Rest of the Ground Floor
Lesser Living Room
With close to twenty square meters and no window, this room has a hushed atmosphere, which gets reinforced by the dark panelling and wooden floor. The furniture are matching, with a leather armchair-and-sofa set and a coffee table made in a black wood. Window-paned shelves and maching chests contain respectively dusty curios and bottles, still more or less filled with alcohol – it seems that the Governor doesn't drink anymore but maybe Allemania comes there and takes a little swip at the occasion?! (Anyway, that won't bring us much further with the Scenario, so let's go forth!)
A piece of furniture draws attention then, it not being particularly big but being astonishingly beautiful: it is entirely covered with a master piece of marquetry, made of black wood and tortoiseshell, and it is topped by a polished obsidian plate, of which the origine could be in the mounts of the Furnace of the Octopus but, that said, nothing can be so unsure… It is closed by a small silver lock, of which the key, made in the same metal, is kept in the Governor's Office. The lock is not specially difficult to pick but a bit too small (Malus of 3 on the Rolls versus « Dexterity + Locks & Mechanisms »). And what is to be found in there? Metallic boxes containing paper bags filled up with finely cut Tobaggo leaves. It is likely that our friends Young Pirates will not, at least not immediately, recognise the nature of the leaves, despite the delightful scent, sometimes smoked, for Tobaggo is a rare plant on Yellow Lizard's Island and the Mildew, as one would expect, altered it quite completely! Here is the complete collection of Tobaggo of the Governor, brought back from his past journeys. He smokes occasionally a pipe, from a collection he's got also, in his Office though. There are also some beautiful pipes stored in the furniture, which, at occasions, can be used - or rather were used - by guests.
If the furniture is open, Poerava takes one or two bags of Tobaggo and a pipe… for herself! She does it as taken by a sudden urgent need to do it, which those of our friends who would have succeeded at a Roll versus « Perception + Look-Out » will not miss to recognise…
There is nothing more to say about the Lesser Living Room, except that the key to the Governor's Office is hung there usually. Even a thorough investigation in the room wouldn't bring more. Also, one has to be careful with making noise if the Governor is in his Office, just in the next room… From the door entering in the Lesser Living Room when coming from the Main Entrance, three other doors allow to enter and leave the room: a double door on the left leads to the Window-paned Passage at the back of the house (its purpose being mainly to let light comes in when required for an occasion) and two doors open in the opposite wall; on the right is the Governor's Office, to the left, the Lesser Dining Room.
The Lesser Dining Room
The Lesser Dining Room is the one used daily for every meal by the Governor, Elorria and Poerava (when she is neither somewhere flown away or punished), sometimes together with Gomez Garcia or, more rarely though, another guest. The room is slightly more than fifteen square meter big. A large table, cut in massive raw wood, lies in the center on a floor, which is also made of such a raw wood. Still in the same style, a cupboard contains the crockery, cutlery and linen for the purpose of the daily table setting.
A beautiful light enters in the room all the morning long through a window on the East-South-East of the house. As soon as tea time and for the dinner, the room becomes quickly dark and a gets light from a storm lantern, which was used aboard the Suzon and which our friends Young Pirates might well consider useful to bring back to its past services…
The only openings from and to that room are the door giving way to the Lesser Living Room and the one to the Kitchen, the latter having no latch and being able to swing on both sides, so that Allemania can express all her effectiveness while bringing and taking back the meals and dishes: hence, be careful to not stay behind that door when the time to eat comes! On the other hand, that is a child's play since that time is always announced with a bell, a smaller one if everybody is supposed to be inside, a big one if some are outside in the garden. But unless one knows about the door and the bell, door accidents are here not so unlikely and would for sure be very unfortunate…
The (large) Living & Dining Room
That room is accessible from the Main Entrance through a monumental double door and by a more modest one when coming from the Window-paned Passage. That second access is essentially the one used by Allemania, when she services for a cocktail or a special event, but it can be also used when directly coming from the park over through the Verandah. Beware! That door swings on both sides!
The room is huge, more than fourty square meters, and its light-coloured wooden decoration and five large windows make for the great light bathing it from the late morning on to the evening with a paroxysm during the afternoon. The three windows opening to the West-North-West of the house are even made in a lightly coloured glass to slightly moderate the heat from the sun.
The room is functionally divided in two parts: to the South, there is a living room, very much like the Lesser Living Room in its organisation, that time however all in light tones. No Tobaggo furniture on that side, however a large chest containing different alcohols. A huge wooden table occupies the other side, which is the dining room part. There too, same organisation as the Lesser Dining Room but in light tones and the wooden elements are waxed. A great sideboard contains all that, which is needed for organising beautiful events. It goes without saying that the whole is covered by such a dust layer telling that nothing of it was used in the last years and one can wonder why the Governor ordered and equiped such a big house on such a small island… Political failure or simple aimless megalomania? Or something else?
The Governor's Office
The Governor's Office is a large room of four by five meters in which one enters through a door coming from the Lesser Living Room, usually closed. The key is not specially watched and is hung, as we discussed already, quite appropriately in the Lesser Living Room. The Governor considers, however, that nobody has anything special to do in that room without his authorisation, which is understandable, isn't it?
The room receives day light through two windows all the morning long until the beginning of the afternoon. However, the two old mango trees in front of the house on that side prevent the sun beating too hard and thus the room remains enjoyably fresh. The Governor opens the windows only rarely for there lie too many papers and dust is better where it is as flying around in a series of draughts!
What can be said else? The room is panelled with beautiful natural woods of light colour. The wooden floor, furnitures and exposed beams in the ceiling make a strong contrast with the dark colour of their wood. A brass iron chandelier is hung from the ceiling in the center of the room and can support up to seven candles. Two pictures are hung on the blind walls: one shows the busy scenery of a harbour (this is a painting representing Point-o-Spit, Glabbooby Island) and the other something like a crazy vision as out of a dream with a fob watch melting and falling into drops from the edge of a table right in the middle of a desert landscape, of which the sky is being cut by a pair of cisors on which eyes got stuck while flying there around with little helpless angel wings… Etc. Set the wilderness in your imagination free, friend Game Master, or check a copy of a Dali, that will do the job, if you do not forget to add a striped horse-like animal to add to the mystery!
The desk of the Governor is a massive pice of furniture in the center of the room, aligned on one of the diagonales. There is an impressive quantity of drawers, all filled up with papers and writing equipment in total disorder. The desk is covered by a beautiful leather cover, an oil lamp and a fine wooden writing set with worked metal and glass elements. The leather desk cover is punched and, looking more closely at it, one can identify the map of Yellow Lizard's Island in the design of the little holes; a successful Roll versus « Cleverness + Navigation / Cartography » is required to notice that.
In addition to that, the room contains several marine chests, full of dusty papers, as well as two libraries with window-paned doors, full of books and files. And you would like to ask: how to start something with all that stuff!?
Provided on has the time to do so, there is enough here to nose around for hours, not necessarily to find the most interesting things, however, but who knows?! So, here's a list of that, which we thought to potentially be of the highest interest for our friends Young Pirates but we might well have been wrong!
- The closest chest to the entrance is actually… a small refrigerated chest! One can only find here a milk bottle and some white alcohol with unreadable signs on its label… How that device works remains a mystery, however, our friends Young Pirates will appreciate its coolness on a hot sunny day…
- In the chests, on finds an incredible heap of papers blackened by tables of figures and other relatively obscure things. Our dear « (not) blond heads » will maybe come to understand, after many a cross-deduction, that those documents have to do with the Governor's past activities: he visibly had to do with considerable amounts of money, which he withdrew and placed in safes or chests - He was actually a Tax Collector on Glabbooby Island and absolutely no Pirate! - at least as one imagines how a Pirate can be… Well, as to the link to Piracy thereafter… No document, which could be recovered in a reasonable amount of time, allows to specify any hypothesis on that topic.
- In one of the drawers of the Governor's desk, there are documents relating to his family: parents, wife, etc. It comes out that his wife would have requested separation and obtained to keep the responsibility of their child's care, the « little Elorria », only one year old then: cross-checking dates can bring our dear « (still not) blond heads » to even more thinking, not unrightly…
- Also in one of the drawers of the desk, the key to the finely worked cabinet of the Lesser Living Room.
- In the mail spread on the desk, there is nothing of much interest to find at first sight but if one is searching a bit in the archived mail (third drawer from the top) one will surely find letters and envelopes with such various destinations and origins as Cue-Bar, Hattea, Glabbooby, Mattink, Carthagena, Santa Cruise, all names meaning nothing to our dear kids (except maybe to Poerava who spent already a lot of time in some of the Governor's books) but waking up, be it right or not, dreamy thoughts in them. The same variety is to be found on the mail on top of the desk, except that from Hattea, which seems to be more carefully stored. Taking some time to read it in part, one can dimly guess that the Governor has contacts to some Hoongan and Mambo there and that he attempts to solve the issue of the Mildew on Yellow Lizard's Island. A Normal Success to a Roll versus « Cleverness + Rituals and Maledictions » after reading the whole of the mail cannot help much further but indicates that the Governor would have reasons to think that he's got his share in the responsibility for the current « illness » of the Island with the Mildew and that the Swamp's Witch also could be behind that… A Critical Success to that same Roll allows to even find in one of the answers, coming from Mambo Ladonna (residing Roundabout Abeet'a-Boosh, Henthouses - Teetotaller' Haven, Hattea), very interesting (or not?) words : « a generous quantity of ‘Dust’ properly brought and blessed in the location by the adequate sib sub-group of Lwa should be able to bring positive results, while negociating with a good deal of chance (not part of the contract) would allow to better identify the origin of the problem. On top would come such expenses as the Rooroot for the transportation, etc. etc. » All that remains deep in mystery, doesn't it?
- Behind the « à la Dali » painting is a strong safe, which will be impossible to force without explosive. This is a safe protected by a code, using three molettes and LED's below each, which blink red (and turn green when the code is properly selected). It is an idea to first decide to extract the safe from the wall because it is not so big; forcing it then in a more quiet place should be the next step. Even so, time and appropriate tools are required, as well as two Rolls versus « Dexterity + DIY of All Sorts » with a Malus of 4. Note that the two Rolls can be done for different Characters, provided that each has the required tools or that more time is required if they have to work one after the other with the same tools. Once the safe is extracted, one issue remains that it is rather heavy; it is made in very thick steal sheets… (Which does not mean that the safe wouldn't be empty yet…) Hence, carrying it requires a Roll versus raw Strength in Opposition to a Difficulty of 25; two or three persons can in that case try to carry it together (the third person can only add half of his or her Strength because the safe is quite small and there are thus not so many holds). The safe contains pieces of paper with printed and hand-written figures and letters, as well as coins. Many different currencies are represented among them, including 170 Pesetes in coins and, for those who would have guessed that the pieces of paper are actually Bills of Exchange at the Name of the Governor… at least 5000 Pesetes, which can be exchanged by the Glabboobese Banking on Glabbooby Island and, on top, some other wads in other currencies absolutely unknown to our friends Young Pirates!
- In the libraries, one can find very interesting - provided that one can read! - books of Botanics, Geography (no sufficiently detailed map for navigation in there though) and History (not to mention also stories' books…) - again, all that can be of some value only if one can read…
And that's it! That's about all the interesting stuff which one can hope to find in the Governor's Office, unless - having drank the contents of the refrigerated chest – one feels in mood for stealing the carpet too (hem…), the goose feather, the writing kit, etc. Well, that said, why not? Who stole an egg in the Kitchen before?!
Let us now set forth to another room and keep quiet for Gomez Garcia could well be going around on watch or we could unfortunately find ourselves suddenly face to face with Allemania!