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Gambon has a slow look at the ground floor before heading for the staircase, looking upward as he ascends.Gambon: The tower is set in a small courtyard which has a sundial and several overgrown planters where flowers have been choked by weeds. There's a stout oak door which is hanging askew from its hinges, leaving a gap Gambon can wriggle through. The interior is only dimly lit by dusty windows, but the ground floor looks completely empty. There are scuff marks on the tiles that make it look like furniture was dragged out, but nothing else apart from the staircase.
Gambon has a look at the book titles passingly and the drinks cabinet to get a sense of age for the place, before looking for the next set of stairs.Gambon: The staircase continues up, and the third floor looks like it was a reading room. There are shelves of books (some of them coated with mold) and a couple of wingback chairs next to a table with a drinks cabinet.
Gambon has a look through the intact book.Gambon: The room seems oddly mixed in the age of its contents. Some of the books are hand-lettered and bound, others are printed. The drinks cabinet has a crystal decanter, but also a stoneware jug stopped with wax. That one sloshes a bit, the others seem to have lost their contents to evaporation. Most of the books have been ill-treated by time, but there's one that seems completely unaffected. The title is in an unknown language, but the lettering seems to catch the minimal light in here and concentrate it.
Gambon looks at the diagrams a bit and then closes the book and puts it in his sack. He looks to see if there is another staircase continuing up.Gambon: The language is unknown, but it's intuitively clear what sound each symbol represents. Gambon could read it aloud, if so inclined. There are several diagrams that resemble a human shape melting into a puddle and then reforming.
Gambon tries dusting off one or two pieces of furniture to get a sense of how valuable they might be.Gambon: There's another staircase up, and a floor with a thick layer of cobweb over everything. The furniture is grey and indistinct under a thick coating of dry and dusty spider silk.
"Alright, this might satisfy those oddballs below, but let's just see..."Gambon: Under the obscuring webs, the furniture is easily the equal of anything in the Glencoe household. The wood is stained with a rich, glossy varnish, and ornately carved. The upholstery is plush, patterned and warmly fuzzy like velvet. The sort of furniture that proper nobs pass down through their family for generations.
Gambon attempts to remove some of the guano, again to get a feel for how valuable the furniture is. Then he turns to the nest.Gambon: The next level is also packed with nobby furniture, but in this case it's coated with a crust of guano. There are several birds in the room. One is adding its contribution to the mess as Gambon's eyes fall on it. Up high on a shelf there's a nest where a mother bird sits on several eggs.
Gambon backs off, not wanting to scare the poor birds. He looks around for the next set of stairs.Gambon: There's an ordinary robin sitting on the eggs. It scolds Gambon as he approaches and inches back away from his hand but makes no effort to leave the nest. The squawking brings its mate, which flaps around his head without managing to do any harm. There's nothing obviously unusual about the eggs.
I try to assess the quality of the robes, though rotted I want to see if they were once of the standard of the nobility. Once done with that, I'll place my hand in my sleeve and rub down one item of bedroom furniture with my sleeve to appraise it. A dresser or set of drawers if possible, a chair otherwise. After that I'll head for the next set of stairs.Gambon: The next set of stairs leads to another bird colony, this time building up an ammonia-smelling crust on bedroom furniture. There's a wardrobe with its door gaping open, with several rotted robes hanging inside.