When the guest room door shut and Faelyn's trap set, Zoe, Margaret, and Michelle were still asleep in their beds.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Medb's Perception</div><div class="spoiler_body">Each morning and evening the parlor was swept, and the wide open space proved no home for a mouse. The guest room, where the party slept, was recently cleaned and rearranged, too, and not a mouse to be found. Between these, however, lay an enormous kitchen fit to feed the entire manor, and just below it in the cellar, a well-stocked pantry. There would certainly be mice in these places. The kitchen door, as with all the doors leading out onto the yard, was locked down for the night by an orderly's key. The lock would need to be bypassed before gaining access to the kitchen.<br/><br/></div></div><br/>Behind the northwest door, a stairway climbed round corner to corner until it arrived at an upstairs door with no lock. Once the animal mind had located the exit, however, the rational mind was free to dwell on how queer the stairwell chamber.<br/><br/>In stark contrast to the clean-swept parlor, the stairwell was caked with dust. It oughtn't be, for the amount of foot traffic passing through the asylum, but dust hung in the air, tickling the nose, parching the throat. The first footprints to trespass and mark the dust soon faded away, so no trace of passage could persist for long.<br/><br/>Over the years, the wood grain of the stairwell had soaked in smoke, or ink, or a thin wash of black paint, and now resembled something out of a disturbed dream, robbed of all life or color. The basalt black paint on the walls peeled, and cracked, and behind this even darker shades, and darker still. Along the climb, hung on the walls just out of reach were<em>licentia ad practicandum </em>to a doctor whose name was rendered illegible, overwritten in heavy, dolorous ink instead the moniker<strong>Noire</strong>. An apothecary license, from the college guilds of Port-a-Lucine.<em>Licentia docendi </em>in philosophy from the decadent port of Martira Bay. With this choice of decor, Doctor Noire showcased her education, but the woman she had been then was forgotten. Everything, now, was in the pseudonym of Noire.<br/><br/>The last sight to greet a body ascending, hanging over the upstairs door, was a mask like those the patients wore. There were bootsteps, upstairs, and the flash of lightning from a nearby window.<br/><br/>Second Floor:<br/>(https://i.imgur.com/RfnIPNL.png)