People underestimate the simple things. Small comforts are a simple thing that people take for granted, they forget them until they go without them for a day or two. Only in the void lacking these comforts is the need for them keenly felt. Small comforts are the best coping mechanism available to deal with the pains of this world. Simple comforts include things like a warm drink on a cold night, blankets wrapped around you keeping you snug and warm. The perfect food is sometimes just the thing for sorrow or pain. Good company can lift your spirits, especially when small comforts such as alcohol are shared by all those in the group.
I woke up on a mattress on the floor of the old kitchen in the lodge. The light of the setting sun shone through the house, and several familiar faces gathered as I stirred from my long dreamless sleep. My sister and the professor loomed over my bed, obviously full of questions but worried to ask. They were perhaps even more worried as to what my answer would be. I decided to give them as much information as I could, while leaving out some of the more unpleasant facts. They informed me that I had been asleep in that bed since they brought me upstairs three days ago. I had been covered in bruises from running head on into the walls of the tunnel I had escaped through. The first thing I wanted to hear once I had learned the facts of my recovery was to hear of the other's progress.
The two men versed in survival had the least success, though they did report that they heard noises in the woods that suggested the movement of man sized bodies through they woods, they only found broken twigs and tracks that led to nowhere. They reported that several hours walking they had come across a stream fed by a natural spring in one of the nearby hills. They said they dared not drink from it even though the water was constantly flowing. The water carried an unnatural color they seemed almost unable to discribe, only that it did not reflect a healthy water supply. They also were unable to describe the smell that, while not strong, was without a doubt of something unpleasant. They reported no fish or frogs in the stream, but of seeing a large black mass float down the stream too fast to even follow by the shoreline. They had been unable to cross the stream as it was too wide with no logs crossing it, though they had followed it as far as they dared.
The two men assigned to search the west wing had some success, though it was only in improving the comfort of our accommodations. They had found a room filled with feather beds and mattresses, all clean and in good enough shape to sleep on. This explained my easier sleep on the much more forgiving surface of a mattress. Other than that they had once again found little to nothing telling of the fate of those we searched for.
Professor Kent proved to have had the most success apart from my adventure in finding clues about the Lodge we stayed in. He had read the logbook from cover to cover several times as he had much time as I recovered. None of them had dared retrace my footsteps until I woke, and they had barred the door to the basement almost immediately after retrieving me. Professor Kent described for me the true history of the property that had been handed down through my family in the past centuries. It became apparent that I had been deceived when I had been told many times as a child that the property had been uninhabited for the past several hundred years. In fact the land had been only sparsely populated since my ancestor tried to spare his family the dangers in entwining their affairs with the property that had been responsible for a number of mysterious disappearances. It turned out that some members of the family had taken it upon themselves to live on the property in some form for hundreds of years. There had been at one time a gypsy caravan that camped in the woods near the lodge for a number of months through the winter. It was noted in the log that several days before they had planned to pull up and move on every member of the caravan had completely disappeared. What proved even stranger was a number of men in crimson robes who seemed to make some sort of pilgrimage to the land. When asked for reasons behind their interest in the property they simply said that it was a mystical location to their ancestors and they honored the traditions handed down to them. Half a century ago the pilgrimages had tapered off, from several a year to one a decade. Two explanations were offered, and it was assumed that either one or both had occurred. Either the interest had died down or those interested found another way to find what they were looking for. The book also described a box of keys hidden in an old storage pantry in the cellar. As darkness was quickly approaching and I had not completely retrieved my wits we determined to form a new plan at the new dawn. All my companions were overjoyed to have me back but forced me to agree that no one should explore alone in strange places. They suggested we break down into two teams, one to search the surrounding grounds and the other to continue unlocking the secrets of the cellar. The dinner was the best I could have dreamed of considering. The explorations had turned up some aged wine as well when they had ventured into the cellar to retrieve me, as I could not in the state I was in. The aged wine combined with a hot meal was just the thing to lift my heart and give me hope that we could cope with anything we found, no matter how horrible.
End of chapter 4
Authors note: sorry this chapter is not as long as previous chapters, but some business had to be taken care of before we could move further into the story. More will be up tomorrow
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