Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Forgotten rooms

"I'll go with you," Chornakish offered.

"We too," Coinin and her sisters joined.

"Me too."

"We'll fight at your side."

Gjaki smiled. She appreciated their feeling, their intentions. It made her feel really comfortable, she could feel the warmth of their souls. However, it wasn't a good idea.

"If you want to fight by my side, you'll have to practice. You can use the training room to learn and practice spells and skills. Whoever wants, when I come back, I'll take you to some dungeons to level up," she proposed.

"Training room? What training room?" Diknsa asked, surprised.

"The one in the basement. When you go to the bathrooms, you take the corridor on the right," she answered, confused. It wasn't that hard to find.

"There's nothing there," Coinin contradicted her.

Gjaki looked at her incredulously. Then, she became a little scared. She had put a lot of effort into creating it, plus there were a lot of the weapons there that were of no use to her. She had obtained them in various quests or dungeons, and hadn't deigned to sell them, as she had more than enough gold.

"Are you sure? Let me see."

She hurried to where the room was supposed to be, down the stairs. She was followed by nearly twenty of the mansion's inhabitants.

"See? There's nothing here," Coinin reaffirmed shortly after.

Gjaki was standing in front of the hallway wall. There must have been a fork there that led to the training room, but there was nothing but a wall. It was a simple and boring wall.

"Did I forget to leave it open?" she murmured aloud.

The rest of them looked at her not quite knowing what to think. Most of them didn't quite understand what she meant. A few looked at her in disbelief.

She placed her hand on the wall and circulated her mana and her blood. Soon, her aura filled the place, and a soft click was heard. Then another. Another. Another. Soon, the noise of cogwheels moving, rotating, could be heard. A few moments later, the wall began to open before the astonished gaze of the spectators.

They followed her without quite believing that there was a so large corridor that they didn't know. When they came to a large door, they were even more surprised, although not as much as when it opened.

The room was huge. It was filled with training dummies, which were regenerated with mana. Although, perhaps, the most striking feature was the multitude of screens, under which there were what the players called videos. Inside them, memory crystals could be inserted. There were hundreds stacked in a corner.

Gjaki had collected them, and left them there. The only problem was that they weren't cataloged, since it was a boring task and without any incentive for her.

They were excited and amazed. On the monitors, a multitude of skill and spells could be watched as many times as they wanted, if they could find one that interested them. Also, there were wooden weapons for training.

The real ones were in an adjoining room. Some of them, the most gorgeous, were elegantly displayed in glass cases. The others were stacked in another room. Diknsa sighed.

"It's going to be a lot of work to sort this out. You really are..." she reproached her.

"Look, Coinin, it's done like this. You put the crystal here and..." Gjaki began to explain, as she was trying to divert Diknsa attention, and moving away from her. She didn't dare to look at her mother.

That mother shrugged, sighed, laughed, and began giving orders.

"Let's see, I want you to write on a piece of paper a summary of what you saw in the crystals. Divide them by skills and spells, by elements and weapons..." she began to organize them.

Gjaki spent a week there, during which she opened a few more rooms that had remained closed.

Some were simply empty, as if waiting to decide what to do with them. There were quite a few of these, more than the inhabitants of the mansion could imagine. In fact, until then, they had been unaware that there was a second underground floor, not to mention a third. What they didn't lack were suggestions to remodel them.

Others were half finished, like a game room that everyone rushed to help set up and, above all, test it. Diknsa was very skilled at billiards, though not as much as Goldmi had been. Of course the elf cheated, or so Gjaki said, because her lost friend had a very convenient skill.

Other rooms, she had simply forgotten about them. There was a sauna, a special tanning room for vampires, or a workshop with magical platforms of all kinds. It excited a few of them. Although she only used the tailoring one, she had won them in-game in a tournament. Gjaki had wanted to sell them, but it wasn't allowed.

Lastly, there was a room that under any reason she wanted them to know about. She had accessed it secretly, and verified that it really was there. In the room, there were several comfortable armchairs, from which screenshots and videos of her could be seen, sometimes with her companions. Some were terribly embarrassing.

What she didn't know was that both Coinin and Diknsa had discovered her. Although they didn't know what was inside, the vampiress' reaction, changing the subject in embarrassment, had filled them with curiosity.

They couldn't just break in, nor would they. However, they had reached an agreement to make her confess little by little. When she returned, there would be a conspiracy in place to get her to show them what she was hiding.

Although that wasn't the only conspiracy in which both were involved. The vampiress didn't know it, but the questions about Chornakish weren't casual. Nor the ones they asked him about her.

Chornakish and Gjaki couldn't imagine the gazes that were on them when they were together, something that happened very often. Not only did all the inhabitants of the mansion favor it, but the feline demihuman always tried to be close to her.

In fact, he didn't know exactly why. He believed it was simply because she was his lady, his savior. Though that didn't explain why his heart raced. The day Gjaki asked him if she could touch his ears and tail, he thought it was going to come out of him. He couldn't open his eyes as she did so extremely gently, and it took him hours to calm down. From that day on, he feared and desired the same that she would ask him again.

However, it was when the vampiress bit him that he was the closest he could be to her. Having her so close was both a dream and torture for him. He was unable to control or understand his own feelings.

Gjaki, for her part, didn't dislike his presence at all. She liked his character and physique. He was helpful, attentive, hard-working, lovable, and handsome, plus his blood was really delicious. However, she wasn't sure of her own feelings either. It was new to her, and different from the movies.