Manor Dungeon

Cobwebs and broken glass, along with crates of ridiculously expensive wine. Chandeliers lie on their sides on the cold, uncarpeted ground. There is a knife through one of the antique paintings on the wall by the door. Other than that, the room is completely dark.

The rest of the manor outside the dungeon is... quite small, for a manor. This means, of course, that it doesn't get its massive gardens and landscaping. It's in the less desirable real-estate area, meaning it has to abide the neighboring buildings in the crowded city. There might be another establishment upstairs, but who can tell from inside?

There are probably several buildings of the like in Berkshire, none with any true distinctive characteristics.

Leticia wakes up and suppresses a scream. The darkness is closing in on her... pressing in on her... trying to choke her.

The darkness is real, she knows this, she's felt it before, and so she flails her arms in front of her to convince herself that the shadow is intangible, is merely the absence of light.

Or, rather, she tries to flail her arms in front of her. She finds that they're rather immovable - being held behind her back by another shadow conspirator. And so she screams.

The scream rouses the unconscious Ina, who is also held by unseeable bonds.

"Whazzgoinon?" she mumbles, still hazy from unconsciousness. She tries to move and fails, then attempting to thrash vigorously.

"We're dying!"

Leticia starts hyperventilating.

"Calm down, Leticia dear."

She shouts into the darkness, "HEEEEELLLO? WHO IN THE NINE HELLS TIED US UP?"

The door opens, flooding the room with light. Leticia stops shrieking and writhing.

A woman wearing a highly impractical armor display enters the room with a confident swagger. "How lovely to see you awake. Now, pray tell. What did you do with the money?" She leans in the doorway formidably.

"What money are you talking about?"

"Playing ignorant won't save you. But I like to give my victims a fighting chance. Here."

She unties their ropes.

"I'll give you some time to make up your minds. Good luck!"

She locks them in the room and bolts the door.

"What's she talking about?" Ina asks as she rubs her wrists.

"When did we have "the" money? I don't..." Leticia still isn't breathing at ease, and now she starts to quietly cry.

Ina puts her arm over Leticia's shoulders and tries to figure out what's going on.

Leticia stops crying as she has a thought. "The only money we've gotten since arriving in Berkshire is the gift from Tod and the gift from the inn, right? Which means that either Tod got into more illegal stuff or the inn thing was a scheme."

"But what would their motives be? If Tod did something illegal, like stole money, he wouldn't have left it with us. But if these people are criminals who wanted to steal Tod's money, then clearly they have a grudge against him. Unless... if it's the other thing, the inn, then the people who gave us money for burning it down... maybe they were using us as a diversion? Did they try to keep the gift discreet? What if.........."

Leticia and Ina's discussion will be timeskipped now, as we head to events of concurrent relevancy. We shall return to these two girls soon.



Outside the Boutique, newspapers carry the news of the tragedy the night before. "Clock Tower Inn Burns! Noel Croix Only Casualty."

One such newspaper is being read by Valentine, who has surmised that the girls' disappearances might have had something to do with the recent events they were a part of.

"Hm..." Valentine seems to be getting a picture, although she still wasn't sure how Leticia and Ina were involved in this.

Of course, there are other newspapers. Many of which are filled with nothing but gossip. Some of which have a fuzzy image of Ina and Leticia on the front.

One of these piques her interest, as she hoped there would be some more information on the two in it.

Valentine slowly seems to form a possible idea as to what really happened. Someone deliberately burned down the inn, and 'these women' recieved the gold from a man who was last seen with the victim... Certainly that all couldn't have been mere coincidence.

What had Leticia said as she'd entered the Boutique? "Someone gave us a bag of money after the inn burned. I was trying to kill a giant shadow monster with a flamethrower. I expected to have to pay a fee, but nobody seemed to mind."

"Nobody seemed to mind, huh..." She thinks on her words, also noting the fact that she had mentioned having a flamethrower, which was found in one of the floors.

Perhaps she could find more information elsewhere. But who would be most able to provide help? Lord Brennzhefler "Benny" Archenoptyre? One of the other Croix siblings? The innkeeper, Marcus Jutant?

She decides she'll have to seek someone who knows this incident personally, and decides to try seeking out the innkeeper first.

"Hello?" he asks at the door.

"You're Marcus Jutant, correct? The innkeeper whose property burned down?"