Kingdom of Roselium: Who Needs Doors When You Have a Sledgehammer

Ducking underneath a dusty, ragged curtain he stared at the wall. Door more like actually now that he thought about it. He went around the curtain again, except this time he grabbed the edges and yanked, tearing it down. Joshua backpedaled a bit as the rod the curtain was on fell.

The castle was just full of old, dusty things and he knew he wasn’t anywhere he needed to be yet. What little he managed to find in the gardens and the outer foyer weren’t enough to tell him anything besides it was cursed. No sign of who or what. And no sign on the whereabouts of the Royal family.

Joshua had scraps of paper of short sentences that told of the vines overrunning the castle from personal diaries but not enough to see if they were confined here by their own accord or because something was keeping them here. It was confusing as he had some but not enough evidence to go off of.

He stared at the door. There was a crack. Stooping down, Joshua peeked through. A hallway with rooms. He tsked as the hole was too small for anything other than seeing straight and a bit to the sides. The hole was also too small for him to stick his hand in and open the door from the other side. It also had the luck of being too far from the knob for his original idea to work.

“Damn,” he muttered. Pressing his hands against the door, Joshua tried feeling for any hidden openings, cracks, or contraptions that would allow him to open the damn thing. He sighed after ten minutes coming up with nothing.

It wasn’t like he had the ingredients to make a makeshift bomb. Otherwise that would’ve done the trick. He stood there for a few minutes before a lightbulb went off in his head. The old shed in the garden had a sledgehammer. Joshua would break the door down.

Staring at the door, Joshua calculated which areas would break away easily first. His best bet was to start near the small hole. Carefully he hefted the sledgehammer up and swung. The door cracked and he turned his head as chunks of wood flew. Taking it out he swung back with force, and brought it forward letting gravity do the rest. This time a huge chunk broke off. A big enough one that would allow him to get through without opening the door.

“Yes.” He smiled. Pity he couldn’t take the sledgehammer with him. It would come in handy no doubt, but it was simply too heavy to lug around the whole time. He propped it up against the wall before crouching down and moving through the hole.

Shaking off any stray wood pieces he stood up and stopped. His heart lurched. The hole hadn’t been large enough for him to see much, but this was huge. Down the hallway was a large rotunda and in the middle, facing him was yet another statue of the crown price with a sword pointing down Joshua’s way. Was it trying to tell him something?