"Sure." Aria said, summing her raven. "Can you go a little bigger please?" she asked it. It nodded in affirmation, and grew to the size of a horse. It then knocked down several shelves with the swipe of a wing. "Very good." Aria nodded, allowing the raven to disappear.
Ru shook his head, staring at the heap of overturned bookshelves. A few shelves had been swept aside to reveal the outlines of some heavy revolving doors made of stone. They certainly would;t be budging any time soon. "Well, looks like you locked us out." The shelves were meant to trigger the doors, like the switch turning on a light. Without the shelves to turn them on the doors were stuck shut.
"Hmm. Let me try this." Ariana said, shooting an electric beam at the doors. It caused them to spin open, but at the expense of the arm she had shot them from. She sucked in a sharp breath as burns and cuts appeared on her arm, shiny and red. "Never really had a knack for that stuff, I'm afraid. Drains you quite a lot. Rosie showed me how, but I can't really seem to do it properly. Well, off we go." Aria walked through the doors.
Ru stared at the doors with interest. They were too heavy to be easily blasted pen, several metal bars were supposed to hold them shut, but something about the last must have gotten them to close. Ariana probably hit the place where the circuits had been attached and made the doors release and spin open. Ru poked through with an excited look on his face. The hallways were musty and dank, though there wasn't too much dust or cobwebs. "What do you think these were used for?"
"Escape routes, perhaps? Or maybe… well, I remember that chambers like these were often used for… but that was over a century ago. Well, they were basically used for sacrifice of sentient/humanoid beings." Ariana said, a little nervously. Like it might have been less of a century ago since she had heard of it. Like she had witnessed it. Blood on the table, on her front, she had been forced to cut apart that poor human child. She had no choice, but it was sickening. The poor thing had died screaming in excruciating pain. "Well, you're apparently so much more civilized, so then again probably not." she muttered.
Ru swallowed thickly when he imagined what that would be like. Children being held down and sliced up, their own blood pooling in the dips and curves of their little bodies. "No, we did. We've just put a stop to it by now because we knew it was wrong. Anyways, These seem more like passages to hidden rooms. See there?" He pointed out a grey door, half hidden in the gloom. Next time they came down here he was bringing a torch. As he approached, he noticed a strange pattern of runes covered a section of it where the doorknob should've been
"Runes. I can read runes. Ish. Erm… heart? Or is that spleen. Dunno, I never could tell the internal organs apart very well." Aria muttered. "Something something, blah-de-blah, boring, and thingy thing."
A puzzle maybe? Ru looked at the symbols and then back at the door and then at the symbols again. There appeared to be a few matching symbols on the corners of the door and on the pad. The runes were pretty subtle and someone not looking for them probably wouldn't see them. He tapped them into the pad and voila. The door swung open, revealing a plushly decorated room. He stepped inside, taking in everything around him. "Coooooooool"
"Boring." Ariana muttered with distaste.
Ru looked at all the thickly stuff chairs, mahogany tables intricately carved bookshelves, and a black wood writing desk. Everything was well made and beautiful, but the desk was especially interesting. When Ru looked through it, he saw a bunch of letters, all dated the same year. There were a few old photos thrown in for variety.
"So, what the hell is this place?" Ariana asked.
Ru looked over the letters and realized they were about killing someone. Caladon the untamed, was the name they used in the letters. There were detailed descriptions of how to kill, where to kill, and the details of the house where he assumed this Caladon guy lived. "Secret plotting room, I think. Looks like there were some murder plans." He passed Ariana the letters and poked around some more.
"Murder, sexy." Ariana mused as she flipped through letters.
"Any idea who Caladon the untamed was?" Levi poked through a chest and pulled out some peasant clothes- probably used as disguises- and a dagger along with a string of vials. He uncorked one and sniffed it, only to cough and spill it on the ground when he finally absorbed the horrendous stench. "Think I found some poisons," he coughed, trying to cleanse his throat, which felt like it was filling with mucus.
"Oh, he was… well, he was… I don't know." Ariana sighed in defeat.
Ru gagged and cleared his throat, tossing the poisons belt back into the chest. Nest time he was going to think ahead and not take a huge sniff of things that were probably poisons. "No big deal. I found a dagger." He passed it over to Ariana, figuring it might excite her.
"Hmm. Sleek. Light. Handle allows for plenty of maneuverability in the wrist. Could easily lace it with poison. I'm keeping this for sure." Ariana said as she examined the dagger.
"Speaking of poisons," Ru picked the potion belt back up and handed it over to Ariana. She'd probably be able to use it better than whoever used this room or anyone else in the house. "I found this. And smelled that bluish one there." He coughed again, smacking his chest and clearing his throat.
"Hmm. Lost their potency. If ingested, you'd feel sick for a minute, but not much else." Ariana criticised.
"How old is this room?" Ru poked through a bookshelf, a bit disappointed when all that turned up were the expected things. Encyclopedias and fantasy stories and at least one saucy looking romance novel which he tucked away to read later. He was a sucker for a crappy romance. What was he expecting, murder for dummies? Conspiracy plotting 101? "At least 50 years. Nobody but my parents and I have come here for a while."
"Interesting. It smells older." Ariana complained.
"It probably is. See all the dust in here?" Ru smacked a chair for emphasis, watching in fascination as a huge grey cloud floated out of it before he remembered he was talking. "That stuff doesn't build up this thick unless this room had been empty for a long time. Could be… a hundred years. Maybe more."
"Lovely. Well, let's go then." Ariana said dryly.
"Okay." Ru walked back into the hall, checking around for some other rooms. Based on the room they'd seen, this was a hallway full of rooms for people plotting some suspicious shit. Like assassinations. There seemed to be a few more doors down the halls, so he pushed one pen and hopped inside. This one was quite a bit creepier, just a stone room with what looked like bloody manacles on the walls.
"Ooh, do you want to take advantage of these while we're here?" Ariana joked, nodding to the manacles.
Ru wrinkled his nose, staring at the suspicious rusty red-brown stains on the old metal manacles. Those would definitely rub off on his wrists. Plus, those rusty old chains would totally chafe whoever got locked up. "Not unless we clean them off first," he joked back.
"Shut up and let me be kinky." Ariana snapped.
Ru smiled at her teasingly. "Only if you're the one we're chaining up. I have standards."
"Nah, that would be you, boy." Ariana smirked.
"Then you'll need to grab some soapy water and clean these things off." Ru picked one up with a playful grimace on his face. "The scariest things about these is how many infections I'll get."
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