Whatever the creatures saw, they scattered almost instantaneously.
As the cloud dispersed, the three seemed relatively shaken by what they had seen
but Randall could offer no explanation. Lavinia had decided that everything she
would see from now on needed to be physically inspected for its reality. So, she
leant over the hole the creatures had come through and dropped her torch down expecting it to fall into the room below. Instead it fell into the crawl space
between the floorboards, illuminating a construct made of metal.
Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be a sturdy tripod
with that supported a large red ball. As Lavinia lent down to take a better look at the finer
details, she was blasted by a force of energy that knocked her back and winded
her, causing shooting pains on her left side. Randall immediately dived over to
Lavinia to support her. Xera on the other hand, knowing he didn't need to help her, had become intrigued the object
and used every last ounce of knowledge he had to try and understand what he had
attacked Lavinia. After a while, Xera was able to gleam information on what he had
found. It was a device that mostly likely could be used to set up a large parameter defence from a central point.
A fact the other two had missed as they had both had gone downstairs while Xera
had rambled about the possibilities of it .
Lavinia and Randall had passed Chance on their way down, but did
not stop to tell him of what had happened. They both had quickly ushered
themselves, as well as Danton, back into the room where Zeigev had changed.
Although Danton protested, they were forcefully persuasive and he eventually relented. He found to his confusion, only scratch marks where Zeigev had been. Outside the corridor, Xera
had followed them downstairs, ignoring Chance as well, trying to now get into a better position to hear the conversation. Without warning Lavinia burst into apologies
before Randall offered clarity. They spoke of their contract to a man named Ren,
who they believed was under Danton's employment. This sparked apprehension and curiosity
in him as they explained the vision of the man upstairs. The alluded to the fact that this had been a man Danton had
wanted to Ren to 'keep silent' and had obviously found someone to do it for him. Danton was now curious as to why this person, if they
were telling the truth, would even be up there and not under lock and key. There was a few moments pause before Danton raised his eyebrow. Lavinia turned her head and looked to the floor
as Randall shifted his eyes sideways away from Danton's. He explained that the
man had escaped and they had not been able to stop him. His tone changed, Randall was now fearful and almost stumbled over his words. He stressed to Danton that with the connections the prisoner had, his return to them would mean all their lives were under threat. They said that they had intended after getting to the truth of the letter to warn him. They had tried to get in contact with him through Ren, but Ren had been already been murdered
Upstairs Chance had been drawn by the smell of fire and went into the empty room that had presented itself as a playroom from
Lavinia's past. To Chance, it was the perfect empty room. There was a small
amount of cloth and shards of broken wooden furniture. As he had walked up the stairs
he could feel the paint from the paintings he had tied to his back, drip and bleed onto his clothes. They had ran
down his back and his legs to which they had dripped onto the floor leaving dark trails behind him. As he had tried to wipe
it off his person, he found that the paint was more like blood than the oils used. He had desperately tried to keep himself under control going up the stairs. He by now had realised the every piece of
art here was cursed, and that no matter what the value of them, they could only
cause pain. In anger at the situation, he threw the paintings into the
middle of the room with the scraps of cloth and pieces of wood before he took a
torch to them and watched them burn.
Danton below had paced up and down the room a few times before he
demanded he see the room for himself. They marched upstairs with Xera,
sheepishly following, as Danton quickly made it obvious that he had been seen. There again
was laughter as they trod upstair while the paintings in front of Chance slowly
smouldered in changing hues. Danton ignored Chance and headed
straight for the door Lavinia pointed too from behind him. As he tried the handle,
it too showed resistance like it had to Xera. Before he could be warned, the
door gave way, causing Danton to fall and for more laughter to follow. The room
was empty. There was not even a sign of where the candles would have been held that Randall and Lavinia had seen earlier. Danton
questioned them again on their reliability, and what they knew of Ren. They explained
he was a man who adored violence and food, and would stuff money with his sweaty
greasy hands into his pocket as easily as gristle into his mouth.
Danton swallowed for a second, Ren had always made him feel a
little queasy, and an accurate description did as much as seeing him in person.
Before he could give them a proper response, he heard shouting from across the
landing by Chance. He was yelling about a fire in the room going out of
control. Randall stopped Lavinia before she could rush out, pointing out to her
that the last fire in that room had not been real. Danton however went to
investigate and found an empty room apart from a torch to one side and a pile
of burning wood in the centre. There was also two footprints made of ash, a few
feet away from the painting within arm's reach of the torch. The fire soon
snuffed itself out and through the ash Danton could see there were fragments of
something that hadn't burned.
Xera cleared his throat behind Danton and startled him. Xera had followed Danton in cautiously, after Danton had proved
the room was empty. He too looked down at the ash pile and saw what hadn't been burned
and took a closer eye to it. Upon inspection, Xera told Danton that the shards that hadn't burned,
were either shavings or splinters of some kind of underknown wood. He told him this fact almost disbelieving.
Neither of them could understand why the wood hadn't burned while the rest had.
They both decided it was best if they took a samples back with them for further analysis, although
Danton walked away smiling.
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