Welcome to Gaia! ::

Zan nodded at Ian's suggestion. "It seems like it, the thing won't budge, and it seems solid enough." The bluenette looked back at them. "And it's sealed with something, I can't tell what it is though." She stepped out of the way when she was done, letting the two men have a go at it again. Her eyes flickered between the two, hopefully they could figure it out. The idea of being stuck in this dungeon forever was not a pleasant one.

Tugging one of her gloves off she reached a bare hand up to play with her pearls. It was a soothing motion, rolling the smooth, creamy balls between her fingertips. She nodded when the red head talked about the hinges. That could maybe work, though she wasn't tall enough to get the top hinge and even if she was she wasn't sure if she was strong enough to wiggle it out.

She bit her lower lip nervously, this had to work. But it seemed Mr. Darrow had another plan. He was going to break the door down? Her eyes widened in concern, what if he hurt himself? She backed up to give him more room, gripping both necklaces in her hand, her fingernails digging into her palm.

BAM! Foot connected with door and two things happened at once. The lock went straight through the door and Mr. Darrow went careening backwards. Of course Zanazziite was more worried about the man than the door. "Mr. Darrow!" She rushed to his side, kneeling next to him, hands hovering but not touching him. She wasn't sure if she should. "Are you okay?!" It was then that the stench rolled over her. She shuddered and felt her stomach heave, but she managed to keep everything inside. "What is that?"

The torch hit the ground inside the hideous-smelling room and rolled to a stop on the stones. It didn't illuminate much, but it looked like Ian had been in luck -- it rolled just clear of what looked to be a -- rather -- fancy -- rug? But that was exactly what it was: a blue rug, on the ground, with gold embroidery.

They couldn't see much else, save a wall and the vague shapes of what had to be wall sconces, burned out.

He was in an office.

A still-dimly-lit office, given that Ian's torch was still its only illumination, but an office it definitely was. The torch had rolled next to a lacquered hardwood table, which was on the edge of the ornate blue rug -- embroidered, apparently, with gold lions -- that carpeted much of the office. The walls were tapestried, but it was a bit hard to tell the form, design or condition of the tapestries with so little light. There were the shapes of dark braziers, burnt-out wall sconces, some kind of paper spread on the far wall, and then --

Well. A desk. The light licked at the edges of the desk, but outlined a dark shape seated there.

There was movement on the desk, and on the floor around it.

When Mister Darrow went into the room, Ian winced and tried not to gag - even several feet to the side of the door, the red-haired boy was fairly sure that the stench was making his nose hairs curl, so he could only imagine what it smelled like within. Though he did his level best not to.

He wished that he had long sleeves so he could follow the librarian's example, raising an arm to his face to try to block out at least a little of the stench, but the boy's t-shirt would not be too terribly helpful. Ian instead pulled his collar up to cover his nose and mouth ... and tried to tell himself that it did make a bit of a difference for the better. And maybe it was a bit better until he moved back towards the doorway with Abigail to see what Mister Darrow had found within the room.

"Anything alive in there, sir?" Ian inquired warily, holding his new torch up as he ventured closer to the threshold.

And then his eyes widened a little as he caught sight of the fine rug, the lacquered table, the shadowed tapestries along the walls.

The curiosity was nearly enough to overpower the stench. Keeping his shirt pulled up enough to cover his nose and mouth, Ian did his best to remember to breathe through his mouth so he could stand the thought of going into the room. He took one breath to calm himself, swallowed, and winced at catching a faint whiff of putrescence, then stepped into the room, moving along the wall to the left as he held his torch aloft as well, in order to get a look at the tapestries.

"Wait, is this a map?" he asked aloud when he noticed the paper on the far wall, and moved to examine it more closely. Then the red-haired boy abruptly noticed the figure seated at the desk and stumbled back a step, resting one hand on the table to keep from tripping over the rug as he did so.

"Mister Darrow-!" he called out, and gestured with the torch. Then, to reassure Abigail, he added, "Trying to be careful. There might be a map or something in here, though!" That was usually what papers on walls were. That or posters of attractive people. Ian pulled his gaze away from the figure at the desk to go back to looking at the paper, but kept glancing back every few seconds (had the person there moved?).

Tony's intuition was right: it was a corpse, hunched over the desk, and it was swarming with rats. This was where the rats went, apparently, and what kept them alive in such an abandoned dungeon -- the putrefying corpse of a man dressed in what had once been a fine, dark blue silk tunic over a white, billowy-sleeved shirt. His face was not much to speak of, and better off not looked at, but there was a knocked-over inkwell on his desk, and rings on his mostly-skeletal fingers, though not many.

His clothing was fine, too fine for a prison, but not extraordinarily elaborate: before it had become rat-eaten and stained with the fluids of decomposition, it looked expensive, but austere in a way.

It seemed Tony's intuition was right again. This had been the office of a prison warden, and by all accounts this was the man himself. He'd met his end at his own desk, a shackle running from one wrist to a decorative iron ring on the wall.

The map on the wall was expansive, too big to carry, and seemed to depict a realm labeled, "THE KING'S LANDS" -- with a city in the southeastern corner, labeled "CAMELOT." In the far north a black castle was depicted, labeled, "THE CASTLE OF THE SORCERESS."

There were some knocked-over braziers on the floor, long since burnt out. On the desk lay a book, a flask, and a letter under the dead man's hand.

The brazier lit and illuminated the room and the gruesome scene to everyone, as well as the wall tapestries:

On the wall opposite the map, behind the dead man, was a tall blue tapestry emblazoned with a coat-of-arms. The coat-of-arms depicted a shield separated into four quadrants, two red (woven with three lions passant), one gold (woven with one lion rampant), and one blue (woven with a gold harp). The shield was supported by the images of a lion and a unicorn on either side, and crowned with a golden helmet, atop the helmet a crown.

Beneath the coat-of-arms was sewn, on a white banner in gold lettering, the words DIEU ET MON DROIT.

The two tapestries facing each other on the adjacent walls depicted, respectively, vivid and richly woven scenes of a knight in shining white armor striking off the head of a knight in midnight-black armor, and a different knight raising an ornate sword in defiance to a high-towered black castle.

Another brazier was knocked over by the desk, spilling coals over the rug.

Tony looked at the body in wonder, a bit squicked out by the sight of it. He willed his stomach to hold firm, not wanting to lose it on the desk and make everything a lot worse. More disgusting, at least. Just thinking about it made him feel worse, and he cleared his throat desperately. He had to stay focused.

So he kept his eyes on the details. The clothes denoted some rank, not a prisoner at any rate, though he must not have been too high a rank, or not well loved, for no one to miss him down here. This must have been his desk, his office, and Tony assumed he oversaw the dungeon and its prisoners. It was certainly well located for that. So the Warden was a safe bet, and he followed that gut instinct from before. From the looks of it, the man had been left here to die, shackled as the prisoners might have been. Who would have done such a thing? Had he done it to himself? But who, then, would have sealed the door with wax? How did he die? Looking over the desk, he saw a letter and a book, though he didn't notice the flask right away.

He heard Abigail speak and he was drawn from his thoughts, turning to look at her because he did not want her looking over at the corpse. But she seemed to be focused on the brazier, and Tony sighed, nodding. When she had it upright he moved over to put his torch in to light it, so they might be able to see where they were in full.

"Of course," he said, when Ian needed to step out, "don't go too far. Be careful." He smiled reassuringly, feeling sick himself. He didn't blame the younger man for wanting to step out. He looked up at the tapestry now, attention drawn from the desk and the dead man as his eyes took in the once glorious, now faded, but no less impressive sight.

"This is the monarch's coat of arms," he said, mostly to himself, "British. This," his hand, now free of the torch though his other still gripped the disembodied arm he was refusing to look at, traced the words, "means 'God and my right'. The King's right to rule. French. Ah, the language, I mean. I d-don't speak French." He shook his head, just recognizing the words from his own explorations of ancient legends. Of course, he knew this particular emblem was still in use today for various things.

He turned, looking around the room again. The map, which he hadn't yet investigated, was on the wall directly opposite him. He went to it, seeing the word 'Camelot'. His mind kind of jammed there, and he looked around again like he couldn't quite digest that bit just yet. He saw the two tapestries and went to examine those. The smell was becoming easier to bear. Or maybe he was just ignoring it better.

Knights in armor. It was like something out of his book collection.

Shaking his head, trying to absorb as much as possible in a very short amount of time, he returned to the desk in order to examine the things on it. He decided he did not want to touch the arm, lest there be attack rats nearby, to move it from the note so he could take it. Instead, he used the other disembodied arm that he had stolen at the beginning of this whole ordeal and used that as a poker, nudging the other hand away from the letter. Because that made sense. Using one dead arm so he didn't have to touch another. He reached for the letter and carefully slid if from the desk, aware that it might be fragile if it had been there too long. He wanted to see if there was anything legible on it.