the basement study [thread two!][p]

[Sifr]

[attr="class","infosmall"]Maeve, suna, Valeria, Aurelia, @rowan

[attr="class","info"]There was a study in the basement, and the five of them entered from the right hand side door beside the staircases. After a short descent down some stone steps, the room opened up into a candlelit room covered from floor to ceiling in bookshelves, with each shelf separated by a painting of some kind. No windows, not even a tiny one, opened to the outside, and the only entrance into the room was the pathway that they had just walked out of. In the centre of the room, there was a desk that faced the doorway, letting whoever sat at it have a clear view of the door. The shelves were made of a rich mahogany, the same as the desk. It seemed that Wrys had a taste for this particular type of wood. The desk was covered in some papers, left in such disarray that it would have been almost impossible to notice.

The study looked dusty and dirty, like it hadn't been entered by the cleaning staff for a long time, which seemed odd, seeing as one of you could have sworn you heard one of the staff whisper about sounds down in the basement after the maid screamed about Lord Wrys' death.

Suna, Rowan, and Valeria however would be able to catch a little bit more than that.

Rowan's bodyguard training would be able to let her catch that one of the portraits in the corner seemed a little askew, which seemed odd, since the rest of the room was very organized, save for the desk. The portrait was a portrait of a very famous painting; The Cushioned Prick, circa 500 years previously, a picture of a little throwing dagger enshrined upon a red cushion.

Suna's sharp animal eyes would allow her to spot that the dust was disturbed around the same shelf that the askew portrait was nearby, and some of the disturbance in the dust even vaguely resembled footprints.

Valeria, however, would have her attention drawn to a different source; the desk. Several tomes were strewn across the desk, although seeing as she was a fighter with only a tiny bit of magical aptitude for healing, she would need the help of someone more talented in the ways of magic to spot what kind of tomes they were.

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[Aurelia]

some coincidences are deliberate

Maeve, suna, Valeria, @rowan

Being brought up to speed on everything that had happened still didn't leave Aurelia with much to work with. It was a mystery though, so she wasn't exactly sure that she'd expect it to be solved so simply. She sighed out loud as she stood in the front of the group, voluntarily leading the way downstairs. "Mysteries. Jeez why isn't Lilou here, she's the brainy one." Even with that said, Aurelia wasn't a slouch herself she just... had a bit less of a preference for activities that required a lot of brainpower. Basically she preferred to do things with as little thought/work involved as possible, if nothing else than to keep up appearances.

Keeping the mumbling to a minimum after that until they reached the bottom of the stone steps, Aurelia looked around and gave a whistle. "Man this place has seen better days, hasn't it?" She shook her head and stepped forward, seeing no windows. Made sense, you didn't want the sun to damage your vast collection of books. She was glad her dress wasn't too crazy either, since she didn't need to hitch up the hem of it at all to keep it from dragging in the dust on the floor. "Man am I glad I don't have allergies..."

Looking around she bit her lip. It would never be so easy to find a big sign saying 'the murderer went this way -->' but she could dream. More importantly she felt particularly vulnerable without her armor. "I don't suppose they have any spare horses stuffed down here, do they?" The comment was aimed at nobody, but she felt like if she didn't actively try to lighten the mood as much as possible it would drag everyone down. Morale was a finicky thing like that. She stood relatively in the open, just soaking in the room, and taking a good look at her companions. She really didn't know any of them pretty much at all, so it wasn't impossible for any of them to be the murderer, though Aurelia really didn't want any of them to be. That'd be too much work.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

[Deleted]

[attr="class","guh"]NOT THE KILLING
TYPE

[attr="class","guhh"]NOT THE KILLING
TYPE

A messy situation all around, and Rowan would have sooner grabbed her charges and left. Yet here she was, acting as the rear a group down into the manor, down and down and down they descended.

The basement study, without a guide. That was their area of interest - Rowan could only wonder what lie within. It was at this moment that she cursed herself for not knowing more about the murdered lord. Was he one to study magic, or keep anything peculiar? A study of a sorcerer looked much different than one of a librarian... unawares of how irritable and grumpy she looked, she entered said study. It was more or less typical - books, books, and more books.

"Stay sharp," she said to you-know-who and bunny-knows-who, not wanting this murder investigation to gain more bodies. While the close quarters killed her ability to wield her weapon of choice, she still had a body worth throwing at someone in an assault of hands and feet. As Rowan scanned at the room, one of the guests sent with them - the green haired one - spoke up and seemed to jest about the lack of horses. A rider, perhaps, more comfortable in a saddle than off.

"Seems to be naught but books. The way we entered seems to be the only way, so if anything is down here, it should still be here..." Wait... that was off. Rowan squinted at the painting that caught her attention, moving further into the room and looking at the rest of the paintings around and about.

That one - the one of the knife and cushion - was disturbed recently. Each of the others was aligned and neatly placed, untouched, save this one - it was askew, and given the dusty nature of the area it was unlikely to have just been left like this all that time... time to give it a closer look. Rowan took steps towards the painting until she was but inches from it, eyeing each frame corner and the painting itself until she finally gave in, reaching a hand out and gripping the frame in an attempt to see if it would move.

TEMPLATE BY NOCTURNE

Maeve suna Valeria Aurelia

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[suna]

i'll be glad to be with someone.

Suna decided that she liked Aurelia, actually. When they had been split up into groups by that pretty blue-haired woman, the taguel was nervous - after all, the only person she could say she knew within her group was Maeve, and... well, the thought of being trapped in a mansion with a murderer still running about was terrifying at best! Aurelia managed to calm Suna down somewhat, though - between her odd comments and complaints, the taguel often giggled, even through the situation. Rowan stuck in the back, and even though Suna wandered back to Maeve when addressed or she remembered, the rabbit found herself also walking about the green-haired woman, listening to her words even if she didn't have anything to comment on. It was enough to make Suna forget the relative discomfort of her dress, at least.

When they arrived, Suna's first stance was similar to Rowan's - wow. A whole bunch of dusty books! I don't suppose they have any spare horses stuffed down here, do they? probably not... Suna mumbled in response, and then looked to the shelves. Were any of them tomes? Ooh, maybe she could... Before Suna could disturb one of the shelves, Rowan spoke, and then purposefully walked towards a painting. Huh? Suna diverted her own attentions, walking over to her acquaintance, and peering over her shoulder. To her, the painting was hardly interesting, but something else was - the dust. The dust was... weren't those tracks? Suddenly, the taguel remembered the talk she had with Layle about tracks and animals - the poachers confident enough to leave them behind, sure that time would cover up the traces of their presence. She sniffed in a decidedly rabbit-like way, and then moved around Rowan to try and get a closer look. Just where were the tracks leading?

Were they even tracks? It didn't make sense for them to be tracks. Just where would they lead? Or was someone just standing up on the shelf for some reason? Suna glanced back at the other three, as if looking for some kind of approval, before she spoke up. the dust here is kind of funny, but why would someone stand on a shelf?? that doesn't make sense to me. Maybe the others could make sense of it - or just tell her that she was making a big deal out of nothing.

There was a painting there, at least - the same painting that Rowan seemed so absorbed by. Maybe someone just stood up on the shelf to mess with the painting? That didn't make sense, though. You could mess with the painting without standing on the shelf. Maybe a really, really short person did? Eying the party, though, Suna reached the conclusion that they had a lack of short people about to test the theory, and she didn't want to risk breaking the shelf by asking someone that wasn't a munchkin to. What a dilemma...

text

@rowan, Maeve, Aurelia, Valeria, Sifr

[Maeve]

"I'm sure your brains are more than enough to suffice," Maeve said. She didn't know if that was true--and she was willing to trust Aurelia enough to note down that she might not be the sharpest tool in the box--but it was a nice thing to say. There wasn't much to run on besides faith in each other. Duly obliged, Maeve also smiled at the little joke about horses. It wasn't a particularly convincing smile, but the effort was there. This was all potentially very unwise. In fact, being here at all seemed pretty unwise, but it was too late to simply leave now. She tried to put her fears aside; Rowan was here, after all. If the captain of her guard couldn't keep her alive here, Maeve's days were numbered anyway. "I'm afraid I don't see a hidden corral of horses. Only papers." Not seeing anything too noteworthy about the painting, Maeve rifled through the papers on the desk, skimming through them to see if anything seemed interesting. She glanced back towards Suna, first to the taguel then at the dust on the ground. It... perhaps had been disturbed--Maeve was hardly an expert on dust, so she trusted Suna's senses more than her own on that matter. "Perhaps they were climbing to reach a higher shelf? It's a lovely painting, but I couldn't say I'd like to stare at it so much that I'd climb onto the furniture." @rowan suna Aurelia Valeria Sifr

[Valeria]

This whole thing had put a bad taste into Valeria's mouth. Sure, she was dreading everything about going to this party. But for it to be interrupted by a murder, of all things. That was not what she had in mind when she wished for the whole thing to just be over and done with. In fact, she was a little pissed at herself for not considering the possibility of such a thing happening and coming prepared. This wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened, though it was the first time she was actually there when it happened. It sickened her knowing that whoever the murderer was had slipped under her nose.

The maid she tried to question was of little help, though Valeria couldn't exactly hold that against her. Walking in to see something like that was probably a pretty huge shock. As such, she decided to just start looking around to see if she could find anything. Her search lead her into the basement, where she ended up meeting with a few other people. She didn't recognize any of them, which made it nice and awkward since Valeria wasn't exactly a social butterfly. That said, she herself was pretty straightforward, so one look at her would allow the others to get a good idea of what kind of person she was.

The first thing she did when this started was rip off pretty much all of the lower portion of her dress, making it into more of a skirt. If there was even a remote chance that there would be combat, she was going to need to be able to move quickly, and that dress was not going to allow for that. As they explored, she found an axe that was mostly close to what she usually used laying around, and gleefully claimed it for herself. She felt practically naked without a weapon at her side, and, from the looks of things, she was the only axe wielder in the group. As such, she figured they wouldn't mind.

Naturally, Valeria was a fighter, not a thinker. So when the other girls seemed to notice something about a painting, she just stood back and let them do their thing. Instead, she'd simply keep a careful eye out, in case there was anyone lurking about in the basement. She had a look on her face that basically dared anyone sneaking around to attack them, and a single thought slipped through her mouth as she spoke out loud, though not to anyone in particular. "...I swear to the Gods, this is not what I had in mind when I signed up for the guard all those years ago. I'd take fighting hordes of bandits and Risen over this any day..."

Aurelia, @rowan, suna, Maeve

[♠ Kuroya]

[attr="class","infosmall"]Maeve, suna, Valeria, Aurelia, @rowan

[attr="class","info"]At Rowan's touch, the painting did move... to reveal nothing behind it but a wall with paint slightly brighter than that of the rest of the room, protected slightly from the passage of time and dust by the object atop it. While rather disappointing on many different levels, there was something else. Something important.

Something that Maeve's keen eyes would be able to pick up, far used to noticing the state of books on a shelf in her studies as a dark mage and then a sorcerer. A single book with a deep violet spine has been disturbed recently, sitting slightly apart from the lighter onyx brethren, almost as though it were hastily put away... or as if it were attached to something, a hinge perhaps, that could possibly trigger a secret passage of the sort that had been thought behind the painting.

However... there might still be clues lurking within these walls... perhaps a few signs as to the whys of Wrys' demise...

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[Aurelia]

some coincidences are deliberate

Maeve, suna, Valeria, @rowan

While she'd love to take credit for actively trying (and succeeding perhaps) at boistering the spirits of the rest of the group with her snarky comments, but she didn't feel like she could take full credit for it. After all she was mostly just running her mouth. She'd take awkward comments over awkward silence. But still, this dusty basement... there had to be something there. Unless there wasn't. Then there wouldn't be. Gah! A pox on all mysteries!

"Hm, maybe one of these books has some way to summon horses. And then maybe another one could tell me how to use magic in the first place. Is it considered looting?" She moved over closer to Maeve. The young woman seemed to have some authority in the way she moved and acted. Almost reminded her a little bit of Lilou, but still she figured if anybody was likely to have the brainpower to figure this out, it'd be this lady. "Oh mahogany! My father's got a desk just like this. Kinda lacking on the papers though, he doesn't really use it. Hrmm."

She did raise her head and turn to glance over at the ones searching around the paintings and bookshelf. "Isn't that like a cliche or something to have something hidden behind a painting?" She took a longer, more intent look at the painting, tilting her head so that it appeared to be level to her eyes. "Well I never was an artist, I don't see why anyone'd spend a lot of time looking at it in the first place." Aurelia peeled her gaze away from the painting to look at Valeria, who'd found an axe mounted on a wall somewhere. Or was going to murder them all. Either or. "Yeah, I'd be right there with ya, lady."

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

[Deleted]

Eyes on fire,

The painting peeled off the wall, and with frame in hand Rowan pulled it back to reveal... the wall beneath it. Letting out a grunt, the guardsman set down the painting - gently, of course, it was art - and went to examining the fresh batch of wall. It didn't quite make sense for it to be so empty, of course. A more cliche mystery would have held a secret spot, or perhaps a passage, beneath... "Wish I could tell you why, Suna, but it seems like there isn't a reason." She took a moment to quell the minor frustration and turned her back to the wall, eyeing the room and its occupants with a long stare; in particular, the two that were strangers to her on some levels. The green-haired horse puns seemed alright enough; a bit of a nervous speaker, it seemed, but altogether not the disposition nor position of a murderer. In fact, as Rowan moved her gaze over to Valeria, she had the aching feeling that the murderer in question wasn't with them, nor down here. This woman she had seen in glimpses - her Ylissean counterpart, albeit not the paperwork monkey one. Armed with an axe - one of the few actual weapons anyone had in this building, it seemed - Rowan could only hope this other captain of the guard could make good with her training as well. "Can you two look into the other paintings and shelves? Something is down here, I'm certain." Rowan followed up with a quiet mumble, forgetting that someone with long ears might catch her. "If we're forced to be here, we might as well be doing something." With the moment passed, Rowan closed her eyes and scrunched her face in thought, thus turning back to the empty painting's spot. Hands moved up towards the clean patch, smoothing over it before she balled it into a fist and started knocking to see if she would hear any kind of emptiness within, or something non-wall-like. Down here, in this part of the house, the walls were expected to be a tad more solid.

knock knock who is there Maeve suna Aurelia Valeria ROWAN JUST WANTS TO PLAY CLUE

Your spine is ablaze

X

[suna]

i'll be glad to be with someone.

Well, it seemed that nobody else had a clue on what the mysterious tracks meant. As much as Suna wished it was something more important, it seemed like Maeve was right - perhaps they were just trying to reach a higher shelf. ...But if that was true, then what was so interesting on the highest shelf? Rowan fussed with the painting, revealing nothing, and Suna decided that she might as well live on the edge. And by on the edge, she meant, on the shelf. It was little effort for her to hoist herself up and put her feet on the shelf, and then, she peeked up, trying to see just where she could reach from here. Her dress was likely in Rowan's poor face at this point, but given a goal, Suna was oblivious to that fact, even as she reached as high as she could to disturb the books above her.

It was like a mystery! Except, she wasn't really sure what the answer was going to be, or if she really wanted to solve it in the first place. With a bit of rummaging aside, Suna carefully turned from her position on the shelf, and then scanned the other shelves from her vantage point. Books, books, and books! So many books. Just what was so interesting about this room?

text

@rowan, Maeve, Aurelia, Valeria, Sifr

[Maeve]

To make the most of the situation, if there was nothing down here, perhaps they could learn something from the books and papers. Knowledge was power, wasn't it? The papers might show what the late lord had been involved in, perhaps what enemies he had, and the books may show his interests. ...Although all this snooping through someone else's study felt a little rude. "Suna, while you're up there, do you see that lovely violet book? The hardback one, the one above all those black grimoires. It's less dusty than the rest." Maeve pointed at the book rather unhelpfully. She could've been pointing at anything on the bookshelf, but at least the description was accurate enough. "If you can reach it, can you pass it over to me?" Aurelia Valeria suna @rowan Sifr

[Valeria]

Letting out a sigh, Valeria continued to keep an eye out. However, it was starting to look like the five of them were the only ones there. Upon hearing Rowans request, she blinked, then nodded "Yeah, sure. Not that I really know what I'm looking for, but I'll call you if I see anything that looks funny." Might as well make herself useful, and not stand around acting grumpy all night. She was still pissed about this whole thing; not just being forced to come here in the first place, but the fact that there had been a murder right under her nose. It was eating away at her, as if she should have known something like this could happen.

Thus, she set her sights on the nearest painting and moved toward it. However, something caught her eye. It was a desk, and there were a lot of tomes on there. More than she had ever seen in one place, anyway. "...hey, I don't know if it means anything, but there are a crap-ton of tomes over here. Magic's not really my forte, though, so I have no clue what any of them are. Still...might give us an idea of what's been going on down here." Should anyone decide to come and investigate, she waited there so she could show them where the desk was. The painting could wait. She was curious as to whether or not she had stumbled onto something or not.

Aurelia, @rowan, suna, Maeve

(note: I only just now noticed the part in the opening post about the desk with the tomes I'm sorry *headdesk*)