Another Request

[Lady Thorn]

Thread Post Request
Username - bloodarchivist
Thread Name - Map I, Map II, Map III.
Location - The Maps in my clan board in Europe... The Underground Rooms or something similar... I forget.

The pictures are not so important as the words, if that helps any.

Please know that the format is sole property of Sins of Impunity/It's All In Yer Mind.

[Isi Runasimi]

Here's your board description:
"Behind a locked door in the Villa Corvidae, a corridor leads down into the bowels of the Earth. Below the Victorian mansion, there lies a network of tunnels and caves, excavated in the first century AD, when the Romans first set foot upon this isle. "

Ok, nobody make fun of the awful drawing, bear with me.

1: The door is found in the centre of the hall in the Villa Corvidae. Under normal circumstances, it remains locked securely. All members of the clan possess a key.

2: The Private Shrine and Temple to the Gods are remnants of the original construction of these rooms. Both contain statues to the old pagan gods.
The Private Shrine remains behind a locked door, to which only Lady Thorn has a key. It contains the statues of the family genii, the Lares and the Penates. Included in this is personal Juno, and the genii of her siblings, as well as the statues to the spirits of departed family.
The Temple to the Gods holds statues of most of the Roman and associated pantheon in niches in the walls. The focal point is a wall-fountain on the Eastern side, which is surmounted by a statue of Mithras slaying the great bull. The water here is sweet and drunk on holy days.
The walls are inlaid with mosaic tiles in deep, dark and sparkling colours, seemingly dripping wet as they twinkle in the light of candles and oil-lamps, kept burning at all times.

3: The Store and Loo. These are not in original condition, upgraded for modern sensibilities.
The store contains a reasonable supply of food and medical equipment and supplies.
The loo... requires no explanation.

4: The Meeting Hall is a vast room, on a slightly deeper level than the rest of the network of tunnels here to accommodate its high ceiling, from which hangs a magnificent, seventeenth century chandelier. The table is of a dark, polished wood, with high-backed chairs around it. It is, as may well be suggested by the name, for meetings.

5: The well room is the communal water supply of these rooms. It is fed from a walled-off spring and holds a steady and fresh supply of water, so the rooms need not be a prison if any accident should befall the house above.

6: The armoury is also stocked to modern expectations, much to Lady Thorn's distaste. Everything here is kept in perfect, polished working order, in case of emergency.

7: The communal eating and sleeping area, once the place where members of the clan would take their rest and food while present, is now disused. Upon the building of the house above, there was no longer a need for such a place. It is now dusty and empty, an echoing hall without light or sound.

8: The War Room contains an array of computers and similar gadgetry, as well as maps and charts, to keep the clan up to speed in any combat situation. It has been unthinkingly updated by the domestics, and Lady Thorn has yet to set foot inside.

There is also a walled-off section. It is, apparently, impassable, but the wall is a cunningly concealed door. Only one in possession of the appropriate key may enter.

And lastly, there is a set of stairs, leading down to deeper levels of the complex.

A floor beneath the first level of the Old Rooms.

Same applies on the crudness of the drawing.

1: The cell block, still furnished from Roman times, with solid iron cages and shackles of silvered steel, designed to hold even the toughest of immortals. The walls are made of solid blocks of stone, cold and damp from the surrounding earth. Water drips down, the echoing "plink plink" noise torturous to the ears of prisoners.

2: Adjacent is (thank-you Sitsi) the torture chamber. Again, this is furnished from the Roman days, with lots of heavy metal implements and sharp, pointy things. Considerate as always, however, the domestics made a few updates over the years, and it is now wired for electricity.

3: The blood bank is a room locked in ice and frost, as secure as the prison but much more modern. It is surrounded by several feet of solid stone and steel, impervious to anything the world might throw at it, and containing enough blood to feed a clan for a century. It is frequently restocked, though it is best not to contemplate from where.

4: The archives, all paper and books, no computers, are kept in a climate controlled environment, scrolls and manuscripts, incunables and books all stored in their wooden stalls, silent and untouched by human, or immortal, hands for many generations. The subject matter is wide and esoteric.

5: The old library holds books, but these are of a different nature. These are the very oldest tomes, inscribed on skin of animals and humans, of laws and tenets and lore. The are the guide of the lives of the clan, the ultimate reference forever and always.

6: The dead room has been locked solid since the departure of the Romans from the shores of Britain. What it contains, no one knows, but it is whispered that a strange hum emits at certain times of year, and hissing speech of the eldest tongues. Only the head of the clan can open it.

7: The mausoleum of Marcus contains the remains of the family's founder, their initial vampire, transported over from their first home at the fall of Rome. A flame is kept ever burning on the great sarcophagus. The walls are carved with friezes of his exploits, trampling his enemies and taking the lives of thousands. It is a haunting, evil place.

8: The grave room, another locked area, contains the remains of all those family members whose bodies could be recovered. Stretching back beyond the Greek and Roman Empires, back to Babylon and the cradle of civilisation, these graves are not revered, not watched or visited. They are dangerous, for vampires are never entirely certain to remain dead for all that long, and the vampires of the way back when were far more feral and barbaric than those that lurk in today's shadows. To enter this room is to risk the wrath or favour of forces with whom few can reason.

It is always cold down here, always eerily quiet, save for the strange whispers of the stirring air.

Ditto about the cruddy drawings.

The third and deepest level of the Old Rooms is the strangest. It is reached by a ladder leading down from the stairwell of the second level, and is at least thirty metres deeper than it's upper neighbour. This being so, it is colder, damper and darker, and strange noises emanate from the earth packed deep and high above. It is not a pleasant place to be, for human or vampire.

The Blue Sun Room is the only room down here still intact and understandable. It takes its name from the blue tesserae which are it's floor, ceiling and the circular wall, and from the great sun mosaiced into it. The sun itself is mostly silver, made of glass mixed with the metal, and shining with a strange, ethereal light. Its rays stretch across from the orb in the centre of the floor right up the walls, where clouds are made of onyx and obsidian chips and stars of bright gems. The whole room glows with it, shimmering from the moisture that pervades these levels.

Not so easily noticed is the matching moon on the ceiling. This is picked out in moonstone fragments and gold-flecked tiles, smaller than its counterpart on the floor by far, being no bigger than a human head, compared with the twenty-metre-diameter of the sun. But it bears strange resemblance to its real counterpart, shadows and craters having been picked out in darker shards of stone, and is just as enthralling.

The room is lit by unknown means, a simple, tiny glow which bounces round the many tiles and stones to give the place a majesty and hush of a temple. And it is a temple, of sorts. It is a temple to the very life itself which runs through the family, the force of immortality. No one worships here, no one prays, but the very existence of it is enough.

The branched tunnels, some leading to rooms, some simply into distant darkness, are inexplicable. The rooms are ruined, stones fallen into disrepair and friezes forever obscured by dirt and masonry rubble. One room would once have been as magnificent as the sun room, only tiled in red and garnets, perhaps a temple to blood, but is now beyond the reach of any who try. Its door is blocked by a great stone, fallen from the ceiling, and only glimpses can be seen by candlelight, of a deep reddish, throbbing glow, dark and rich and hungry. The others may have been tiled or simply stone, no one knows. They are older than anything else here, and the faces carved into the walls, the words engraved, are so worn by ancient hands that none can make anything of them.

One piece of script survives, though, written in a variant of early Greek. It tells the reader of blood and immortality, perhaps a dedication by the founder of the place? But it is cut off, the sentence unfinished, the words run dry.

This whole level is a tomb of unheard words.

If you listen carefully, you can hear them, on the edge of sensing; tongues long dead whispered for eternity to unknowing ears.

[Lady Thorn]

Thanks!

[Isi Runasimi]

You're welcome. : ]