Details
In sum, there are four doors here. One you've been through and leads back to the house. One you can't seem to open. Of the other two, one is steel and one is glass.
Okay Brogg, Marivhon gives you a Speed Potion. That's a solid first part of a strategy.
The doors appear to be untrapped. Indeed, they are all partially open, except for the elaborate ivy-carved door at the end of the hall. Just touching this door, however, makes your hair stand up on end. It feels charged with magical energy. It does not budge to a simple test.
Dave FoO examines the six paintings. They are all done in a realistic style.
The first painting is an extreme close-up of a grinning, feminine mouth. Teeth are bared.
The second painting is of a young woman and two men, one dressed as a stereotypical wizard, one as a court jester. They are sitting around a small table in a cabin playing cards.
The third painting is a close-up of a hand. Male, somewhat veiny and wrinkled. It's clutching a knife by the blade, so that the edge has cut into two of the fingertips and two lines of blood run down the canvas.
The fourth painting depicts the same three figures, but on a stage in a dark theatre. Apparently a magic trick is about to be performed, as there is a large gaudy cabinet in the middle of the stage. The girl is watching in delight as the jester is being shackled into the cabinet by the older magician.
The fifth painting seems to be the aftermath of the fourth painting. The girl has opened the cabinet prematurely, and has a look of shock and horror on her face. Gore pores out of the re-arranged cabinet. The magician holds his head in his hands.
The sixth painting is a huge close-up of a dark, bloodshot eye, wide and staring.
You examine the folio. It too seems familiar to some of you:
The folio consists of four gilt plates. Each pair of pages is laid out in the same manner: an elaborate color drawing on the left, and some illuminated text on the right. The first three pages of text are quatrains, the last page is a sonnet.
PAGE 1
The image:
The iron door here in the hall. Standing next to the door is a jester or juggler, a man in an outrageous outfit. Tasseled hat, holding three knives of different sizes, apparently ready to juggle them. Long thin face, long nose, beady eyes, and a somewhat menacing, intense gaze. In script above the picture, it reads: "
Bartleby Ravenous IV".
The text:
When avarice has failed, when the object lesson’s lostWhen time’s past long for pretty givings, for-getting pentecostWhen all around is ashes fading, crumbled into RustThat’s when I’ll take the final piece, purloin away your trust.PAGE 2
The image:
The glass door. Next to the door is a young woman in a simple, unadorned peasant dress. Long blond hair, mostly uncombed. Her gaze is directed upwards towards three large moths or butterflies fluttering just above her head. In script above the picture, it reads: "
Sarah DeVaunet".
The text:
I trusted you to take my heart, to take me by the handTo show me things before unseen and things grotesque and grandBut these images refracted and these panes now shards of GlassMy hand and heart retracted and my love has come to pass.PAGE 3
The image:
The wooden door. Standing tall next to it is a older man, perhaps in his 40s or 50s, clearly dressed as a wizard. Rune-covered robes and pointy hat, spectacles. A stage magician's cabinet can be seen off to one side, on it rests a skull and one of the wizard's hands. The script reads: "
Rovertius Merelius Croatius".
The text:
No love within these quiet walls, nor home nor hearth do beatNo child’s song has chill’d for long; for stillness we entreatFrom silence, violence, passions high and now only to SleepNot home nor hearth, greed’s masquerade; not cottage but a keep.PAGE 4
The image:
The door at the end of the hall, fine wood covered in ivy, roses, and thorns. No figure, but through the door, splintering it, is the tip of a sword. Around the edge of the sword can be seen a chain.
The text:
Greetings to one so brave or foolish to come into this spaceAround you, calm and nothingness, or maybe waste and desolationRuined dreams of what once was in another time and placeDepicting much but meaning little as begets my fascination."Enough!" You cry. "And show yourself! Your coward's hands and face!""None of this transparent! None of this my destination!"Oblivious your cries to me. Your dreams and nightmares base.For this is naught but just a tomb, my final abrogation.Though something more, alas, unwell, that escaped this cold demesneHewed of steel and hope and hate, created for a muse Or perhaps not, perhaps I knew, just death my lady friend.Rain, then; and rain again, and rain and rot and rainNo longer mine, nor his, nor hers- "Enough!" you cry "Of clues!"So it's come to this, it always does, from beginning to The End....Dave FoO, yes, ZOM-G came with you through the mirror. Zom's always up for a fight, provided you can get that damn controller to work out. He offers a bit of helpful information.
YEA THIS PLACE IS BAD NEWZIM FROM HEREI RMEMBER THS PLACEITS A WORLD U MAY NOT UNDERSTANDU GOTTA B CAREFULL U KNO?.THERES DANGER..............THERES STINGRAYS IN HERE