Setting
He walked over to him as he looked past the gate, "Yep. S'go." he remarked as he patted Arien on his back before he sheaded in. "This is gonna sound really childish, but I feel like we are almost like adventurers exploring some long forgotten ruins in search of a treasure." he remarked with a soft chuckle.
Arien walked slightly ahead, nose wrinkling slightly at the rotten smell of the gardens mixed in with the charred wood and dust of the gutted manor. He was slightly uneasy, treading here, and no doubt Varia would disapprove... But really, rules were made to be broken. "And who knows what treasures we may find, hm?" he mused, glancing back over his shoulder as he reached the front door of the manor, broken and hanging on its hinges.
The vampire smirked, "Of course," he said, "Nobody's going to need anything lying around here anyway. It's a dead place..." And how true that was. It had been a place for the dead long before it burned down, that much was certain.
Stepping into the entry hall, not much seemed to change. This portion of the house had suffered the worst in the fire - perhaps where it originated. There was very little left of it, only the charred stone floor that had lain beneath the floorboards and the odd husk of furniture here or there. Rubble was piled at the edge of the room where walls had collapsed inwards, and a rickety-looking staircase led upwards and deeper into the manor.
Arien eyed the staircase, before looking to Alan, "Onwards and upwards," he said, offering the other a steadying hand as he started to make his way up the creaking flight of steps.
He looked at the once grand staircase, now a shell of it's former self as he looked at Arien. He took a deep breath as he took Ariens' hands and followed him up the staircase, "So...do you have any clue of what happened here?" he asked him curiously. "Besides there being a fire?"
Close enough to the truth, but vague enough to not be giving anything important away. "But that's Wing City for you," he said with a dry grin, "You're never at the top of the heap for long."
Quick as a flash, he had stepped backwards and unceremoniously grabbed hold of Alan, jumping from the staircase just as the entire landing and top of the stairs collapsed in a shower of ashen wood.
Arien landed hard on the floor below, but managed to gently set Alan down, flashing an amused glance at him. "I suppose we aren't going upstairs, then," he muttered. "And yes... Wing City is definitely an interesting place. I too like it -- what's life without a bit of danger, hm?"
He turned to look back at the ruins of the manor, "Perhaps we'll find something on the ground floor at least. I can't imagine this family didn't have something curious we might dig out..."
With a wink, he spun away, eyes scanning through broken walls and over piles of blackened wood and rubble for anything that looked like a stairway down.
The vampire waited for Alan to join him, extending a hand to the other man in order to lead him down onto the steps, flicking the lighter on to give them some small amount of light as they descended into the murky blackness.
"I should really have brought a torch..." he murmured.
What was down in the basement took even Arien slightly by surprise. The room had a grim stench to it, of rotten flesh that had had many months to penetrate the entire area with its smell. Tables with odd assortments of alchemical tools - vials and syringes, boiling tubes and burners alongside suspiciously stained scalpels and saws - were positioned to the back of the basement, whilst on the opposite wall chains dangled from hooks embedded in them, clearly intended as restraints. Cages too lined that wall, containing unpleasant looking shapes - the corpses of several small animals, starved to death by the looks of it.
Alan likely wouldn't be able to make out much of the basement, but the light from Arien's lighter would enable him to get the gist of it. Arien whistled, shaking his head. "Well. I wasn't expecting this."
Sanina you naughty girl... he thought with dry amusement.
A scratching sound drew his gaze then towards one of the cages, and he raised an eyebrow to see that one of the creatures was still standing, sensing the pair's presence and biting at its cage. Standing, maybe, but definitely not alive. The zombie capybara that stared soullessly out at them through the darkness was very much dead, missing patches of flesh and both of its eyes.
Arien slipped a comforting arm around his companion, aware of the fact that this scene would be a lot more ... distressing for someone unused to such sights.
Arien glanced at the room, "We could turn back if you want," he suggested, though with a hint of reluctance in his voice. This room was something Arien might have seen himself owning once upon a time. It was probably a good thing he'd found himself a slightly more healthy hobby.
Once they were at the bottom of the steps, Arien drifted through the room, peering at this and that - seemingly not bothered by the grimness of the scene. The zombie capybara continued to gnaw at its cage persistently, but he ignored it for the moment.
"Experimental necromancy, if I'm any judge," he suggested, "Though I've no idea what all the chemistry kits are for." Arien wasn't particularly learned as far as the specifics of this thing went. He had his area of expertise, but precious little magical knowledge outside of it.
As Alan approached, he turned, lifting the other hand to grab the other manacle and dangled himself from the wall with a broad grin, "How do I look?" he purred, winking suggestively.
Perhaps somewhat tasteless to make a bondage joke in what was clearly a torture chamber, but Arien obviously wasn't the most sensitive person when it came to that sort of thing.
The vampire hooked his arm over Alan's shoulders, "Well, I think that we've seen all there is to see here," he said, "I doubt there's anything in this place that it would be healthy to take away..."
Arien turned to start making his way for the staircase, but as he went, a little idea formed in the back of his head and he grinned. In his next step, his foot caught on a table, and in his stumble, the lighter in his hand went flying, leaving the room totally dark.
"Balls." he said in fake irritation.
Arien took Alan's hands with a grin, green eyes somehow slightly visible still in the dark, "C'mon, let's get you out of here without falling in a cage or anything like that. I can get a new lighter."
Alan looked at his eyes a smile on his face, "please don' lead me to a cage..." he told him with a chcukle. "I will buy you one, if you buy the booze." he remarked as he held lightly onto Ariens' hand.