[CLOSED] I-MAGE-IN ME AND YOU

[heirring]

WHO:Byerly & Wysteria
WHAT: Two people who think they're being very clever uncover a secret mage with an identity to protect.
WHEN: Mid-Cloudreach
WHERE: A spooky château in Orlais
NOTES: N/A

According to the men who met them in Lydes, the roads leading to the land on which the sprawling Château Derosiers sat were known even now to be harried by Dalish. So it came to pass that the first image seen of the remote old house was one of the east tower, looming through overgrown blooming trees of early spring and viewed through a narrow window of a well-guarded carriage.

"Oh look, Mr Rutyer! I see it just there," she'd said with sudden renewed vigor, having otherwise long since lapsed into a vegetative state in an attempt to avoid the kind of circular snipping that had plagued their company these many days since leaving Kirkwall.

"My, it's a very handsome and wild place, isn't it? Look at the gardens." This in reference to the great tangle of roses gone wild, climbing now like ivy and brambles about the house - a generation or more of growing things left to do whatever they pleased only now being brought back to heel.

It had quickly become clear that the château's interior was no different. Though their host, Baron Allard - a good looking gentleman of remarkably indeterminate age, easy temperament and good humor despite the delicacy of their supposed motive for visiting -, was welcoming enough and the main hall made to be quite warm, the house about them had borne a faintly moldering, weather worn quality as if it too had sat untouched and left quite to its own devices for some time.

"I would caution you not to venture too far into the older wings of the house, Monsieur. Mademoiselle. I'm afraid it's been closed for some time, and it would pain me terribly if something were to happen while you were under my roof. Bats," Allard joked over their late dinner that first evening. "Nasty creatures."

So naturally the key plucked nimbly and oh so mysteriously from Allard's pocket late one night corresponds not to any desk drawer in his neatly appointed study, of which they've seen so much, but to the heavy red door leading to that east tower. It should come as no surprise to the genre savvy that what lays beyond it is--

Well, it's not precisely a dungeon full of cursed magical artifacts, but the trail of disturbed dust definitely leads through an otherwise forgotten portion of the house marred by in part by the scorched stone and smoke blackened timber of some great fire that had ravaged a portion of the tower's interior. All this time Wysteria has been all but clinging to Byerly's heels. She's stepped on him at least twice, hissing flustered apologies only to do it again moments later, but when at last they arrive at a closed door, she's very purposeful about snatching his arm and dragging him to a halt.

"Wait." Her attention is rapt on the door, fingers closed very firm about Byerly's sleeve. "Do you hear that? I think there's someone inside."

No, the air is very still. Bone quiet. But for a moment, she could have sworn--

Comments

[bouchonne]

His own nerves have been quite on edge from the moment they set foot in this place. The explanation for that is, unfortunately, both primal and humiliating: this place smells like home, that fartlike reek of an old manor gone to mildew. When Wysteria grabs at him, he fights the urge to shake her off. His irritability will not become her problem.

"Well, if it's Allard," he responds, "we'll be safe, as something happening to us would pain him." It's all so obviously a trap, isn't it. Don't go into the older wings of the house? The man might as well have sprinkled gold coins on the path leading them there. Byerly would like for said trap to be sprung.

And so he reaches for the door, and starts to open it.

[heirring]

It's the worst sound in the world, that heavy latch rising and the soft rasp of the door's hinges. No one could ever open this door without the person waiting inside knowing to turn and face them. She can feel all the small hairs on her arms rising to stand on end and at once, and entirely without thinking, Wysteria squeezes past Byerly so she might be the first in the doorway when they're seen.

Before she can even begin to sort why, she realizes she's staring at an empty room.

Or rather, one empty of people. The room beyond the door is still, a study appointed in a all the similar taste of the one in the main house. There are full bookshelves, a dense lovely carpet, a fine desk and pin neat chairs. It's dark, but of course it would be. At this hour, no light comes through the windows placed higher in the room's wall. This room seems utterly untouched by the fire that had ravaged the rest of the tower's interior. All its wood panelled walls are well oiled, its tapestry hangings showing only the faintest traces of dust.

"I could have sworn..." She drifts into the room, bewildered.

[bouchonne]

Byerly grunts in acknowledgment. However, before he starts his search, before he begins looking into what's here, one thing needs to be said very clearly. "Dear Miss Poppell," he says, "I would ask that you do not allow your curiosity and impatience to get the better of you from this point on. If you continue pushing in front of me when we enter new places, you may end up injured or worse."

That scolding delivered, he turns to the room in general. If Wysteria heard someone in here, then either she's a bit mad or that person has secreted themselves elsewhere. A hidden door, perhaps? Behind a hanging or secreted in a wall? It's terribly irritating how well taken care of this room is; a thick layer of dust allows for the preservation of evidence, tracks left behind, histories remembered. But here, it's hard to tell which areas are well-used and which are neglected.

"Keep watch," he says to her. He begins making a circuit of the room, running his fingertips along the walls, trying to feel for hairline cracks that might indicate an escape route.

[heirring]

For some reason, she listens to him. Or does for a few moments anyway, loitering just there inside the room with half her attention on the dark passageway beyond the door from which they'd come and the rest on his progress about the room. Something, she's certain, is off. But it could be the state of the room compared to that of the rest of the tower. Or it could be the darkness about them unsettling her nerves. Or, or, or-- As Byerly feels his way about the panels, she has moments in which to begin to feel considerably annoyed with herself.

But she can't dismiss that tug of certainty. It pulses in the room like a heart beat, like something secret in the bones of the place, like a small hand tugging at her sleeve.

"Try that panel there," she says, pointing to a section of wall identical to every other about it.

[bouchonne]

He glances at her a moment. Well - He did bring her along for her uncanniness, didn't he? So he goes at once to that section, running his hands along it -

Ah, there. There's a tiny catch in its edge, right where the panels are joined together. When he slides his fingernail into the groove, he can feel a tiny mechanism - a latch, no doubt.

"My esteemed young miss," he says, "tell me, using that insight of yours - Shall we go chasing after the occupant of this room? Or shall we simply see what documents we can collect and retire?"

[heirring]

"You're asking me?" Spirits, now he wants her opinion.

With an uneasy hiss, Wysteria pulls the door shut on the corridor. What she wouldn't give to have a few components on her for a binding enchantment, or to be a metalurgist and simply rework the damned thing under her fingertips.

"How should I know?" But also, having joined him at the wall panel-- "We should go through. Something is in there and we should know what it is."

[bouchonne]

He offers, in return, a sardonic and supercilious bow, as though she'd offered her opinion unbidden instead of in response to his request. Still, there's no more commentary from him. Instead, he moves his fingernail to flick the catch. He can feel some hidden bit of machinery move under his hands, and so he pulls. Despite the thickness of the door, it's well-designed enough that it can swing open under nothing more than the pressure of his fingertips, and it does so silently.

He turns and picks up the lantern they'd been using to light their way. He doesn't mockingly bid her to go first, nervous after her earlier display that she actually would; instead, he steps into the dark.

[heirring]

With a last backward glance about the strangely normal room, Wysteria follows him into the passage. She keeps close, mindful not to trod on the backs of his shoes but as near as she can be to the pool of light cast by the lantern. The passage is narrow, smelling incongruously of both char and rot though the swaying of the lantern seems to reveal only an old stone and nothing more. Wysteria raises her hand in the dark, reaching to touch what must surely be a low ceiling, and finds only air to indicate it's placed far higher than her reach allows for.

What's wrong with you? Stop being such a loon. You'd think this was the first time you've ever gone creeping through some lord's house in the middle of the night, attempting to pry all his dark secrets out into the light. Well yes, maybe because it is.

She almost laughs over it, a breathless little noise choked off behind Byerly.

[bouchonne]

"Hush," he scolds her - a hypocritical admonition, given that the sound of it is actually rather louder than the little weird laugh she'd given. No matter.

He moves forward steadily. The hum of his nerves is strong, and he relishes the sensation. Danger makes him feel steadier and braver, more focused, clear-headed. Even when there's a timid child creeping along behind him.

He stops. There's a rustling he hears. A mouse? Perhaps. Or perhaps their quarry.

[heirring]

She pauses just there in his shadow, her attention all knife sharp. She can hear her own pulse in the dark. She can feel--

What is it? The clamminess of the air? The uneasiness of her nerves?

Another soft sound rustles in the gloom ahead of them. All at once, a dark shape separates itself from the deeper dark of the corridor. Wysteria croaks in terror as the man sized shadow seems to materialize out of nothing before them, followed immediately by the sudden burst of a flaring light, white hot and blinding. By the time her arm lowers from her eyes to blink away the spot burned on her vision begins to clear there's no sign at all of the Baron (for who else could it be?); but there's the sound of his footfalls, running at pace from them.