A peek beyond either of the doors flanking the hidden panel was enough to confirm masked lunatics in number, enough to overwhelm a retreat in the narrow upstairs halls. There were eight, by Aloisa's count, covering both doors between them.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Aloisa's Perception</div><div class="spoiler_body">One in the northeast hall wore a ribbon of red around her ankle, which trailed round the corner and out of sight. Nothing else distinguished her from the mob of drab grey dresses and porcelain masks.</div></div><br/><br/>There remained two exits along the east and west walls of the withdrawing room, which Doctor Noire's key unlocked.<br/><br/>The east door opened into a stairwell circling down to the first floor, illuminated by a single hanging oil lamp. Hunter green rug, patterned in paisley, sprawled the floor below. Like the dust-choked stairwell before, the walls were hung with several frames. One preserved the<em>licentia ad practicandum </em>for a Doctor Pietra Rehner, a second bore a silver emblem with miniature silver sword and kite shield, and a third the cover print of a book titled<em>Megujult Eletem, </em>authored by Pietra Rehner. A velvety scent of musky poisonous flowers hung in the air as heavily as the black stairwell's dust.<br/><br/>Behind the west door lay a third stairwell, dark but for Medb's light. Each alternating stair was painted red, and delicate red filigree framed the room's corners almost like spiderweb. The works of Dorothy Heinfroth were framed in tidy rows and columns along the stairwell's winding path, so many diagrams of brain anatomy and treatises on diseases of the mind that the twisted root of insanity seemed forever to elude and bordered on obsession. Here and there, nondescript red blots as of carelessly rendered ink shapes folded neatly in two were hung. The wood, for some reason, was tacky like spilled sugar.<br/><br/>(https://i.imgur.com/F5ndCBi.jpg)<br/><em>2nd Floor</em>