Saralas: The Feywild Chapter 14

The Puzzle of the Vault

“Does anyone have any bright ideas?” I asked, looking around at the others.

“Poke it with a stick?” said Karthos unhelpfully.

“Is that a good idea?” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Karthos shrugged, then started looking around the room. He found some empty ledger covers with nothing inside. He also found a bunch of ordinary pens, random hardware, a bunch of broken old writing equipment, and so on. He was tossing things aside, throwing folders, looking at and then chucking pens, and muttering to himself.

“There’s nothing here,” he said finally, turning to me. “You think it has something to do with music,” Karthos said, “which I suppose fits the theme.”

“I do indeed,” I confirmed. “I just don’t know which runes correspond to which notes.”

We discussed the previous doors for a time. Two of them did open for the right melody, but a couple others we opened by solving puzzles. Kaira expertly snipped a vine on one which let her open it, and Karthos opened the other with the help of Squirt and his oil.

I looked around for anything in the room that seemed to fit in with the runes, the pattern or similar, but didn’t find anything.

Karthos turned to the scarecrow. “Clapperclaw, do you know anything about this?”

Clapperclaw shrugged. “The children are forbidden from coming here. I’ve never been in this room before.”

“I’m sure it has something to do with the runes,” Resda said.

“I agree, Resda,” I said.

Kaira was looking at the vault apprehensively. “I’m afraid to even try to pick the lock.”

“Does it even have a keyhole?” I asked, as I certainly couldn’t see one.

“Professor Skant, do you know what these say?” Resda asked the orb.

Skant replied with his usual mix of condescension, derision, and stupidity. “I’m surprised you waited so long, entertaining these buffoons rather than my wisdom. Clearly these describe a musical melody, and are no doubt in a notation familiar to the machines of Loomlurch. You should investigate other machines here to see if you can learn more.”

Not the worst advice, if delivered by a pompous buffoon. I looked at the mechanical constructs on the shelf but couldn’t figure out what they did or how they worked. I was still distracted by the unsettling musical runes.

“Wasn’t there a music box in the entryway?” Skant asked.

As usual Skant was ignorant despite his knowledge.”It was marzipan, a treat, shaped like a music box,” I said. “It wasn’t a real music box. I heard the melody in my head, not in the air.”

But although his advice was bad, as usual, the core idea wasn’t terrible. I turned towards the vault and sang the melody I learned in the first room. As I did so some of the runes lit up, but not all of them, and not in the right order. So it was musical, but we needed the right melody.

“Saralas, were those mechanical items anything useful?” Karthos asked.

“I couldn’t make heads or tails of them,” I said. “You’re welcome to look at them yourself, though.”

“I suppose,” he said, and looked over the constructs on the shelves. “They’re clockwork creatures, of very fine make.” He went from one to the next, pointing out that each was in the shape an animals or creature. “Look, there are rats, crickets, beetles, marionettes, and owls.” He touched one of the crickets, then picked it up and turned it over. Nothing seemed to happen.

Korag was peering over his shoulder. “They look like they wind up.”

“They do indeed,” Karthos replied. “But I don’t have a key to wind them with.”

I helped Karthos search the room for a winding key, but we couldn’t find anything.

Korag stood by the vault door and hummed a bit. As with my earlier song, some of the runes lit up as he hummed, but not all of them, and not in the right order. “Maybe we can brute force it,” he suggested.

It was possible, but we went through the melodies we knew, and Korag hummed a scale, and still not all the runes lit up. We were still missing something.

Meanwhile, Kaira used her thieve’s tools to wind the cricket in Karthos’ hand. It started chirping out a melody. Like the others we had heard in Loomlurch it seemed almost familiar, but wrong somehow. After a while it wound back down and stopped. It didn’t seem to activate the runes at all as it sang.

Kaira wound up another toy, a different animal. It made a different tune but as before the door did not respond.

“Do you think each one has a piece?” Korag asked.

“Yeah,” said Karthos. “Maybe.”

“Should we try them and see if we can find the order they should go in?”

Kaira tried winding each of them in turn. Each played a different tune, but none of the runes on the door lit up.

“Maybe we should look for more information,” Karthos said slowly. “Another music box or something. Or some keys.”

“Maybe we have to wind them all?” Resda suggested.

“We’d need a lot of keys,” Korag said.

“What would keys do that we haven’t done with Kaira’s tools?” I asked, confused.

“We could run them all at once,” Karthos explained. “A chorus.”

“There are a lot of keys back in the factory,” Clapperclaw offered.

I didn’t much like the idea of going back to the factory. “We could keep looking for clues elsewhere.”

“We could try to learn the tune, and then sing it,” Korag suggested.

“Maybe we could create keys, do we have tools?” Karthos asks.

“I think I have some tinker’s tools,” I said, and started digging through my pack. “Oh, that’s a shame,” I said. “I thought I had some, but I don’t. I just have these carpenter’s tools. I could make you a ladder if that would help. Otherwise I’ll have to remember to pick some tinker’s tools up next time we have a chance.”

“There are a lot of tools in the factory,” Clapperclaw said.

“If we’re going to the factory we can look for tinker’s tools and for keys for these toys,” I said, thinking.

“How will these toys help?” Skant asked, reasonably for once. “They didn’t light up any of the runes.”

“He has a point,” I said unhappily. “They didn’t light up any of the runes. Is this one of those proverbial crimson fish?” I paused for a moment to think. “Maybe a person needs to sing it. Kaira can you help out?”

Kaira wound up a toy and I tried to sing back the tune, but not well, and none of the runes lit up. Resda tried the same, but in a sweeter voice, but again nothing lit up. This didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. We could try the chorus idea with more keys to wind the toys, or we could move on and look for another music box or other clues somewhere that would help us with this door.

Before we left I sketched the runes in my journal, in the pattern I could make out when following them. Maybe I could find a primer or music book and start making sense of these runes.

But Korag insisted on trying to sing the animal songs in the right order first. I felt like we were going in circles at this point.

“How sweet is your singing voice and how patient is Kaira?” I asked the giant. “I still think the fish is red.”

Korag grunted.

“When I sang,” I continued, “some of the runes lit up, and some of the notes were right, but I didn’t know all of them. And they were in the wrong order. We need the rest.”

“I think we need to find more musical things, to learn the rest of the notes,” Karthos said.

“There are many musical toys manufactured here,” Clapperclaw said, “each with it’s own sweet song of sorrow.”

“But would the right tune or the right notes just be put in a random toy?” I asked. It seemed unlikely. Still, better to try than dismiss it outright. We were stuck after all.

Alarm

“Let’s keep looking,” Karthos finally said. “Maybe we’ll find more clues as we go.”

We headed back to the hall and checked the door at the far end. It had faces on its surface and was surrounded by frames. Each frame had a shimmering outline of a face as if someone was about to appear. There was also a brass keyhole.

Karthos sighed. “I hoped it would just be a door.”

“There probably won’t be too many more simple doors,” I said. “I think the Loom might be past here.”

I bent to look more closely at the faces on the door. The faces were creepy, but also not any faces I recognized. Some twitched unnaturally, while others had tiny distortions. Some looked wrong while others looked fairly normal. They were all faces of children.

Resda was also looking. “I think there’s a pattern in here,” she said. “We probably have to touch them in the right order.”

“Resda is so wise,” Skant said pointlessly.

Kaira was looking at the keyhole. “Can I just pick this?” she asked, pulling out her tools. But only a moment after inserting a pick into the keyhole she was blasted away from the door by a bolt of lightning. She picked herself off the floor slowly, trying to look nonchalant, but her hair was standing on end.

“Kaira are you OK?” I asked with concern.

“I’m good,” she said, feigning confidence. But her voice was still a little shaky.

“Your hair, dear,” I said with a smile, and handed her my hairbrush to set herself in order again.

Korag showed no concern for our small companion, and was still peering at the faces carefully, showing no sign of the thoughts behind his impassive expression.

Resda stepped forward and touched one of the faces, one of the oddly distorted ones. Another lightning bolt hit her, throwing her to the floor, and an alarm started wailing from the door. We could hear voices suddenly shouting in the distance, back towards the factory floor.

“Shit,” I said, and we ducked into the stables and tried to stay quiet. We could hear a number of feet coming up from the factory. The footsteps were mostly small, light, and I thought they may be children. We could hear voices, but not distinctly enough to make out the words. After a minute or so the alarm went quiet, and then we heard a heavy, thudding, walking sound, like the shadow monster from before.

Suddenly the lights in the hallway all went out. We waited, silently, terrified. It seemed like forever, though I’m certain it was only a quarter of an hour. No one dared speak. No one dared move. Eventually though we heard everyone pass back into the factory, the heavy thudding steps retreated, and the lights returned. We gave it another 5 minutes before we poked our heads back into the hallway, which was now clear.

Back in the hallway in front of the door again Resda tried touching another one of the faces, but a non-screwed up one this time. A beam of light appeared and illuminated her. She looked good in the light, despite the third arm, stone teeth, Skant, and other flaws.

Karthos touched another face, and another beam lit up. He nodded, and then touched the rest of the normal faces. They smiled and the air chimed and shimmered in the light. The tension in the air seemed to ease, and the door slowly opened ajar. Resda peeked in.

The Library

Behind the door was a chamber more like a twisted library than a workshop. The air was thick with dust and the faint smell of scorched parchment. Shelves and pigeonholes lined the walls. Ledgers, scrolls, and fragile glass panes lined the shelves. Ladders leaned against the shelves on metal tracks, rungs worn slick by clawed hands. It was a very creepy library. I hoped maybe we could find some clues to the musical runes here.

Before we went in, Karthos checked the last door in the hallway, this one perfectly ordinary. Behind it was a small room containing various crates. He searched them and found brooms, parchment, and various random items. “It’s a closet,” he said.

“Let’s search the library,” Resda said.

“Maybe it will have some information on the runes and the notes,” I said, voicing my hope aloud, but inside that hope was quite dim.

Karthos began looking at the books on the shelves. Despite the disarray of the furniture, each book appeared to be in excellent condition, gilt lettering standing out on the spines. I started reading the titles as well. There were books on market manipulation, tomes on bureaucratic language and cross-planar politics, and more. But the majority focused on toys, their mechanisms and construction.

There was a small table in the room, and on it sat a book on about the ethics of slavery, written in Nightshade’s hand. It was dry and clinical, talking of optimal configuration of slaves, and so on. After a long search I had to conclude that the whole library was filled with endless records on cruelty, commerce, and exploitation of slaves. But not a word on music or musical notation.

I looked around further, beyond the shelves and books. There was a stairwell heading down, and I went to investigate. It was an ordinary looking staircase, and I told the others I wanted to see what was down there.

Before I made it down more than a couple steps Resda pulled out her wand to look for secret doors. “Nothing,” she said with disappointment. “Just the two other doors we can see.”

I continued down the stairway as quietly as I could, and found myself in a small chamber at the bottom. A door towered before me, a door of brass filigree, casting light in dim patterns on the floor. Tiny faces with mouths slightly open were carved into the door, and gears embedded in the frame of the door twitched impatiently.

Each of the faces was arranged in a way to correspond to musical notes, with a rune on its forehead. The runes were the same kind as on the vault door. I looked over the door carefully, and was fairly certain that if we knew the right melody we could activate them in the right order, and they would unlock the door. But if we got it wrong I had a certainty that it would cause chaos.

I studied the runes and the faces for a time, trying to work out what the notes might be and what order they might go in, but had no luck. “We need a primer,” I said to Karthos, who had joined me by the door. “We need to know what these notes are. I can’t get any sense of an obvious pattern between the shape of the runes and the notes they represent.”

Resda had also joined us at the brass door, and she shook her head. “Let’s go look at those other doors in the Library,” she said. “We can come back to this when we figure out the notes.” We headed back upstairs.

The two doors in the library couldn’t be more different. One was wide, and made of dark, polished oak inlaid with dozens of tiny carved knobs shaped in the place of mouths, each barely the size of a marble. Each knob has a tiny grinning face around it. They were in a grid, 7 columns wide, 3 rows tall. The other door appeared plain, but of strong metal.

Korag looked carefully at the oak door. The tiny knobs representing mouths all appeared to be the same, and none of them seemed more worn than the others.

He pulled out some incense and tried to see if some of the powder would stick, to find recently used knobs, but none seemed to stick at all.

“It’s clearly dangerous, guys.” Resda said. “Saralas, sing your tune.”

I am not really a singer I thought to myself, but gave it a go anyways. But I was not feeling great, and sang poorly. Thank the stars Wodna isn’t here, I thought to myself. I would have to sing better than this, if I ever sang for her.

“One of you could sing too, you know,” I said irritably.

“Let’s just try the metal door,” Korag said. “There’s a deadbolt on this side. Kaira, you’re up.”

Kaira glanced at the door and then back at Korag, rolling her eyes. “You can just turn it Korag,” she said. The door was locked from this side.

Karthos turned the deadbolt and opened the door. Beyond we could see the night sky. This door went outside.

“Maybe we should just leave and come back later,” Kaira said. But we weren’t here to leave, we were here to save people.

Karthos turned back to the wooden door and looked carefully at it. “It’s musical, like the others,” he said. “7 notes, probably, but we need the right melody. Resda, we might need to try the melody we know.”

Resda stepped up to the door and tried using the knobs. Each knob was like the stop in an organ, and pulling one released air, making a note. By the third note, the door was shaking and screaming, and Resda wisely pushed them all back in before it got too bad.

Neither of the melodies that I knew produced a good result. As before it seemed we needed to find the right notes to open this.

Children in Boxes

Maybe a change of scenery, and a smoke I thought, and I stepped outside through the metal door to have a think. The yard outside stretched farther than it seemed like it should, and it was shrouded with shadows under a sallow moon. The path before me was cracked and uneven. The air smelled faintly of burnt oil, iron, and something sweet that made me feel ill, and scattered around the yard were a dozen metal boxes, each the size of a small brass coffin. They were all locked, and tiny sobs, cries, and whimpers came from the boxes. There were children locked in the boxes for punishment.

Above, the windows glinted like watchful eyes, and mechanical crows stopped to check on each prisoner and adjust the boxes. The silence between the cries was almost worse than the cries themselves. I could see that the yard was designed to demonstrate to the children the consequences of disobedience, and was a means of control. It was not a restful place, and I held my pipe, unlit, unable to find the restful moment I had hoped for.

I put my pipe away and looked around. One small face peered out from a grated vent in a nearby box, eyes wide with terror. When it saw me its expression flickered between hope and fear. I couldn’t understand its whispers but I could feel hope that I might be able to free it. I looked at the crows patrolling the yard. There was no way to open these boxes without drawing attention, and we were still trying to avoid that.

I managed to tear myself away from the scene before I did something terribly stupid. I stumbled back into the Library, feeling like the worst person to ever live.

“What did you see?” Resda asked.

“Terrible things,” I said heavily. “And I am a terrible person.”

“Why?” She looked confused.

“I walked away from suffering,” I said, closing my eyes. “Perhaps prudent, but cruel. I hate this place.”

Next Steps?

“Should we go back to the factory floor?” Karthos asked. “We could look around.”

“But who knows what we’re looking for?” I asked, trying to push the boxes out of my mind.

“Is there anything else that makes the sounds?” Korag asked.

“There are the musical toys,” Clapperclaw reminded us. “And their makers.”

Korag started thinking out loud about the various ideas and concepts of the music boxes and their makers. He went on and on and on and on and on, in circles.

“The factory seems like a good bet. Unless maybe there’s something in the Janitor’s closet,” I said. “Babies first guide to musical runes, or something.”

“There’s nothing in the closet,” Karthos said. “I think we need to explore the factory floor.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I admitted reluctantly.

Resda was peering around at the library again. “I want all these books,” she said. She pulled one down, which was titled “Breathing Walls: Architecture and Gardening.” She started flipping through it.

“It’s about using architecture as a living guardian,” she says. “And using architecture to trap, confuse, and so on.” She kept flipping through it, her expression turning from curiosity to dread and alarm as she read.

“Guys, we’re fucked,” she said eventually. “There are tons of traps. The building itself is listening.”

Raw Notes

• “Does anyone have any bright ideas?” I ask.
• “Poke it with a stick?” says Karthos.
• “Is that a good idea?” I ask sarcastically.
• Karthos goes to look around the room. He finds some empty ledger covers with nothing inside. He also found a bunch of ordinary pens, random hardware, a bunch of broken old writing equipment.
• “You think it has something to do with music,” Karthos says, “which I suppose fits the theme.”
• We discuss the previous doors and how we got them open. Some from learning the right melody, at least one opened by Kaira, one opened by Squirt.
• I look around for anything in the room that seems to fit in with the runes, the pattern or similar, but don’t find anything.
• “Clapperclaw, do you know anything about this?” Karthos asks.
• He shrugs. “The children are forbidden from coming here. I’ve never been in this room before.”
• “I’m sure it has something to do with the runes,” Resda says.
• “I agree, Resda,” I say.
• “I’m afraid to even try to pick the lock,” Kaira says.
• “Does it even have a keyhole?” I ask. I can’t see one.
• “Professor Skant, do you know what these say?” Resda asks.
• “I’m surprised you waited so long, entertaining these buffoons rather than my wisdom. Clearly these describe a musical melody, and are no doubt in a notation familiar to the machines of Loomlurch. You should investigate other machines here to see if you can learn more.”
• I look at the mechanical constructs on the shelf but they don’t look like anything to me.
• “Wasn’t there a music box in the entryway?” Skant asks.
• “It was marzipan, a treat, shaped like a music box,” I say, “not real.”
• But it’s not a terrible idea. I sing the melody we learned in the first room. Some of the runes light up, but not all of them.
• There’s an order that we’d need to make the tune in of course.
• “You’re welcome to look at those mechanical things yourself,” I say to Karthos.
• He looks and says it’s a bunch of clockwork creatures that are very finely made, in the shape of a number of animals, rats, crickets, beetles, marionettes, and owls. He touches one of the crickets, then picks it up and turns it over. Nothing seems to happen.
• “They look like they wind up,” says Korag.
• “They do indeed,” Karthos replies. “But I don’t have a key to wind them with.”
• We look around but neither Karthos or I can find a key.
• Korag stands by the door and hums a bit. Some of the runes light but not all of them.
• Kaira uses her thieve’s tools to wind the cricket, which starts chirping a melody. It seems almost familiar, then after a while it winds back down. It doesn’t seem to activate the runes.
• “Maybe we have to wind them all?” Resda asks.
• “We’d need a lot of keys,” Korag says.
• “There are a lot of keys back in the factory,” Clapperclaw says.
• “I think we can brute force it,” Korag says.
• “We could keep looking for clues elsewhere,” I say.
• “We could try to learn the tune, and then sing it,” Korag suggests.
• Kaira winds up another toy, and it makes a different tune. The door does not respond.
• “Do you think each one has a piece?” Korag asks.
• “Yeah,” says Karthos.
• “Should we try them and see if we can find the order they should go in?” Korag asks.
• Kaira tries winding each of them in turn. None of the lights on the door light up.
• “Maybe we should look for more information,” Karthos says slowly. “Another music box or something. Or some keys.”
• “What would keys do that we haven’t done with Kaira’s tools?” I ask.
• “We could run them all at once,” Karthos explains.
• “Maybe we could create keys, do we have tools?” karthos asks.
• “I think I have tinker’s tools,” I say. But when I check my pack I realize I’m carrying carpenter’s tools, but not tinker’s tools.
• “There are a lot of tools in the factory,” Clapperclaw says.
• “If we’re going to the factory we can look for tinker’s tools and for keys for these toys,” I say, thinking.
• “How will these toys help?” Skant asks. “They didn’t light up any of the runes.”
• “He has a point,” I say. “They didn’t light up any of the runes. Is it one of those proverbial crimson fish?” I pause and think. “Maybe a person needs to sing it,” I suggest. “Kaira can you help out?”
• Kaira winds a toy up and I try to sing back the tune, but not well. None of the runes light up. Resda tries the same, but in a soft sweet voice, but again nothing lights up.
• Maybe we should move on and try to find more clues. Maybe there’s more objects, maybe something that would help us understand
• I sketch the runes in my journal before we leave, in the pattern I could make out when following them.
• Korag insists on trying to sing the animal songs in the right order first.
• “How sweet is your singing voice and how patient is Kaira?” I ask. “I still think the fish is red.”
• She looks skeptical.
• “When I sang, some of the runes lit up, but in the wrong order,” I say. “Some of the notes were right, but I didn’t know all of them. And they were in the wrong order.”
• “I think we need to find more musical things, to learn the rest of the notes,” Karthos says.
• “There are many musical toys manufactured here,” Clapperclaw says, “each with it’s own sweet song of sorrow.”
• “But would the right tune or the right notes just be put in a random toy?” I ask.
• We head back to the hall and look at the door at the end. It has faces on its surface and. The door is surrounded by frames. Each frame has a shimmering outline of a face as if someone was about to appear. A brass keyhole is present.
• Karthos sighs. “I hoped it would just be a door.”
• “I think the Loom might be past here,” I say.
• The faces on the door look creepy. They are not any faces I recognize. Some of the faces twitch unnaturally, while others have tiny distortions. Some look wrong while others look fairly normal. They are all faces of children.
• “I think there’s a pattern in here,” Resda says. “We’d have to touch them in the right order.”
• “Resda is so wise,” Skant says pointlessly.
• “Can I just pick this,” Kaira says, pulling out her tools. She is blasted away from the door by a bolt of lightning, and picks herself up slowly from the floor. Her hair is standing on end.
• “Kaira are you OK?” I ask.
• “I’m good,” she says a little shakily.
• I let her borrow my hairbrush and she sets herself in order again.
• Korag is peering at the faces carefully. Resda steps forward and touches one of them. Another lightning bolt hits her, and an alarm starts up. We can hear voices in the distance.
• “Shit,” I say. We duck into the stables and try to stay quiet. We can hear a number of feet coming up from the factory. They may be children, and we can hear them talking, but indistinctly. After a minute or so the alarm goes quiet, then we hear a heavy, thudding walking sound, like the shadow monster.
• The lights in the hallway all go out. We wait, silently, terrified, and eventually we hear everyone pass back into the factory.
• Back in the room Resda tries touching another one of the faces. A non-screwed up one this time. A beam of light comes out and illuminates her. She looks good.
• Karthos touches another, and another beam lights up. Karthos touches the rest of the faces, and the faces smile and the air chimes and shimmers. The door slowly opens ajar. Resda peeks in.
• The chamber feels more like a twisted library than a workshop. The air is thick with dust and the faint smell of scorched parchment. Shelves and pigeonholes line the walls. Ledgers, scrolls, and fragile glass panes line the shelves. Ladders lean against the shelves, rungs worn slick by clawed hands. It’s a very creepy library.
• Before we go in, Karthos looks at the end of the hallway. There is one more door, and it looks perfectly ordinary. He opens it, and inside is a small room containing various crates. He searches them and finds brooms, parchment, and various random items. It’s a closet.
• “Let’s search the library,” Resda says.
• “Maybe it will have some information on the runes and the notes,” I say, but am not actually hopeful.
• Karthos begins looking at the books on the shelves. Despite the disarray of the furniture, each book appears to be in excellent condition, gilt lettering standing out on the spines. There are books on market manipulation, tomes on bureaucratic language and cross-planar politics, and more. But the majority focus on toys, their mechanisms and construction.
• There is a book on a small table about the ethics of slavery, written in Nightshade’s hand. It is dry and clinical, talking of optimal configuration of slaves, and so on. The whole library is filled with endless records on cruelty, commerce, and exploitation of slaves. I don’t find anything related to music here.
• In the room there is a stairwell heading down. I go to check it out, but it looks pretty ordinary. “I think I want to investigate what’s down there,” I tell the others.
• Resda pulls out her wand to look for secret doors, but there are not any secret entrances in this room. Besides the stairway there are a couple other doors in the room.
• I head down the stairway as quietly as I can. At the bottom of the stairwell is a chamber. A door towers before us, of brass filigree casting light in dim patterns. Tiny faces with mouths slightly open are on the door, and gears embedded in the frame of the door twitch impatiently.
• Each of the faces are arranged in a way to correspond to musical notes. If we can activate them in the right order they will unlock the door, but the wrong order will cause chaos. I try to work out what the notes might be and what order they might go in.
• Each face has a rune on its forehead that corresponds to the runes we saw on the vault door. “We need a primer,” I say. “We need to know what notes these are.” The runes do not seem to give any sense of pattern, in terms of the shape of the rune matching with the sound. They seem arbitrary.
• “Let’s go look at those other doors,” Resda says. We go back upstairs.
• There are two doors in the room. One is wide, and made of dark, polished oak inlaid with dozens of carved knobs shaped like mouths, each barely the size of a marble. Each knob has a tiny grinning face around it. They are in a grid, 7 columns wide, 3 rows tall.
• The other door appears plain, but of metal, and appears quite strong.
• Korag looks carefully at the oak door. The mouths all appear to be the same. None of them seem more worn than others.
• He pulls out some incense and tries to see if some of the powder sticks, but none seems to stick.
• “It’s clearly dangerous,” guys. Resda says. “Saralas, sing your tune.”
• I am not feeling great, and sing poorly. Thank the stars Wodna wasn’t here, I think.
• “One of you could sing, you know,” I say irritably.
• “Let’s just try the metal door,” Korag says. There’s a deadbolt on this side. “Kaira, you’re up.”
• “You can just turn it Korag,” Kaira says.
• Karthos opens the door, and beyond is the night. It goes to the outside.
• “Maybe we should just leave and come back later,” Kaira says. But we’re not here to leave.
• Karthos turns back to the wooden door and looks carefully at the door. “It’s musical, like the others,” he says. “7 notes, we need the right melody. Resda, we might need to try the melody we know.”
• Resda tries, and discovers that pulling a knobs releases air, like an organ, making a note. By the third note, the door is shaking and screaming, and she pushes them back in before it gets too bad.
• Neither of the melodies that I know produce a good result. We need the right notes.
• I step outside to have a think. The yard outside stretches farther than it seems like it should, shrouded with shadow under a sallow moon. The path is cracked and uneven. The air smells faintly of burnt oil, iron, and something sweet that makes me feel ill. Scattered around the yard are a dozen metal boxes, the size of a brass coffin. They are locked. Tiny sobs, cries, and whimpers come from the boxes. There are children locked in the boxes for punishment.
• Above, the windows glint like watchful eyes, and mechanical crows stop to check and adjust the boxes. The silence between the cries is almost worse than the cries themselves. The yard is designed to demonstrate to the children the consequences of disobedience, and is a means of control. This is not a restful place.
• I look around. One small face peers out from a grated vent, eyes wide with terror. When it sees me its expression flickers between hope and fear. I can’t understand its whispers but I can feel its hope that might be able to free it.
• I tear myself away from this scene before I do something terribly stupid. I feel like the worst person.
• “What did you see?” Resda asks.
• “Terrible things,” I say heavily. “And I am a terrible person.”
• “Why?” She looks confused.
• “I walked away from suffering,” I say. “Prudent perhaps, but cruel. I hate this place.”
• “Should we go back to the factory floor? We could look around.” Karthos asks.
• “But who knows what we’re looking for?” I ask.
• “Is there anything else that makes the sounds?” Korag asks.
• “There are the musical toys,” Clapperclaw reminds us. “And their makers.”
• Korag goes on for a while thinking out loud about the various ideas and concepts and going on and on and on and on and on.
• “Unless there’s something in the Janitor’s closet,” I say. “Babies first guide to musical runes, or something.”
• “There’s nothing in the closet,” Karthos says. “I think we need to explore the factory floor.”
• “Yes, you’re probably right,” I admit.
• “I want all these books,” Resda says. She pulls one down, which is titled “Breathing Walls: Architecture and Gardening.” She starts flipping through it. “It’s about using architecture as a living guardian,” she says. “And using architecture to trap, confuse, and so on.” She keeps flipping through it.
• “Guys, we’re fucked,” she says eventually. “There are tons of traps. The building itself is listening.”