Alan arrived in the deepest portion of his house where a staircase descended into the basement. A very thick wooden door blocked the path ahead, and Alan pulled a key out of his pocket. Even though the entire house was renovated, the basement had remained locked.
Apart from the vast wealth, Alan's grandfather had left him two other things in his inheritance. The first had been the two keys to the basement and this room.
The other had been the diary. In that diary, he had discussed everything about Mystic Falls. About vampires and witches, and what being a Founding Family meant in this town. He had also talked briefly about the family history though it had not been in much detail. But the most important thing in that diary had been about this basement and the magical vault.
Had it been the original Alan, the man would have been freaked out. Most probably, his grandfather would have planned to tell him everything personally, and this diary would have only been a contingency plan. But he died before telling him anything, and the contingency plan had to come into motion.
However, since he was already aware of all these things, the diary did not really have any effect on him. He did benefit, though, by knowing a few things about his family and about the town which he had not been aware of.
Using the key, Alan unlocked the door and stepped into a corridor. The hallway was glowing with a pale yellow hue. The old wooden floor beneath his feet was cracking with a sound as if it was on the verge of breakdown. It had not been replaced or maintained in years.
There were two rooms on the right side of the corridor and one directly opposite. Alan ignored the two rooms on his side as he walked straight toward the door at the end.
These two rooms were cellars capable of holding and imprisoning vampires and had been used in the older times. Using another key, Alan unbolted the final door and stepped inside. The room was a small one, around fifteen feet in dimension on each side.
Lining the walls were wooden stakes and old style crossbows. A couple of guns and rifles were also strapped to the walls. A layer of dust had settled over them, indicating they had not been touched in years.
Alan was not sure if the guns or crossbows would even work. He did not care about them, anyway. He would soon be restocking everything with brand new equipment, not that he was going to need those. His own strength was sufficient to deal with any vampire.
His eyes settled on the center of the room. In the center of the room was a wooden table. There were a few glass bottles filled with a transparent liquid on the table, along with a couple of bracelets, lockets, and a few more small boxes. All these boxes were filled with vervain. The glass bottles contained vervain liquid, and the bracelets and lockets contained vervain as well.
As a warlock whose powers had been activated, he could not be compelled by vampires. The vervain would most likely have been for those who had not yet awakened their magical potential, or to prevent vampires from drinking their blood, since vampires could still feed on the blood of witches and warlocks.
Alan's eyes barely lingered on the various props hanging on the walls or scattered across the table. His gaze finally settled on an old looking knife strapped to the center of one of the walls. The knife appeared to be made of a very old metal and it was rusty and extremely worn out.
Confirming that the appearance of the knife matched the description he had read in his grandfather's diary, he approached it.
He then raised his hand and pressed his index finger against the edge of the blade, drawing blood. He had barely pulled his hand away before the wound had already healed, thanks to his healing powers.
Even so, Alan was not focused on the injury, but on the now bloodied knife. Nothing seemed to happen for the first few moments, and Alan frowned, wondering if he had picked the wrong blade or if his grandfather had provided incorrect information.
Suddenly, a slight ripple occurred as the appearance of the knife shifted. From its worn out state, it transformed until it looked brand new. Its blade had started glistening and shining and Alan could even see his reflection in the knife.
Then came another ripple and with a loud thud, the wall before him collapsed as if swallowed into the ground, revealing a path ahead of himself.
Alan stepped inside and arrived in a small room. The space was illuminated by two flame torches mounted on the center of the walls. The hidden mechanism of the room had been constructed through magic by Alan's great-grandfather, and only Alejandro's blood being absorbed by the knife could have activated it. Similarly, the flame torches burning inside the room had been ignited by that same magical construct.
And what was Alan looking for inside the room? Directly in front of him stood a massive wooden cupboard. Its top was brushing the ceiling of the room, and it was stacked to the brim within those wooden shelves were thick books. These were the magical grimoires of every Alejandro since the first witch had appeared in the family. From a first glance, Alan could tell there were around seventy of these volumes. And the sheer number of the grimoires had made it very obvious to Alan that the Alejandro family had been witches and warlocks for almost a thousand years. And it was a very long long time.
It was a treasure trove, and Alan was exhilarated to find so many grimoires before him. He was not going to have a shortage of magical spells to learn and perform. This was what he had not been expecting from the magical vault. It was far beyond his expectations. And he was very happy about it.
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