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EnigmatikIn This Fine Town Of Arkham
A Night At Wilde Hall
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown" - H. P. Lovecraft
Avery Wildes smiled again, nodding her head towards Rosanna Liang as the petite woman curtsied. The smile didn't falter, as Rosanna thrust a hand in her direction, but one perfectly formed eyebrow, as pale as the rest of her hair, rose slightly above the dark shape of her mask in curiosity. She barely missed a beat though, politely taking Rosanna's hand in a surprisingly firm grip, and shaking it for a moment, before her attention turned back to the other inhabitants of the carriage.
As her gaze drifted over the formidable figure of Drachen Steinboden, the tall man nodded his head towards her, the sheer size of his frame, and the constricting space of the carriage interior, ruling out any more elaborate gesture.
"The journey was a fine one. Thank you for the invitation."
Avery Wildes smiled again, and a light seemed to dance in her blue eyes for a moment as she waved away Drachen's thanks.
"Nonsense. There is no need to thank me. Now, I expect you'll want to get inside?"
Stepping aside slightly, the lady of the house ushered the three guests from the carriage. As soon as they stepped out of the relative shelter of the carriage's interior, the biting chill in the wind served as a harsh reminder of the closing night, the wind moving through the trees all around them sounding like waves against the shore. With the darkness seeming to press in from all sides, the light that spilled out from Wilde Hall suddenly became far more enticing, and all three of the guests found their feet moving them towards the impressive doorway.
As they moved towards the house, the gravel of the drive crunching beneath their feet, Rosanna realised that their host was not with them. Glancing back the way they had come, she saw that the coachman had climbed down from his seat on the carriage, and was standing close to Avery. Any conversation that Rosanna might have been able to make out was snatched away by the wind, but something about the way the pair were standing put Rosanna on edge. The gaze of the coachman suddenly snapped to her, and Rosanna's breath caught in her throat, whipping her head back around, and walking towards the house a little quicker. What had she seen? An employer talking to her employee, but there was something about it that made her feel as if she had overstepped, or seen something she was not meant to. Maybe the looming shadows of the Wilde Woods had had more of an affect on her than she had realised.
While Rosanna had turned her attention back towards the carriage, Alvin Fennel had been enraptured by Wilde Hall itself. The opulence of it, the grandeur, it was like he had stepped through the looking glass, and into another world. He tried to take it all in, his gaze flitting from one impressive feature to the next, from one window to another, and then it caught his eye. It was fleeting, little more than movement in a shadow, but he swore he had seen it. In one of the windows, on the third floor, a figure. They had been dark, but tall, and looking down at the three of them as they approached, and gone by the time he looked for it again. Alvin glanced at his companions, had they seen it too? Rosanna seemed on edge of all a sudden, but Drachen's face was unflinching. Had it been a trick of the light, a servant or guest simply pausing to look out, or something altogether more sinister?
