1 - The Treasury

Looking at the sight before me, I felt an odd feeling. It wasn't a grandiose feeling, and it wasn't an intense feeling. It was more like...yes, it was more like a constant, ever so slightly numbing pain, one that would surely become unbearable if I left it alone for long enough.

Let me start from the beginning.

A couple hours ago, I had met an odd merchant in town. He gave me a key, told me it could open the seal of my heart and mind, and allow me to percieve a fragment of divinity.

So anyways, I call bull, cause does he really take me for a fool who'd easily get scammed by a monologue like that?

I mean I'll admit, the way he said it with such zest, such flavor, and such confidence, I was tempted to, but in the end, I gave in to my higher rationality.

Or so I thought.

Turns out, my so called "higher" rationality is about as high as a child reaching for something on a high counter. Sometimes he could, and sometimes, well, let's just say the counter is too high for him.

Indeed, what I had thought to be the most rational course of events turned out to be false, and my mind had failed to reach up to the high height of the "counter" that the truth of this situation was placed on.

That's all a fancy way of saying I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Turns out, it wasn't a scam.

The guy gave me the key for free, so I thought, 'why not keep it?'.

I mean, maybe he stole it and was trying to pass the problem to me, but as long as I hid it well, who'd ever know I had it? Plus, I could always explain my circumstances and give it back to anyone that asked for it.

Well, surprise surprise, there I am, feeling stumped about this damn key, and I just so happen to, by sheer coincidence, place it on my forehead just one time.

...

And that was that.

Now here I am, in this weird space that looks like something straight out of a holy scripture or a nobleman's wildest fantasy of an ideal estate. Only issue: I couldn't go outside.

The place was flooded with light, windows everywhere, and where there wasn't natural light, there were these bizarre "wisps" of light floating around. That was the best I could describe them.

They gave off a warm effervescent glow, and it had an oddly calming effect.

In comparison, the natural light from outside had an almost revelatory effect. I felt like I could think better, almost too well, when exposed to them.

Parts of the building were like a library, with a large open space in the center. There were 3 floors, and what seemed to be a passageway to a room in the back.

Before exploring that, I tried to go to the door and look outside, but I couldn't see anything but multi-colored lights outside from the windows, and I couldn't manage to open any of said windows, nor any doors, to go outside.

Something worth noting is that nothing was locked, with a physical lock or anything of the sort.

Instead, when I tried to open something, this unusual circle with odd inscriptions appeared on the window/door. Thereafter, all attempts to open it were futile.

I would later learn to call these circles "magic circles", but at the time I had no idea what they were. Still, even an idiot could tell that they were what were, in all likelyhood, causing the exit paths to stay closed.

I perused the library portion of the building for a while but only found one book.

It was placed in the middle of the front counter, which had an extremely comfortable looking chair behind it, as if there was meant to be a librarian around, but like the rest of this place, there was nothing.

After I was done looking around, and all that was left was the one passageway to a backroom, I strolled around to the other side of the counter and sat in the chair, intending to start reading the one book.

It had no title, like one of those old esoteric books you'd see in a nobleman's private bookshelf.

I had had the privilege of visiting noble estates. That's right, not just one, but multiple. The first, I learned to read and write there, serving as their butler for a time.

Unfortunately, before my training could end, the lord went bankrupt due to a political scheme by his enemies, and as a lowly baron he already was, a measly butler in training like me, of that very measly and now bankrupt baron, indeed baron no longer in fact, was just ignored and left to rot.

Of course, I didn't rot. I could read and write, and to my credit, quite well. In that competency, I managed to become a quite well paid private tutor to another noble house after my initial lord's decline, so I've been living pretty well. I was to teach their only son.

Leaving aside if I could ever get out of this damned place to continue that foray into tutoring, for now, I just chose to read the book.

Before I began, however, I had to take, not just one, but a few moments to really, truly savor just how comfortable this chair beneath me was.

It was truly a work of wonder, a miracle, that a man could make a chair like this.

Well, who knows if the one that made it was a man, god, demon, or what have you. Of course, these were only beings spoken of in myths. But at the moment I was feeling quite incredulous even being in such a situation, so suddenly the tales of olden legend didn't seem as far fetched.

Anyhow, after taking my time, truly, to savor the damn chair- no, the blessed chair, I finally opened the book.

I didn't prop my feet up on the counter and act relaxed as I read. This was a serious situation and I thought that I had ought to adopt the appropriate attitude.

So, with a keen gaze and intent focus, hunched over the counter with the pages flipped open, I saw:

Nothing.

It was blank.

Page after page was blank.

After flipping through the whole book, I set it down and closed it in defeat, brooding abkut it for a moment, when suddenly it flipped open on its own to the first page.

The rest of the book was still blank.

There was only a single, simple pair of paragraphs:

[This is a library and a storehouse, and collectively a kind of treasury. The library stores the treasure of knowledge, and the storehouse stores most other, more physical (or magical) treasures. Currently, both the library and the storehouse are empty, empty as a dry well in the desert. That is to say, the entire treasury is essentially all empty. Besides the building itself and this one book, and the owner, this treasury is left with nothing.

If the owner reads this, please upgrade and furnish the treasury with many valuable books, grimoires, treasures, artifacts, and so on. The reward...well the reward is you get to keep and use (and discard) said items. In other words, please feel free to use this place as your own private treasury. Nothing more. Nothing less. Oh, there is one treasure left behind by the creator. It's a treasure compass. It will guide you to treasures worthy of this place. Do use it to your heart's content. That is all.

-Adriel]

?????

Umm...what?

There's so much to say about that.

Sorting out my thoughts after a few moments, my brain latched on to the key points mentioned in the brief text.

A) This place, probably, belonged to me, so I didn't have to feel afraid here. Especially since it seemed to exist, according to the merchant who sold me the key, inside my very heart. There should be no danger. Probably.

B) I'm meant to amass treasures here. Meaning I should be able to get out, and even freely move in and out of this place.

C) There's a treasure left, and it's no insignificant one.

Finally, D) Adriel. I might not be religious, although I might convert after all this, and I might not know much about scripture, but even I know that that's an angel name.

Of course, it doesn't have to be. Not everyone named Michael or Gabriel is an archangel, but still. Given the situation, it honestly could be an angel that wrote the brief message.

Feeling at ease from the first matter, and concluding that there's nothing more to think about for now about the last matter, I was left with 2 important tasks.

The first, check the storehouse for the treasure compass, the final yet also first treasure left behind by this grand structure's creator.

The second, look for a way out. It didn't seem like the windows or doors would work, so there must be another way.

That's when I thought about the key, and upon thinking about it, it appeared out of thin air in my right hand.

Bewildered, I willed it to go away and it did. Poof, abrakadabra, it was gone. Almost like...like magic.

Oh my goodness, that's right. The message from Adriel also mentioned magical treasures! That meant there was such a thing as magic in this world! And now, I would have a chance to learn about this world of magic and wonder, through this treasury, and most importantly, the treasure compass.

Excited, I first tried to use the key to leave this place.

I placed it on my forehead once again, and boom!

I was back.

No treasury.

No magic.

Nothing.

But the golden, brightly glistening key that appeared in my hand as I willed for it spoke of the veracity of the day's encounters.

Dazed yet excited, I looked around, yet the merchant was of course long gone, and the people around me didn't seem to notice anything odd. Looks like the key mearly brought my consciousness to that place, not my body, and in the meantime, my body didn't go limp, but maintained some kind of reasonable demeanor that wouldn't arouse suspicion to passerby.

What exactly this reasonable demeanor looked like was something to find out later, somehow or another. For now, I went to my house, a casual and homely place, not too much or too little, where I lived alone for now, although I'd been looking for a wife as of late, and went straight up to my bedroom.

I locked the door shut and closed the windows and blinds, and carefully placed the golden key back on my forehead.

Coming back to the treasury, I walked towards the passageway leadimg to the back and opened a door at the end of a long corridor.

Opening it, my eyes were graced with the magnificent sight of....

...

...of...of nothing.

Nothing but a large open space with a singular compass in the middle, on the ground.

As I went forward to grab the compass, I couldn't help but sweep my dazed gaze around the empty storehouse.

Looking at the sight before me, I felt an odd feeling. It wasn't a grandiose feeling, and it wasn't an intense feeling. It was more like...yes, it was more like a constant, ever so slightly numbing, pain, one that would surely become unbearable if I left it alone for long enough.

This feeling...it was the feeling of realizing, from the depths of my soul, just how poor I was. It was a kind of subtle emptiness.

I mean, LOOK AT IT!!!

Such a big storehouse, surely that means there are just as many precious treasures and even magical artifacts just waiting to be collected!

So many amazing treasures in this world, yet I...I....I had not one of them-no.

No, that's not right, I did have one.

Perhaps the best one of them all, a compass that would help me obtain all the others.

With a renewed sense of vigor, I placed the compass in my breast pocket and walked out of the storehouse and back into the library.

Standing in the center of the open space in the middle of the library, in front of the front desk counter, I solemnly placed the golden key to my forehead, and went back to the outer world of my baser reality.

Looking in my breast pocket...I smiled.

Ferociously, savagely and perhaps even devilishly, I smiled, a wide and greedy smile that knew no end.

I had the compass. I had a place to place my treasures without them being seen or getting stolen. I could even waltz right into the imperial treasury and take all the gold, and they would never be able to prove how I moved it all.

Well, that's if I managed to get into the imperial treasury in the first place.

Moreover, I hadn't tested how the treasury and the golden key worked exactly yet. Still, I didn't reckon their usage would be all too inconvenient.

Their creator wanted me to fill up the treasury, after all.

With that, I started to make plans, and tinker around with the golden key, treaure compass, and treasury in my heart and mind.

I was going to fill up this damn treasury. My treasury. I was going to collect all the wealth and treasures of this world that it had to offer, and also all of the ones it was unwilling to offer.

It would all be mine.

I swore it.

My name...was Merca Godrich.