The first room I headed for was where I assumed was the kitchen, and I was right.The first room I headed for was where I assumed was the kitchen, and I was right. The kitchen was incongrous. It was done in a lot of stonework, and not many windows, like that of a medieval castle, and the robobutler looked so out of place I laughed. I examined the drawers, and sure enough, she was true to her word. I could find the knives if I wanted. I examined the cold room and the larder,and found the supplies adequate. I found some grains, some brown sugar, and some milk, so I assumed that that was breakfast. Not bad. I continued around, finding that a lot of the house was empty. Empty rooms, empty basement, empty hallways. And everything was old, older than it should have been, older than it could have been. There were a few truly Pendorian characteristics to the place, like the fact that there was power, but no outlets. Everything had it's own power source, even the kitchen blender, or the electric keyboard I found in one room, complete with two speakers. I got it to squeal a few notes. I found a few locked doors, and I figured that there were good reasons they were locked, so I left them alone. Even though, I thought, they could hold the stepping disk out of here. Then again, they could simply be her bedroom doors. They did concentrate towards the center rear of the first floor. But there were other weird rooms that I didn't understand. If they were trying to keep me from trying again, they were doing a lousy job of it, whoever 'they' were. I found a room with a couple of brass-enclosed chests, unlocked, and when I opened one I found... guns? All sorts of guns, rifles, pistols, even one of my person favorites, a .45 Army Colt. And there was ammunition for them,too. I took the .45, and, after checking the slide and action, loaded seven-plus-one and put it into a belt holster I'd found in the chest as well. There was a wine cellar, again with very Pendorian wines in it, including varieties I did not recognize, although they were all dated some time ago. This was all so weird, like I'd fallen into another, different reality from my own, yet almost like my own. |