It was empty, both of ghouls and practically everything else. Someone had decided they wanted the furniture and appliances, probably long ago. Ghost shook his head again, he doubted they’d been returned to the students who’d actually bought them. Amber carefully closed the door behind her and titled her head to one side wanting to know where next?
He led her to the back of the room. Again she listened at the door but couldn’t hear anything. He eased the door open and she peered in. It was much darker in there, and she noticed that the room was much more predominantly wood.
“They used to use the hall downstairs for plays,” he explained. “Even when they converted that part of the loft to a proper room, they still had to leave access routes so that people could set up sounds, lighting and so on. We should be able to get a good look of the hall from safely up here.”
Amber carefully led him to the back of the room, testing her footing in case the flooring had rotted over the years. It creaked a bit, but seemed firm enough for now. Dust stirred up at their passing and they were careful to take shallow breaths not wanting to sneeze. At the end the corridow opened out into a gallery. There covered with dustsheets was a control board of some kind. Peeking over it they could look down into the Assembly Hall.
“It looks empty,” Amber said softly.
“Makes sense, there’s not really much here to destroy, so ghouls would get bored quickly and go elsewhere,” he replied.
“But…?” Amber sensed something else in his tone.
“Well I’m not entirely convinced that there’s only ghoul’s here. This would be a good place to be if you weren’t. It’d be a good place for us.”
“What else are you expecting to find? Did Gideon say something?” she asked.
“No, just being cautious. It’d be dangerous to try and stay here for any length of time. I know this place from my youth, but I doubt there’s many left who still do and certainly not as well as me. People came here to learn or play or because they were told they had to. But you know me, always curious, always looking at what other people don’t see or think is hidden,” he smiled.
“Do you know what all these buttons do?” she asked.
“Vaguely. If we do stay here, it’d be worth figuring them out and bringing some power up. It’s fairly straight-forward, especially with trail and error.” He looked at the buttons. The marking were faded with age and some still had pieces of paper stuck to them, though they two had aged yellow and the ink had run. He laughed. “Of course I doubt we’d have been able to read James’ handwriting at the time.”
Next
