The day passes quickly as a lightening and darkening in the overcast sky.  The castle proves to be a trove of mysteries, with locked chambers hiding their share of secrets and unlocked ones revealing vast, crumbling vaults of furnishings in disrepair, weapons and armor rusted, chipped, and dented with use and disuse, chests of moth-eaten clothes, dusty bottles, cobwebbed and moldy volumes of poetry, history, grammar, language, alchemical theory, animal husbandry, engineering.  All is collected and all is of the collective; it is for to take and use as needed, so long as it returns to the dusty alcove in which it was found-- or can be spoken for when needed.<br/><br/>While no particularly suitable armor can be scavenged, serviceable weapons of almost any variety can be located and, with suitable effort, brought to bear.  Leather goods can also be found-- excepting, of course, armor-- and a suitable set of clothes for most any size can be redeemed from the detritus of chests and drawers located among the keep.  Among them, scarves, beads and other low-cost jewelry-- some of it suited for unclear purposes-- can likewise be found.  Cris, in particular, makes note of a silver and onyx cuff she finds in the false bottom of a cedar cask of cherry-scented tobacco crumbs.  To her keen eye, represents a bit more worth than the others... not simply for the precious metals, though they are of finer value than would be found in most any hovel in the village except in the heirloom chest-- but also for its unique design; a hoop ring with a stud, locking upon itself, and solitary. Too small for an earring, except perhaps for a halfling.  Shaped like a black dragon from the onyx.  It seems too beautiful to resist, too personal to be an accident.<br/><br/>_<br/><br/>She must have it, it seems.  Must hold it.  And when supper is served that evening, she will be reluctant to let it from her grasp.  There's roasted goat with herbs and potatoes on the table, and Fen, seeming utterly wasted on rye, stares absently at the empty chair across from her.  For a moment, one of the recruits is a bout to take the seat-- but Fen's eyes light up with an inner flame at the movement, and her mage-friend shakes his head subtly in warning.<br/><br/>That chair remains empty.  Fen doesn't eat, only drinks from a cup at dinner, and as the sound of frogs and crickets settles upon the house over the scrape of dinner plates and the sizzle of the candles upon the broad, bare-wood table, Fen breaks her long silence as she drains the last of her cup and lets it rest.  "Tomorrow you take the field against the HellBitch.  She will wound you so badly that you want to die.  She won't let you.  But no matter what... don't let her break your spirit... or she'll never respect you."<br/><br/>She wipes her mouth with her sleeve, wobbles to her feet.  "One more thing," she says, holding herself aloft by the back of the chair alone.  "Don't love," she says aloud, and smirks at the empty cup before her.  "Kill all you want, take your coin and buy comfort.  Fuck if you must, but don't fuck for love.  Don't let feelings into your heart or you'll be worse than dead."<br/><br/>At that, she reels away, her dulled reflexes barely keeping her upright.  She will be found that night unconscious from her drink in only a shirt, ridden up past her ribs, atop her bedclothes, where a strange ghostly form hovers near her bed only to dissipate when the others return to their bedchamber.