"We've got more work to do. Let's go."

Noir hefts her gun and takes point as they go further into the castle.

It's a mix of smaller corridors, occasional big rooms like that, and some side rooms. They collect another ten thousand yen along the way, and a few little baubles that might be able to be pawned. Eventually they find a map. It seems to cover half the castle, and it looks like they've explored about half of that.

The room's a old guard station, the map spread out on a desk near the door. Noir inspects the map carefully, looking for anything labeled as important. 

There's another guard station, where a note indicates something about lift controls. There doesn't appear to be any indication of the kind of room a treasure would be kept in, though.

"Whatever we're looking for is probably well guarded. Top of that lift, maybe. It's as good a place as any to search."

Noir takes the map and puts it in her pack, then it's off again in roughly the right direction. 

Clover nods. "Whatever you say, Noir."

Skull falls in line behind the girls. He's breathing just a little hard, but he's still going.

The room around the lift is packed with at least fifteen shadows, more than half of whom can see each other at any given time.

"Heavily guarded," Mona notes.

"There's no way we're getting through that," Clover says.

"We'll have to find a way to distract them that doesn't endanger us directly. Something to see on the other side of the castle, maybe?" Noir pushes up her glasses. "Let's try and explore the area we don't have a map for."

"Fine by me."

Skull nods and follows.

As they explore, they come to a locked side room. There are lanterns hanging from the walls and bookcases against the wall on either side of the door.

"This looks interesting."

"If this is locked in here, it must be something that our target cares about. Let's see if we can find a way in."

Noir stays out of the lamplight and moves through the shadows, looking for a less obvious entrance.

There's a chance this is one of those bookcase-keys, isn't there? Any of the books in the bookcase have titles?

The books all have to do with sports injuries. None of the titles particularly stand out as different.

Great. She can just imagine what she'll find behind this door. Probably how Kamoshida learned to fake sports injuries, if she's lucky. 

The lanterns don't rotate or some shit like that, do they? That's blatant video-game logic, but the more she exists here the more she feels like it might be possible. 

No, but as she looks up toward the lanterns, something on the wall above the left bookcase glints faintly in the lamplight.

What is that? She focuses in on it. A hidden lever maybe?

A concealed vent. Kamoshida must have watched a lot of spy movies.

Noir points it out to Clover and Skull. 

"Let's see what's on the other side of that," she murmurs.

She looks over at Ryuji. "Boost me up? Clover, you're on watch."

He drops to one knee and laces his hands together, making a stirrup for her to climb up.

Noir sets her foot and gets up to the vent. She pops off the cover and hands it down to Clover, then slips into the vent and starts to shimmy deeper.

On the other side of the vent, she finds she's atop a tall bookcase she can peer down from, where she sees a lone shadow patrolling the room. It doesn't seem like it's ever thought of looking up.