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Night falls slowly, the last traces of the sun gradually fading from the sky as you go about the lodge lighting as many lanterns as possible. Even as you're lighting them, you recognise that there's something foolish, something childish, about your insistence on having so much light. You couldn't even really say why you're doing it, but nobody stops you or complains about it, so you carry on regardless.
As you're lighting the lanterns, you take a look through the rest of the lodge for any sign of what happened to the garrison. Though the lodge itself is decorated with a certain understated luxury, the individual bedrooms are remarkably austere – there's not much to search through. A few rifles, borderline antiques, are left in a rack near Leigh's cell, but there's no indication that any of the weapons are missing or were fired in anger.
There's only one room that really draws your gaze – a heavier door on the upper floor with a serious lock on it. A brass plaque screwed into the door carries the name “Reinhold”, which you recall from Master Teilhard's briefing. The leader – former leader – of this place, you assume. Aside from Leigh's cell, it's the only room you've seen so far with a proper lock on it. Studying it, you wonder just how much grovelling it'll take for Juno to try and work her magic on the lock.
However much it is, it'll be too much.
-
You're not sure what wakes you, the opening and closing of a door or the creak of a floorboard. Whatever it is, you're awake in an instant. Sitting up in bed, you feel a sudden disquiet that drives you to hastily don your boots and coat. Grabbing a lantern, you creep out into the hallway and glance about. One of the bedroom doors, Leigh's room, is slightly ajar, and when you peer inside you see the empty, unmade bed.
Hoping that Leigh has simply gotten up for a midnight snack, you head downstairs and look around the lodge. It's only when you look out the window that you see any sign of life, a faint lantern glow shining from within the dense forest outside. Muttering a curse, you leave the lodge and hurry towards the treeline. There, you pause, frozen at the threshold.
Shaking off your fear, you plunge into the trees and make your way towards the faint light. Thick bushes claw at your clothes as you duck under low branches and stumble over fallen logs. Somewhere far off in the distance, a chorus of night owls shriek out their terrible cries as you press deeper and deeper into the forest until, finally, you find the fallen lantern. A few paces away, slumped at the base of a great tree, Leigh stares into empty space with wide, fearful eyes.
“I heard her. I HEARD her,” Leigh whispers, his voice trembling, “She was... singing.”
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