To make it easy to follow, this is where the two women split from the main thread:<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: queentrippingserpent</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><strong>Justine,</strong> Dining Room/hallway [Maddy, Kat, Justine]<br/><br/>She blushed as they linked arms, heading into the corridor.  "Perhaps one or two of the male staff can help us.  There might be something interesting up there.  Something about this place.  It seems so alive that there must be something to it."  She looked over at Kat, sure she sounded like some silly fairytale-filled girl.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>and...<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Chaos</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><strong>Katrina d'Errinieu,</strong> Hallway [Justine, Maddie]<br/><br/>Kat and Justine walked into the servants area, Kat looking around for the servants.<br/><br/>"Indeed, there should be a few of the strapping young men around to help out, surely," she squeezed Justine's arm as they walked into the kitchen and looked around for someone who would serve. "Unless they are all helping out with the hunt - and I cannot imagine the house would be so ill run as to leave us without assistance."<br/><br/>She met Justine's eyes with a grin, not sure how serious the other was about her intuitions, but quite willing to play along. Exploring a spooky, possibly-haunted house would be much more fun than merely poking around a dusty attic. It got the heart racing, and in such a state, people could be pushed further than normal...</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>and...<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Faeylin</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><strong>Kara (a servant girl),</strong> Kitchen [Kara, Katrina, Justine]<br/><br/>Kara worked at one of the cooking pots. Steam rose from the large, cast iron piece of cookware; it smelled of beef and vegetables. Her manner was slow and distracted, and she didn't seem to notice the two noblewomen as they entered the room.<br/><br/>The girl was on the late edge of her teens, and she was quite pretty because of it. She had long, strawberry-blonde hair; it was braided and tied back, to keep it out of the way while she worked. But most curious of all, Kara's face was pale and her eyes were red from prolonged crying.<br/><br/>From the room, there were several exits. There was a door leading out of the manor, to the back lawn of Avonleigh. There was also another door way off to the right that was already half-open. The two noblewoman could see shelves with items upon them through the partially open portal. And finally, there was a narrow staircase that led way up into the second floor, and possibly beyond.<br/><br/>It was hard to tell exactly what the function of the staircase was, however, because there was a great deal of furniture and other items blocking it. More than that, upon inspection, the two women would realize that items had been piled up on the stairs all the way up to the top of the long stairwell. It would take days of consistent work, or many, many souls working in unison, to clear the path up.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>