!(Insert lead in)
AL: "Oh, there you are {MC}. This blasted house knows no end. Come here, would you? Look to this?"
N: You walk into the room, joining the priest crouching in front of a cupboard door.
On the door, a knocker in the shape of an owl.
{MC}: "What is it?"
AL: "Hmm... it appears ancient, more ancient than the rest of this cursed abode."
N: Reaching out and touching it, you are a bit surprised. Where your eyes indicate that your fingers should feel the cold touch of iron or bronze or whatever metal the bird is made out of, it is instead soft.
The hand feels feathers.
Al: There are no door knobs. Perhaps we must twist the neck.
{MC}: Because it is an owl?
AL: Nods
Sorcery is dictated by the laws of association.
A thing is not just itself, but a representation of everything it connects with.
So the Owl knocker may be at once an owl, a key, and a symbol for what lies behind the door.
{MC}: What could that be?
Al: I don't know. With everything else in this place, some version of a personal hell.
regretful face
Perhaps my own.
{MC}: What makes you think that?
AL: I feel it calling to me. I just do not know whether or not the lord protects me,
or whether or not this is by his hand.
The priest reaches outward, taking the skull of the nightstalker into his fingers.
You never before realized how thin they were as he trembled.
Alphonso twisted the head.
A click We both jumped as the wings of the bird spread.
AL: marvelous...
The bird flew from its perch on the door, a perfect portrait of life come alive.
start
