Chapter 174: 3-56 Repose

The Vault the voices had been speaking of was a white room spanning ninety yards from end to finish, littered junks and treasures alike all the way. It was quite vast with a width of around thirteen yards. The murals on the walls were the source of the room’s light which seemed to shine through objects despite the walls being buried under the junks and treasures. To Erin, the Vault wasn’t a storage of someone’s articles but a sanctuary that welcomed her presence like a mother’s open arms awaiting her child. Warmth permeated the room. All the cold from ice and snow were expelled from her body and left behind at the doorway. Her Sixth Sense went to sleep the moment she stepped foot into the Vault as if to tell her there was nothing she needed be wary of in the room. There was a chandelier hanging in the middle of the room, exuding warmth from the red crystals lodged in the stead of candles. A smile of sincerity and relief touched her lip. The dragging of her weight returned to her. Every part of her body felt heavy. She doddered across the room, passing by trinkets and objects of various ages and merits, but she gave them all only a glimpse and they were gone from her mind she passed them.

There was a sofa wide enough to fit up to ten and a chair with a seat that could be rotated on the axel pole fitted underneath. There was a pile of weapons in an opened chest but a glance told Erin enough of the weapons’ quality and state. It was forged of good metal and by great smiths but time had claimed its due. The edges were dull. The blades were frail. The hilts were loose. Gems and pieces of jewellery were among the heaps of trinkets but sparkling stones were of little use to her current state. Moreover, she doubted she could sell any of them without being questioned and she didn’t trust the black dealers. She would be putting a mark on herself should she give in to a transient moment of greed. Still, the room was utterly filled to the point the walls and floors were barely visible. She wasn’t even treading the floor but an array of stuff that Erin couldn’t be bothered with giving them a second look. She was wading through them all like she was crossing a waist-deep river.

She stumbled her way to a spread of blankets and quilts on the ground. She tore off her ragged clothes down to her bare skin. Exhaustion washed over her one last time before she finally gave in and collapsed into the blankets and quilts. She revelled with a sigh and rolled herself in the blankets and covered herself with the quilts. She knew Lyra and Siv would be waiting for her but she would have them wait longer. Her body had faced enough strain and it was nigh time she gave herself some well-deserved rest.

It was long before sleep claimed her mind as soon as she shut her eyes. Her dream came and went, and she was awake before she could comprehend her fleeting and cursory dream. A few minutes went by in her head but it was longer than that. She knew due to her stiff and sore limbs as she tried to move and untangled herself from the blankets. Somehow, she had ravelled herself with the blankets. She wondered how many times she tossed and turned in her sleep for her to end up in such a state. She yawned and stretched her arms. She glanced around. Everything was as they were when she fell asleep. Not a thing was amiss. She shed the blankets from her body and rose from the quilts she had slept on. The breeze brushed by her and she shivered. She then remembered she was in her birthday suit.

She meandered around the room, searching for any garments that fit her body. Garbs and robes were plenty but it was always too bulky or too ostentatious, neither were great for combat as one was prone to the slightest mishaps and the other was much too bright to hide any feints or ruse. There were also plenty of metal armour suits scattered about but she was never one for metal armour as they greatly hinder her combat prowess and were ill-suited for her form, especially now she employed a form that utilized a wide range of movement with her lithe body using the minimal amount of strength.

When her search bore no fruit after half an hour, she decided to rummage through the piles instead of just skimming the surfaces. However, in doing so, moving a single object from its place would sometimes cause the collapse of other piles in succession. Sometimes she was even buried underneath all the junks and treasures. After an hour of waddling and rummaging, her most promising find was a steel chest embroidered with gold frames and ornaments. What made it promising was the hem of a garb sticking out the slit between the cover and the trunk. There was a padlock bolting the chest shut. Erin considered destroying it with magic. She lessened her measure to just slicing the padlock off upon realizing magic would be overdoing her attempt. But before she could pick a measure, she noticed how loose the latch was and with a soft pull, the padlock came right off the opening. She shrugged, tossing the padlock aside, and flung open the chest. Dust erupted in faint and small clouds. Erin fanned the dust clouds away with her tails.

“By the Spirits…” she gasped as she gazed upon the chest’s contents. It was a pile of dresses and robes that one would wear to ballroom ceremonies and parties. The garments were just as ostentatious as the others but it was the fabric that hooked Erin’s interest. She scooped one into her hands and caressed the garb’s texture with her fingers. It was silk but unlike any silk that she knew. She tried tearing it but her strength failed her. She cut the fabric using the corner of the chest the silk remained as smooth and whole as ever. Her Appraisal skill did not tell her much save for the fact that it was silk of excellent quality and spell-woven by a seamstress cum mage. She sifted through the chest and each of the robes and dresses was woven of the same fabric and by the same seamstress. Her only notable disappointment was that the garbs were all women’s articles. But this was a supposed storage room that belonged to a woman after all.

Time was lost to Erin as she sorted the robes and dresses by her fondness and preferences. She picked the ones with the palest colours and possessed the least adornment. She would gladly wear them but the sleeves were flabby and the skirts were draping loosely on the ground. It would not do in combat, that was plain to see. These garbs were the best ones at hand and she didn’t like the idea of meeting Lyra and Siv in nude, though Lyra wouldn’t have objected if she did. After some thought and discarding some wild ideas, she decided to fit the right garb herself.

Erin conjured a sword with Bespoke and began slicing and splicing the dresses and robes to fit her preferences. She knew nothing about embroidery or proper needlecraft but she had sewn clothes before. In her past life, she would spend most of the nights in forests and it was up to herself to mend her own clothes, pouches, and waterskins. But of course, her experience with needlework was significantly less delicate than the crafts practised by maidens and crones. Still, she was delicate enough to not make the outcome of her own tailoring hideous. A good hour was spent in the work and the result was something she didn’t expect. It had turned out better than she anticipated.

For the top, she had cut off the sleeves and skirts of a white dress embroidered with fading pink flowers, turning into a sleeveless tunic with the hem just above her knees. The frills of the dress were also removed, giving the makeshift tunic a plain but refined appearance. However, the elegance was cast off the moment she donned a torso armour of dark boiled leather. Apparently, the leather was harvested from a monster known as a Stygian Boar. Their hide was tougher than iron and nearly as tough as steel but half as thick, making it ideal to be worn underneath clothing. Though by a twist of irony, their hide became highly sought-after due to their dashing, bleak colour.

Surprisingly enough, she couldn’t find bracers or greaves crafted out of boiled leather, only metal. So she forewent those armour parts.

Erin wore a grey robe over the tunic and armour. The robe was largely untouched but there were still some adjustments. She had made a slit on both sides from the waist forth down until the end. Although revealing, it allowed some room for her movements. The frills and embellishments were also removed entirely from the robe. She fashioned a sash from a violet robe and tied it around her waist to avoid giving the robe a flabby appearance. Of the same cut but different streak, she wrapped the sash around her bosom. She wondered if there was a way to reduce their size but strangely enough, she found herself appalled by that thought. Lyra enjoyed fondling them and Erin herself was quite fond of them too. She had been secretly fondling them whenever she was washing her body, though she suspected Siv and Lyra might have known and were just playing dumb to save her from the embarrassment. The pair of mounds were just too irresistible and they felt so soft and supple in her hands but it had been days since she was last able to wash her body.

The adjustments made were simple enough but it was the fabric’s tenacity that dragged out the process. She had initially tried cutting them with the blades scattered about in the room but even the sharpest proved to be a task. Eventually, she used the sharpest blade she could find and clad it in Arcane Edge to cut the fabric. As Arcane Edge increased the blade’s sharpness and destructiveness by a few folds, she needed to be even more delicate than she was used to but still less delicate than proper weaving. Needles presented another problem. There were plenty of needles of various shapes and sizes but like the blades, none could cut the fabric without the use of Arcane Edge. As needles were small and thin, Erin needed to be delicate with the amount of Mana she poured into them, else wise the needles would explode from over-infusing.

It was a shame she didn’t have a mirror to see herself in this fine garb she had fitted from herself. She was sure she could find one if she looked deeper into the piles but that wasn’t her priority. She would have many opportunities to look herself in the mirror after she got herself out of this forsaken place. Moreover, she was hungry. The sooner she was rid of this place, the sooner she could fill her belly. It was one of the greatest disappointments of the Vault. There was nothing edible. The things that were closest to being edible were the leather boots she found buried underneath a pile of sleeping gowns. It was an odd placement for boots but she didn’t question it further aside from the occasional wondering. But to her better judgement, she settled only merely wearing them.

Finding the carpet wasn’t difficult as it encompassed a tenth of the room’s floor. Lifting the carpet up was the difficulty here but ultimately, she managed after a quarter of an hour, clearing and moving the junks and treasures aside. Just like the voice had told her, there was a trapdoor underneath but the trapdoor wasn’t what she imagined. It was a third of the carpet’s width and breadth, wide enough to fit six people at once. The door was some old wood, so opening it wasn’t difficult but keeping it open was. After affirming there was no danger under the door and the fall was short, she flung open the trapdoor and hopped into the darkness below before the door came falling shut with a loud clangour of wood and stone.

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