Quoted By:
From your vantage point in the doorway, you continue to survey the room in the flickering light afforded by your 'stick-decanter, peering into the corners, leaning and craning towards the shelves, then the nearest of the carts, then the closest pile of baskets - then you stop yourself, flattening your feet and straightening your back. You are here to find a copy of a Personal and a Master Family Patent. If you don't see anything that looks like it could be either of those - by the Heights of Hell, if you don't see any fraying <span class="mu-i">paper</span> in a room, then you need to move on. Immediately. Time is that tight now. To tell it true, time has been that tight all day. And anyway, it isn't like you are at risk of overlooking the Patent; this isn't Aldoin's house, this is a municipal administrative building - the Patents are going to be filed away somewhere, or at a desk. Not hidden in a secret compartment. They aren't Mysteries, or contraband or valuables, they are just ... pieces of paper - admittedly, very important pieces of paper, but paper nonetheless.
Shaking your head, you quit the room for the landing - making sure to close the door behind you - and then make haste as quietly as you can manage through the other door, the one nearer to the stair, the one that was left open. It is as you expected, this space is a hall, more or less mirroring the one right beneath it. However, you can see that the figurative looking glass has some notable imperfections. There are fewer doors; not counting the one that you just passed through, there are only two - one to your left, and one opposite you. Both shut up with neither light nor sound seeping out from underneath them. But what is interesting - and perhaps, a touch unsettling - is that looking at the bare walls of this hallway, you can plainly see where doors were sealed over. The work looks fairly recent too. Beyond these patches - or seals - the walls are only adorned by the occasional lamp-sconce, all unlit. Curious, you head over to the nearest one and prod at it; it is cold. Moreover, the lamp doesn't even have a damned wick in, so this couldn't have been the source of the light you saw earlier either.
> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Head over to the door to the right
> Head over to the door opposite you