A seemingly abandoned windmill in 13th century England, the first location Arthur and John arrive at in this unfamiliar time.
Description[]
The windmill smells of rot. The walls are made of cobblestone, and the floor wood. The windmill’s interior is round in shape, and has two ladders. One leads to an upper floor, where wooden rafters support the structure to a large wooden gear just above the platform. The other ladder leads through an open hatch down to the lower level. The ladders are crude and unpolished, still bearing tree bark. An owl resides in the windmill’s rafters. The ground floor has a small, crude wooden cabinet to the right of the door, a small table, and a stool.[1]
The rot smell is much stronger in the basement of the windmill. In the center, there is a grindstone, composed of a large stone wheel and a basin that is connected to the floor above. In the corner opposite the ladder, there are crates, once used to store loose wheat. Some of the wheat was arranged on the floor as if to create a makeshift bed or cushion.[1]
The rot smell emanates from a vertical “crack” in the basement wall. The crack does not appear naturally made or made by hand or tool, but appears as though the material of the wall was “unzipped”, as if the wall itself moved.[1]
The Tunnels[]
The tunnel beyond the crack are tight. On the inside of the crack is a thin, translucent flesh-colored barrier, with dark veins throughout. Beyond this are walls of black stone, covered with a wet, fleshy hue, resembling the membrane. Black maggots cling to the walls, seemingly feasting on whatever liquid is produced. The path splits to the right and left.[1]
Down the right path, the floor begins to descend steeply. Large fissures open in the ceiling and in the walls; most are too small to fit a person, and other shrink down to nothing. A left, then a right moving forward leads to a small room with a small hole in the ceiling that opens up to the surface. Human bones litter the floor where the maggots feast. There are chains attached to the walls.[1] There is a small dead-end passage offshoot from this room with small holes in the ceiling.[2]
Inner Sanctum[]
The sanctum is reached from the tunnels. The entrance is on top of a wooden plank balcony, overlooking the room to the left. The far wall on the lower floor is mason work, similar to the windmill. The balcony is about 30 feet in length, and directly across is another entrance looping back into the tunnels, and to the left, a staircase leading down to the lower floor. On the lower floor, beneath the balcony, is a stagnant pool of greenish-looking water, and the floor is made of cracked stone, broken up by vines growing through the cracks. The room is lit by flickering firelight.[2]
On the lower floor, along the stone wall, there is a wooden door. Next to it is a stone slab and a blood-stained table with a hatchet embedded into it. Straight ahead from the bottom of the staircase, the wall is natural stone and bears an additional, identical wooden door with a black iron handle built into the wall. The door in the stone wall leads to long, twisting corridors, forming a maze.[2] Within these corridors are three statues: a fawn, a serpent, and a headless rider. Near the statue of the fawn (located in a t-intersection) is a locked wooden door, disguised as part of the wall, with a latch between the wood and the stone that is difficult to reach.[3]
The door straight ahead leads to a chamber with smooth, light brown earthen walls, as if worn down by water over time. Roots hang from the ceiling, some of which support candles like a chandelier. To the immediate right is a vanity that sprouts from the ground and ceiling, joining in the middle and flattening to form a surface. A large, reflective piece of silver sits on the vanity. The wall dips back as if to another passage. Along the wall is a wardrobe made of bark, and a partially burned tapestry next to it depicting a group of men, possibly soldiers, in a wooded area, and a woman on a road. In the far left corner of the room is a bed made of roots and vines that have twisted to support a hay mattress, and there is a nightstand.[2] Directly across from the bed in the earthen wall is a hidden chest containing clothes and items taken from the witch's victims.[3]
Under the surface of the pool of water are brown, rocky walls that dive towards the bottom, which grows black, tangled weeds that reach out and latch onto things in their vicinity. They resemble veins like the membrane that lined the walls in the tunnels. At the bottom of the pool is a membrane, similar to the entrance to the tunnels from the windmill, that when cut, lead outside through a tunnel to the side of a hill, presumably upon which sits the windmill.[3]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Part Forty One
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Part Forty Two
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Part Forty Four