With Hani's body - including her mouth - kept rigid as a statue thanks to the magical trap, Gregor had the pleasure of not listening to her yell at him or make constant threats in his direction. Though an irredeemably vile man, he had enough strength in his arms to carry Hani without effort, a worthwhile trait to have when needed to carry out his master's orders. Under the Baron's direction, he took Hani far away from any place that might potentially be witnessed by people downstairs, instead carrying her stiff frame into a room that looked little more than a storage chamber of random antiques and other assorted goods. However, when Gregor pressed a switch hidden inside a plain-looking vase on one side of the room, the storage area proved to house a secret when a hidden door swung open on a back wall.<br/><br/>Giggling all the while like a scheming madman, Gregor carried poor Hani into the door and down a winding flight of stairs, the stairwell taking them several floors through the manor. The hidden door closed behind them shortly thereafter, briefly coating the stairwell in inky darkness, but a lit flame torch was waiting for them in a chamber adjoining the stairs at the bottom of the well, leading to a dusty and mold-scented corridor. The man's maniacal giggles continued as he took his frozen thief down that corridor and towards a heavy-looking door, one that was latched tightly with several iron bolts.<br/><br/>After taking a few moments to unlock those bolts, Gregor pushed the door open to reveal that inside was a prison cell, one without any windows to the outside. The cell was completely bare except for dozens of iron chains and shackles attached to the wall, and several chamber pots sitting idly in each corner. Actually, there was one other thing inside that chamber: a young woman chained to the wall, dressed in little more than clothes that appeared to be made out of burlap. Her wrists and ankles were all secured to the wall via shackles, forcing her into a standing position, and her visible skin was covered with bruises. She looked utterly miserable, her face stained with tears, and she barely even looked up when Gregor entered.<br/><br/>"Got you a new cellmate, Alyssa," Gregor announced as he carried Hani over to the same wall as the other girl. The girl, Alyssa, looked up at the announcement, and she looked startled to see another girl being imprisoned like her. "Be sure to explain how things work around here once the spell wears off," Gregor instructed as he set Hani down and began chaining her up. He secured shackles to each of her wrists and ankles, made sure they were secure, and then began tightening the length of chains until Hani's stiff form was dragged all the way to the wall. Once the spell wore off, Gregor planned on tightening the chains further, but this would do for now.<br/><br/>"I'll see you two once the Baron is finished with his guest upstairs," Gregor said with a grin. "Until then, keep me in your thoughts, would you? I'm beginning to have some...ideas on how to have fun with you two when the Baron no longer needs you." With that, he cackled loudly as he turned and left the cell, closing the door behind him and sliding each dead bolt back into place.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Of all the people the Baron could've expected to show up in his home at that hour, the last was Doryn, that bumbling, nosy Captain he had met back at the inn. The surprise hadn't left his face since learning about it from his servant and was still evident on the Baron's face when he stepped into the room where Doryn had been instructed to wait. Even as he quickly attempted to regain his composure he worried that he had given away something. Doryn may have been someone the Baron had no respect for, but that didn't mean the man wasn't capable of messing things up. Why else was the man here, after all? Something didn't feel right...<br/><br/>"Captain Aelland," the Baron uttered, trying his best not to hiss through his teeth as he approached Doryn from across the room, his cane clacking softly on the floor with an almost intentional sharpness. "What a surprise, having you here in my humble abode. It is not...often that I receive visitors such as yourself. May I ask what brings you here at this hour?" He then remembered the peculiar question regarding the window and added, "I prefer keeping my windows closed...after having a thief make off with something precious to me, I choose to reduce the chances of it happening again, you understand."<br/><br/>If the Captain was here, then either he had found "information" regarding that bogus story the Baron had cooked up...or the man was smarter than the Baron had given him credit for. What if he suspected that he currently had the thief girl locked up? What if he suspected even more than that, perhaps knew about the Basilisk Heart? Was Doryn simply here to taunt him with that information? If so, then the Captain made a terrible mistake coming into his home. The Baron had means of dispatching troublesome fools that meddled in his affairs, and not all of them involved trap books...<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Ethirdir hadn't come all the way back to the Dew Drop Inn to simply get the runaround from one of Doryn's subordinates. He was already in a panicked mood, strongly suspecting that something was going to happen to Hani if he didn't help her, and his hopes of finding some clue to her whereabouts back at the Inn had proven fruitless. No one knew where she had gone, including Doryn's lieutenant, and hearing the man speak so vaguely didn't exactly reassure the Elf that everything was all right.<br/><br/>"She's possibly at the same place where the Captain is..." he uttered back at the man, towering over the seated lieutenant like a wolf eyeing its prey from a rocky crag. "And  I don't suppose you're going to tell me where that is."<br/><br/>The man called Vaughn simply shrugged, indicating he either didn't know himself or he was sworn not to tell on someone's orders. Ethirdir didn't fault the man for his loyalty, but he did fault him for offering him a tantalizing piece of information, only to leave of the most important part. Apparently the Elf was going to have to figure things out himself if he was to find out where Hani had went.<br/><br/>Stepping back to get some space to think, Ethirdir pondered over all the information he had so far. Doryn had given him and Hani that cryptic riddle earlier in order to signal that he wanted the two of them out of the way that night, with Hani kept safe. That implied that if Hani had headed for some place dangerous, it would most likely be the same place Doyrn went to, so Vaughn's hunch seemed plausible. But where would Hani have gone...hell, were would Doryn have gone? The man rarely talked about his work to people like Ethirdir, and Hani had made no mention of it during their dinner earlier. The only hint of anything that might relate to Doryn's work came during that meal, when the Captain had approached the Baron von Berenholdt during a surprise visit and...<br/><br/>Baron von Berenholdt...<br/><br/>No...<br/><br/>"Hani, you didn't go<em>there</em>, did you?" he blurted aloud to no one in particular. "Not to<em>his</em>house..."<br/><br/>It was not conclusive, but it seemed the most likely lead. The Baron's arrival in the Dew Drop Inn was completely out of the ordinary, and now both Doryn and Hani were out doing their own things...it seemed too much of a coincidence to the Elf. Nothing concrete, but what else did he have to go on? Realizing he might not have much time, Ethirdir raced back out of the inn, hoping his carriage could get him to the Baron's manor before something...foul happened to his friends...