IC Story Thread: Ch.1,Ad.2 - The Far Reach

The person pauses, caught by surprise by Seonaid's distraction, and they furrow their brow and blink in confusion with the effort required to, both, try to understand Seonaid's request and shift their thought process from concern over the noise to this...

"Eh, excuse me? I was... there was...", they stammer, at first trying to look beyond Seonaid to the alley. But they remain for the moment, not wanting to be rude.

This gives time for either Eothain to move away, or someone else to do something else to further the distraction... or both, but the person doesn't seem to forget the noise completely.

The person looks to Eothain now, "Box? ... Too much... Ale?", they grimace and turn away from the man who smells of horse and say to Seonaid ," I'm sorry, I don't know the inn you're looking for. I must be going..."

And they move on...

Duinhir moves into the building through the window at the back, and it is dusty and dark. And it's awkward getting in because he finds that he is crawling into the space in between two shelves basically of a free standing shelving unit that is placed against the back wall and the window.

It's only twitch reflexes that saves the thing from toppling over and making a terrible racket as he pushes himself in, squeezing through the narrow gap.

Once in, there is light coming in through the window, and in through the seams of the carriage doors and entry door, and even a bit through thin slices in the roof, but it takes a good few moments for his eyes to adjust.

In the meantime, stale air and musty clouds of dirt cloud his nostrils.

As his eyes adjust he can begin to tell that the building is a single room, and there is a large empty area in the center of it, furthering the impression that it once and still is basically a carriage-house.

But he can also tell the are a few awkward shadowy shapes positioned around the periphery of the room...

Duinhir's vision adjusts and by the time Cirion is able to get situated on the floor the shadowy shapes have resolved themselves into non-humanoid forms.

But what exactly everything is in here isn't immediately clear.

There's shelving on all three of the walls that aren't occupied by the carriage doors. And many of the shelves are stacked with things.

There is quite a bit of sailing ship-oriented gear on the shelf next to the entry door-side. A small crate of nails, a bucket of sealing tar, a spool of strong thread, and more. One of the awkward shapes stands before this shelf and it is a two meter tall bolt of canvas sail cloth, stuck in a barrel with a couple shovels and gaff hooks.

The shelf at the back with the window has a couple small crates with sheafs of parchment paper inside, and a several jars of inks, and brushes. The window was clearly left unblocked on purpose - probably to allow some natural light in. Infront of this shelving there are two narrow but tall boxes, standing on end - those were a couple of the awkward shadows as well. They smell earthy and look a bit rotted.

And on the third wall it's hard to tell what's on the shelves because in front of them is a long narrow table with a chair placed upside down on it and... some sort of tallish mechanical device? There's brackets and screws and it's not immediately apparent what it is...

There's many more boxes and stacks of miscellaneous things, but these are the items that "jump out" upon initial inspection.

The mechanism honestly looks a bit like a torture device of some sort to Duinhir, upon first inspection. But it is still rather shadowy in there, but there are definitely 4 large screws that look like they could be manipulated to slowly lower a large top plate down onto a bottom one... it's perhaps easy to imagine a hand in between the two plates?

And as Cirion stands next to the tall rotted boxes, looking them over, they are definitely about the size and dimensions of a person - just a smidge larger. If they are coffins, they are cheap ones. And it's hard to say what might presently be in them now without touching or moving them, but again, there are patches where the planks are rotted through, and the things are generally coated in dry earthen grime, and while it doesn't smell fresh or still moist of soil, they do have a musty dirt-smell.

After his eyes adjust, Eothain finds the rather banal scene of his comrades poking about shadowy shapes in the dark of a carriage house lined with shelving.