[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/mVDvG7tn/Coach-House-Cellar-Secret.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/vXD6Q0t/Update-Text.png[/img][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]
[center][hider=Coach House][img]https://i.ibb.co/BVvx6LH2/Coach-House.jpg[/img][/hider][/center]
[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]


	[u]Weather[/u]: All of that interesting "weather" stuff is happening outside, while everyone is in the cool underground of the cellar and/or the hidden study, but were one to be milling about out-of-doors, they would see a partly sunny but still quite brisk winter day. Whiteness is everywhere, even if icicles drip and trod upon areas begin to slush a bit. The new, fresh look of the snow is fading to the more common appearance of a landscape under seige of the last rays of a weakened sun.  

   	[u]Time[/u]: Still but the afternoon. Not early afternoon anymore, but passing no further in the day. The sun is still high. 

	[u]Ambience[/u]: Still cool, but not painfully so (as one might expect from the wind outside) temperatures reign within the cellar and attached, quite secret room which probably had no right to be referred to as a "Study," though it had, unfortunately, picked up that particular nom de guerre. The center of this study floor bore the slightly glowing, red marks of what appeared to be a magic circle, not quite enough illumination to cast a shadow but enough to be noticeable. Otherwise, the only light in this place is that which one brings in with them. 

  	The only obvious entrance and/or egress to the room stands fully open, its door removed from its very moorings into the stone, revealing the short hallway beyond and the open secret shelf door leading to the cellar proper. 

	The furnishings of the room are simple, aside from the odd magical circle; desk, table, cells, crates. The implications of these furnishings are slightly more complicated, however, as one of the cells contained what appeared to be a corpse in a sitting fetal position, the table bore restraints that [i]probably[/i] weren't recreational, the crates poorly hid a secret cache within a secret room, and the desk... well, we'll see. A short bookshelf to one side carried probably the more interesting, or at least potentially revealing, of items, unless one counts the dead fellow in the cell. 

	  
[center][color=darkgray][h2]*****[/h2][/color][/center] 
[center][img][/img][/center]
	Lizbeth followed the Bard, or more specifically, the Bard's thrall, back down into the cellar and the secret room beyond. There seemed to be a flurry of activity now, with people checking here and there, a brief flash of light and crackle preceding a mild curse by Baronfjord. This did give her a startle, despite her determination to be as rugged and serious as possible in this trying moment, likely to offset her emotional outburst from earlier. She might not have admitted it, though. In the same way, Lizbeth refused to make any mention of the strange magic that crackled from Kathryn to herself, past the initial vocalization of shock and concern. No ma'am, the wine heiress was a stoic bastion of strength - she hoped. Regardless, Lizbeth's features maintained their vital luster, making it easier to tell her true depth of emotion. She had not slipped back into the pallor of the unliving. 

	Entering the secret room, proper, left her with more questions. This was expected. This was never supposed to be a dilemma that she would be led through with held hand and a blankie. But she did have a group of professional adventurers to do the metaphorical heavy lifting. This was a bigger comfort than she had in a long time. It was a lonely road at first, leaning slowly into power that she didn't understand, and a solid relief that, while this was something she never wanted, it was a thing she had some control over. Knowing she wasn't a monster helped. 

	While she had no clue that Daxos was doing, as he stood in the room with singular alertness, she was certain that the Dwarf knew what he was doing and resolved not to disturb his efforts. The young lady gave him a sheepish nod and tried to stay out of his way. 

	Kathryn likewise seemed to busy herself, and far be it for Lizbeth to meddle in her work either, but she [i]did[/i] pose a question that manners indicated needed an answer. [color=darkgray]"No, I don't think it's that, Ser Kathryn. The, um, the 'form' comes sometimes when I'm feeling scared, like I can't control it. But sometimes I make it happen because it's useful. And it's like, everything feels [i]less,[/i] you know? I don't get tired, I barely feel the cold. I don't get hungry. I'm not... well, most of my feelings are caught on the inside. The magic thing didn't change anything, not that I can tell."[/color] Lizbeth really hoped that the magic zap that Kathryn involuntarily gave her was nothing more than mildly unpleasant, over and done with. 

	Lizbeth gave rapt notice when Victoria began pulling a flat piece of stone off of the wall. While she wasn't fond of the Half-Elf referring to her grandfather with anything less than the utmost of respect, she did realize that her new friend was the closest thing to an Arcana scholar that they had, and was able to find the hiding space of the small cache readily enough. When Victoria said that the thing she found were probably intended for her, the younger girl reached out an unsteady hand to accept the hollow, crystal-shard pendant. 

	As soon as she touched it, the bright red liquid within powdered to grey ash, and disappeared from the hollow space entirely. Far from looking used up or depleted, the facets or the crystal seemed to sharpen with hard edges and intense clarity, like it was fresh and new, waiting for something to happen. She marveled over it for a moment before looking back to the wrapped package and long scroll case in Victoria's hands, giving a nod of some understanding before addressing everyone around her. [color=darkgray]"I'm my grandfather L'Rose's only living heir. Whatever was his is now mine, which includes everything in this room. I mean, it will be, when I turn sixteen."[/color] She spoke with a small voice. Trembling, slightly. But Lizbeth maintained an element of bravery with her, seeing as she was a magical neophyte and surrounded by experienced warriors, and insisted on setting terms. [color=darkgray]"But I am willing to make the same bargain I made with the people in the Estate House study: I'm hiring you to handle whatever is going on here. I don't have money to give right now, but if you find something that can help you, I give permission to use it. We can talk about permanent after. I only ask that you find out what it is and tell me, first. Some of these things,"[/color] she looked at the now empty crystal shard, [color=darkgray]"were meant just for me. Is that okay with everybody?"[/color] The tremors of fear, excitement, and/or nerves were visible to the casual observer now. If anyone objected, what might she even do to stop them? Being able to pull out a few interesting parlor tricks with the least of magics still put her in the realm of a potentially petulant child in a room full of much more powerful adults.