The Tsuki Saga
The East Wing
They continued down, in a slightly darker stairway. The walls were lined with portraits of the twins, and an elf woman who, they presumed, was the twins' mother. They came to a door at the bottom, double locked. Tsuki opened the door, let them through, and then locked it again behind them. "This," she gestured to the small hallway they were in, "is the joining of the southern, eastern and western towers. The southern wing joins the south and west towers. We are heading for the eastern wing, for the western is to be saved for last. It contains only the dining hall above, the one we ate in on your arrival, and the laboratories below, which even I don't have access to all the time. However..." she strode over to a door on the wider wall and they followed her through. It was a tall oak door, no locks. They first came into the well-padded room where she had dined with them the morning before. She said nothing of the room, and they continued on.
They went through several more nondescript rooms, before entering the kitchen and scullery. The stone walls were white in colour, there were dark wooden beams across the ceiling and above all of the doorframes. There was a dark wooden banister running all around the kitchen, about half way up. "These kitchens used to be run by twenty seven staff, including only two cooks, one for each main meal. Now two, Mann, and Calder run it. They are Siamese twins. A handsome pair, may I add, but Siamese all the same. Wait." She looked around, and then peered into one of the smaller rooms. There was evidently nobody there. She then called up to the roof. "Mann! Calder! Come meet my guests!" Two identical heads peered over a banister half way up the left-hand wall. Then they disappeared and some loud stomping could be heard. The twins appeared alongside the fireplace below the banister. They bowed, a little clumsily, and then smiled at Tsuki. She half-smiled back and then introduced them. "Mann, Calder, these are my guests, Shalnek, Lienad, Shirrol, Sven and Smotty. My friends, let me introduce Mann and Calder." The twins held out their arms to the guests and shook their hands. The twins appeared to be joined at the hip and shoulder, but had a gap in between. How bizarre. "These," Tsuki said; "are the two best cooks in the land!" the twins blushed. "But, they are about to begin preparing lunch, so we shall leave them." She nodded to them and they disappeared back into the gap by the fire. Tsuki led the quintet of guests through a door at the far end of the kitchen. They went through a storage area, full of barrels, and into a large, spacious round room.
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