Adelaide was about to reach for the doorknob but then realized that Cryce wasn't behind her. Going back into the storage room, she found him prying open various boxes and crates. If he wanted to check out the boxes and stuff, it was no big deal to Adelaide. She supposed they could take a few minutes to see what all these storage boxes contained, although she really wanted out of this whole place as quickly as possible. Still, perhaps there was something here they could use against the mad lunatic.
She went over to one of the crates that Cryce had pried open with his ice tool and carefully looked inside, almost afraid of what she might find in there. Inside the musty smelling wooden interior, all lined up together neatly in rows were small bottles and vials of some mysterious liquids. One row contained a line of test tubes, something that an alchemist might use in their laboratory. And in those test tubes was some murky yellow liquid that seemed to fizz inside the clear glass. Adelaide dare not touch it, for all she knew the liquid was highly corrosive and could burn through her skin at the slightest touch or accidental spill.
There was a label on each one and Adelaide bent her head to get a better look at what they said. ''Leech Essence'', she read aloud, frowning at this. What the heck is leech essence? she wondered. It had to be of no good, just like the psycho it likely belonged to. All the yellowish bottles said the same thing, this 'leech essence' it was. Looking at the other vials and thin glass containers of different sizes and shapes, the rest of the bottles contained blue liquids and dark red liquids that Adelaide could have sworn looked like blood. She had no idea what the other bottles were as they weren't labeled.
Two other boxes contained a bunch of moldy, rotting books on various arcane lore and magical formulae, but so far nothing on ice magic she could see. Picking up one of the books, the ice mage saw it was blank, likely a journal of some kind for taking notes in. The spine was starting to fall apart though and hadn't been written in at all. She put it back and looked over to what Cryce was doing.
Peering over his shoulder, the crate he was standing in front of held more of those leech essence bottles, all appropriately labeled and dated. She shook her head at this. He certainly had enough of those. And yet another crate held various kinds of powders, elixirs and black dust-looking stuff. Again, Adelaide had no idea what all of these were, she had never seen this sort of thing before. Labels which read 'Black Root', 'Elixir of Holding', 'Vampire Dust', 'Crushed Pixie Wing' and others filled her with both disgust and dread. True, many mages utilized these sort of things, but this guy they were up against...
If they got out of this alive, Adelaide was going to seriously rethink visiting this section of the tundra again.
***
Meanwhile, Entreris was not happy with what he saw. Not one bit. His victims had escaped the dark pit, having blasted a hole in the wall to get out. "Arghhhhh!" he yelled, almost knocking over a pile of books sitting in a corner. "Those blasted, sneaky little..." he trailed off, thinking. I suppose I'll have to go after them myself now. Shouldn't be too difficult to find... Looking back at the orb, he waved a hand across the hazy surface, with it revealing a new scene. "Gotcha..." he whispered, lips curving up in a devious smile.
