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<Narrator> ::The Pile itself is more a ruin than a house, looking like it's permanently under construction... or, considering all the holes, DEstruction. The mud-colored stone facade is encrusted with all manner of froufrou-- battlements, iron spires, gargoyles, and so on.:: * Dawn reactivates his magic detection spell, though the look of disdain he casts at the walls suggests that he's more concerned with making sure he doesn't get trapped under a collapsing bit of ceiling. <Narrator> ::Dawn's spell turns up traces of spells on nearly all the lower-level windows, and the remnants of a spell on the front door:: * Dawn squints at the tattered remnants of the warding spells, shrugs, and pushes through. <Narrator> ::The wards are weak and ancient-- old, it seems, than Bonesteel's tenancy. The front door feels like it held a fear spell at some point, but the tracks of multiple muddy boot prints over the threshold indicates that it didn't keep people away too long:: * Dawn grins at the faint flutter of his heart and the momentary jolt of adrenaline that accompany his brush through the fear spell, then continues into the house, looking for anything of interest. <Narrator> ::Inside, Dawn sees the remnants of what was perhaps, once, a grand house. The floor is broken marble, many tiles ripped up and scattered. Entire sheets of walnut panelling have been ripped off the walls in the main foyer. It looks like someone took a saw to parts of the sweeping main staircase. Everything is covered with dust and litter.:: <Dawn> ::tsks:: This ought to be good... Now, if I was a half-competent mage, where would I hide my treasure room...? ::he turns slowly on his heel, examining the room carefully, from floor to ceiling in every direction.:: <Narrator> ::The grand staircase is treacherous but passable. On the main floor, a parlor lets off the main foyer to one side, and a narrow hallway leads to what look like servant's quarters and a kitchen.:: <Dawn> Mm. Not the ground floor. Too easy. ::he heads up the staircase:: <Narrator> ::there is also a faint glimmer of magic-remnant coming from somewhere *behind* the main staircase.:: <Dawn> ::catching the glimmer between some cracked stones as he starts to mount the stairs:: What's that? ::he frowns, backs down the stairs, and moves around the stairs to peer under them:: <Narrator> ::behind and below the stairs, there is a small space in the wall that looks as though it had been bricked over, and the bricks torn down again with a crowbar. Behind the remnants of loose mortar and boards is a small door:: <Narrator> ::the faint glow of magic that caught Dawn's eye was almost hidden behind some of the few remaining bricks, just outside the doorjamb at shoulder height:: <Dawn> ::muttering:: Strong fucker, weren't you, for all this trickery to linger? ::he peers through a hole in the door, frowns, peers again, then turns to eye the spell stuck to the wall:: <Narrator> ::half-hidden behind later brick work is an ancient wall sconce crudely figured into a snake with gaping jaws. An old, half-burned torch rests in the snake's coils:: * Dawn grins and examines the snake a little more closely, and then laughs. "Fucker after my own heart, even." The syllables of his fire-protection spells are so familiar that he doesn't even have to say them, just mouth them. He considers the snake for a moment longer, then carefully lifts the torch out of its coils. <Dawn> ::When nothing happens, he nods and puts the blackened end of the torch into the snake's mouth, making sure that it touches both fangs:: <Narrator> ::the snake's eyes, which until now gleamed black, now turn a malevolent, glowing red. A soft hiss is Dawn's only other warning before a four-foot jet of flame fountains from the snake's gaping jaws. Anyone standing directly in front of the door (who wasn't wearing a handy fire-protection spell) would be char at this moment.:: <Narrator> ::The ancient torch-- not surprisingly-- lights. Almost inaudible under the roar of flame is a faint click, as of a lock opening:: * Dawn grins smugly as the fire tickles his nose and stirs his hair. "My kind of bastard." He pushes confidently on the door, and extends the torch to see what's behind it. <Narrator> ::opening the door appears to trigger another trap, or apparatus, this time purely mechanical. A counterweight rises, and a section of the stairs separates from the "ceiling" (the bottom of the staircase) of the little room-- which on first glance, has no floor.:: <Narrator> ::with an agonized screaming of rusted gears, the stairs rotate downward, forming a new set of stairs down into the blackness.:: <Dawn> Well, now... That looks promising. ::he looks behind him, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he picks out the teleport coordinates, then carefully descends the stair:: <Narrator> ::the walls are much less finished-looking down here, and an old smudge of black on the ceiling tells Dawn that this is a stair that's been tread with a torch in hand many a time. The dust isn't so bad down here, and there is no sign of the careless destruction that marred the foyer.:: <Narrator> ::the second-to-last step at the bottom glows with the pale peacock sheen of illusion:: * Dawn taps at the step gingerly, confirms that it is absent, and skips it. <Narrator> ::a short hallway at the bottom of the stair ends at a T-- a short cross-hall leads to doors on either side. to the left, an iron door with a barred window. To the right, a carved oak door bound with iron filigree.:: <Dawn> ::raises his eyebrows, then rolls his eyes eloquently:: Why keep prisoners? Why not just turn them into frogs? ::he peers through the bars of the iron door:: <Narrator> ::the door to the left does, indeed, house a spacious dungeon or group of holding cells. There are about a dozen cells, as well as a stack of smaller cells-- such as for animals-- nearer to the door. Some of the occupants are still here:: <Dawn> ::grimaces at the skeletal remains, then turns to peer through the filigree on the oak door:: <Narrator> ::the ornately-worked window in this door gives Dawn a glimpse into an eerily familiar-looking room-- a tinkerer's workshop. The glow of magic touches some items on the workbench, and surrounds some of the glass jars lining the walls. Fine tools are neatly racked near the bench, and some are left out, as though the craftsman stepped out and might return to finish his work a bit later:: <Narrator> ::the ceiling likewise glows with magic-- looks like a light spell:: <Dawn> ::raises his eyebrows again:: Who wants to work this close to the groaning and moaning of prisoners? Your sanity is in doubt again, Fred. * Dawn considers briefly, then tries the door. <Narrator> ::the door opens to Dawn's touch, and the light spells on the ceiling blocks activate, casting an even, steady illumination over the entire room. A stasis spell deactivates at the same time, and Dawn walks into a room that looks as clean and fresh as when Frederach last left it, however many centuries ago. Worked silver sparkles on a half-finished ivory box. An elaborately carved skull grins from one end of the workbench.:: <Narrator> ::In a frame to one side is what looks like fine leather being prepared. A faint but unmistakable stench of blood seeps from one of the side rooms:: * Dawn does not touch any of the projects or artifacts, but walks slowly around the room, eyeing everything. His expression is mingled interest and disgust. He pauses at the door to the smelly side room, then sighs and looks in. <Narrator> ::There is no other word to describe it: the small room adjoining Frederach's workroom is an abattoir. A sloped stone table and the rack of butchering equipment beside it dominates the room. The stone floor slopes in from the corners to a drain in the center of the floor.:: <Narrator> ::The stench comes from the half-dissected specimen still on the table. There must have been a stasis spell active in here as well, as everything smells unfortunately fresh. From the manacles in use at the corners of the table, Dead Fred liked his specimens very fresh indeed. The head and one hand are missing; the rest of the corpse appears to have been flayed with surgical precision. The body is female, too delicate to be human; elf, perhaps. <Narrator> ::a small container, like a perfume flask, sits on a shelf to one side, glowing bright with necromantic magic:: * Dawn stands unmoving in the doorway for several minutes, his expression slack and stony as his eyes tick appraisingly from detail to detail. Finally, he shakes his head. "Sometimes I wonder what I could've been, if the Shadowguild hadn't owned my ass. And then I see this sort of thing, and I think... Shadowguild isn't so fucking bad after all." * Dawn steps carefully into the room and picks up an apron draped carefully on a table, and shakes it out. He covers the body with it. "Good thing the others stayed outside..." He picks up the flask, turns it carefully in his hand, and -- not seeing any convenient labels reading "healing potion" or "lich elixir," tucks it into his beltpouch for further study later. <Narrator> ::something airy swirls within the jar as Dawn picks it up, and falls quiet again:: * Dawn starts to leave the room, then pauses at the door. He looks back at the defiled corpse for a moment, then sighs. "Sorry, darling. You're a bit too big to take with me. Best I can do is..." He pauses, then summons a handful of fire. He tosses it on the body, and then entices the flames to grow hotter, and hotter still. Protective spells still in place, he watches until the body is reduced to ash. <Dawn> ::Satisfied, he leaves and goes to see what's in the second side-room.:: <Narrator> ::the second room, mundanely enough, is a wash-room. The sink is particularly capacious, with a still-working pump to deliver fresh cold water and a magically heated copper drum for hot. The towels, bizarrely enough, are pink. And fluffy.:: <Narrator> ::the only detail lacking from a "typical" washroom is a mirror-- not *too* surprising, if he's regularly messing about with death magic in the next room:: * Dawn blinks at the towels, then sighs and turns away again. "Right. Not going through the wardrobe. I don't want to know if he wore fucking ladies' underthings." He returns to the main workroom, and begins eyeing various pieces. <Narrator> ::The box in the center of the worktable glows with many different spells, and appears to be under construction. The work is exquisite-- carved ivory, elaborately worked silver twining around the sides-- but it is missing a lid, among other things. The skull at the end of the table-- not human, likewise elaborately carved-- has an oblong marked out on top that appears to match the box's opening.:: <Dawn> ::bends over to look at the ivory box, but -- noting the sparkle of spells already inlaid -- he decides to leave it alone.:: Right. ::he looks around again:: Back upstairs, then. ::He heads for the stairs back up to the main floor.:: <Narrator> ::Dawn hears the shriek of little-used gears again when he closes the doors under the stairs. The torch quenches as though it had been dipped in water as soon as he replaces it in the waiting snake's coils. In contrast to the clean, neatly-kept rooms below, the main foyer looks even worse than it did before, but far more comforting in its mundaneness:: * Dawn looks around again to make sure nothing's changed significantly, checks the angle of the sunlight as it filters through the windows and cracks in the walls, then heads (carefully) up the stairs. <Narrator> ::from the sun, no more than a quarter-hour passed in Dawn's time downstairs. His care with the stairs up stands him in good stead, because-- other than the hidden rooms below-- it seems that little escaped the depredations of the treasure-hunters. One can only assume that, with Lord Bonesteel's death, they gave up all pretense of discretion and went over the house with crowbars and pickaxes, seeking after a legend of wealth.:: <Narrator> ::Dawn notes that many of the stair risers, while still mostly intact, show starry cracks in the marble and the occasional hole. If anything was hidden behind these stairs, it's long gone.:: <Dawn> ::grunts as he steps over a stair likely to crumble:: Astonishing the place is still standing, really... <Narrator> ::A dusty, deep red runner lines the hall at the top of the stairs. Or rather, it did. Some enterprising soul pushed it aside before trying to tear up several floorboards up here. The windowed outer wall is intact, but many of the inner walls look like someone took a sledgehammer to them.:: <Dawn> Idiots... ::he steps over a hole in the floor, looking around carefully:: <Narrator> ::The walls here are half-panelled in some dark wood, the upper halves painted a delicate gold that might even be called cheery were it not for the sad state of the house. There are several rooms up here-- a few very fine (though wrecked) bedrooms, a sitting room, a small portrait gallery, a spacious library (where most of the books have been pulled from the shelves and scattered on the floor), a grand bathing room, and an office.:: * Dawn looks in each room at least briefly, and lingers a few moments in the library to pick up the discarded books and skim the titles. He tucks a few under his arm before continuing on his way with yet another sniff of disdain for the ignorance of the previous looters. <Narrator> ::Had Loria accompanied him, she would have recognized the Bonesteel line instantly in the portraits that line the small gallery. The office looks like it's seen the worst of the looting-- an immense oil of a blond-haired knight astride a rearing white stallion in the midst of battle that once took pride of place on the wall behind the desk has been pulled down, and leans sideways against the bookshelf below. The bared wall is smashed in.:: <Narrator> ::What was once surely a grand desk of cherry wood is a bare skeleton-- someone systematically took the entire thing apart, and bits of it lie in neat rows, as though the looter intended to try to reassemble it after:: * Dawn ignores the simple physical damage (except where necessary to avoid hurting himself), merely moving from area to area to ensure he's not missing any magic. <Narrator> ::The entire office floor has been prized up, making walking treacherous. It looks like someone *tried* to do the same with the stone fireplace dominating one side of the room, but proved unsuccessful.:: * Dawn pauses and looks at the fireplace. He frowns, recalling the layout of the house as he'd seen it on the outside, and its distinct lack of chimneys on this wall. He picks his way across the floor and peers into the fireplace. <Narrator> ::The fireplace appears to be well-used. The ashy remains of an old fire lay in the grate, the shovel and poker to one side show signs of use, and what looks like the soot of centuries of fires stains the stones. But when Dawn peers carefully up the chimney... he sees another glimmer of magic.:: <Dawn> Ostentatious fucker. Almost as bad as the fucking Tower. ::Dawn is about to pull his head out and leave when he notices a second spell behind the portal for the soot and smoke. He frowns and climbs into the fireplace entirely to look at it.:: <Narrator> ::When Dawn does his reverse-Midwinter Sprite trick, he is able to see a heat shielding spell, and something blocking off the chimney at about mantle-level-- although it certainly appears that a full-size chimney goes up the wall inside the room:: * Dawn summons a small fireball and, frowning, adjusts the spell until it starts smoking faintly. He moves it back and forth, watching the portal spell carefully as it sucks up the smoke. Once he determines that there are no holes in the spell that he could reach through to get to the secondary object, he ducks back out of the fireplace to examine the mantle. <Narrator> ::A blank spot in the dust about the size of a tinderbox sits atop the mantle-- it doesn't appear that the treasure hunters wanted to risk leaving *anything* boxlike behind. The mantle looks ordinary enough otherwise, though bare of the trinkets that often adorn such a space. Perhaps because of that, a small scar in the stone attracts Dawn's attention more than it might have. The mark is the same color as a pointed stone set in the chimney.:: <Narrator> ::If Dawn didn't know better-- and, in fact, he does-- he might say that the stone had *touched* the mantle repeatedly at that point:: * Dawn smirks unconsciously as he bends to examine the mechanics. "You were probably a better mage than me, Freddo, but I've yet to see the gadget I couldn't turn..." <Narrator> ::Dawn's keen eyes suss out that one small, smooth "stone" is not a stone at all... although darkened with use and age, it has the familiar polish of ivory. With a little jiggling, it pushes in and upward, releasing a hidden catch that opens the entire front panel of the chimney downward to rest against the mantle:: <Narrator> ::several shelves line the revealed opening, some holding scrolls that glow with magical script:: <Dawn> Hah. ::he pushes the panel gently aside, gently retrieves the shelves' contents, examining each quickly:: <Narrator> ::The scrolls appear to be "emergency" spells of a sort-- offensive and defensive, as well as a few transportation spells. Underneath the scrolls, on the bottom shelf, is a small stack of black-bound journals, closely written in a spidery hand. The paper is spell-quality, but only a few pages seem to hold the glow of spells. Most are covered with sketches and notes for traps, gadgets, and items. They are nearly falling apart with age.:: * Dawn sets the scrolls and books to one side carefully, for future study, and peers into the shelves for any additional catches or nooks. <Narrator> ::The shelves look solid, although, from the depth of the hidden shelf and the distance to the wall, he estimates there must be another 2-3 inches of space back there somewhere:: <Narrator> ::As he takes a step back to study the shelves again, he notices that the second shelf from the bottom is set in just a fraction farther than its mates, and the joining along the left side doesn't quite match up:: * Dawn fidgets with the shelf a bit... <Narrator> ::with a bit of wiggling, the shelf tugs out and to the left, and something clicks. The shelf moves towards him, and Dawn hears a faint clunk as if something fell down behind the shelf:: * Dawn winces, and pulls the shelf the rest of the way out. <Narrator> ::Fallen down behind the shelf, Dawn finds a little jewel of a book, with covers chased in silver-- or at least, it *looks* like a book. The thing fairly glows with magic-- and traps.:: * Dawn removes the book-box from its hidey hole with extreme caution and sets it with the scrolls and books. He gives the hidden cabinet another careful going-over to be certain he hasn't missed anything, and closes it back up again. <Narrator> ::The mechanism closes again with a soft "click," vanishing the shelf back into the chimney as if the whole thing were a solid unit of stone.:: * Dawn tucks away his findings and takes a last look around the office to be sure he hasn't missed anything. Finding no other signs of hidden caches or magic, he leaves. |
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