To refill the lamps requires melting the beeswax in a cauldron or similar and then pouring it into the lamps with the appropriate number and size of wick.

There are no tapers in obvious evidence nor any obvious flint and steel.. people would generally carry such things on them.
The central lamp unit is on a chain which is hooked on the wall by the stairs. It can thus be raised or lowered by 2ft to allow the lamp to either be changed or lit.

Charlie just smiles and withdraws her Trump deck from her jacket pocket.

Even through her concentration on the Pattern, Sarah had to suppress a wry grin. She was quite familiar with this form of negotiation, having learned from the English -- originally, very often on the receiving end of it.

"You would prefer the Shade's presence?" she asked. "Instead of those who actively assisted you against him with -- as you said -- basically nothing to gain by doing so?"

"You never know," Sarah responded. "If Tiberius or Cordelia see the benefit in working with you, you might end up having a powerful ally where before you had an implacable enemy. Just something to keep in mind."

Cathal looks a bit surprised at the last statement of Sarah but says nothing. He lightnes the lamps.

"Till you figured out how to proceed with this magical door we check the two other doors."

He walks over to the left door and opens it.

The left hand door, which opens towards you, opens to reveal a well, although not overly opulent, sleeping chamber.
The room is about 20ft wide and 10ft deep.
A large 4 poster bed dominates the center of room, with a fire place on your left in the corner between the wall the door is in and the left-hand wall.
Two, 5ft wide, 6ft high, 18" deep wardrobes form and L shape in the far right hand corner, with a 6 high, 5 ft wide chest of drawers to the right of the door. Tucked into the right hand corner is a wash stand.
In the far left hand corner between the bed and the left hand wall are two chests, one of which is iron bound. This one appears to have a lock and has sigils on it.
 There is a half-round wall lamp to the left of the bed above the 'normal' chest, and a second in the right hand corner above the wash stand.

Sarah took a moment to sweep the room, checking for anything that the Pattern might reveal, before retreating back into the central wax storage room.

Strangely enough the iron bound chest radiates magic.

"Watch out for that chest," she said unironically as she waited for someone to open the other door so that she could look around in that room, too.

Cormac will wander into the sleeping chamber in response to the comments and relayed information and take a look at the chest and the lock.
He notes both that the chest has magic bestowed on it and that the lock is smaller than the ones on the doors, and therefore that the smaller of the 3 keys he has is designed for the lock on the chest.
Taking the key he inserts it into the lock. Nothing untoward happens. Turing the key in the lock there is a click, but no outwardly perceptable change in the magic. Cautiously he opens the lid.
Inside is an interesting collection of items, although what the relavence of some of them is he has no idea. Possibly they are connected with the form of magic that the Shade practices.
Of possibly more interest is the brass bound small chest about 12" long, 6" wide and 6" deep. It also has a lock, but doesn't radiate magic.

As Sarah emerges from checking the sleeping chamber, there is a sort of rush to the other door from both Kenneth and Lord Kylestenson. Unless she's behind the magic impregnated door, he reasons that she must be somewhere beyond the other door.
Again the door opens towards you, this time revealing a slightly longer room, being nearly 28ft wide and 12ft deep. The room is divided into 3 off 8ft x 9ft cells with iron bars, and locked iron bar doors. Two half-round wall lamps are mounted equidistant along the wall through which you enter. Only one of them is lit and only one of the 3 wicks.
The central cell, appears to have a raised wooden floor. Lady Meridith, in a completely disheveled and unkept state is lying on the floor of this cell. She will stir and slowly sit up when Lord Kylestenson and Kenneth enter.
When Sarah enters to check the room, she will note a magic glow coming from the floor of the cell. The aura is very dim and just about visible as if it weren't coming from the wooden floor but from beneath it.

Once Lady Meridith realises who is there, which will shakily pull herself to her feet, and move to the bars at the front of the cell, where  upon Lord Kylestenson will rush up, and hug her.

There is a single key on it hanging on the back of the entry door.

"There is an aura from beneath the wooden floor of her cell," Sarah warned quickly. "Fetch Cormac and Charlie before you do anything else."

Sarah moved close enough to Lady Meridith to communicate, but otherwise remained out of reach -- both out of respect and an abundance of caution. Incidentally, she chose such positioning as to also put herself between Lord Kylestenson and the key on the back of the door.

"What did the Shade tell you of the magic in your cell?" she asked.

OOC: She will stop Kylestenson if he attempts to retrieve the key or open the cell -- dropping the Pattern image if necessary -- at least, until Cormac has had a chance to look at the aura or Charlie tells her to let him.

Kenneth will fetch Charlie and Cormac, although there is a slight delay given that Cormac was examining/opening the chest in the other room and Charlie was engaged in a Trump call.




















Charlie will go to open the door.

He takes the key and unlocks he door. Nothing happens. Carefully he pulls the door open. Again nothing happens.
He beckons to Lady Meridith. She move to the door way then steps rapidly across the threshold. Sagging and nearly collapsing as she does so.

Sarah waited by the doorway as Cormac opened the door -- Pattern still active so as to provide warning if anything changed -- and was relieved when nothing untoward occurred.

"If we're not opening the third door, then perhaps we should move back upstairs," Sarah suggested. Lady Meridith had not been behind the door with the powerful aura, which suggested that something -- or someone -- else was.

"Charlie, you said that the Shade had captured... a demon?" Sarah looked back at the center door. "How likely is it that more are in there?"

"We should first check the other door and then there are the contents of the chest we have to think  about."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:36, Tue 26 Mar.

People can return to the Main hall, a 15 minute trip up a lot and then down a lot less stairs. Lady Meridith will be exhausted by the end or it.

Food preporation is underway but dinner is at least an hour away, and with insufficient fresh bread, it will have to be stew and dumplings.
Charlie will appear in the hall about 15 minutes after everone else, although the first thing she does is to go and check on Salazar, returning about 10 minutes later.

Sarah didn't know enough about magic to be helpful with the door or chest, and it did not seem like the Pattern image was really needed anymore. Therefore, she retreated upstairs with Lady Meridith and Lord Kylestenson. Things seemed firmly in hand there, as well. So, she stopped at the stables long enough to check on Edgar, give him a treat -- whatever they had available for the horses in the keep -- and collect her things from the saddle. These she put onto one of the beds in the smaller barracks, before then retreating to the watchtower on the roof. It wasn't so much that she intended to keep watch; instead, it was a relatively remote place that was outside. Once there, she sat down and began practicing bringing up the Pattern image -- trying to speed the process.

With no affirmative responses Charlie will grab her pack and bedroll and head for the storage room and the cellars.

Cormac will approach Cassandra with the bound box from the chest in the Shade's room




She takes the box and moves over to the table. Sitting down she takes a small leather case from out of her left boot, then withdraws 2 lock picks from it. 20 seconds later she flips the lid open, putting the picks back in their case and the case back in her boot.
The bound box contains 5 small leather draw string pouches, 200 silver coins and 10 off 8oz bar silver. 3 of the pouches contain assorted precious gems (30 in total), and the other two 12 off assorted silver rings and 5 off assorted gold rings respectively.

Other people will begin investigating where they can sleep, and the cooks will ask they don't use the left-hand room on the second floor as that's their room.
Natsuki will opt to sleep in the gatehouse portico, so that Lord Kystenson's men, all two of them, can actually get some sleep. Choki should be more than enough, at least with Kasamir's help to keep watch. Alana will opt to join her.

About 45 minutes after Charlie disappears into the cellars, the cooks will suggest people may want to set up some more tables and benches. The stack of 'timber' to the left of the entry door is actually a set of parts that can be assembled into 3 off 6ft x 3ft tables, and 6 off 6ft long benches.

Once the tables are set out, which takes about 10 minutes then the cooks will start serving food. They can provide rough wooden spoons but anything else, like a knife, you'll need to provide yourself.
There is some Ale (2day-0.75% ABV and fully fermented-4.2% ABV) and medioca red wine in the store room. You'll note the cooks drink either/both of the 2 day ale and the fully fermented, whilst both Lord Kylestenson, Lady Meridith, and Charlie will drink the 2 day ale and the mediocre wine.

Charlie will re-appear about 15 minutes after food is served, without her pack, bedroll, or Winchester. She still has her sword and the holstered Colt Frontiers.

Charlie will get some food from what's left in the kitchens, then suggest that somebody may want to take something to the prisoners.

She barely has time to finish eating before she gets a Trump call, resulting in Tiberius arriving, with a certain amount of shock to Lord Kylstenson and Lady Meridith, with portal about 30 seconds later.
Tiberius is in what could be considered 'Military Uniform' similar to that worn by the militia in Carnelian.
He has an ornate longsword at his left hip, and a small satchel slung over his left shoulder such that it hangs on the right.

Charlie will semi-capitalise on the situation..





Once people are assembled, Cormac will want to go, and Charlie will suggest Kenneth comes as well, then she will open the portal.
Tiberius will escort Lord Kylestenson through.

You find yourselves once more in the entry hall to the Shade's lair, the highly magic door a few feet in front of you.


You feel a massive surge of Pattern power which lasts about 40 seconds, after which it stabalises. After a couple of minutes Tiberius says

He draws his sword, then moves forward and opens the door.



You find yourselves in a large vaulted stone chamber, about 60ft wide and 120ft long, the arched roof peaking at some 30ft overhead.

Immediately to the left and right of the door, and around the walls are 12ft high 8ft wide bookcases, for the most part all filled with books.
Through the rows of bookcases are numerous workbenches about 12ft long and 5ft wide, all of which have a subsidiary shelf unit about 2ft above the surface of the bench, some of these are partially filled with books, of have books or have rolls of parchment stacked on them, whilst the work benches are arrayed with a wide variety of alchemical equipment and materials.
Beyond the workbenches, the space occupying the remaining 2/3 of the room, are half a dozen pentancles/pentagrams, one of which appears to be under construction. Each of the pentancles/pentagrams are different and unique.





Tiberius will shuffle everyone out again, and re-activate the Wizzard Lock on the door.
As far as the contents of the chest in the Shade's chamber goes, none of it is particularly valuable, unless you're a Summoner, when it would be both highly valuable and significantly useful.
You can all then return to the hall via the long route up the stair case.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:07, Wed 27 Mar.

About 10 minutes after the food is set out Sarah reappeared from the roof to collect a meal for herself; by the time Tiberius arrived via Trump Sarah had finished eating. She wasn't sure she understood why the situation would be considered a 'pickle', but she also decided to tag along -- if only out of curiosity at what Tiberius would do.

When he invoked the power of the Pattern against the door Sarah grimaced with disappointment; she would have liked to have been able to witness what he was doing! Still, she followed the others into the giant room, looking around at everything curiously. Tiberius didn't have to warn her against touching things; even without the Pattern the room felt off -- the way Nokoma had described medicine that would harm instead of heal. Quite frankly, Sarah was glad to be out of the room when Tiberius instructed everyone to leave.

"What about the floor of the cell?" she asked before they went back upstairs, pointing toward the room that had held Lady Meridith.

Rhiannon 'shuffles' around with everyone else. She simply observes, learning what she can from what's being demonstrated.

Tiberius will follow Sarah into the prison.

With a quiet hmmm of thought, Sarah began summoning a Pattern image once again. Once it was complete, she took a tour of the keep -- including the cells -- to look at the aura of each of the people they'd found in the keep.

Cathal went along out of curiosity and observes.

With not much else to do whilst Tiberius checks first the chest in the Shades room and then the cells, Kenneth examines the kegs stored in the entry room. There are indeed a couple of kegs of wine here, although one is half empty.
Once Tiberius has finished and people make their way back to the hall, he will take that one with him.
Once back in the hall, Tiberius will prompt the cooks for something suitable to drink from, resulting in them producign several silver goblets from the kitchen.
Charlie at this point will extract half the coins and half the bar silver from the strong box, and then pass the box, with its reamining contents to Lord Kylestenson.

Wine in hand Tiberius will spend the next couple of hours in discussion with Lord Kylestenson and Lady Meridith before he takes his leave and Trumps back to Carnelian, taking Charlie's sketch with him.

Sarah can make her tour of the Keep. There is nothing else that hasn't already been found, and all of the occupants are very much mundane humans.

Once Tiberius leaves people will generally retire for the night. Natalie, Winter, and Lady Meridith will take the smaller of the two dormitories on the first floor.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:34, Thu 28 Mar.