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LOCATIONS
Castle Grounds
Outer Castle Grounds
Mostly consisting of open space, this side of the courtyard has plenty of room for physical activities such as training, meditating, or daydreaming with your back on the grass if that’s more your style. The area here is devoid of any trees or shrubbery, with the exception of one large sakura tree, that while bearing lovely buds, hasn't quite bloomed yet but appears to be well on its way to doing just that. There's lush grass throughout the entire courtyard (sakura tree included), except for the roped-in training area, which is covered by packed dirt. All in all, it would be pretty scenic if not for the fact that you're walled in on all sides by towering stone walls. As of week two, there's also a greenhouse here!
A wooden bridge can be used to step across the creek to the inner courtyard.
Inner Castle Grounds
Unlike the outer courtyard, this area seems to be a hub for activity. You’ll find the main entrance to the castle here, in addition to a large pond that holds several large koi fish. Directly next to the pond is a worn wooden sign which reads “ Offerings Accepted!”. To the west, is a large wooden bathhouse. There's a stone path that connects the castle gates, laundry hut, bathhouse, and greenhouse. Otherwise, the entire courtyard is covered in luscious green grass.
Bathhouse
Equipped with two entrances, one for men and one for women. Each side has its own changing area complete with fluffy light green towels, along with wooden lockers to put your belongings. A sliding door leads to the outside bathing area, which is divided in half by a tall partition (no sneaking peeks at the other side!). While there are some showers where you can wash if you wish, the main attraction is the seemingly natural hot spring where you can relax and let go of the stress of all those potential murders. The bars of soap you can find here are all blissfully unscented. No more green tea for you!
Laundry Hut
A somewhat worn looking laundry hut, filled with everything you need to wash your clothes by hand. The floor here is a textured stone, and there is a large drain in the center of the room to take care of any spills. There are several large metal wash tubs and washboards off to the side and plenty of soap that smells like green tea. Also included is a basket full of washing bats, sponges and brushes in case you need to get out any pesky stains. Fortunately, there are drying racks to hang your clothes on for some sort of convenience, though there are clothespins and rope available if that's more to your preference.
Greenhouse
Entirely made of glass. It started out neglected but slowly some of the residents have brought it back to order! The humidity inside is high and the temperature balmy; condensation can easily be seen on the multitude of flora present. The flora here is distinctly of the tropical variety. Some of them have been tagged to make them easier to identify: curare, passion fruit, orchid, and aloe vera to name a few. Various sections of the greenhouse are divided by wide stone walkways to protect the especially delicate plants from their more invasive cousins. The flowers, for example, are kept away from the more dangerous plants. All the plant beds are lined with sizable rocks placed purely for decorative purposes, all of which you can now see clearly thanks to the more rebellious flora being trimmed and replanted.
In the back, there is a chest with several gardening tools: a sickle, rake, pruning saw, shovel, hand trowel, pruners, and shears. There used to be a machete as well, but, oddly enough, it's gone missing. Lining a corner of the greenhouse are extra bags of fertilizers, a stack of pails, a watering can, and a pile of folded tarps. Overhead there are sprinklers, which go on 12 hours cycles - noon and midnight.
A wooden bridge can be used to step across the creek to the inner courtyard.
Unlike the outer courtyard, this area seems to be a hub for activity. You’ll find the main entrance to the castle here, in addition to a large pond that holds several large koi fish. Directly next to the pond is a worn wooden sign which reads “ Offerings Accepted!”. To the west, is a large wooden bathhouse. There's a stone path that connects the castle gates, laundry hut, bathhouse, and greenhouse. Otherwise, the entire courtyard is covered in luscious green grass.
Equipped with two entrances, one for men and one for women. Each side has its own changing area complete with fluffy light green towels, along with wooden lockers to put your belongings. A sliding door leads to the outside bathing area, which is divided in half by a tall partition (no sneaking peeks at the other side!). While there are some showers where you can wash if you wish, the main attraction is the seemingly natural hot spring where you can relax and let go of the stress of all those potential murders. The bars of soap you can find here are all blissfully unscented. No more green tea for you!
A somewhat worn looking laundry hut, filled with everything you need to wash your clothes by hand. The floor here is a textured stone, and there is a large drain in the center of the room to take care of any spills. There are several large metal wash tubs and washboards off to the side and plenty of soap that smells like green tea. Also included is a basket full of washing bats, sponges and brushes in case you need to get out any pesky stains. Fortunately, there are drying racks to hang your clothes on for some sort of convenience, though there are clothespins and rope available if that's more to your preference.
Entirely made of glass. It started out neglected but slowly some of the residents have brought it back to order! The humidity inside is high and the temperature balmy; condensation can easily be seen on the multitude of flora present. The flora here is distinctly of the tropical variety. Some of them have been tagged to make them easier to identify: curare, passion fruit, orchid, and aloe vera to name a few. Various sections of the greenhouse are divided by wide stone walkways to protect the especially delicate plants from their more invasive cousins. The flowers, for example, are kept away from the more dangerous plants. All the plant beds are lined with sizable rocks placed purely for decorative purposes, all of which you can now see clearly thanks to the more rebellious flora being trimmed and replanted.
In the back, there is a chest with several gardening tools: a sickle, rake, pruning saw, shovel, hand trowel, pruners, and shears. There used to be a machete as well, but, oddly enough, it's gone missing. Lining a corner of the greenhouse are extra bags of fertilizers, a stack of pails, a watering can, and a pile of folded tarps. Overhead there are sprinklers, which go on 12 hours cycles - noon and midnight.
Some of you made an attempt at cleaning the walls but, sadly, they remain unpleasant to look. The floors have fared a little better, but here's hoping whoever cleaned up the dirt and muck off them tossed out their brush. Or brushes, as the muck was persistent enough to destroy the bristles of at least two. There's a beaten and worn desk and chair facing five jails; inside of a loose drawer you can find an iron set of keys for the cells. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any prisoners currently held captive, but who knows if that will change. Though the cells are largely bare, they contain a bed, chamber pot, and ball with chain. A large, empty chest is located in the fourth jail cell.
The air in this room is notably cooler than elsewhere in the castle and the lighting is much more sparse. Numerous aged oak casks crowd the floor, lined up in orderly rows lit only by a handful of candles on an iron chandelier. Unhappily, when you crack them open they're all empty. It's not bad though, the room isn't completely dry. There's an expansive selection of spirits and various tonics stored behind several double paned glass cabinets. Unfortunately, each of these cabinets is fitted with an ornate gold lock, one that's both overly gaudy and sturdy. In the back of the room is an iron gate which cordons off an area stacked full of more barrels, secured by an iron padlock.
...fortunately for you, the key has been found so drink to your heart's content. But try not to cause too much of a ruckus, yeah?
Grand, expansive and spacious—the entrance way to the castle does its best to live up to its name. Numerous elegant tables and benches line the hall, each with its own golden candelabra and extravagantly decorated tablecloth. Above them hang an enormous golden chandelier with magical candles that never seem to go out. This area must have served as a great spot for meetings once upon a time and perhaps could be used for such things once again. Or you could use it as a dining hall!
On the walls, you’ll find quite a number of portraits that may be of interest to you. One in particular should catch your eye... if you're not immediately distracted by the tacky centerpiece of the room, that is. Directly in the middle of the hall hangs a terribly gaudy gold-leafed plaque. It's very grand, indeed.
Near the entrance lays a large magenta rug, left there by one of the inhabitants in an attempt to spruce the place up. The very same person put up a handsewn wall scroll with Mr. Ifly on it in hideous colors. Written on it are the words, "To a safe landing."
Inside this room sits a spacious hearth with an active fire, large enough to fit several logs of wood. Next to it is a simple rack for firewood, though the only kind of wood you'll find is Japanese pine. There's a thin red rug covering the stone floor and two wooden chairs nearby if anyone wishes to sit and gaze at the fire.
That said, this isn’t your average fireplace or furnace—Curiously, the fire will reject any objects that are non-wooden, unless asked correctly. A wooden placard on the wall bears the inscription:
“Flattery will get you everywhere."
When objects are consumed by the fire, the flames turn a bright blue for some time afterward. One will find that the fire’s appetite is finite and it will refuse items past a certain point no matter how nicely it’s asked.
A large, airy cooking space with tiled floors and gray stone walls. Half the room features an ample-sized kitchen with large counters made of the same polished stone countertops. The walls are lined with cooking tools in a curious mix of western and eastern influences, pots and pans of all sizes. It features a well-used masonry oven (wood-fired, of course; with a small rack filled with logs beside it), a great big fireplace, wooden cabinets filled with spices both familiar and not, and a vast, well-stocked pantry. The pantry contains all kinds of dry, salted meats, produce, grains, fruits, nuts, and other assorted foods and spices. If you're looking for tea, however, there's only black tea available. While there are no electrical outlets to facilitate modern appliances like microwaves and toasters, there are two large sinks, a large refrigerator, and an ice box. The kitchen is lit at all times by a candle chandelier and a row of candle sconces lining the walls. It's as if someone guessed there would be midnight murders...
The other half of the room hosts simple wooden tables and benches for your dining needs. Plates, utensils, and other dining ware are naturally found in the cupboards and cabinets. If you ask nicely, the familiars who frequent this area might be willing to cook something for you, should you fail to feed yourself.
This room started out as a disorderly mess, but surely the more organized among you have already rolled up your sleeves and brought order to the chaos! Inside are three rows of open shelf cabinets running parallel to each other. On the off chance multiple people need to pile into the room, there's plenty of space between the aisles to accommodate four bodies. The shelves are home to a menagerie of items: on some, you can find boxes containing paper, tape, more adhesives, scissors, gloves, and nails. On others, scrub brushes, lye soap, wooden buckets for cleaning, ropes, candles, flint, glass containers, and oil for lamps (though this is far from a comprehensive list; this storage room is quite well-stocked!). In case you need to do repairs, there are a couple medieval tool boxes around. At first glance they're bound to be intimidating, what with all those dangerous implements in them.
Propped up against the shelves are brooms and mops and, toward the back of the room, there are a few barrels stacked together. Removing the lids reveals there's water inside each bucket, which helpfully saves everyone a trip to the river to fetch some water for their buckets. On top of the barrels are a few boxes; only one isn't empty and, for whatever reason, it's stocked with fool's gold.
Your personal bedrooms aren't too spacious, but they're still better than your garden variety budget motel. As far as furnishings, each room contains a small bed with green covers and exactly one pillow, an armoire, and a wooden desk with a chair. The desk itself is plain with no outstanding decorations, but it's made of a hard, dark wood and has a few empty shelves built into it. The only thing on the desk is a simple oil lamp. Inside the drawers, you'll find one piece of flint, a fire striker, a fountain pen, along with a notepad emblazoned with a symbol.
Inside the armoire, there are what appear to be medieval-style robes, but in actuality look more like glorified cloaks with a hoodie. If you're hoping for something fashion forward, you're quite out of luck: the robes are all a horrifying shade of bright green! There are spare green blankets, sheets, and pillow cases folded neatly at the bottom of the armoire.
While there aren't any windows, each room does have its own personal bathroom, equipped with a copper tub, sink, and shockingly modern toilet. There's no shower head for anyone wishing to take a shower though, sorry.
You can find the room assignments here.
Next to the stairs leading to the trial room. While they're not accessible during the week, during trials you can freely go between them and the trial room. They're pretty modern and clean to boot.
Filled with whatever you need to heal what ails you! Y’know, if you raided a doctor’s bag from the olden days. There are two cabinets near the back of the room. One is filled with medical supplies such as bandages, needles, gauze, and silk thread; the other a number of medicinal herbs in jars as well as a mortar and pestle to grind them. Unfortunately, there’s nothing magical about these herbs and no miracle panaceas either. Anyone seeking a cure-all will have to search elsewhere, nothing here is capable of quickly healing large or fatal wounds.
There are four beds pushed against the walls, though they’re only meant for those in dire need of rest and recuperation. Warriors are allowed a temporary stay in the beds if they’ve been incapacitated or otherwise injured.
Here you'll find all the tools and materials to turn you from drab to fab! Though you'll have to do the hard work yourself.
Inside the room are shelves, cabinets, wooden stools, and a small number of long wooden tables that should more than serve as a work space. On the shelves there are a number of neatly arranged boxes containing all the materials you’ll need to make your fashion fantasy come true: threads, wool, cashmere, silk, and even fur, though none of these materials have been dyed for you. In the cabinets there are a wide range of tools including needles, dyes, crochet hooks, pins, pincushions, and old-fashioned looms made from... you guessed it, wood!
There are a few miscellaneous items for practical purposes, too: pinking shears, old-fashioned glue, and rulers.
Kept completely clean and tidy to the point of seeing your reflection on the marble floor, this is where you’ll find a large stage as well as a small variety of instruments. Oddly, most of the instruments here are of the zither class. The exceptions hidden amongst the bunch are a guitar and violin, but those looking for any other instruments will be out of luck.
Equipment such as the harp, cello, and lute can be found on the stage, but others like the koto or gayageum are neatly arranged to the side.
Laid out in rows facing the stage are a great many wooden chairs for everyone’s seating pleasure. Or, if you’re feeling more whimsical, setting up in a circle and playing musical chairs.
Furnished with a workbench, sink and a wooden cabinet full of various reagents, this room has it all to satisfy your alchemy and chemistry needs! Well, as long as you don't expect anything too modern like a fume hood. A solitary bookcase lines one of the stone walls, but it's populated more by dusty glassware rather than actual reading material, with the exceptions being a few musty notebooks scattered about on the sparse upper shelves. Under the workbench is a chest, which is sadly not filled with treasure (arrr)—unless you count apparatuses such as bunsen burners and crucibles, anyway. There are matches and candles stored within as well, which everyone will surely use in a safe and responsible manner!
But while there is a sore lack of treasure in chests, a jewel still exists in the form of the reagent cabinet. Stocked with a large variety of acids, bases, chemical salts and such, there's enough in here to cause a laboratory disaster or five! Although most of the chemicals are labeled and stored in glass stoppered bottles, there are a few conspicuous ones in plastic; those who are familiar with the reagents can note that those contain reagents incompatible with glass. Curious, isn't it? The mess of the cabinet has, quite fortunately, been sorted from harmless to harmful. Some of the labels have been altered with warnings, just in case you didn't know much about chemicals and hoped to use them for your murderous ways. Now you don't have to worry about mistakenly grabbing an acid bottles when reaching for your bases. Fun!
A largely barren room with little of interest beyond what lays on the stone and marble floor. The first thing anyone will notice, aside from its emptiness, is how obscenely enormous it is, which is only emphasized by the sound of your own footsteps echoing off the walls—the echo either makes the room an excellent place for shenanigans or a terrible place for secret meetings. The second is a giant chessboard built into the middle of the room. The white and black marble tiles are pristine, showing little to no age; apparently, someone’s been taking very good care of this room.
Inlaid along the entire perimeter of the chessboard is a line of white marble inscribed with numbers and letters. Surrounding that is an additional outline of gray marble at least four feet wide, with runes engraved on both on the opposite ends of the chessboard. Despite the opulence of the board, the corresponding pieces are nowhere to be found—until you step on the runes, that is. As soon as you set foot on them, the engravings light up in a gorgeous, ethereal blue as the chess pieces crafted in the image of their namesake shimmer into being. Although there’s a translucent quality to them, every detail is clear as day and they're much more tangible than their appearance suggests.
Thankfully, you don’t need physical strength to drag these behemoths around. They respond to verbal commands, though any attempt at voicing an invalid move will be ignored. Such a shame, if they slid off the chessboard you could have had some real fun with them.
Rows of shelves and the smell of paper greet all those who enter the library. There’s an almost impersonal feel to the room. The impression largely comes from the cold stone floors but at least the glow of lit candles provides some warmth. As sparse as the room is, it's clear this doesn’t extend to the formidable selection of books as there are various genres on display on the shelves: textbooks, romances, fairy tales and detective novels only scratch the surface, although it looks like most of the books here are fiction. Thankfully, some kind soul has gone through the effort of moving and cataloging a number of books in the library (though there's still a lot of work to be done). A handful of small desks and chairs with fresh, lit candles line one of the bare walls.
Toward the back of the room, there's an ornate door nestled behind a shelf in the far left corner of the room, which sticks out like a sore thumb considering the state of everything else. Anyone curious enough to try the doorknob will find that it's locked.
Light from the windows casts a certain warmth over the room's long counters and the myriad of wooden cabinets filled with art supplies. Closer inspection of the area will show that everything is very well organized, from the easels stacked neatly in a corner to the way the paints are arranged on the shelves. In the middle of the room there are some larger tables for some of the bigger projects, but they’re much lower to the ground and the chairs are less comfortable than you might imagine.
Looking at the cabinets, one close to the door with thin drawers hosts a variety of papers: papyrus, washi (in various colors), calligraphy paper, to name a few. An adjacent art drawer contains all the utensils you need for both painting and sculpting, and other media such as charcoal, inks and pastels, all arranged by media; no one likes a messy drawer, after all! The opposite end of the room contains a few more cabinets with the larger tools and materials, such as some boxes of clay (although there isn't a kiln around; time to ask Fire-chan for some favors?), canvases, and woodblocks.
The primary function of this room is to hold all the weapons! Yes, more weapons. Exciting, isn’t it? In here you'll find swords, knives, and a few other light weight weapons mounted on walls on plaques. In the middle of the room there are racks containing heftier weapons great axes, great hammers, greatswords, maces, spears, halberds, to name a few, though there’s only one of each. Around the room there a few shields for those who prefer defense to offense, though they look more like they’ve been put on display as decorations than anything else. Strangely, there's no other armor in sight. Off to the side is a rack for bows including greatbows and crossbows, with their accompanying quivers and bolts of arrows nearby in a large wooden barrel.
Other than that, there are a few benches around and one chest. Once upon a time the benches must have been used by anyone wishing to polish their blades in the armory, which is a theory supported by the contents of the chest. It contains a number of items that’ll help you do exactly that!
A quiet, almost tranquil room that has been kept almost obsessively clean. There’s no natural light to speak of in here, but there are plenty of candles which provide the room with a peaceful ambiance. For god knows what reason, sitting on the left side of the room is a large bust of someone’s ugly mug which clashes horrifically with the rest of the simple decor. Many holy books and scrolls are stacked upon one another in a neat pile on benches facing an altar, which are neither recognizable nor readable beyond common motifs of stars and the like. On the altar there is an abundance of incense and matches, along with incense censers. There are also several green rugs neatly folded in the corner, though their purpose isn’t clear. Though there's no pews to speak of, there are several wooden chairs stacked up in a pile in the corner.
Strangely, these are nicer than the ones on the first floor, huh.
The air up here is noticeably different, and it's not just because it's scented lightly like sakura blossoms. Regardless of your experience with magic, you'll be able to feel a light tingle on your skin from time to time while you're on this floor.
The ceiling in this room is made entirely of sweeping panes of glass, which provides an expansive view of the sky day or night. A large golden astrolabe is seated on a dais in the center of room, oriented directly at the sun during high noon. Despite the fact that it looks downright archaic, it works perfectly fine. It would probably help if it came with an instruction manual, but what can you do?
Though this room is pretty bare, there are a few chairs if you want to get comfortable while star gazing, or daydreaming. There's also a pair of binoculars (though like everything else they're vintage), if you'd like to appreciate the sky up close.
A simple, mostly bare room with a floor made of pure white wood. There are a five pillows arranged into the points of a star in the center of the room, and two decorative scrolls on the east and west walls. Off to the side is a plain table, on which sits several vases filled with flowers and a lone bonzai tree.
In a lone closet off to the side you’ll find a teaset, with quality oolong, rooibos, and black tea. It’s not green, but we know who’s to blame for that, right?