Catching Up With You (Satevis)

[Arcane]

OOCRight-O! Remember that everything in the picture and description can be interacted with. Secrets lie everywhere, though be aware of red herrings

Satevis would find that the walls were solid. However, if he was observant enough, he would remember that the house had run-down walls from the outside, and that the exterior was built from a combination of masonry and wood. However, if he had increased the intensity of his knocking to hear some sort of echo, his bruised knuckles would indicate that the walls he was knocking on was a strong and solid formation of bricks.

[Satevis]

Satevis frowned and lowered his hand, rubbing at his bruised knuckles as he stared at the wall. He thought back to his first sight of the house, of the cracked stone and rotting wood that made up its exterior. This wall had none of that. It was made, as far as he could tell, of solid brick. There were only a few reasons to brick off a section of a house, and that was if you had something to hide. He considered looking for a secret entrance of some kind, but shook his head, amused at himself for a moment. He had been reading too many stories. He would go outside later and look around to see if he couldn't catch a glimpse of what was beyond the wall, but for now, he turned his attention towards the rest of the room. He walked up to the windows next, peering out of them and attempting to get his bearings, then studied the table and chairs in the room, examining the top of the table to see if anything had been left on top of it. The floor was covered in dust, and he turned his eyes to the floor as well, looking for any pawprints that would match Vorn's missing cat.

[Arcane]

Upon turning his eyes to the floor, Satevis would soon find that the floor was not as dusty as he would assume. Of course, there were the tell tale foot prints made on the dusty floor that were his, but upon closer observation he would soon realize that there was another set of foot prints. The tables and chairs had cobwebs sprawled on them, and the settlements of grit on the floor around them indicated that they had not been moved for a long, long time. Except for one. A single chair had a set of foot prints on its seat, but other than that it seemed untouched. That same set of foot prints was similar to the ones on the floor, if Satevis cared to compare. When he looked at the windows, he would soon find himself not expecting what he would see. Instead of seeing the outside, the windows only showed a view of brick walls. If he utilized the clue of this room being smaller than the exterior of the building, he would soon deduce why this was the case.

[Satevis]

Satevis frowned as he noticed the brick beyond the windows. That was odd. He could understand why someone might want to brick off a section of a house, but why brick off the windows? It wasn't as if it was hard to spot, so it was a strange way to keep something hidden. Still, it did add to the illusion that the inside of the house was much smaller than the outside. There were footprints on the floor, but they were not those of a cat. Instead, they belonged to a person. The footprints led across the room to one of the chairs, continued onto the seat of the chair and then... He paused. And then what? As far as he could tell, they simply disappeared. The roof... he thought, looking up above the chair. He carefully climbed onto the seat of the chair, standing up and examining the roof directly above his head.

[Arcane]

As Satevis begin to help himself on the chair in order to examine the roof, he would find that the various rafters and ceiling ledgers were relatively free from dust as compared to the rest of the ground. Interestingly, there was a lack of cobwebs or anything that would have settled over the course of years, though there was a fine layer of dust that would gather over the course of ten days to a third of a season. Of course, mere observation would reveal only so much. The ethaefal found his head on equal altitude with the various effects on the ceilings. The actual ceiling, which were above these wooden effects, was also made of wood, though he could see that they were arranged in a chessboard pattern, each squarish panel of wood intersecting with another.

[Satevis]

The ceiling was cleaner than he expected as well. Certainly, there was a layer of dust, but it looked like the natural build up of a few weeks, and not what he would have expected to see in the years since the house had presumably been abandoned. Someone had been here recently, and they had also done some cleaning. He frowned, studying the ceiling tiles. They were arranged in a chessboard pattern, with several intersecting panels of wood. The Ethaefal eyed the panels, a thoughtful frown on his face. He doubted that someone had stood up here just to study the ceiling. Was it possible that one of the panels was loose? He reached up, placing his hand on the panel directly above him and applying light pressure.

[Arcane]

The panel that Satevis prodded was solid and unmovable, yet if he knocked on it it would produce a hollow sound. Not that there was something strange with that, for old houses like these were often built with a gap between the external roof and internal ceiling, sometimes for the inclusion of an attic. However, if he cared to prod the surrounding tiles, he would find that one of them would shift and produce a soft creaking sound that the rest did not. It was no easy feat, but with sufficient strength applied he would be able to push the tile further upwards, though he would have to then push it up and to the side to shift it away, leaving a gap. If he did so, he would realize that the gap in the ceiling was a tile away from where he was standing, and so might require a little balancing and strength if he wanted to pull himself up to explore the new location - much like pulling oneself up when hanging on a cliff, when one's footing is actually several inches away from the cliff's rock protrusion. From his current view, he could only see darkness if he tried to peer into the hole. Unending, foreboding darkness that threatened to swallow him full if he dared to venture within. Perhaps he might decide that it would be a better idea to withdraw from that opening and continuing to inspect the rest of the house, or to simply just leave the house, though he would have to be quite courageous to step into the mysterious unknown just for a random favour to a boy he did not even know.

[Satevis]

Satevis stared as the panel next to him moved, sliding out of place and revealing a gap in the ceiling. He was certain of it now--the mysterious visitor had moved through here. But to what end? He squinted, trying to catch a glimpse of what was inside, but he was met with only darkness. For a moment, Satevis considered using Fire Reimancy for light, but he put the thought out of his mind. THe building was old, and he wasn't skilled enough in Reimancy that he was confident he could start a fire without burning the whole building down. The tile wasn't quite accessible from where he was standing, and he wasn't willing to break his neck trying. Still, he supposed if necessary, he could move the chair underneath the tile... He shook his head. Satevis wasn't afraid of the dark, but this particular darkness carried with it a sense of foreboding. His natural curiosity, though, seemed to be overriding his sense of caution. This was no longer about Vorn and the cat. This was about an old house and its secrets. The thought of Vorn and the cat was like a splash of cold water, reminding him why he had ventured into the house in the first place. He glanced at the displaced tile. Had he seriously been considering going in there? In a world like Mizahar, there was no telling what could be behind those walls. Besides, this wasn't what he had come here for. He slowly stepped down from the chair, leaving the tile displaced so that he could find it later. Satevis stepped outside, looking around for Vorn. "I didn't see any sign of your cat," he would say when he found the boy. "Are you sure he went in there?"

[Arcane]

Perhaps Satevis made a wise decision by not poking his nose into possibly danger. It was not necessarily danger, but it was the unknown, and danger most often lurks in mystery. Leaving the house, he found himself much refreshed by the change in air. The difference in atmosphere and tempo was evident; when inside he generally felt claustrophobic and hemmed in. Though the run-down surroundings of the buildings outside paled in comparison to the grandeur of the University, it very much felt better to be on the outside. Yet, there was a certain niggling feeling within himself, as if a sort of deja vu when he left the house. Though it was his first time leaving the house, there was thing certain sort of reminiscence within him that made him feel like this was certainly not the first time he was doing so.

[Satevis]

As soon as he left the house, he felt relieved. It felt as if a weight had been lifted over his shoulders, like the feeling of foreboding coming from inside the house had completely vanished in the sunlight. On any other day, he would have taken that as a sign to leave, a sign that the house was not something he wanted to explore further. He would have...if he hadn't felt something else. It was a faint feeling--a feeling that he had done this sort of thing before. It wasn't just a sense of familiarity. He didn't feel like he had walked out of the door of an old house at some point in the past. This was different. He felt as though he had stood here before, had walked out of this house. It wasn't nighttime, so he couldn't tell for sure, but the feeling of deja vu was familiar enough for him to stop and think, seriously considering going back. He paused, glancing back at the house. This was crazy. He couldn't go climbing into the ceiling just because he felt like he had been here before. But why not? It wasn't like he had too much to lose. Didn't he want to know about his past? "...Actually," he told Vorn. "Maybe I'll look a little closer." He didn't reenter the house just yet, though. Instead, he walked around the perimeter, trying to see if there were any windows that opened into the house and what they showed.