Clive looked over the runes, then reached out to touch several in quick succession. He stepped back as a section of the wall opened out, making ripples in the water. They all stepped into the room beyond, which looked to be some kind of book repository. Unfortunately, most of the room’s contents had been taken by rot. There was a breach to open earth in one of the walls, exposing the room to untold years of destructive moisture.

“This is a real shame,” Clive said as they looked around.

“I’m seeing a lot of residual magic,” Humphrey said, picking up the leather cover of a book whose pages had long since turned to wet pulp.

“Me too,” Clive said. “I’m guessing these were all skill books.”

“Would have been worth a fortune, intact,” Humphrey said.

“It also might have given us some idea of who inhabited this complex,” Clive said. “Sometimes a storage room like this will keep the most important items sealed away, so there may still be something to find.”

They searched through long-rotted shelves until Humphrey uncovered a group of metal boxes. Three of the five had been breached, but two looked to be still intact. They were large enough that each could contain several skill books.

“We shouldn't open them here,” Clive said. “The contents are definitely old and may be fragile. I have tools back at the Magic Society that would let me open them more carefully.”

“Sounds good,” Jason said. “Bag them for later and we’ll go find this adventurer.”

Clive carefully lifted the boxes with Humphrey’s help and stowed them in his storage space.

“I’m a bit worried about the state we’ll find this adventurer in,” Jason said as they left the training hall and its hidden storeroom behind. “What if he’s just been eaten and all we find is his badge inside a monster.”

“Then that’s what we bring back,” Humphrey said.

They continued exploring the flooded and debris-filled lower level. Rather than continue on through the filthy, icy water, Clive was now sitting atop his tortoise familiar. Not long after leaving the training hall, something came shambling slowly towards them.

“Zombies?” Humphrey said. “How can there be zombies?”

There were dead bodies making a slow, stumbling path in their direction, looking like skeletons stuffed with mud. Humphrey lunged forward, using his smaller sword in the confines of the tunnel. He still made short work of the animate corpses. Clouds of mist rose off them as Humphrey cut them to pieces.

“Why wouldn’t there be zombies?” Jason asked as Humphrey walked back to them, coughing from the zombie mist. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took them this long to show up in a place like this.”