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You open the door. Zygfrek, who is still standing outside, gives you a nod. You glance at her suspiciously, but ultimately, you have already accepted the possibility that you could be cornering yourself; there is no turning back now. You step inside.
To your surprise, the interior of the west wing of the Abbey is warm and comfortable. You find yourself in a fifty-foot-square room with arched, leaded glass windows. A cauldron sits on an iron rack above a fire in a hearth, while above the fireplace mantel hangs a golden disk engraved with a symbol of the sun. In one corner, a wooden staircase climbs to the upper level, while in another corner a stone staircase descends into darkness.
Several chairs surround a wooden table that stretches nearly the length of the room. Wooden dishware and gold candelabras are neatly arranged on the table.
Standing behind the table is a young woman with alabaster skin dressed in a torn and soiled red gown. Her auburn hair is neatly bundled so as not to touch her soft shoulders. She seems lost in her own thoughts. A handsome young man in a brown monk's robe stands next to her, wearing a painted wooden holy symbol that depicts the sun from a chain around his neck. He moves with the grace of a saint. He has gently taken the woman by her hand.
The man momentarily breaks away from what he's doing and looks at you. The strange woman stands motionless. You make eye contact with the man, wondering if this is the Abbot - he's the only human-looking creature here, but he looks so... normal?
He smiles at you, and his smile is so infectious that you very nearly get the urge to smile yourself. You ignore that urge, but you afford him a smile anyway, and a polite nod, for the sake of making a good first impression.
Gentle-sounding music begins to trickle down from above, played on a single stringed instrument by some unseen master.
