The Receiving Chamber

This spacious room is elegant if somber, finished in black marble with simple furnishings of ebony. Thick carpet silences footfalls, and continues the spiral motif of the antechamber with the labyrinthine pattern of its hypnotic black and silver weave. The chamber's second story comprises a gallery, open to the room below. The entire gallery is walled with bookshelves to the ceiling, interrupted here and there along the walls where doors open into guest rooms or private areas of the freehold. From the balcony's ebony railing hang a number of heraldically-painted shields with swords, axes, maces and spears crossed behind them. Although giving the chamber a picturesque look, closer inspection shows this to be an actual arsenal, the weapons kept in fighting condition. A flight of spiral stairs opposite the door to the antechamber connects the two stories of the room. Aside from the armaments hanging along the gallery rail, the chamber has few decorations. The green and gold banner of Erecles ap Gwydion, Duke of Firebird, adorns the wall between the antechamber door and the gallery stairs. Opposite this at the far end of the room is the balefire hearth, where Glamour blazes in violet flames with rose-colored highlights reminiscent of Arizona's sunsets. Above the mantle hangs a banner showing the black and silver insignia of the noble House of Eiluned. Most of the receiving chamber's main floor is left open, furnishings arranged in conversational groupings along the walls. There is no bar or sideboard. Instead, two chimerical servants dressed only in short tabards of black and silver attend to guests. These servants wear the guise of slender youths with completely hairless skin of piebald complexion and seemingly random pattern, milk white and stark black, each the mirror image of the other. Their eyes glow with the violet and rose colors of the Eyrie's balefire. One is called Dawn, the other is Dusk. Dusk and Dawn never raise their voices above a quiet, deferential tone. They move with fluid grace and hardly a sound, greeting guests, offering refreshments and requesting that any weapons be left in their care. Guests refusing to comply with this courtesy must overcome the Protocol cantrip upon this chamber, which was placed here by Duke Erecles as his gift to Sir Vincit when the fief was bestowed. Those who do so resist will be asked to comply or to leave, and will be removed from the premises if necessary.

Enter the Recieving Chamber (in-charachter chat) or Return to the Antechamber