
"So... did you manage to get anything down there?"
"We did, boss," Alphard spoke up, keeping his voice calm and distant. "The temple held a vast collection of manuscripts carved into stone, so we found a way to bring them along with me. Still, there's a more serious matter to report... a dragon managed to break free and escape."
"A dragon? How is that even possible?" Charlotte asked, sitting bolt upright, the astonishment clearing the last of the drowsiness from her eyes.
"That's right, boss. A creature of a bluish hue and colossal size was dwelling inside the temple," Alphard confirmed, his composure unshaken.
Charlotte remained standing, studying them in silence with a piercing intensity. She weighed the situation with tactical coolness: a beast of that magnitude wasn't an immediate disaster so long as it stayed isolated, but it posed a latent threat if it wandered near the province, or if some faction gave in to the temptation of trying to control it.
Finally, she let out a breath and sat back down; if the creature crossed the country's borders, the responsibility would fall to the diplomatic corps and foreign forces.
Recovering her composure, she redirected the meeting's focus back to the primary objective, and her brow furrowed the moment she noticed the lack of physical cargo.
"And the writings? I don't see any of you carrying anything."
"They're not here at the moment, but I'll make sure to hand them over shortly," Alphard answered, keeping his composure mysteriously intact.
"I certainly hope so," Charlotte declared, her voice firm and unequivocal.
Considering the meeting concluded, Alphard offered a small parting gesture and turned on his heel to leave the office. Antonie, however, reached out a hand to stop him.
"Wait a moment, Alphard," the old man asked, before turning back to face the officer. "Would it be possible for Alphard to visit the station's vault, boss?"
Charlotte fixed her eyes on Alphard, activating for a moment that calm, analytical, unrelenting stare so characteristic of her.
After weighing the request for a few suspended seconds of tension, she found no objection to it. She nodded slowly, immediately laying out a strict set of rules and precise limitations to prevent any irregularity in the deposit.
The two of them prepared to leave the room while Didier offered a polite nod as his own farewell. But just as the meeting seemed to have reached its end, Charlotte's voice broke the calm, stopping him right at the threshold.
"What do you need, boss?" Didier asked, turning back toward her with attention.
"Go help Philip with an important assignment. He's waiting for you in his office; it's purely investigative work, nothing more," Charlotte indicated, keeping her tone measured and distant.
Didier gave a small bow of respect and left the office, leaving behind only the echo of his footsteps against the wood.
Once completely alone, Charlotte glanced to the side, making sure no one else was watching. She rose at an unhurried pace, walked to one of the room's walls, and triggered a hidden spring.
With a heavy click and the whisper of well-oiled gears, the wall slid smoothly to the right, revealing a shadowy entrance hidden within the station's structure.
Antonie and Alphard walked down an endless corridor, broken only by the faint flicker of gas lamps casting long shadows across the damp stonework.
At the far end of the gallery waited a wrought-iron cage: a heavy elevator of old design.
Once aboard, the gears groaned, and the cabin began a long, frigid descent. Alphard silently counted the mechanism's rhythm, estimating they'd dropped at least eight levels beneath the station's underground floor.
When the system ground to a halt with a metallic click, the gate slid open to reveal an overwhelming sight. Before their eyes opened a colossal abyss, its rocky vault rising to an exaggerated height, echoing the majesty of a Gothic cathedral carved into the heart of the earth.
The bare stone walls rose like ancient pillars, vanishing into the darkness above, and at the far end of that gigantic nave, guarding the vault, stood a colossal monolithic stone gate, a block so immense it reduced the figures of men to insignificant shadows against its threshold.
"This is truly incredible..." Alphard murmured, taking in the vastness of the chamber, his eyes brimming with fascination.
"It is. Even I, after all these years, still haven't quite managed to get used to it," Antonie admitted with a faint smile.
Approaching the monolithic portal, the old man pressed his palm against the frozen stone surface. In response to his touch, invisible grooves flickered to life with a faint glow, resolving into an intricate web of mystical symbols and connecting lines.
A burst of thick, choking smoke escaped through the door's seams, announcing with a mechanical click that the main seals had deactivated.
"Let's go in," Antonie invited.
Crossing the threshold, Alphard's mind overloaded instantly, unable to process the scale of the interior.
The space proved infinitely more colossal than the facade suggested: cyclopean shelves, tall as multi-story houses, stretched off into the darkness. Between them, an intricate web of gears and pulleys spun in an eternal rhythm, relocating and monitoring every item automatically.
At a glance, the place housed over a thousand treasures: mystical objects, sacred artifacts, sealed containers, along with genuine Door relics and scrolls holding secrets still fast asleep.
"Do you have talismans too?"
"We've got a few categories of them, and generally they're quite good since you can use them whenever you need — though be careful not to break them."
Antonie approached the main control console and pressed a bronze button, entering the numerical code of the artifact he needed. Instantly, the gears above began spinning with a low hum.
"These are mechanisms almost no one in the country could afford. As some modern scholars would say... 'technology,'" Antonie remarked, a note of pride in his voice.
Alphard allowed himself a subtle smile. To him, carrying the memories of an age of microchips and computers, the claim struck him as involuntarily funny; still, he couldn't help admiring the skill with which this world wove steam engineering and gearwork together with the laws of magic.
While the machinery rumbled overhead, transporting the requested item toward the counter, a latent question about his own circus and the power system took shape in his mind.
"Mr. Antonie... what exactly do the twenty-five doors mean?"
Antonie turned toward him, settling into a calm, explanatory tone.
"The twenty-five doors are the total number of paths that exist in this world," the old man answered. "Among that two dozen and a half are the Door of the Clown, which is yours; the Door of the Blood Moon, which belongs to Philip; the Door of the Ghouls, which Evelyn holds; and the Door of Storms, which corresponds to Didier."
"And what Key are they?"
"Key 2. They're all Key 2," Antonie said, focusing his attention on the approaching object.
The mechanism completed its run with a firm metallic click, setting the piece down on the inspection table. It was, unmistakably, the Mirror of the Reverse River.
Antonie leaned over it with the devotion and caution of a seasoned antiquarian, studying every engraving along the frame and the strange reflections warping the glass beneath the vault's dim light.
A couple of steps away, Alphard watched the scene in silence, tracking the veteran's every movement.
After thoroughly confirming the artifact showed no cracks, wear, or alterations to its arcane structure, Antonie nodded, satisfied, and pulled the lever to send the relic back to its compartment high above.