[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/mN25CKd/Wintering-In-Wine-Country.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]https://i.ibb.co/vXD6Q0t/Update-Text.png[/img][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][hider=Rose River Vineyard][img]https://i.ibb.co/yRk60Zg/Vinyard-Estate-Gridded-Day-Lv4.jpg[/img][/hider][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][hider=Coach House][img]https://i.ibb.co/5jfBrYW/Coach-House-Opener.jpg[/img][/hider][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] [u]Weather[/u]: Cold, but not overly so for the incoming season. Winds gusted into any unsecured clothing, reminding people of the inevitable seasonal change. There was but a hint of possible precipitation upon the horizon from the north, far away enough to not warrant immediate concern. [u]Time[/u]: Early morning. Maybe an hour and a half had passed since the first of the group rose from their slumber. [u]Ambience[/u]: Clear skies and just a hint of low-laying fog remain. The fullness of the morning is upon the Rose River Vineyard, illuminated by an almost cheery looking, radiant sun. It was even uplifting, if one were a morning person. The fireplace of the Taproom keeps to its low flame, now partly obscured by the accoutrements of toast and tea preparation. It was, admittedly, a little dim within the room, but smaller table lamps help with this somewhat. [center][color=darkgray][h2]*****[/h2][/color][/center] It was awful; simply awful what Victoria was proposing. Killing one of the people in the Coach House just to drag them back to the living world seemed unnecessary. Heartless, even. But some not-very-deep part of Lizbeth's psyche was intensely curious. The concern vocalized by Baronfjord was reflected in her own thoughts, but she didn't speak them, herself. The nod she gave for Victoria to press onward with her display of death magic was backed with equal amounts of caution and exhilaration. Both of these feelings she kept to herself. Lizbeth maintained a mostly quiet sort of caution. Victoria's words seemed to help a little, probably because she did not address the issue on her mind. There wasn't much of a reaction to the others, either. Kosara's apology was taken silently, and responded to with nonverbal cues of acceptance. Even Kosara's request for tea kept Lizbeth at arm's length, though she did set a cup from the Coach House's inventory down on the table near her, for when the water came up to temperature for steeping. The apology [i]did[/i] seem to act as a catalyst for her to open up a little bit more to everyone else, however. To begin, she crossed the room to address the couple who were present to tidy up the rooms. [color=darkgray]"Please start with the bedrooms first. The servants' quarters weren't used last night. Thank you."[/color] This was effective enough to get the two of them moving toward the door, and out of the group's hair for the meantime. Though the woman did give a lingering look over toward the very still (yet upright standing) pig near the wall as she went along. She then addressed Baronfjord as if he had just spoken instead of the awkward pause which had just passed, [color=darkgray]"And you shan't hear a word otherwise, Monsieur Blackberry. This is your home for the winter, anyway."[/color] Her tone was flatter than normal, especially as compared to the previous evening's bubbly optimism. The morning had been uncomfortable for little Lizbeth, with the accident in the kitchen and the other event. Something closer to a smile came about when she heard Kathryn agree to participate in Victoria's magical experiment. Not so much of a look of personal delight as it was intense, visible curiosity burning behind her eyes. [color=darkgray]"Oh thank you, Lady Kathryn! It's a very brave thing to help show me something like this. Please, use this table over here,"[/color] she offered, motioning to the one nearest the bar but also within ample light of the hearth. She then looked expectantly to Victoria, inquiring, [color=darkgray]"This really isn't going to hurt her, right?"[/color] The cleaners, morbidly interested in whatever was about to happen, stuck next to the door. The man had his hand on the doorhandle as if to leave in short order, but remained transfixed, rooted to the spot next to the exit.