T - Keys for a Door (Harps invite only)

[Lucca]

Colin rather considered the subject of the mysterious cleanliness of the room closed, if only for his own sanity. It would do no one any good to think on that now, unless it became somehow important. The Cardinal doubted that it would, or perhaps that was just a vain hope, as well. Either way, he put it forcefully out of his mind to focus on the mystery of the door. As Joel went to insert the other key into the lock, he backed up a good distance, casting a brief look at everyone else to make sure they had done the same.

When he looked back, the door was open, and into a surprisingly normal looking room...from what he could see from this far away, at least. Slowly, cautiously, he approached the door. Who knew what might be inside it that wasn't obvious at first glance, after all? It was better to be safe and very--Colin tripped over a box, sending a variety of rolled maps tumbling out all over the floor. He clamped his beak down over the undignified squawk that wanted to escape over the pain in his ankle, but he couldn't suppress the groan that he'd managed to completely alert anything that might be in there to their presence.

Gathering what he could of his dignity, the Queen walked toward the door again, giving the spilled box a wide berth. "Joel, can you see anything?" he asked, wondering it it would be necessary to snuff the light so that the Spades among them could activate dark vision and get a better look. His ears strained for anything that had reacted to the noises.

[Harpsdesire]

Dania, who was still standing well back from the door, flinched a little as a bit of stale air whooshed past her. She had to force herself to look into the door, half expecting the animated corpses of their previous visit to come forth with a horrible creaking. Instead, nothing happened, and the room beyond the door was too dark for her to see into with the lamplight so close to her face.

She let out a quickly-stifled squeak when Colin stumbled, sending maps rolling across the floor. She gave him a glance of concern when it became clear that a mere accident had caused the sudden noise, but The Queen seemed to be okay. She inched up a little bit behind them, scooping up maps to toss back into the box as she went. It wouldn't due to have things to trip on all over the floor if anything.... interesting came out of the door.

The sight that met Joel's eyes when the door opened was both pleasantly and disappointingly more ordinary than he had expected. "It looks like... a study." His bulky frame blocked off most light from the room beyond, so it seemed safe to activate his night vision and get a better look. He blinked a few times as the dim room came into clearer focus. "Books and furniture, mostly."

Cautiously (although not so cautiously as Dania would have liked), Joel stepped into the room and looked around. The room was quite large, and although it harbored no obvious hiding places, it was certainly possible that someone was crouching behind one of the overstuffed chairs. Joel looked behind the nearest one, a sort of olive green armchair, carefully.

[Nathalia]

The door itself seems just as it did before, but on passing through, Colin noticed that the wood inside seems far more aged than the attic itself and its interior does not match the wood and stone the actual Palace is constructed from.

Faust warred with himself for a moment, before squeezing Dania's paw and then hustling through the door after Joel, raising himself again at one in order to have his weapon at the ready, not wanting to be caught off guard on all fours.
"Joel?" He asked, concerned and feeling his feathers stick up. "Anything odd?"
After getting nothing back from the young man, he gestured to the others to follow and, once they had started in, would grab a large, glass-topped table and shove it in front of the door to keep it from closing.

Joel found nothing behind his chair, save for a small stack of books and a box of fancy, blown glass, gilded with gold and jewels.
The room stretched on, but in the 'center', as it were, there seemed to be an old grate, probably for lighting a fire, judging by the centuries worth of old charcoal stains in the pit bottom, surrounded by five high-backed, leather chairs, and stacks of books.
An old, locked trunk sits in the center, aged, rotting, and black as the night sky.

[Lucca]

Well, that was certainly...not threatening. Empty, dare he think? Yes, it seemed so. A sort of study. He carefully pulled his wings in and ducked as he walked through the low door, noting as he did so the curious age of the wood that paneled the walls of this room. Was it really as old as it seemed? If so, it went far beyond the palace, at least in its current incarnation.

It was like stepping into another time, and Colin, remembering the odd passage out of which those Jokers had come the time before, walked a bit more cautiously as he continued into the room. He examined it in silence for a moment, thinking it looked like a lovely place to take a tea and discuss some finer point of philosophy or politics late in the evening. At least, it would have been a hundred years ago.

"Well. This is certainly not what any of us expected, I think," he mumbled, purple eyes continuing to flicker around the room and take in details.

[Harpsdesire]

The door had indeed gotten larger. Before, Joel had been the only one to fit through it, and then barely, but now Colin, Dania and even tall Faust followed him in with reasonable ease. Cool. He turned and smiled a daring grin over his shoulder at Faust. "Only if you think having a huge library hidden in the court attic is odd."

The young man examined the glass box by his feet. "This is cool." He stroked the smooth surface of the box with the pads of his paw and bent closer to see if anything of the contents was visible. It looked valuable, delicate and rather old, so he handled it with as much care as he could, tilting it gently.

Dania, who had nervously preceded Faust into the room, was more interested in the many stacks of books. Some of them looked like antiques. She tipped her head to the side, reading the titles of the nearest stack. "This room isn't... Familiar, your Majesty?"

No, why would it be? That would be just too normal and un-creepy. At least this adventure was so far shaping up to be less violent that the previous one. Knock on wood. Dania rapped on the polished wooden floor lightly with one paw. Of course that didn't do anything, but it was usually better to take any precaution you could, even illogical ones, she thought, when entering a situation so heavily suffused with the unknown.

[Lucca]

Colin chose not to remark to Joel that the attic was, in fact, a strange place for a lounge, a library, or a combination of the two. He thought it rather stood for itself, and he was far too interested in taking in all the details. He made he way carefully over to one of the high backed chairs, wondering who had ever sat in one of them. He tested the leather with a claw; it was worn out from age, but still together enough that he could clearly tell the quality. They just didn't make chairs like this anymore? Actually, they reminded him of the one his father had in his own gentleman's room. He was very protective of the thing and had never let anyone else near it, not even Melody.

The Queen didn't even turn around at Dania's question, answering while bending over to examine the fire pit. "No, not in the least. It seems to be far older than the rest of this place. I wouldn't be surprised if we were somewhere else entirely." And he really wouldn't. As the thought occurred, he stood and looked back towards the door they'd come through, just to be sure he could still see the attic of the Spades palace beyond it.

[Nathalia]

Faust stepped gingerly around piles of old books, grateful for the lack of horrors charging for them, but wary of what it was they were not yet seeing.
Keeping his sword at the ready and advancing slowly, he shivered and kept his eyes peeled.
"Yes, Joel...I actually do find this to be...odd. Moreso than I would prefer, really."
He scanned some of the titles lying around.
Black Arts
Souls Conjoined
Catacombs; the way to Everlasting Life in the Ages
What kind of library was this?

Colin was able to see the attic they had just come in from clearly through the still open door. Nothing amiss there.
Joel's rap on the box, prompted a slight electric current to run under his paw, almost as though warding him off, though...something seemed to be calling him to it at the same time...how strange.
Among the stacks of books, Colin suddenly managed to make out something in them.
A skull, perhaps that of a Bovine, huge and daunting, surrounded by piles of loose parchment that it nearly blended into.
Slowly, as he began to look more closely, he began to notice other skulls, a small mass of them (at least 30), hiding among similarly colored objects.
All have a Spade burned into the forehead....

[Harpsdesire]

Joel looked at Faust for a second, then blinked in disbelief. The fellow clearly had no grasp of the concept of sarcasm. He was nice enough in his awkward sort of way, but terribly serious. It was probably no fault of his own, as the avian had been through some considerably trauma the last time they were in this court, so Joel bit back any goofy or snide retort that came to mind and simply replied, "No, you're totally right. Odd." He was more interested in the little glass box, anyhow.

He was a little wary of the fancy box, but it was strangely compelling at the same time. He couldn't really make out anything inside, so we made a gentle attempt to open it. For all his strength, Joel was used to handling fiddly scientific gadgets and doing surgery on insects-- he wasn't terribly concerned that he'd be likely to break the glass as long as he was reasonably careful.

As she perused a one of the books in the stack, Dania shuddered a little. The topics were esoteric, dark, frankly creepy. Dark magic was a topic she knew next to nothing about. She was a little repelled, a little fascinated... could she.... learn from these? Dania shut the book quickly and placed it back on the stack with somewhat conspicuous haste. That was not a road of thought she was willing to go down.

Rather than read any more from the suspicious volumes nearby, Dania padded over to examine the large black chest near the center of the room. Hmm, now that she got a closer look at it, it seemed... it seemed at least as creepy as the books, actually.

[Lucca]

Reassured of their ability to escape, should the need arise, Colin meandered over to explore the numerous book piles that dotted the room...and paused, a frown turning the corners of his beak. Now that he took a closer look, the titles of these books were certainly very strange. What was all this about black magic and catacombs and souls? He moved slightly closer, purple eyes narrowing, keeping his wings pressed tightly to his sides. Some sort of superstitious instinct prevented him from wanting to touch the tomes, just in case there was a magical book among them in more than just the words on the page.

He was a Queen now, and he could never be too careful. He picked his way with added care among them. Suddenly, he saw something...strange. It didn't look like a book. Tilting his head closer, Colin actually gave a slight gasp and stumbled backward in surprise when he realized what he was looking at. A skull!...no, wait. Multiple skulls, between all the piles of books, nearly hidden among various loose pieces of parchment. He spun slowly, taking in the macabre display with a growing sense of unease. Maybe this was a good time to leave. There was clearly nothing wholesome in a room like this.