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Once the brazier was up and lit there was no Zelda dungeon music indicating they did something right, instead the horror of the room was just that much more visible. As the sixteen year old looked around she swallowed hard. She had an iron stomach, she'd eaten things that would make most people gag, but the sight of the body and the smell was starting to get to her.

Hastily she stood up and moved to Mr. Darrow's side, being careful to stay on the side that wasn't clutching the skeleton arm. "Okay, be careful." She called out softly to Ian when he mentioned needing to leave. To try to distract herself she crouched down offering a hand out to the rats. She didn't think they'd come, she wasn't quite as good with wild animals as she was with the domesticated ones. Offhandedly she wished she had something to feed them, the poor things looked like they were hungry.

She listened to Mr. Darrow talk from the ground, she didn't want to get up and look at that dead body, or anything around it. "Will any of this stuff help us get out of here?" Hearing a disgruntled noise come up from the rats she glanced up at the librarian and noticed he was holding a piece of paper. "Does it say anything?"

Tony needed to sit. Which he did, on the desk, but something squeaked and he had a very uncomfortable feeling on his bottom as the rat freed itself and darted off and away from him. He didn't even notice, besides the initial shock of sitting on the small animal. He had other things to be stunned about.

He was quiet for a long moment, reading in the dim light of the fire. A warden, murdered. That wasn't too surprising, considering how they had found him, but this... it was labeled by this Johannes Benedictus as Camelot Prison, and that he served King Arthur. Was this some kind of trick? Did someone set this up just for Tony to find? How could they possibly have known he was interested in Arthurian legend?

He looked up from the parchment when he first heard Abigail speak, then Ian from the door. He didn't even notice that the young woman was trying to bring some of the rats over to her. Slowly, he snapped himself out of his temporary daze.

Deal with things as they came.

Ask questions, but don't question this as reality. These things were happening, just as those youma attacks happened: to waste time in the midst of it asking how it was possible would just get them into trouble.

"This man was Warden here, at this prison. The guards, it says, who worked with him here rebelled against him and he was sealed in here. He suffocated, I suppose, as he writes that he was running out of air... he signs the letter as Lord Johannes Benedictus... Servant of Arthur the King. This, according to this one letter, is Camelot. Ah. Prison. Camelot Prison."

Because labeling it as a prison, pretending it was still the reality he knew, but in some kind of themed jail for criminals, made things better. But he didn't think too hard on it, either way. They were in a dungeon. That was bad. They needed to get out.

"Here, I'll read it all to you," he said, raising his voice so Ian could hear him as well as Abigail, who was closer. He read the whole letter, completely, including the end again, before looking up. He reached for the book, examining it as he spoke about the letter.

"If this can be taken as truth, and not the delusioned ramblings of a dying man, it seems we're, ah... in an interesting situation..." He shook his head, not sure how to take it. The emblems, the tapestries, the layout of the room, the archaic design. It all seemed to fit. He looked at the man behind the desk once more, venturing to walk around to see him. His clothes weren't typical of a modern Warden. Of course, when he thought of modern Warden's he imagined cowboy hats. This was nothing close.

"There doesn't seem to be a way out here. This man wrote this note without any hope in it. If there was an exit that hadn't been sealed he would have tried a lot harder to be free. So we'll take what we think might be useful," he was keeping the letter, "and search back in the hall for another way. I can't imagine this office isolated in the middle of the dungeon: there should be some kind of path to follow, some way out of here." He was reaching out with a bit of hope on that one, but they had to stay positive.

"Come on, you two," he shook his head, since Ian was already waiting outside, "Abigail. We'll take a look around, perhaps in the desk, and then go."

He thought it was a good plan, and looked down at the desk.

While Zanazziite was listening to Mr. Darrow most of her focus was on the rats. Even if they were more wild than the animals she was used to dealing with she was determined. She was making soft chittering noises and holding her hand out very still, acting as non-threatening as possible. She wasn't sure why, but animals seemed to like her, and it looked like these rats were no exception. One of the fatter ones approached her hand, sniffed, paused for a moment and then as if deciding something raced up her arm to perch on her shoulder, half hiding under her hair. The sixteen year old couldn't help but laugh, yes the rat was dirty and probably covered in diseases, but still it was an animal and there was no animal she didn't love. Having befriended the rat she stood up, one gloved hand reaching up to stroke his head.

She turned to look at Mr. Darrow just in time to hear him reading the letter. Her eyes widened at the end. Were they seriously in Camelot? Was Camelot even a real place? She wasn't any kind of history buff, and she hadn't studied Medieval history in school for a couple years. "Mr. Darrow, I think we're in Camelot, if we're to believe that letter." There was no use beating around the bush.

She nodded, careful not to dislodge the rat who had taken up residence on her shoulder. "Alright, as long as I don't have to touch the body." She shuddered a bit at that thought, but moved around the desk, checking it out. It took her a second, but her violet eyes landed on a flask. "Hey, look at this." She picked the flask up carefully, and not thinking of the consequences lifted it to just under her nose trying to smell the contents. Her other hand picked up the cork which she assumed went with the flask.

Ian cocked his head slightly to one side, gears turning in his mind as he tried to figure out what all this meant. Were they really in Camelot? Could they really be in Camelot? If nothing else, it should, in theory, be in England, not anywhere near Destiny City. Unless they had somehow been out cold longer than Ian guessed and had enough time to make the flight.

He was, in general, a practical person. They were in a dungeon; the red-haired boy was able to do what he could in order to get out. Calling the place Camelot should not make a difference in terms of the need to get out, but it did bend his mind more than a little. Who would do such a thing?

And if only he knew more about Arthurian legend beyond what pop culture had taught him.

Ian scratched his head and stepped away from the door again to try to escape the smell again. Fortunately or unfortunately, the air was fairly stagnant in the tunnels, so while the stench of the poor Warden had not dissipated much within the office, it also had not leaked out into the tunnels very far yet. The boy wafted his t-shirt a little and hoped the smell would not linger on him; it was gross, and also creepy, perhaps even moreso now that the dead man had a name.

"Was there a Sir Benedictus in Arthurian legend?" he asked after a moment, thinking through Monty Python's characters. Hardly a scholarly mental resource, but it was the first one that really came to mind. "And, I mean, do we believe the letter?" Ian sighed, then added, "If so, we want to side with King Arthur, right? What if there are still traitors outside of this dungeon?"

He waited for the other two to emerge from the room ... and would look mildly concerned and keen on keeping his distance from Abigail's rat as soon as he saw it. He hoped she would take no offense herself.

Zanazziite stared up at Mr. Darrow with her big violet eyes and couldn't help but laugh a little at what he asked her. "Of course I'm aware. He won't bite me, so it's not like I'll catch a disease." She shrugged as best she could with one shoulder as to not disturb the rat.

The flask she found didn't smell like alcohol, but more like the oil her Grandma used for cooking. That was curious, but not exactly super exciting. Carefully she corked the flask, wiped it off with her gloves, and then slid it down the front of her dress for safe keeping. She had a feeling they might need it later.

When Mr. Darrow moved Zan moved, her heels making no noise on the rug under their feet. She looked at the map, eyes following his finger. They might actually get out of there. Not that that meant anything if there were in Camelot. She sighed, but quickly followed after Mr. Darrow and Ian, she didn't want to get left behind.

As they drew closer to the exit marked on the map, which seemed to match their surroundings accurately, the air grew danker and staler rather than fresher. Strange.

The door opened, but it led to a staircase up to a trapdoor. On the staircase were a number of other corpses -- some clad in guards' armor, rusty, old guards' armor, other in rags one could only presume belonged to prisoners. They had died on the staircase, slumped on the steps, several at the door with their hands outstretched to the walls or the door.

There was no sign of violence or struggle. The corpses of a few rats, bite-sized chunks taken out of them, lay around them as well. Zanazziite's rat chittered uncomfortably and hid in her shirt.

The air was stale here.