I'm interpreting that prompt as meaning you'd like to know what these keys do... well, at least the ones for this building :) And it turns out it takes two posts just to cover that! Sorry....
The keys to the kingdom "When you put it like that," said Ben, gazing out of the windows, "you make us all sound stupid. So, let's compromise and say that because you didn't know how much danger we'd all be in, you brought us in here." I laughed, but only because I've known Ben a long time. Those are fighting words from anyone else, and Jimmy was looking nervous until I laughed. "Makes up for you wanting to steal that boat and sail it here," I said. "Did you find any locked doors while you were downstairs? There are three keys here I've not used yet." They hadn't, so we checked out the remainder of the doors along my corridor. Most of them seemed like offices: there were desks that were a little bit too high, chairs that were also just too high, but also seemed shaped for people who wore their arms and legs a little differently. I could sit in the chairs, but they felt uncomfortable, like there was a trick to it that I just didn't know about. One more door was locked, and like the first it turned out to have a display cabinet of some kind in it, with more rings and fish. We swept them up too, and checked out the roof -- broad, wide, covered in thin gold leaf but pretty dull, and then came back down the stairs. On the second floor, just before we got back to where we started, we found the third locked door. When we opened it though, there was just another wall behind it, where the doorway should be.
"Well look at that," said Ben. His cigar was out and the smoke was drifting around us in a faint blue haze. "Why would you wall up a doorway like that, put the door back on, and then lock it too?" "Why would you keep the key?" I countered. "Point," said Ben, nodding. "So... something dangerous behind the door that you worry you might have to bring out at some point even though you don't want to?" "Or something dangerous in a room you want back after it dies," I said. "Remember that guy in Evanstown? Two wasps got into his living room so he shut up all the doors and windows and waited for them to die so he could go back in." "I remember his daughter," said Ben with a lascivious grin. "She wasn't best pleased about having her bed taken away until the wasps were done with it." "So do we break the wall down?" asked Jimmy. He put his hands against the wall and pushed experimentally. All that happened was that the muscles in his shoulders and back stood out a bit. "Doesn't look like it, lad," said Ben. "And... I might agree if we didn't think that there are things that come here often enough they might notice." We carried on, through large rooms that were mostly empty: whether they were intended to be that way or if they'd been emptied later -- looting or destroyed by the hooting creatures -- was impossible to know, but the size and scale of the building was bigger than anything I'd see outside of New York. I wasn't sure if I should be impressed or worried, though when I considered that they'd covered the building in gold leaf I decided I was just jealous. We came to a much smaller room that many of the others, with a single door at the far end, that turned out to be our last locked door. The key turned easily in the lock and the door swung open onto a staircase. "Stairs?" Jimmy peered at them; they went down and turned a corner. "Where could they go? We didn't see them on the ground floor." "So either not that far down, or further down," I said. "Either way, seems like it might be a secret, and so far the locked rooms have been... worth discovering." The stairs, despite being two flights at 180 degrees to each other, were shallow and we didn't go down far: just far enough for me to remember that when I'd come up the stairs the distance between the ground and the next floor had been oddly large. At the bottom was a double-door this time, and when we opened that -- Ben and I pulling on either side to open the doors together -- we found ourselves in some kind of shrine or chapel.
Greg - well, yes, that was what I was hoping to read about :)
That bricked up doorway is rather concerning. I think I'm glad they decided against finding out what was behind it, even if it's likely been that way long enough for... whatever danger might be in there... to have passed.
And a shrine? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but somehow I am.
3 comments:
I'm interpreting that prompt as meaning you'd like to know what these keys do... well, at least the ones for this building :)
And it turns out it takes two posts just to cover that! Sorry....
The keys to the kingdom
"When you put it like that," said Ben, gazing out of the windows, "you make us all sound stupid. So, let's compromise and say that because you didn't know how much danger we'd all be in, you brought us in here."
I laughed, but only because I've known Ben a long time. Those are fighting words from anyone else, and Jimmy was looking nervous until I laughed.
"Makes up for you wanting to steal that boat and sail it here," I said. "Did you find any locked doors while you were downstairs? There are three keys here I've not used yet."
They hadn't, so we checked out the remainder of the doors along my corridor. Most of them seemed like offices: there were desks that were a little bit too high, chairs that were also just too high, but also seemed shaped for people who wore their arms and legs a little differently. I could sit in the chairs, but they felt uncomfortable, like there was a trick to it that I just didn't know about. One more door was locked, and like the first it turned out to have a display cabinet of some kind in it, with more rings and fish. We swept them up too, and checked out the roof -- broad, wide, covered in thin gold leaf but pretty dull, and then came back down the stairs.
On the second floor, just before we got back to where we started, we found the third locked door. When we opened it though, there was just another wall behind it, where the doorway should be.
"Well look at that," said Ben. His cigar was out and the smoke was drifting around us in a faint blue haze. "Why would you wall up a doorway like that, put the door back on, and then lock it too?"
"Why would you keep the key?" I countered.
"Point," said Ben, nodding. "So... something dangerous behind the door that you worry you might have to bring out at some point even though you don't want to?"
"Or something dangerous in a room you want back after it dies," I said. "Remember that guy in Evanstown? Two wasps got into his living room so he shut up all the doors and windows and waited for them to die so he could go back in."
"I remember his daughter," said Ben with a lascivious grin. "She wasn't best pleased about having her bed taken away until the wasps were done with it."
"So do we break the wall down?" asked Jimmy. He put his hands against the wall and pushed experimentally. All that happened was that the muscles in his shoulders and back stood out a bit.
"Doesn't look like it, lad," said Ben. "And... I might agree if we didn't think that there are things that come here often enough they might notice."
We carried on, through large rooms that were mostly empty: whether they were intended to be that way or if they'd been emptied later -- looting or destroyed by the hooting creatures -- was impossible to know, but the size and scale of the building was bigger than anything I'd see outside of New York. I wasn't sure if I should be impressed or worried, though when I considered that they'd covered the building in gold leaf I decided I was just jealous.
We came to a much smaller room that many of the others, with a single door at the far end, that turned out to be our last locked door. The key turned easily in the lock and the door swung open onto a staircase.
"Stairs?" Jimmy peered at them; they went down and turned a corner. "Where could they go? We didn't see them on the ground floor."
"So either not that far down, or further down," I said. "Either way, seems like it might be a secret, and so far the locked rooms have been... worth discovering."
The stairs, despite being two flights at 180 degrees to each other, were shallow and we didn't go down far: just far enough for me to remember that when I'd come up the stairs the distance between the ground and the next floor had been oddly large. At the bottom was a double-door this time, and when we opened that -- Ben and I pulling on either side to open the doors together -- we found ourselves in some kind of shrine or chapel.
Greg - well, yes, that was what I was hoping to read about :)
That bricked up doorway is rather concerning. I think I'm glad they decided against finding out what was behind it, even if it's likely been that way long enough for... whatever danger might be in there... to have passed.
And a shrine? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but somehow I am.
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